Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
And there he was.
Dev was inexplicably coming toward her, his huge shoulders and bulked muscles cutting through the purple onslaught, his strong arms pushing people away until he was right in front of her, his face all that she could see.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said levelly. “And don’t worry about a thing, I’ve got you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
We have one. I have gotten what you requested.”
As Conrahd spoke the words, Whestmorel punched the stop button on his treadmill. Through his heavy respiration, he asked, “Where.”
When the word came out hoarsely, he told himself the breathlessness was the running.
“In the caretaker’s building. It is well in hand for whenever you want it.”
Whestmorel grabbed a monogrammed towel and dismounted the machine. In the mirrors that surrounded the workout room, he dabbed at the perspiration on his face and checked his dark hair, making sure it still laid flat. He was also checking in with his reflection, to make sure this was not a dream.
“We go now,” he ordered.
His exercise facility was above the safe house’s garages, and after they proceeded to the end of the room, he sprung the lock to the exterior set of stairs with a code. The outdoor temperature was frigid, and the sweat on his skin beneath his Nike training togs froze upon his shoulders, chest, and arms. He cared not.
On the descent to the snowy ground, he was dogged by a sudden, ringing worry. Though he would talk to no one about this, he had always been trepidatious at the next stage of his plan. If things were dangerous with the King and the Black Dagger Brotherhood already involved, it was all going to get so much more intense.
As he brought Lash, the head of the Lessening Society, into the mix.
His heart rate did not slow down as they proceeded on a wooded path to the outbuilding. There were purposely no exterior lights to guide them, and infrared sensors were triggered all along the way, guards watching them from the security room in the safe house. Well-paid, ex-military human guards, whose loyalty could be trusted—up to a point: All they knew was that they were to shoot anybody who was not one of the males who were at the heart of the consortium.
And the butler, of course.
The men didn’t know what was happening or who they worked for, and though Whestmorel had always disdained those rats without tails, the species divide was critical at this juncture.
On the approach, the outbuilding that was set into the rocky elevation had always been part of the site’s master development, a space in which to house collectible boats and convertibles during the winter months.
Not what it was being used for tonight.
At the side door, he inputted another code, and he and Conrahd entered.
A blacked-out van was parked in the center of the open span, the banks of fluorescent lights on the ceiling raining down a peach-tinted light in the otherwise vacant, windowless interior.
“Where did they find it?” he queried as they continued forth.
“Downtown. Our scouts located the thing and secured it. Then they turned it over to our guards at the neutral location and they brought it on-site.”
“And there were no questions asked?”
“With the money we’re paying, the chain of custody is very, very secure. And to that point, its personal affects are bagged and in the passenger seat.”
Whestmorel reached up to his sternum. The alert button that hung by a gold chain slid into his grip, though he did not trigger it.
“Open the doors,” he commanded.
Conrahd stepped in and sprung the releases, the panels popping wide. That peachy illumination flowed in, but what was revealed was not the first registry upon the senses.
The smell.
Stench, was more like it.
Both he and Conrahd stumbled back on a recoil, the other male taking out his handkerchief and pressing the folds into his nose. The vicious stink was as if old, spoiled meat had been doused in baby powder, the sickly sweet combination spearing into the nose and contaminating the sinuses.
Whestmorel even tasted it in his mouth, and then down the back of his throat as he swallowed. But what foe would he be for the great Blind King if he could not withstand this proximity to the enemy?
Gathering himself, he forced his arms down and his mind to regulate. That was when the physical details sank in. The lesser was restrained and suspended from a rack that was bolted into the roof of the back compartment. With a black hood over its head and those chains at the ankles and the wrists and across the chest, there were no complaints about the presentation, and yet he still hesitated.
“Take the hood off,” he commanded Conrahd.
There was a long pause. It wasn’t until he glanced over with a glare that the male put the kerchief back inside his breast pocket and proceeded to awkwardly duck into the rear of the vehicle. At Whestmorel’s request, they were alone, but now he was rethinking that, and not just because this historic moment perhaps should be witnessed by the others.