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Rio shoved herself up and stumbled for the door, her forward motion good, her balance for crap. She banged off the corner of the couch hard enough to rattle her teeth, but she kept going, the Taser still in her palm, a distant, persistent crackle suggesting that her hand had tightened on its own to trigger the sparking—
She ran right into the second man just as he came in through her door. He had a hood up to mask his features—and he was armed with a gun that had a suppressor.
“Jesus,” he muttered, clearly annoyed. “You’re a pain in the ass.”
Boom!
Before she could respond, there was another burst of pain in her head. Rio’s last conscious thought was that he’d struck her with the butt of his gun on her temple.
After that, there was nothing.
Here was the thing with people who were—as Butch O’Neal, native of South Boston, always put it—wicked frickin’ jumpy. Unless you wanted a fight, it was in everybody’s best interests to give ’em a heads-up, especially if you were coming at them from behind.
Down in a tunnel that had all the air freshening of a rock pit, Rhage lifted his hands as the Jackal wheeled around in front of him.
“Just me,” he told the guy, “your half-brother. Don’t get crazy.”
The other vampire was looking rough in his running shorts and his too-thin-for-the-time-of-year t-shirt, kind of like a zombie who had decided to go on a health kick. And for an instant, Rhage went back a hundred years and change, and saw the male when their paths had first crossed—at that annoying aristocrat’s place.
Back then, the Jackal had been hired by Darius to create plans for a place for the Black Dagger Brotherhood to live together, and the Jackal, as an architect, had been willing and able to do the deal with a pencil and a ruler. He’d dressed the part, too, looking distinguished and smart in a tailored suit in the style of the times, his waistcoat anchored by a gold pocket watch and chain, the collar of his buttoned-down shirt rounded, the lapels of his fine jacket notched at the top.
And now here he was in Nike Lycra. The hair and the face were the same, of course—no, that wasn’t right. In the glow from his phone’s little pin light, he was much, much older, his eyes ancient even though he wasn’t even close to middle age.
“What are you doing here?” the male asked hoarsely.
“We got the place rigged.” Rhage motioned around, even though that camera light didn’t carry far—so, yeah, not a lot to see. “You tripped the security system when you lifted the hatch.”
The Jackal frowned. “But I’ve been here before.”
“We know.”
“You do?”
“Yup, you want the dates? I got ’em on my phone.” Rhage debated flashing his Samsung, but the guy seemed to have enough going on at the moment. “Or you can just take my word for it.”
“So why did you come here tonight? Are you here to tell me I need to leave? Like I’m trespassing?”
“Nah.” Rhage pshaw’d with his dagger hand. “I’m not playing mall cop here.”
“Mall cop?”
“Kevin James as Paul Blart? Never mind.” Rhage reached into his leather jacket and took out a Tootsie Roll. “Oh—crap.”
“What?” The Jackal looked around. “What’s—”
“Orange. I hate orange.” He unwrapped the lollipop and grimaced. “You want to hop on this train? I’ll give you a good one?”
The Jackal blinked, as if a discussion about candy was nothing he could assimilate given what was crowding his brain.
“Why are you here?” he demanded.
Rhage shrugged. “The intervals between you coming underground are getting shorter and shorter. I’m not an expert in anything—well, other than killing and ice cream, and who’da thought those two would ever go together. But it’s clear you’re going through it, and I guess I figured a little check-in wasn’t a bad idea.”
“I don’t know why I am so drawn to this place.”
“I believe that. So where’re you headed? Back to your cell?”
“Ah . . . yes. No. I don’t know. I didn’t really have a plan.”
“Lead on.” Rhage debated crunching with his molars and decided against the tongue flood of citrus. Sometimes it was better to just draw the shit out. “And yeah, I’m coming, too. Sorry.”
The other male stared at him, and then glanced at the black daggers that were holstered, handles down, on Rhage’s chest.
“I should go home instead.”
“Yeah, that’s probably true,” Rhage agreed. “But some times the past isn’t going to let your head have the wheel. And fighting that kind of stuff is pretty pointless.”
The Jackal looked off down the tunnel, and as his eyes moved around even though there was, again, nothing much to see, it was like he was walking in his mind, going left, going right, sticking to a straightaway.
After a moment, the male said, “They were . . . my family, in a way. Not by choice, but we were together with the suffering. Lucan, Mayhem—even Apex, sick fuck that he was. I feel like I’ve got unfinished business. I’m out—and they need to be out, too.”
