Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7) - J. R. Ward Page 0,75

called earlier to let her know that Rehv had made it through his business with the princess, and the sound of the Moor’s voice had told her what his actual words had not: Rehv’s body wasn’t up for much more of the torture.

Yet another situation she was forced to ride out, sitting on her ass, waiting.

Powerless was not a state that worked for her, but when it came to the princess, she was used to feeling impotent. Way back over twenty years ago, when Xhex’s choices had put them in this situation, Rehv had told her he would take care of things on one condition: She let him handle it his way without interfering. He’d made her swear to stay away, and though it killed her, she’d kept the promise and lived in the reality that Rehv had been forced into that bitch’s hands because of her.

Goddamn it, she wished he’d lose it and lash out at her. Just once. Instead, he kept on putting up with it, paying her debt with his body.

She’d turned him into a whore.

Xhex left her office because she couldn’t stand to spend any more time with herself, and out in the club she prayed for a skirmish in the general pop, like a love triangle imploding, where one guy bitch-slapped another over a chick with fish lips and plastic tits. Or maybe a bathroom tryst gone sour in the men’s room on the mezzanine floor. Shit, she was so desperate she’d even take a drunk getting pissy about his Patrón or some deep corner grind that crossed the line into penetration.

She needed to hit something, and her best chances were with the masses. If only there were—

Just her luck. Everyone was behaving themselves.

Miserable fuckers.

Eventually, she ended up in the VIP section because she was making the floor bouncers mental as she prowled around, trolling for a throw-down. And more to the point, she had to play muscle on a major deal.

As she walked past the velvet rope, her eyes went right to the Brotherhood’s table. John Matthew and his buddies were not there, but then, this early, they’d be out hunting for lessers. Deep-throating Coronas would come later in the night, if at all.

She did not care whether John showed.

Whatsoever.

Walking up to iAm, she said, “We ready?”

The Moor nodded. “Rally’s got the product ready. Buyers should be here in twenty minutes.”

“Good.”

Two six-figure deals for coke were being executed tonight, and with Rehv down for the count and Trez up north with him, she and iAm were in charge of the transactions. Although the money was going to change hands in the office, the product was going to be loaded into the cars in the back alley, because four kilos of pure South American dust wasn’t the kind of thing she wanted dancing through the club. Shit, the fact that the buyers were coming in with cash in briefcases was enough of a problem.

Xhex was just at the office door when she caught sight of Marie-Terese easing up to a guy in a suit. The man was looking at her with awe and wonder, as if she were the female equivalent of a sports car someone had just given him the keys to.

Light glinted off the wedding band he wore as he reached for his wallet.

Marie-Terese shook her head and put her graceful hand out to stop him, then pulled the rapt guy to his feet and led the way to the private bathrooms in the back, where the cash would change hands.

Xhex turned around and found herself in front of the Brotherhood’s table.

As she looked at where John Matthew usually sat, she thought about Marie-Terese’s most current john. Xhex was willing to bet that SOB, who was about to shell out five hundred dollars to get sucked or fucked or maybe a thousand for both, didn’t look at his wife with that kind of excitement and lust. It was the fantasy. He knew nothing about Marie-Terese, had no clue that two years ago her son had been abducted by her ex-husband and she was working off the cost of getting the kid back. To him, she was a gorgeous piece of meat, something to be played with and left behind. Neat. Clean.

All the johns were like that.

And so was Xhex’s John. She was a fantasy to him. Nothing more. An erotic lie he called to mind to jerk off to—which actually wasn’t something she blamed him for, because she was doing the same thing