Where Winter Finds You (Black Dagger Brotherhood #18)- J.R Ward Page 0,38
know what I can trust?” he asked without meeting her eyes.
“I don’t have a good answer for that, and not because I’m keeping anything from you. I just know… you can have faith in yourself. Even if it feels… impossible.”
There was a long moment of stillness and silence, even as others in the club moved around and talked and even shouted. But she gave him all the time he needed to assess her aura and her expression. And she knew the moment he believed in what she was trying to tell him without actually telling him: Her old friend’s arms shot around her and pulled her in tight, the strength that he put into the embrace nearly crushing her.
“Thank you,” he gritted out.
Xhex’s eyes returned to that far corner, to that inexplicable shadow that was created by magic. “Don’t thank me. It’s not my doing.”
With a quick curse, Trez stepped back and tucked in his silk shirt. Like he was trying to tuck in his emotions.
“I, um… yeah, well,” he said, “if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head up to my office where I am totally not going to lose it all over the fuck.”
“Good plan.” Xhex smiled at him. “I’ll handle everything down here.”
“You always do.”
Trez gave her shoulder a squeeze and then he strode across the empty dance floor, a tall figure with a powerful body and a terrible heartache that had, unexpectedly, been relieved by a miracle.
Without warning, unease rippled through her, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Had she done the right thing? Had she said the right thing?
Big Rob, her second in command, approached her. “Hey, you gotta minute? That cop wants to talk to you.”
“One sec. Hold him in place.”
Turning from her bouncer, she walked over to the shadow, and then pivoted around so that her back was to the corner, as if she were making some kind of measurement of the dance floor.
In a quiet voice, she said, “Why can’t I just tell him? I don’t get it. If you’ve given him this gift, shouldn’t he just know that she’s back?”
Xhex waited. And just before she was about to give up, a disembodied answer entered her brain directly, bypassing her ear canals.
He is in the midst of his destiny the now. There are no shortcuts, even when there are gifts.
She twisted around and looked at the dense darkness. “What about John. John is the same as her, John is—”
That was before my time. I have no standing to rearrange the arrangements of my predecessor.
“So it’s real?”
The shadow disappeared, but as it left, she felt a warmth come over her. Shaking her head, she had to smile.
Lassiter working magic, and taking names. As best he could.
It almost made you forget his taste in TV shows.
* * *
Trez did not have a breakdown, as it turned out. Instead, he stayed up in his office until everyone, including Xhex, had left. Then, close to dawn, he went down to the club proper and stood in the huge, empty space. Slowly, he pivoted in a circle, taking in the bar, the sound booth, the interrogation rooms, the bathrooms where the fucking happened, the stairs to his private area.
He’d bought the old warehouse for a song, torn out the interior compartments, and painted all the old glass in the blocks of windows around the upper quarter of the space. He’d also built out his office space, as well as the locker room for the working girls, and those one-person, but never used that way, loos with the drains in the middle of the floor and the hose hookups behind the toilets.
He had never really thought of his business as dirty. He’d just been in it for the money.
But the idea of Selena being here? And almost getting shot?
Bringing up his hand, he placed it upon his heart, right where Xhex had put her own. You can trust what is in here.
Yes, he thought. YES.
His prayers, his desperate prayers that had been sent up to thin ether because he had believed in nothing spiritual at all, not even the distant stars, had been answered. Xhex had proved that tonight.
She had told him, tonight, everything he had wanted to hear.
With a fresh wave of gratitude and relief, he pictured Selena in her new incarnation. Remembered them being together. Recalled the feel of her core, the taste of her lips, even the sounds she made.