J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [241]
The two biggest knuckles were bruised, the pale skin purple and swollen.
“Looks like you didn’t just backhand her,” Rehv murmured, still petting the man’s fingers with the opener.
“She asked for—”
Rehv’s fist pounded into his desk so hard, his multiline office phone did a jump and scramble, the receiver bouncing free of the cradle.
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” Rehv fought not to bare his fangs as they punched out into his mouth. “Or so help me God I will feed you your own balls right now.”
The ass-wipe went inanimate as a subtle beep-beep-beep replaced the phone’s dial tone. iAm, cool as always, calmly reached forward and replaced the receiver.
As a bead of sweat dripped off the human’s nose and landed on the back of his hand, Rehv smoothed out his anger.
“Right. Where were we before you almost got yourself castrated? Oh, yeah. Hands . . . we were talking about hands. Funny, I don’t know what we would do without two. I mean, you couldn’t drive a stick-shift car, for example. And you have a stick, don’t you? Yeah, I’ve seen that tripped-out Acura you tool around in. Nice car.”
Rehv laid his own hand down on the glossy wood, right next to the guy’s, and as he made comparisons, he pointed to the salient distinctions with the envelope opener.
“My hand’s bigger than yours in length . . . and width. Fingers are longer. My veins stand out more. You have a tattoo of . . . what is that at the base of your thumb? Some kind of . . . ah, the Chinese symbol for strength. Yeah, my tats are elsewhere. What else, now . . . your skin’s lighter. Damn, you white boys really need to think about tanning. You look like death without some UVs.”
As Rehv glanced up, he thought of the past, of his mother and her collections of bruises. It had taken him far, far too long to do right by her.
“You know the biggest diff between you and me?” he said. “See . . . my knuckles aren’t bruised from beating a woman.”
In a quick move, he drew the envelope opener up and slashed it down so hard the tip didn’t just go through flesh; it penetrated the teak of the desk.
The hand he stabbed was his own.
As the human screamed, Rehv didn’t feel a thing.
“Don’t you dare pass out, you fucking lightweight,” Rehv spat as the asshole’s eyes started to roll. “You’re going to watch this carefully so you remember my message.”
Rehv yanked the opener free of the desk by jacking up his palm so that it caught the scabbard and popped the blade out. Putting his hand up where the man could watch, he twisted the opener back and forth with grim precision, creating a portal in his skin and bones, widening the puncture into a little window. When he was finished, he withdrew the blade and put it carefully beside the phone.
As blood dripped down the inside of his sleeve and pooled at his elbow, he looked at the man through the hole. “I’ll be watching you. Everywhere. All the time. She turns up with another ‘bruise’ from ‘falling down in the shower’ and I’m going to mark you up like a calendar, feel me?”
The man jerked to the side and threw up down his pant leg.
Rehv cursed. He should have known something like that was coming. Fucking pansy-ass bully bastard.
And good thing this fool with the partially digested pasta dripping onto his piss-laden Doc Martens didn’t know what Rehv was really capable of. This human, like all the other humans in the club, had no idea the boss of ZeroSum was not just a vampire, but a symphath. Motherfucker would have shit himself, and what a mess that would have been. It was already wet-obvious he wasn’t sporting Depends.
“Your car is now mine,” Rehv said as he reached over to the phone and dialed housekeeping. “Consider it repayment plus interest and penalties on the cash you’ve been skimming from my bar. You’re fired for that, and for side-dealing H in my private zip code. PS, next time you try to crop off someone else’s turf? Don’t mark your packs