Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Not that it was his business.
“You okay taking the SUV back?” Mayhem asked. “I was just gonna, you know, dematerialize with her.”
“No problem. I’m thinking of leaving the vehicle here, anyway. It’s Whestmorel’s.”
His job with that male was done, and not just with this installation.
Guess everyone was disappearing.
As they both stared at him, like they were worried about his mental health or something, he marched over to the door.
“Take care of yourselves,” he said as he indicated the way out.
“You, too,” Mayhem said as he picked up both bags with one hand, then slipped an arm around Mahrci’s shoulders. “Call me if you need me—”
“You already said that.”
The happy couple walked out and then Mayhem glanced over his shoulder one last time. At which point, Apex was certain he wasn’t going to see the male again, either.
After he lifted a hand in goodbye, he watched them disappear into the night.
Then he just stood there, running up Whestmorel’s heat bill with the door wide open. It was just impossible not to keep doing a compare/contrast with that couple to his and Callum’s situation—but that was the thief of joy, right?
As he glanced back over at the dark windows of the garage’s second story, he thought, Yup, sure the hell is.
“I better double-check the system,” he said into the cold breeze that was coming at him.
Right? Work was why he was here, after all.
Not this . . . heartbreaking other stuff.
CHAPTER THIRTY–FIVE
After Whestmorel took off, Tohr stayed for the next three audiences, all of which were the kind of wholesome palate cleansers a male appreciated when the great Blind King had already used up all his restraint tokens: Two births, and a mating blessing. Perfect.
And now Tohr was out in the bracingly cold air.
As he walked away from the Audience House’s rear door, he followed the shoveled path to Vishous’s FT Headquarters. The converted barn was named after the brother’s old computer setup, back at the Pit. He’d called his towers and their monitors and keyboards his Four Toys, so when they’d decided his security think tank of IT uber geniuses had to go on the property, V had christened the outbuilding right from the planning stages.
The second Tohr approached the entrance, the doors unlocked for him, and as he stepped inside, he looked down the lineup of workstations to the glass box at the end. V’s private office had its frosted privacy panels disengaged so the brother, who’d left earlier, and the other male in there were fully visible—and as Vishous turned and looked out, all kinds of hurry-up got motioned.
Tohr made quick work of the center aisle, which was not hard to do considering that all of the males and females were totally into their work, monitoring the properties that the Brotherhood owned or rented out, doing identity verifications, researching whatever . . . needed researching.
It was quite the operation—
“Tell him,” V commanded as Tohr opened the glass door. “G’on, son.”
The younger male in the all-glass room seemed to retract into himself. But Allhan was like that. The kid was lightning brilliant, with the kind of smarts that made V seem like someone who could just do a little math in their head well. But the social anxiety was real.
Tohr sat down in the chair by the desk to make himself seem smaller. In a deliberately quiet voice, he said, “Tell me what?”
V handed over the pages that had been bugging Tohr ever since they’d been left behind in the frickin’ waiting room.
“Allhan?” Tohr held up the documents. “Did you figure out something about this? Because if you did, it might be important.”
The young, who was almost as tall as a mature male, but built like a soda straw, was nearing his transition—and V was telling everybody that it was because of this, and only because of this, that the kid lived with him and Doc Jane: It was just so they could help him through the change. Because Jane was a doctor. And because Al was an orphan.
Yeah, it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that, intellectually, the kid was V’s mini-me, and V, for all his razor-sharp exterior and ice-cold moods, cared about the people in his circle.
His tiny, teeny circle.
Which now included this kid who was his son in everything but name.
“It’s the last page,” Allhan said. “I concur that the tables reflect recurring charges in some kind of currency, and note that there are sixteen different entries, which suggest once-a-month and then four quarterly payments. But the final page isn’t about money at all. It’s a message.”
Tohr turned to the last sheet. And as he looked at all the numbers, he thought . . . Christ, to him, it was just a fruit salad of sums and totals.
“It’s a code,” Allhan added.
Popping a brow, Tohr glanced at V. The pride on the brother’s face was so obvious, the guy and his goatee were positively beaming.