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“Tell me you love me.”

“I. Despise. You.”

As he lifted his hand and made a fist out of it, she glared up at him, steady, calm, ready to take the hit. They stayed like that for a long time, their bodies suspended in twins arcs like a heart, tied by the strings of violence that ran between them. In the background the civilian male on the table whimpered.

Suddenly the lesser’s arms shot around her and he buried his face in her neck. “I love you,” he said. “I love you so much…. I can’t live without you—”

“Holy shit,” someone said.

The lesser and Bella both looked to the voice. The persuasion center’s door was wide-open and a pale-haired slayer was stopped dead in its jamb.

The guy started laughing and then said the three words that triggered everything that followed: “I’m gonna tell.”

David went after the other lesser at a dead run, chasing him outside.

Bella didn’t hesitate as the first cracks of the fight rang out. She went to work on the chains that bound the civilian’s right wrist, flipping the clips free, unraveling the links. Neither of them said a word as she freed his hand and then started on his right ankle. As soon as he could, the male worked as fast as she did, frantically stripping the left side of himself. The second he was free, he popped off the table and looked at the steel handcuffs that tied her.

“You can’t save me,” she said. “He has the only keys.”

“I can’t believe you’re still alive. I heard about you—”

“Go, go on—”

“He’ll kill you.”

“No, he won’t.” He was just going to make her wish she were dead. “Go! That fight isn’t going to last forever.”

“I’ll come back for you.”

“Just get home.” When he opened his mouth, she said, “Shut the hell up and focus. If you can, tell my family I’m not dead. Go!”

The male had tears in his eyes as he closed them. He took two long breaths…and dematerialized.

Bella started shaking so badly she fell down on the floor, her arm stretching over her head from where it was handcuffed to the table.

The noises of the fight outside abruptly stopped. There was a silence and then a flash of light and a popping sound. She knew without a doubt that her lesser had won.

Oh, God… This was going to be bad. This was going to be a very, very bad day.

Zsadist stood on Bella’s snow-covered lawn until the last possible moment, and then he dematerialized to the dreary, Gothic monster the Brotherhood all lived in. The mansion looked like something out of a horror movie, all gargoyles and shadows and leaded-glass windows. In front of the mountain of stone there was a courtyard full of cars, as well as a gatehouse that was Butch and V’s crash pad. A twenty-foot-tall wall encased the compound, and there was a double-gated entry as well as a number of nasty surprises set up to deter unwanted visitors.

Z walked over to the main house’s steel-cored doors and opened one side of them. Stepping into the vestibule, he punched in a code on a keypad and was granted access immediately. He grimaced as he emerged into the foyer. The soaring space with its jewel-toned colors and its gold leafing and its wild, mosaic floor was like that crowded bar: too much stimulation.

To his right, he heard the sounds of a full dining room: the soft clinking of silver on china, indistinct words from Beth, a chuckle from Wrath…then Rhage’s bass voice cutting in. There was a pause, probably because Hollywood was making a face, and then everyone’s laughter mingled, spilling out like gleaming marbles across a clean floor.

He wasn’t interested in tangling with his brothers, much less eating with them. They’d all know by now that he’d been booted from Bella’s house like a felon for marking too much time there. Few secrets got kept within the Brotherhood.

Z hit the grand staircase, taking the steps two at a time. The faster he went the more muted the meal’s noises became, and the quiet suited him. At the top of the stairs he headed left and then went down a long hallway marked by Greco-Roman statuary. The marble athletes and warriors were illuminated by recessed lighting, their white marble