The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12) - J.R. Ward Page 0,57

good clip.

He was halfway to goal when he realized he’d made a mistake. Likely because of the coke: There were video cameras all over the facility’s interior—and yet he had done nothing about them.

“Faster,” he hissed under his breath to his cousin.

Reaching the top landing, Assail bowed to the guard. “Where would you like me to put this out?”

“I don’t fucking know. He shoun’t told you to light up.”

“Oh, well, then.”

Ehric, on cue, pulled another dematerialization, appearing behind the guard. With a slap, he covered that mouth, and yanked the guard back.

Presenting Assail the perfect captive target.

With a vicious move, he sliced his blade across that throat easy and quick as a cough. Then it was another case of drag-off once again.

Assail barged through the office door, pushing it wide. Across the vast space, Benloise sat alone behind his raised modernist desk, the glow of the lamp by his side pulling his features out of the darkness so that he rivaled some of Goya’s best portraits.

“…I’m coming up north right now—” Benloise stopped short, his visage becoming instantly impassive. “Permit me to call you back.”

Caldwell’s drug wholesaler hung the phone up so fast, the receiver banged into its cradle. “I believe I told you to wait, Assail.”

“Indeed?” Assail looked over his shoulder. “Mayhap you should be clearer with your subordinates. Although, God knows, it is so hard to find good help, is it not.”

The natty little man sat back in his throne-like chair, his expression unchanging. Tonight’s bespoke suit was in a deep navy blue that emphasized his perma-tan and dark eyes, and as always, his thinning hair was slicked back from his forehead. One could smell his cologne from across the office.

“Excuse me for rushing you,” the gentleman said in that educated, I’m-not-a-drug-dealer accent of his. “But I have another appointment.”

“I would certainly hate to detain you.”

“And your purpose is?”

Assail nodded once, and that was all it took. Ehric flashed behind that raised desk and locked on the wholesaler, dragging him out of his heavy chair by the head. A Taser later, and Benloise was a limp doll in that very nice-fitting navy blue suit.

As his cousin threw the man over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold, no words were exchanged. No reason to—they had sketched this out beforehand: the infiltration, the securing, the removal.

Of course, it would have been so much more satisfying to stage a Hollywood movie confrontation whereupon Assail answered the wholesaler’s question as to purpose in violent detail. The real world of kidnapping and intimidation, however, did not afford such immediate gratification.

Not if you wanted to get your man and keep him.

With Ehric tight on his heels, Assail fell into a jog, crossing the office’s glossy black floor and descending the stairs with alacrity. As they hit the gallery space, there was a moment of pause, a quick check for sounds of incoming confrontation.

None. Just the muffled pant of the stabbed guard’s dying breath and the copper scent of blood from his gut wound.

Out through the staff-only door into the office space. Passing by those desks and the hanging mobile made of mangled car parts.

The Range Rover was parked so close to the rear exit, it was practically in the building, and with sure moves, Assail opened the backseat and Ehric threw Benloise in there like a duffel bag. Then it was a case of slam, slam, screech.

They were off and cruising at the speed limit between one heartbeat and the next, Assail in the front passenger seat, Ehric sitting behind him with their cargo.

Assail checked his watch. Total elapsed time was eleven minutes, thirty-two seconds, and they had a good number of hours before sunrise.

Ehric took out a set of handcuffs and clipped them to the “art dealer’s” wrists. Then it was a case of slapping the motherfucker awake.

When Benloise’s eyes opened, he recoiled like he was in a bad dream.

In grim tones, Assail finally answered the question that had been posed to him. “You have something that is mine. And you’re going to return it to me before dawn—or I will make you wish you were never born.”

A half an hour after the epic confrontation with her husband, Beth was in the back of the Brotherhood’s Mercedes S600 with her half-brother beside her and Fritz behind the wheel. The sedan was brand-new, the wonderful smell of fresh leather and varnish like aromatherapy for rich people.

Too bad the sniffy-good wasn’t doing a damn thing for her mood.

As she stared out the tinted window, the