side, a maze of utility halls branched out.
«Oh, shit,» he muttered. «Where the hell are we?»
«Basement.» The cop marched ahead. «Know it well. Morgue's on this level. Spent a lot of time
here in my old job.»
Some hundred yards farther, Butch hooked them up with a shallow corridor that was more a
shaft full of HVAC piping than any kind of hallway.
And then there it was: salvation in the form of an emergency access door.
«Escalade's out here,» the cop said to V. «Sitting pretty.»
«Thank… God.» V's lips pressed flat, again, like he was trying not to throw up.
Phury did another jump ahead, then cursed. This alarm setup was different from the others,
operating on a more complex circuitry. Which he should have expected. Exterior doors were
frequently wired more heavily than interior ones. Trouble was, his little mental tricks weren't
going to work here, and it wasn't like he could call a time-out to disarm the thing. V was looking
roadkill bad.
«Brace yourself for a screamer,» Phury said before punching the bar handle.
The alarm went off like a banshee.
As they rushed out into the night, Phury wheeled around and looked up at the ass end of the
hospital. He located the security camera over the door, got it to misread, and stayed locked with
its blinking red eye as V and the human female were dumped inside the Escalade and Rhage got
behind the wheel.
Butch took shotgun and Phury hopped into the back with the cargo. He checked his watch. Total
elapsed time from when they'd first parked back here to Hollywood's foot slamming down on the
gas pedal was twenty-nine minutes. The op had been relatively clean. All that was left to do now
was get everyone to the compound in one piece and scrap the plates on the SUV.
There was just one complication.
Phury shifted his eyes to the human woman.
One big, huge complication.
Chapter Ten
John was antsy as he waited in the mansion's brilliantly colored foyer. He and Zsadist always
went out for an hour before dawn, and there had been no change of plans as far as he was aware.
But the Brother was nearly half an hour late.
To kill some more time, John took another trip across the mosaic floor. As always he felt as if he
didn't belong in all the grandeur, but he loved and appreciated it. The foyer was so outrageously
fancy it was like standing in a jewelry box: Columns in red marble and some kind of green-and-
black stone supported walls festooned with gold-leafed curlicue thingies and light fixtures with
crystals. The staircase up was a majestic expanse of red carpet, the kind of thing a movie star
would pause dramatically at the top of, then swoop down to a black-tie party. And the pattern
beneath your feet was of an apple tree in bloom, the bright palate of spring resplendent and
glimmering thanks to millions of sparkling pieces of colored glass.
His favorite thing, though, was the ceiling. Three stories up there was an astonishing stretch of
painted scenes, with warriors and stallions leaping to life as they went into battle with black
daggers. They were so real it was as if you could reach up and touch them.
So real it was as if you could be them.
He thought back to when he'd first seen it all. Tohr had been taking him to meet Wrath.
John swallowed. He'd had Tohrment for such a short time. Mere months. After a lifetime of
feeling ungrounded, after having floated along for two decades without any family-gravity to
anchor him, he'd been given a glimpse of what he'd always wanted. And then with one bullet
both his adoptive father and mother were gone.
He'd like to be big enough to say he was grateful he'd known Tohr and Wellsie for the time he
had, but that was a lie. He wished he'd never met them. The loss of them was so much harder to
bear than the amorphous ache he'd had when he'd been by himself.
Not really a male of worth, was he?
Without warning, Z strode out of the hidden door under the grand staircase, and John stiffened.
He couldn't help it. No matter how many times he saw the Brother, Zsadist's appearance always
made him think twice. It wasn't just the facial scar or the skull trim. It was the deadly air that
hadn't been lost, even though he was now mated and going to be a father.
Plus tonight, Z's face was cast-iron tight, his body even tighter. «You good to go?»
John narrowed his eyes and signed, What's going on?
«Nothing you need to worry about. Are you ready.» Not a question, a command.
When John nodded and zipped up