J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 1-4 - J. R. Ward [464]
Goddamn it. U was a total failure as a second in command. He hadn’t been able to control the Beta battles, and a human had been slaughtered during the violence. O didn’t give a shit about the dead guy, but what he’d worried about was the body. The last thing they needed was the cops getting involved. Again.
So O had gone to the scene and gotten his hands dirty getting rid of the frickin’ corpse; then he’d pissed away a couple of hours identifying the rogue Betas and paying each of them a visit. He’d wanted to kill them, but if there were any more vacancies in the Society’s ranks, he was going to have another problem with the master.
By the time he’d finished beating the crap out of that quartet of idiots, which had been only a half an hour ago, he was in a total rage. And that was when U had called with the happy news that all the apple orders that had been put in for the solstice festival had been canceled. And why were all those buys offed? Because somehow the vampires had figured out they were being tracked.
Yeah, U was righteous on the stealth job. Right.
So the mass-murder tribute to the Omega had gone out the window. So O had nothing to butter the master up. So if his wife was alive, it was going to be harder to make her a lesser.
O had lost it at that point. Had screamed at U on the phone. Let loose all kinds of obscenities. And U had taken the on-air whipping like a pussy, getting quiet, hunkering down. The silence had driven O insane, but then he’d always hated it when people didn’t fight back.
Christ. He’d thought U was stable, but in reality the bastard was weak, and O was sick of it. He knew he needed to put a knife in U’s chest, and he was going to, but he’d had it with the distractions.
Fuck the Society and U and the Betas and the Omega. He had work to do that mattered.
O grabbed the truck’s keys and left the cabin. He was going directly to 27 Thorne Avenue and he was going to get inside of that mansion. Maybe it was desperation talking, but he was certain the answer he was looking for was behind those iron gates.
Finally, he was going to find out the where and why of his wife.
O was almost at the F-150 when his neck started to hum, no doubt from all that screaming at U. He ignored the sensation and got behind the wheel. As he headed out, he pulled at the collar of his shirt, then coughed a couple of times, trying to loosen things up. Shit. This felt weird.
Half a mile later he was gasping for breath. Grabbing his throat, choking, he wrenched the steering wheel to the right and stomped on the brakes. Punching open the door, he stumbled out. The cold air brought him a second or two of relief and then he was back to the suffocation.
O went down on his knees. As he fell face-first in the snow, his vision flickered on and off like a broken lamp. And then went out.
As Zsadist walked down the hall to Wrath’s study, his mind was sharp though his body was slow. When he stepped into the room the brothers were all there, and the group fell silent. Ignoring the bunch of them, he kept his eyes on the floor and went over to the corner he usually propped himself up in. He heard someone clear a throat to get the ball rolling. Probably Wrath.
Tohrment spoke. “Bella’s brother called. He’s tabled the sehclusion request and asked that she stay here for a couple of days.”
Z jacked his head up. “Why?”
“He didn’t give a reason—” Tohr’s eyes narrowed on Z’s face. “Oh…my God.”
The others in the room glanced over, and there were a couple of low gasps. Then the Brotherhood and Butch just stared at him.
“What the fuck are you looking at?”
Phury pointed to the antique mirror hanging on the wall next to the double doors. “See for yourself.”
Zsadist marched across the room, ready to give them all hell. Bella was what mattered—
His mouth went lax