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Phury’s heart stopped for a moment. Of all the ways he’d thought this confrontation would play out, Wrath’s washing his hands of the mess had never been in the cards.

“Am I still a Brother?”

The king just stared at the dagger—which gave Phury the three-word answer: in name only.

Some things didn’t need to be said, did they.

“I’ll talk to Z,” the king murmured. “We’ll say you’re on administrative leave. No more fieldwork for you, and you don’t come to the meetings anymore.”

Phury felt a rush as if he were free-falling off a building and had just made eye contact with the pavement that had his name on it.

No nets anymore. No promises to break. As far as the king was concerned, he was on his own.

Nineteen thirty-two, he thought. He’d been in the Brotherhood for only seventy-six years.

Bringing his hand up to his chest, he palmed the grip of his remaining dagger, unsheathed the weapon in a single pull, and put it on the silly pale-blue desk.

He bowed to his king and left without another word. Bravo, the wizard called out. Such a shame your parents are already dead, mate. They’d be so delighted in this proud moment—wait, let’s bring them back, shall we?

He was slammed with two quick images: his father passed out in a room full of empty ale bottles, his mother lying in a bed with her face turned to the wall.

Phury went back to his room, took out his stash, rolled up a blunt, and lit it.

With everything that had happened tonight, and the wizard playing the role of the anti-Oprah, he either smoked or he screamed. So he smoked.

Across town, Xhex was not in her happy place as she escorted Rehvenge out of ZeroSum’s back door and into his bulletproof Bentley. Rehv didn’t look any better than she felt, her boss nothing but a grim dark shadow in a full-length sable coat as he slowly moved through the alley.

She opened the driver’s-side door for him and waited as he eased himself into the bucket seat with the help of his cane. Even in the seventy-degree night, he cranked the heater and pulled his coat’s lapels closer to his neck—a sign that his last hit of dopamine had yet to wear off. It would soon enough. He always went unmedicated. It wasn’t safe otherwise.

Wasn’t safe, period.

For twenty-five years, she had wanted to go with him to back his ass up for these visits with his blackmailer, but getting shut down every time she asked had made her cut her losses and keep her yap shut. The cost of her silence was a bad fucking mood, though.

“You staying at your safe house?” she said.

“Yeah.”

She shut the door and watched him drive off. He didn’t tell her where the meetings were, but she knew the rough vicinity. The GPS system in the car indicated he went upstate.

God, she hated what he had to do.

Thanks to her fuckup two and a half decades ago, Rehv had to whore himself out the first Tuesday of every month to protect them.

The symphath Princess he serviced was dangerous. And hungry for him.

At first, Xhex had waited for the bitch to turn him and Xhex in anonymously for deportation to the symphath colony. But she was smarter than that. If they got shipped, they’d be lucky to survive six months, even as strong as they were. Half-breeds were no match for the full-bloods, and besides, the Princess was mated to her own uncle.

Who was a power-driven, possessive despot if there ever was one.

Xhex cursed. She had no idea why Rehv didn’t hate her, and she couldn’t fathom how he could stand the fucking part of it. She had a feeling, though, these nights were why he took such good care of his girls. Unlike your average pimp, he knew exactly how the prostitutes felt, knew precisely what it was like to screw someone you didn’t want because they had something you needed, be it cash or silence.

Xhex had yet to find them a way out, and what made the situation even more untenable was that Rehv had stopped looking to get free. What had once been a crisis situation had become the new reality. Two decades later, he was still fucking to protect them, and it was still Xhex’s fault, and every first Tuesday of the