J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [299]
Shit. “Tell me you’re not here because of Bella.”
“Nah. She’s good.” Z shut the door and leaned back against it, effectively locking them in together.
The Brother’s eyes were black. Which meant he was pissed off.
Rehvenge brought his cane up and let it dangle between his legs just in case he needed it. He and Z had been cool following some dick tossing when the Brother and Bella had started off, but things could change. And given the way that stare was dark as the inside of a crypt, evidently they had.
“You got something on your mind there, big man?” Rehv asked.
“I want you to do me a personal favor.”
The term favor was likely a misnomer. “Talk.”
“I don’t want you dealing to my twin anymore. You’re going to cut off his supply.” Z leaned forward on his hips. “And if you don’t, I will make it impossible for you to sell so much as a fucking cocktail straw in that pit of yours.”
Rehv tapped the tip of his cane against the exam table and wondered if the Brother would change his tune if he knew the profit from the club kept his shellan’s brother out of a symphath colony. Z knew about the half-breed thing; he didn’t know about the Princess and her games.
“How is my sister?” Rehv drawled. “Doing well? Keeping calm? That would be important for her, wouldn’t it. Not getting unnecessarily upset.”
Zsadist’s eyes narrowed to slits, his scarred face the kind of thing folks saw in nightmares. “I really don’t think you want to go there, do you?”
“You fuck with my business and the repercussions will hurt her as well. Trust me.” Rehv positioned his cane so it stood upright in his palm. “Your twin is an adult male. If you have problems with his usage maybe you need to talk with him, huh.”
“Oh, I’m going to deal with Phury. But I want your word. You don’t sell to him anymore.”
Rehv stared at his cane as it stood up in the air, perfectly balanced. He’d long ago made peace with his business, no doubt with help from his symphath side, which made seizing opportunity from the weaknesses of others a kind of moral imperative.
The way he justified his dealing was that his customers ’ choices had nothing to do with him. If they fucked up their lives because of what he sold them, that was their prerogative—and no different from the more socially acceptable ways people destroyed themselves, like eating their way into cardiac disease because of what McDonald’s peddled, or drinking themselves into liver failure thanks to the good folks at Anheuser-Busch, or gambling on reservations until they lost their houses.
Drugs were a commodity and he was a businessman, and users would just find their devastation somewhere else if his doors closed. The best he could do was make sure that if they bought from him, their shit was uncontaminated with dangerous fillers, and the purity was consistent so that they could tailor their doses reliably.
“Your word, vampire,” Zsadist growled.
Rehv looked down at the sleeve covering his left forearm and thought of Xhex’s expression when she’d seen what he’d done to himself. Odd, the parallels. Just because his drug of choice was prescribed didn’t mean he was immune from abusing the shit.
Rehv lifted his eyes, then closed his lids and stopped breathing. He reached out through the air between him and the Brother and entered the male’s mind. Yeah . . . underneath his anger was rank terror.
And memories . . . of Phury. A scene a while ago . . . seventy years or so earlier . . . a deathbed. Phury’s.
Z was wrapping his twin in blankets and moving him closer to a coal-burning fire. He was worried . . . For the first time since he’d lost his soul to slavery, he was looking on someone with concern and compassion. In the scene, he blotted Phury’s fever-soaked brow and then strapped on weapons and left.
“Vampire . . .” Rehv murmured. “Look at you go with the nursing care.”
“Get out of my fucking past.”
“You saved him, didn’t you.” Rehv flipped his eyes open. “Phury was sick. You