“Wait, someone needs to pick up that FedEx envelope over there.” Actually, he didn’t give a shit if they left the thing in the street. “It has the papers Wrath wants.”
As somebody did the duty, he and Phury made a slow pace toward a snowbank that would have been a short leap to get over pre-impact, but now presented itself as a Mini-Everest. On the far side of their ascent and descent, Murhder needed to breathe through the pain for a minute before they could continue.
When they resumed their progress, moving toward the elegant house’s shoveled walkway, he was acutely aware that no one was speaking. No one was touching him, other than that which was medically required. No one was too close.
And they all had their hands on a weapon that was discreetly held by the thigh. Some were guns, some were those black daggers that he had once had strapped to his own chest.
Jeez, you go rogue once and slaughter a bunch of humans after they torture your girlfriend, and suddenly you’re a leaper.
Up the front walk that had been cleared and de-iced with rock salt, the wind that whistled through bare branches making him want to cover his ears. The pitch was too close to that scream he heard all the time in his head.
Up steps that had been de-iced as well. Onto a porch that was long as the front of the mansion and bare of fine wicker furniture, no doubt in deference to the inclement weather.
Now they were at the broad front door, which he could recall going in and out of countless times with Darius.
Phury stopped and unhitched his hold. “We have to search you.”
“I got guns, two of them. That’s it—no, I also have a hunting knife in my ass pocket. Do not remove those letters.”
Murhder stared straight ahead at the wood panels as his weapons were taken off him. And then someone patted him down.
He closed his eyes and lowered his head. “I didn’t lie. Christ.”
“Come on.” Phury opened the way in. “We’re going to the right.”
“The dining room.”
“You remember.”
“I practically lived here with you, do you remember?”
Thanks to all the walking, Murhder’s thigh had hit red-hot-poker-pissed-off on a pain scale where one was a splinter, and ten was red-hot-fucking-poker. Sweat broke out across his chest and rode up his throat to his face, and goddamn, he was glad he hadn’t eaten before he’d come or there would have been one hell of a mess to clean up.
Was Fritz still the butler in this house? he wondered.
“Over this way—”
“I know,” he snapped.
The growls that percolated up behind him were easily ignored. If they were going to kill him outright, they never would have let him in the house. They’d have thrown him into the trunk of a sedan to take him to a more remote location.
The double doors to the dining room were closed, but he could sense Wrath’s presence on the far side—and what went through his mind was that this was a return to the Old Ways, to the private guard function of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Previously, it hadn’t been needed because Wrath had always refused to lead his people.
Something big had changed.
“I’m going to have to ask you to keep your hands visible at all times,” Phury said. “No sudden movements—”
A male voice interjected coldly. “I’ll fucking rip your head off if you go anywhere near him.”
Murhder smiled and glared over his shoulder, meeting a set of diamond eyes that were sharp as blades. “V. Always with the sentimentality.”
The Brother with the icy stare and the tattoos at his temple had added a goatee to his face. Other than that, he was unchanged, his intelligence radiating outward as much as his urge to kill. And oh, look, he still smoked.
“I don’t give two shits about you,” Vishous said on an exhale.
“Same brand of Turkish tobacco. You still get it from that head shop down on Market?”
“Fuck you.”
“You always wanted to—”
Phury jerked Murhder back around. “This is not helping.”
The doors flew open, and there was the King, standing in the center of the dining room, under the chandelier where the long mahogany table should have been.
The wave of sadness that hit Murhder was so unexpected, he weaved on his good foot, and he blinked his eyes quick even though no tears came. It wasn’t that Wrath was different—hell, it would have been a shock if anything had changed about the