Lover Avenged (78 page)

Xhex took off her ear protection and turned around to the Brotherhood, keeping her weapon down by her thigh. “I’ll want to try the other one out, but the pair of these should do me just fine. And I want my knife back.”

The weapon had been taken from her before she and Ehlena had been driven to the mansion in that black Mercedes.

“You’ll have it,” someone said, “when you need it.”

Against her will, her eyes did a quick check of who was kibitzing. Same cast of muscle. Which meant John Matthew hadn’t sneaked in.

Given how big the Brotherhood’s compound seemed to be, she figured he could be anywhere, including the next town, for chrissakes: When the meeting in the king’s study had finished, he’d just walked out, and she hadn’t seen him since.

Which was good. Right now she needed to be focused on what was looming over them all tomorrow night, not her crappy, castrated love life. Fortunately, everything seemed to be falling into place. She’d called iAm and Trez and left voice mails that she was taking a day off, and they’d phoned back saying it wasn’t a problem. No doubt they were going to check in with her again, but hopefully with the Brothers’ backing, she would be in and out of the colony before their babysitting impulses overwhelmed them.

Twenty minutes later, she finished trying out the other SIG and was not at all surprised when both guns were confiscated. The trip back to the mansion was long and tense, and she looked over at Ehlena to see how the other female was faring. It was hard not to approve of the resolute strength in that nurse’s face: Rehv’s female was going after her male, and nothing was going to get in her way.

Which was great…but the determination made Xhex twitchy nonetheless. She was willing to bet Muhrder had had the same kind of resolve in his eyes when he’d gone up to that colony to get her.

And look at how well that had gone.

Then again, true to his character he’d gone in rogue, without backup. At least she and Ehlena had been smart enough to get some serious-ass help, and one could only pray that made all the difference.

Back at the mansion, Xhex grabbed some food from the kitchen and was shown to a second-floor guest room that was down a long hall of statues.

Eat. Drink. Shower.

She left the light in the bath on because the room was unfamiliar, got into bed naked, and closed her eyes.

When the door opened some half an hour later, she was both shocked and unsurprised at the big shadow standing in the lee of the hallway light.

“You’re drunk,” she said.

John Matthew came inside without an invitation, and he locked the door without permission. He was indeed drunk, but that was not a news flash.

The fact that he was sexually aroused was also not front-page material.

As he put the bottle he was carrying down on the bureau, she knew his hands were headed for the fly of his jeans, and there were roughly a hundred thousand reasons why she should tell him to cut the shit and get the hell away from her.

Instead, Xhex tossed the duvet off her body and put her hands behind her head, her breasts tingling from the chill and so much more.

Of all the justifications for not doing what they were going to, there was one overriding reality that crumbled the foundations of healthy choice: By the end of tomorrow night, there was a chance one or both of them might not be coming home.

Even with the Brotherhood as support, going to the colony was a suicide mission-and she was willing to bet there were a lot of people having sex under the mansion’s roof right now. Sometimes you had to have a taste of life right before you knocked on the Grim Reaper’s front door.

John took off his jeans and his shirt and left his clothes right where they landed. As he came over to her, his body was magnificent in the glowing light, his cock hard and ready, his heavily muscled form everything a female would want in her bed.

But all that oh-yeah wasn’t what she focused on as he got up on the mattress and mounted her. She wanted to see his eyes.

No luck, though. His face was in shadow, the light from the bathroom coming from directly behind him. For a moment, she almost turned on the lamp next to them, but then realized she wouldn’t want to catch a load of the numb coldness that was no doubt in his stare.

She wasn’t going to get what she was looking for from this, Xhex thought. This was not going to be about living.

And she was right.

No prelude. No foreplay. She opened her legs and he pushed in and her body loosened and accepted him because of biology. As he fucked her, his head was by hers on the pillow, but it was turned away.

She didn’t come. He did. Four times.

When he rolled off her body and lay on his back, breathing heavily, her heart was thoroughly and completely broken: There had been a crack in the damn thing after she’d left him in her basement apartment, but with each pounding stroke he’d taken just now, more and more of it splintered and fell from the core of her.

A few minutes later, John got up, put his clothes back on, palmed his liquor bottle, and left.

As the door clicked shut, Xhex pulled the duvet over herself.

She did nothing to try to control the shakes that rattled her body, and didn’t attempt to stop herself from crying. Tears left both of her eyes at the far corners, slipping out and flowing over her temples. Some landed in her ears. Some eased down her neck and were absorbed by the pillow. Others clouded her vision, as if they didn’t want to leave home.

Feeling ridiculous, she put her hands to her face and captured them as best she could, wiping them on the duvet.

She cried for hours.

Alone.

The following evening, Lash was about fifteen miles south of Caldwell when he eased the Mercedes onto a dirt lane and turned off the sedan’s headlights. Driving slowly along a bumpy dirt lane, he used the rising moon to navigate, cutting through a scruffy, debrided cornfield.

“Get your weapons out,” he said.

In the passenger seat, Mr. D palmed his forty, and in the back, the pair of slayers cocked the shotguns they’d been given before Lash had taken them all out of town.

A hundred yards later, Lash hit the brakes and ran his gloved hand around the leather-wrapped steering wheel. The good thing about a big-ass black Mercedes was that when you got out of it you looked like a businessman, not a flashy drug thug. Plus you could fit your guard in the backseat.

“Let’s do this.”

In a synchronized punch, they popped the latches on their doors and got out, facing off across the snowy earth at another big-ass Mercedes.

Maroon AMG. Nice.

And Lash wasn’t the only one to bring guns-and-ammo accessories to the meeting. As all the AMG’s doors opened, three guys with forties and one who appeared to be unarmed got out.

Whereas the sedans suggested civility, or at least the appearance of it, all the men in them represented the violent side of the drug trade-which had fuck-all to do with calculators and offshore accounts and money laundering.

Lash approached the man who didn’t have a weapon with both his hands out of the pockets of his Joseph Abboud coat. As he came forward, he searched the mind of the South American importer, who, at least according to the drug dealer they had tortured for fun and profit, had sold bulk product to Rehvenge.

“You wanted to meet with me?” the guy said with an accent.

Lash put his hand into the breast pocket of his coat and smiled. “You are not Ricardo Benloise.” He glanced to the other Mercedes. “And I do not appreciate you and your boss fucking around with me. You tell that motherfucker to get out of the car now, or I’m walking-which means that he will not be doing business with the guy who cleared the decks in Caldwell and who will be servicing the market the Reverend used to handle.”

The human seemed nonplussed for a moment; then he glanced back at the three comrades who were standing behind him. After a moment, his eyes finally shifted to the maroon Mercedes and he subtly shook his head.

There was a pause and then the passenger-side door opened and a smaller, older man got out. He was impeccably dressed, his black coat fitting his slight shoulders perfectly, his glossy loafers leaving a shuffling path in the snow.

He came forward with total calmness, as if he were a thousand percent sure that his men could handle whatever happened.

“You will understand my caution,” Benloise said with an accent that seemed part French and part Latin American. “It is a good time to be of care.”

Lash removed his hand from his jacket, leaving his gun where it was. “You got nothing to worry about.”

“You sound very sure.”

“As I’m the one who’s been knocking off the competition, I am very sure.”

The old man’s eyes traveled up and down Lash, taking stock, and Lash knew he was going to see nothing but strength.

Figuring there was no time to waste, Lash laid it all out. “I want to move what the Reverend did in terms of volume, and I want to do it now. I have plenty of men and the territory is mine. What I need is a good, steady professional supplier of powder, and that’s why I wanted to meet with you. It’s simple, really. I’m stepping into the Reverend’s shoes, and as you were the one he worked with, I want to do business with you.”

The old man smiled. “Nothing is simple. But then, you are young and will discover that for yourself if you live long enough.”

“I’m going to be around for plenty of time. Trust me.”

“I do not trust anyone, even my family. And I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about. I am an importer of fine Colombian art, and I have no idea how you got my name or why you connected it to anything of an illegal nature.” The old man bowed slightly. “I bid you good evening and suggest that you find legitimate pursuits for your no doubt many talents.”

Lash frowned as Benloise returned to the AMG, leaving his men behind.

What the fuck? Unless this was going to turn into a lead shower…

As Lash went for his gun, he braced for a shoot-out…but no. The man who’d tried to pass himself off as Benloise just stepped forward and extended his hand.

“Nice to have met you.”

As Lash looked down, he saw there was something in the guy’s palm. A card.

Lash did the shake thing, took what he’d been given, and went back to his own Mercedes. As he got behind the wheel, he watched the AMG amble off down the lane, its tailpipe smoking in the cold.

He looked down at the card. It was a number.

“Whatchu got there, suh?” Mr. D asked.

“I think we might be in business.” He got out his cell phone and dialed, then put the car in gear and went in the opposite direction from Benloise’s crew.

Benloise picked up the call. “So much more comfortable to speak in a warm car, is it not?”

Lash laughed. “Yeah.”

“Here is what I shall offer you. A quarter of the product that I shipped monthly to the Reverend. If you are able to safely move it on the streets, then we shall look at increasing the trade. Are we in accord?”

It was such a pleasure dealing with a professional, Lash thought. “We are.”

After they discussed the money and the delivery side of things, they hung up.

“We’re good,” he said with satisfaction.

As all kinds of backslapping went on in the car, he allowed himself to grin like a motherfucker. The prospect of setting up labs was proving more difficult than he’d expected-although he was still moving forward on that, he needed a big-league, reliable supplier and this relationship with Benloise was the key to that. With the cash it was going to generate, he could recruit, acquire state-of-the-art weapons, buy more real estate, target the Brothers. As it stood now, he felt like the Lessening Society had been in neutral since he took over, but that was over, thanks to the old man with the accent.

Back in Caldwell proper, Lash dumped Mr. D and the other lessers off at that nasty-ass ranch and then proceeded across to the brownstone. As he parked in the garage, he was flushed from possibilities of the future, the buzz making him aware of how fucking bummed out he’d been. Money mattered. It was freedom to do what you wanted, buy what you needed.

It was power stacked in orderly piles and rubber-banded with authority.

It was what he required to be who he was.

As he came in through the kitchen, he took a moment to savor the improvements he’d already been able to make. No more empty counters and cabinets. There were espresso machines and Cuisinarts and dishes and glasses, none of which had been purchased from Target. There was also gourmet food in the refrigerator and fine wines in the cellar below and top-shelf booze at the bar.

He walked out into the dining room, which was still bare, and hit the stairs two at a time, loosening his clothes as he went, his cock getting stiffer with every step. Upstairs his princess was waiting for him. Waiting for him and ready. Bathed and oiled and perfumed by two of his slayers, prepared for his use like the sex slave she was.

Man, he was glad all lessers were impotent; otherwise there would have been a rash of castrations in the Society.

As he hit the first of the landings, he unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the scores of scratches that ran across his chest. They had each been made by his lover’s nails, and he smiled, ready to add to the collection. After about two weeks of having her tied down completely, he’d started releasing one of her hands and one of her feet. The more they fought the better.

God, she was a hell of female-

He froze as he got to the top of the stairs, the scent coming down the hall stopping him dead. Oh…God, the sweet saturation was so heavy, it was as if a hundred perfume bottles had been smashed open.

Lash raced for the door to the bedroom. If anything had happened to-

The carnage was stunning, black blood staining the new rug and the fresh wallpaper: The two lessers he’d left to guard his female were propped up on the floor across from the canopy bed, each with a knife in his right hand. Both had multiple, glistening gashes to their necks, having stabbed themselves over and over again until they lost so much blood, they went lax.