Chapter Fifty-Four
Standing in the lee of the glass house, Allhan felt the power of the Black Dagger Brotherhood in a way he’d never before.
It wasn’t just that they were deadly. It wasn’t just the weapons.
It was the sheer number of them and their allies, and the fact that there was not a weak link among the group.
As they set up positions and moved with hand signals clearly long shared, Vishous worked at infiltrating the security system and electrical field, while members of the Band of Bastards covered the roof, and Butch rolled up on scene in a blacked-out armored van.
Allhan would have felt good about things.
If his sister’s life wasn’t on the line.
And Denne wasn’t insisting on going in.
But neither of those was his choice. What was his choice was to remain focused on the job at hand—and that was getting Carmen out alive and making sure Denne was okay.
Accordingly, answers to all his questions were going to have to wait.
“All right,” Vishous announced. “I’m in. Alarm is off.”
“Let me text him,” Allhan said. “I’ll tell him I’m coming alone and I have what he wants. It will distract him.”
Then he looked Vishous right in the eye. “And you can get Carmen, right? If I’m distracting him—”
A familiar hand landed on his shoulder, and diamond eyes met his own. In the heartbeat of silence between them, he knew an acceptance he didn’t understand, and couldn’t comprehend. But it was there. He could feel it in the weight of that palm.
“Don’t do anything that’ll get you hurt, son,” was all the Brother said.
Before he could think better of it, he grabbed on to the male who had loved him as a father should have. And when the embrace was returned, he felt the easing of forgiveness in his soul. There were many things he shouldn’t have done, but he knew that there had been one thing that he’d gotten right.
He’d told the truth and asked for help.
As he stepped back, he looked to Denne. “I love you.”
“Be careful.” She kissed him with an intensity that told him they both knew this could be goodbye. “I love you, too.”
And suddenly, he was calm.
The text he sent was short and sweet, and as it was going through, he walked away from the warriors, stepping free of the tree line and hooking up with one of the woodland paths that continued around to the street side of the glass house.
The front door was wide open.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the other homes were far off and closed down for the winter. This was good. He’d already had enough of police copters.
“I’m unarmed,” he shouted as he put his hands up over his head. “I’m alone.”
When there was no response, he walked closer. “Hello? I have what you want. But if you kill her—”
“You’ll do what.”
The voice was hard to pinpoint—then again, he didn’t know the house’s layout, and with all the glass, acoustics could be influenced in different ways.
Just as they had in his father’s conservatory. With that piano facing into all those panes.
As he entered the house, he stopped and flared his nostrils. He smelled floor polish, window cleaner… and his sister’s blood. Why hadn’t he noticed that the night the slayer had come to his mansion… there had been no smell. Then again, he had only heard whispers of the baby powder stench.
It had just been that dark figure in the doorway.
Who had called himself a lesser.
Who had lied.
And then in the alley outside of Bathe… so much blood, but only that of vampires. They’d all just assumed that the attack had been very clean.
Allhan refocused.
“If you hurt her, you don’t get what you want,” he called out as he glanced at the white tile and the white walls with the gray paintings of the river in all seasons.
There was a mirror over to the left, and he looked into it.
The reflection showed him what was around the corner, and he angled himself until he could see into the living room.
In the middle of the white and gray expanse, his sister was tied to a white, straight-backed chair. Her head was lolling on her shoulders, and bright red blood dripped onto her winter-white Chanel jacket.
“Carmen,” he whispered. More loudly, he said, “I’ve come alone—”
“Liar.”
As he wheeled around, he heard the first of the gunshots outside. But he didn’t have much time to think about that.
The male he had been negotiating with for the last six months was right behind him, and he had a gun.
Which went off, right in Allhan’s face.