J.R. Ward - The Shadows

She wasn’t sure he’d even heard her as she slipped out, and just as she shut the door, the sounds of him retching made her wince.

For a split second, she thought she might camp out in the hall beyond his room. But then, as she debated where she was going to sit on the floor, she realized that she couldn’t get her grip off the doorknob.

Her palm had frozen on the brass.

* * *

“Of course I am not quitting. Don’t be daft.”

As Assail addressed his cousins in the kitchen of his glass house, he was in a vicious mood—and sinking even deeper into anger upon Ehric’s inquiry.

“But the King—”

“Has no right to interfere in matters of commerce flowing to humans.” He conveniently avoided thinking or commenting upon the conflict-of-interest issue. “And I have no intention of complying with that order of his.”

“So how do we proceed?”

“He will have us followed. That is what I would do were I he. I want the two of you to go activate the warning to my colleague. We’ll suspend operations briefly and reconnoiter.”

“Aye.”

After the pair of them left, he stayed in his kitchen so that whatever Brothers had been stationed around his house would have him in plain view. Taking out his vial of cocaine, he discovered it was, once again, nearly empty, but at least there was enough to tide him over.

When he finished partaking, he went into his study on the other side of his home. It too had glass windows, and he turned on the desk lamp so that they could keep a good eye on him. Sitting down, he looked at the piles of papers he’d made. Investment accounts. Brokerage accounts. Monies in the U.S. and abroad.

Growing, growing, growing.

The fortune at his disposal had turned another corner about a month ago, the laundered money from the Caymans transferred into more legal accounts in the U.K. and Switzerland.

So much, and all of it accumulating interest, dividends, and appreciation.

When he had started in the business of drug dealing, shortly after he had come to America from the Old Country about a year ago, he had already been doing very well for himself even by his standards. Now, there was double that amount in his various accounts.

Picking up a random sheaf of papers, he looked at his month-end report. The daily one in his computer was even more recent.

In spite of his largesse, the idea that Wrath was getting in the way of his pursuits infuriated him to his marrow.

Just not for a reason he would admit to anyone.

Without this . . . he had nothing.

What had started as an extension of his European businesses had grown into his raison d’être , the sole purpose he had in his life, the only drive that got him out of bed in the evening, and dressed, and out the door.

To be fair, he’d always enjoyed making money.

But ever since last winter . . .

Cursing, he leaned back in his leather chair and put his head in his hand. Then without looking, he reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and took out his phone.

He had memorized Sola’s number long ago.

But he hadn’t called it. Not since she had moved away from Caldwell to Miami with her grandmother. Not since she had left here to get out of exactly the kind of criminal life he was leading.

Going into his phone, he went to the numerical dial pad. As he had so many times before, he punched in the sequence of ten numbers, one after another, his fingertip finding and following the pattern he knew by heart.

No, he hadn’t called her. But on a regular basis he did this: ten numbers that were anything but random to him, punched into his phone . . . and cleared away without him having hit “send.”

If the King took his livelihood away? Then he was going to have fucking nothing to do but stew in the fact that the one woman he wanted was utterly unobtainable.

Woman. Not female.

She was human, not vampire. Hell, she didn’t even know that vampires existed.

And therein lay the catch. Even if he broke out of the drug dealing? It wasn’t like he could go down to Miami, show up on her doorstep, and be all like, Hey! Let’s pick up where we were!

Not going to happen—because sooner or later, his species was going to come out and then where were they going to be?

For some reason, the stillness and silence of his glass house sank in, reminding him exactly how alone he was—and would be if he stopped his drugging. Hell, his cousins were not going to be content with sitting around and mourning a female they were not in love with—he would lose them, too.

God, he was rather pathetic, wasn’t he.

More to the point, what was he going to do?

With the cocaine sizzling in his veins, his brain made a sudden A + B = C calculation that was based on a totally . . . preposterous idea.

Which nonetheless offered him a rather stunning solution to all this.

Straightening in his seat, he frowned and looked around the room, his eyes going on a wander as his brain pick, pick, picked apart the plan. When he could find no fault, he cleared Sola’s digits from the screen of his phone and dialed Ehric. When he got voice mail, he figured they were probably still dematerialized.

A second later, his phone rang and he answered, not bothering with a greeting. “Have you left the symbol for him yet?”

Ehric’s reply was muffled by the wind down by the river. “We’ve just arrived.”

“Wait for him. Do not reveal yourself.”

Assail continued to give instructions, and at the end of it all, Ehric’s response was perfect: “As you wish.”

Assail ended the call and sank back into the chair. Taking a deep breath, he cursed. This was going to be a lot of work. But it was the only solution he seemed to have.

Plus, the fact that this would consume him for the appreciable future? Was exactly what he wanted. And if it didn’t work? Well, then he’d be dead and he wouldn’t care about anything anymore.

Not even the woman he longed for with every inch of his body and all of his black, misbegotten heart.

Her mother had gotten it right with that name of hers.

Marisol had indeed stolen his soul.

FIFTY-TWO

iAm had not intended for Trez’s words to sink in any more than the cold breeze had when they’d been standing in the courtyard. He had planned to go inside, eat something fast, and forget that whole interaction had occurred. Go about his night. Head over to the clubs and the restaurant. Push papers, take control, make some decisions that were concrete and solid.

Instead, he was stuck in the foyer, staring up at the three-story-high ceiling that had been painted by some great artist. The subject matter was, he supposed, inspirational: heroes on venerable steeds, fighting in the clouds, heavenly warriors who were brave and strong and on the side of the righteous.

But all that glory wasn’t why he’d gone into pause mode.

Trez’s destiny was a house of cards, a delicate, tricky thing that had had to be managed all of both their lives. Every move iAm took had to be careful, deliberate, and calculated with the goal of survival.

His brother’s.

He was a centuries-old virgin because of it.

Hell, he hadn’t even looked at a female, like, ever.

Whether Trez had been banging them in the clubs, or throwing porn up on the TV, or talking about what he’d done all over his desk, in the back of his car, outside in the fucking parking lot, iAm had never had any interest in any of it.

He’d been a flatline motherfucker.

Mother- not -fucker, as it were.

And yeah, he’d tried on the whole gay thing for size, wondering if maybe he was attracted to men and males.

Nope.

It had gotten to the point where, if it weren’t for the fact that he washed them every night, he’d have wondered whether or not he had any balls.