Same engine speed. Same protocol for delivering the goods to him. The question was: who was their next client.

And what kind of drugs were they selling?

Their bosses had agreed to deal with him exclusively in this part of New York state. And whereas competition was good for capitalism, it was not welcome in his territory—also unnecessary to their income statement. His requirements were sufficiently large and established enough that he represented a book of business worthy of respect.

The bastards.

Indeed, it was necessary for there to be honor amongst lawbreakers. For everyone’s good. And he had held up his end of the bargain, arriving consistently with the cash. Month after month after month.

He was prepared to fix this problem, however.

Readily.

Mortally.

Rhage, Tohr and V headed back to the mansion not long after meeting Applebottom’s pride and joy, with Butch following in the Range Rover. As the three of them resumed their physical forms in the courtyard, a light shining among the lineup of cars got their attention.

Rhage strode over to the open door of the pale blue Mercedes. “Layla—?”

Except there was no one inside fiddling with her purse or bundling up before she headed across the courtyard for home.

He shut the door. “She’s not—”

“Layla!” Tohr barked. “Oh, shit!”

Rhage looked up to the mansion’s entrance. The heavy door into the vestibule was cracked open, a leg extending out at ground level, the ankle and foot propping the panels open.

The three of them bolted up the stairs. As Rhage cranked wide the tremendous weight, V, with his medical background, jumped over the Chosen’s collapsed body and started checking vitals.

“Tohr,” Rhage said. “Call—”

But his brother already had his cell phone up to his ear. “Yeah, Jane? We need you up here in the vestibule. Layla’s collapsed—V, stats?”

As the brother put the phone in V’s face, Vishous said to his mate, “Heart rate’s steady, but slow. So is the breathing. No sign of trauma that I can see.”

“You hear that?” Tohr said, resuming speaking. “Good. Thanks.” As he ended the call, he immediately started dialing again. “She’s bringing Manny and Ehlena.” Back up to the ear. Waiting. Waiting.

He was obviously calling Qhuinn—

For some odd reason, the world went wonky on Rhage: One minute, he was staring down at Layla, and thinking there was nothing more terrifying than a pregnant female facedown on any kind of flooring. The next, the vestibule was spinning around him like a ball on the end of a string, his head the center point of the whizzing-by, his balance oddly uncompromised by the—

“He’s going over!”

Huh. Guess he wasn’t quite as steady as he thought.

When there was a bite on his upper arm, he looked down and saw Tohr’s hand lock on his biceps and hold him up.

Wow. This was manly, Rhage thought.

A round of the Victorian vapors just because a female was—

“Layla!”

Qhuinn’s panicked appearance right next to him gave him the wakey-wakey he needed, his mind clearing as the male shoved his way in to get to the female who was carrying his child. Blay, as always, was right behind him, ready to do whatever to support his mate.

“What the hell happened?” Qhuinn demanded.

V started talking. Doc Jane and her team arrived. Medical equipment was outted from a black, old-fashioned doctor’s bag.

Turning to Tohr, who was still holding him up, Rhage heard a strange version of his voice say, “I’m having trouble breathing, my brother.”

Tohr swung his head around. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I can’t . . . seem to breathe.” He massaged his chest with his free hand. “It’s like there’s a balloon in here. Taking up all the space.”

As the medical peeps rolled Layla onto her back, there was cursing from the peanut gallery. Her arm was at an all-wrong angle, the part below the elbow showing a nasty break which must have happened when she fainted.

“Rhage?” someone said to him. “Hello?”

He glanced over at Tohrment. “What?”

Tohr leaned in. “You want some fresh air?”

“Aren’t we outside?” To answer his own question, he looked up to the heavens. “Yeah, we’re—”

“How ’bout we take a little walk.”

“Want to help.”

“Yeah, I get that. But I think going for a stroll’s a really good idea. You’re white as a sheet, and if you pull a lights-out, I can’t guarantee you’re not going to turn someone into a carpet underneath you and we don’t need any other patients right now.”

“Huh?”

“Come on.”

As his brother pulled on his arm, Rhage kept rubbing his heart. “I don’t know why I can’t breathe. . . .”

The last image he had, as he was pulled away, was of Layla’s face flopping to the side, her eyes wide-open, but unseeing.

“Is she dead?” he whispered. “Has she died—”

“Come on, my brother—”

“Is she?”

“No, she’s not. She’s alive.”

Every time he blinked, he saw her blond hair on the marble tile like a liquid spilled, her lips as pale as her cheeks, those jade-green eyes opaque and unmoving.

“Mary? Yeah, Mary, I got a situation with your boy. Can you come home now?”

Who was that talking? Oh, yeah, Tohr. On his phone. The Brother had taken out his phone.

Rhage started shaking his head. “No, she can’t come. The mother at Safe Place. She needs to stay—”

“Okay, thanks.” Tohr ended the call. “She’s heading back now.”

“No, they need her—”

“My brother?” Tohr put his face into Rhage’s. “I’m not sure you have any idea what you look like right now. Do me a solid and sit down here—yeah, right on the cobblestone. Good man, you’re doin’ good.”

Rhage’s knees were the ones following instructions, his brain too preoccupied with how much his shellan didn’t need to waste her precious time on him. But it looked like that bus had left the station already.

Propping his head in his hands, Rhage leaned forward and wondered if he didn’t have something wrong with his lungs. A fast-acting vampire flu. An infection. A poison in there.

The large hand of his brother made slow circles on his back, and beneath that heavy palm, the beast, in its tattoo form, surged and moved as if Rhage’s little epi was making the thing nervous.

“Feel weird,” Rhage said. “Can’t . . . breathe . . .”

TWENTY-FIVE

For the first couple of miles, Assail was happy enough to dematerialize along with the boat. By the fourth time he reformed, however, he became impatient for the destination to arrive, the exchange to be made, the identity of the third-party encroacher to be revealed.

And there was another reason to be disquieted. With the ever-increasing distance traveled, the two men were getting closer and closer to Caldwell proper—which was an idiotic idea.

Even though the hours were well into the night, downtown was not the suburbs and there were bound to be humans out and about—granted, rarely those credible with the police or others of their kind, but prying eyes were prying eyes, and every asshole rat without a tail had a cell phone these days.

He might be able to spirit away, but that pair in the boat could not pull off that trick—and he wanted to be the person to teach the lesson required here, not the CPD.

Disappearing once again, he was forced to re-form in the midst of the planted trees on the edge of one of Caldwell’s shoreline public parks. And still the boat continued along.

Unbelievable.

As he waited to see whether they passed his newest position—and there was a good chance they would, because there was no further cover at the shore a’tall—that familiar itch started to twinkle at the base of his neck, triggering a need for more coke.

The urge was coming faster and faster of late. To the point where he was forced to acknowledge how fortunate he was to heal so quickly. If he were a mere human? He would have deviated his septum months ago.