Life as he knew it was over.

Not that the Brotherhood needed to know that.

“Rehv?”

In a dead voice, he said, “It’s just fallout from the Montrag shit. Don’t worry about it.”

“What the hell happened?”

Xhex’s sharp voice from the bedroom doorway helped him focus, and he looked over at her. As he met her stare, her strong body and sharp gray eyes were as familiar to him as his own reflection, and the same was true with Kim for her…so she knew by the look on his face exactly what was doing.

The color slowly drained out of her cheeks. “What did she do? What did that cunt do to you?”

“I gotta go, V. Thanks for calling.”

“Rehvenge?” the Brother cut in. “Look, buddy, why don’t I keep trying to track it-”

“Waste of time. No one up there knows. Trust me.”

Rehv ended the call, and before Xhex could jump in, he dialed voice mail and picked up Ehlena’s message. He knew what she was going to say, though. Knew exactly-

“Hey, Rehv, I just got a visit from this…female. She was talking a lot of craziness about you. I just…well, I thought you should know. To be honest, she’s freaky. Anyway, maybe you can call me and talk to me about this? I’d really appreciate it. Bye.”

He deleted the message, hit end, and put the cell phone down on the desk, lining it up with the black leather blotter so that the LG was perfectly vertical.

Xhex came over, and as she did, there was a sharp knock and someone came in. “Give us a minute, Trez,” he heard her say. “Take Rally with you, and don’t let anyone in here.”

“What hap-”

“Now. Please.”

Rehvenge stared at the phone, only dimly aware of some shuffling and the door clicking shut.

“You hear that?” he said quietly.

“Hear what?” Xhex asked as she came and knelt down next to his chair.

“That sound.”

“Rehv, what did she do?”

He looked over into her eyes and saw his mother on her deathbed instead. Funny, both females had the same kind of pleading in their stares. And both were people he wanted to protect. Ehlena was on that list. So was his sister. So were Wrath and the Brotherhood.

Rehvenge reached forward and cupped the chin of his second in command. “It’s just Brotherhood stuff, and I’m really tired.”

“The hell it was, and the hell you are.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“What.”

“If I asked you to take care of a female for me, would you make sure that happened?”

“Yes, fuck, yes. Christ, I’ve wanted to kill that bitch for over twenty years.”

He dropped his hand, then put his palm out. “On your honor, swear it.”

Xhex clasped his palm as a male would, not as a touch but as a vow. “You have my word. Anything.”

“Thanks. Listen, Xhex, I’m going to crash-”

“But first you’ve got to give me a clue here.”

“You’ll lock up?”

She sat back on her heels. “What. The. Fuck. Is going on.”

“Just Vishous with another hiccup in the road.”

“Shit, is Wrath having more problems with the glymera?”

“As long as there is a glymera, he’s going to have them.”

She frowned. “Why are you thinking of a beach ad from the nineteen eighties?”

“Because chest medallions are coming back in style. I can just feel it. And quit trying to get into me.”

There was a long silence. “I’m going to chalk this up to your mom’s passing.”

“Excellent plan.” He pushed his cane into the floor. “Now, I’m going to get a little sleep. I’ve been up for, like, two days straight.”

“Fine. But next time, try to block me with something a little less frightening than Deney Terrio in the Bahamas.”

When he was alone, Rehv looked around. The office had seen a lot of action: Lot of money changing hands. Lot of drugs doing the same. Lot of wiseasses who’d fucked with him, bleeding.

Through the open door to the bedroom he stared at the apartment he’d spent a good number of nights in. He could just barely see the shower.

Back before he hadn’t been able to handle the princess’s venom, when he’d been able to go to her and take care of business and still been strong enough to get his own ass home, he’d always washed in that bathroom. He hadn’t wanted to contaminate the family home with what was on his skin, and had needed plenty of soap and hot water and elbow grease before he could go back to see his mother and sister. The irony had been that whenever he’d arrive back at the house, his mother would invariably ask him whether he’d been to the gym, because he “had a healthy glow to his face.”

He never had been clean enough. But then, ugly deeds were not like dirt-you couldn’t wash them off.

He let his head fall back and walked through ZeroSum in his mind, picturing Rally’s scale room and the VIP section and the waterfall wall and the open dance floor and the bars. He knew every inch of the club and all the things that happened in it, from what his girls did on their knees and their backs to how the bookies worked their odds to the number of ODs Xhex had dealt with.

So much dirty business.

He thought of Ehlena losing her job to bring him the antibiotics he was too much of a shithead to get at Havers’s. See, that was a good act. And he knew this not just because of what he’d taught himself from being around his mother’s people, but because of who he knew Ehlena to be. She was intrinsically good, and therefore she did good things.

What he had been doing here was not and never had been good, because that was who he was.

Rehv thought about the club. The thing was, the places of your life, like the clothes you wore and the car you drove and the friends and associates you had, were a product of the way you lived. And he lived dark and violent and seedy. Was going to die that way, too.

He deserved where he was going.

But on the way to the door, he was going to make things right. For once in his life, he was going to do all the right things for all the right reasons.

And he was going to do them for the short list of people he…loved.

FIFTY-TWO

Back across town at the Brotherhood’s mansion, Tohr sat in the billiards room, his ass on the chair that he’d pulled over and angled out so he could see the vestibule’s door. In his right hand, he held a brand-new black Timex Indiglo watch, which he was setting with the correct time and date, and at his left elbow he had a long/tall filled with a coffee-ice-cream milk shake. He was almost finished with the watch and only a quarter of the way through the shake.

His stomach wasn’t handling the shitloads of food he’d thrown at it all that well, but he didn’t give a rat’s ass. He needed to put on weight fast, so his gut was just going to have to get with the program.

With a final beep, the watch was tight and he put it on his wrist, staring at the glowing 4:57 a.m. on the face.

He looked at the vestibule’s door again. Fuck the watch and the eating. What he was really doing was waiting for John to walk through that damn thing with Qhuinn and Blay.

He wanted his boy home safe. Even though John wasn’t a boy anymore and hadn’t been his since he’d left the kid high and dry a year ago.

“You know, I can’t believe you’re not watching this.”

Lassiter’s voice made him pick up the glass and take a draw on the straw so he didn’t lob another pipe-down-sonny at the fucker. The angel loved TV, but suffered from ADD big-time. He was always changing channels. God only knew what he was watching now.

“I mean, she’s a woman, going it alone in the world. She’s cool, and the clothes are tight. It’s a really good show.”

Tohr looked over his shoulder. The angel was sprawled on the couch, remote in his hand, head propped up by a needlepoint pillow Marissa had done that said, Fangs For The Memories. And beyond him on the flat-screen was…

Tohr nearly choked on his shake. “What the hell are you doing? That’s Mary Tyler Moore, motherfucker.”