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)
Thanks to the image of Bitty’s beautiful profile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
About twenty miles north and east of where shit was going down with the CPD, Vishous was sitting at his glass desk in his glass office at Four Toys HQ. Drumming the gloved fingers of his cursed hand, he stared off into space as his most recent hand-rolled cigarette burned to a stub. In the background, ancient D12 bumped, but he didn’t hear anything except the bass stride.
Stabbing his coffin nail into a nub, he lit up another one and got to his feet. As soon as he stepped out of his office and looked down the modern barn’s spanned central space, heads popped up over the monitors along the rows of his team’s workstations.
All typing stopped.
When he put his palm up in a no-not-you way, the work immediately recommenced.
The males and females had been cherry-picked from hundreds of applications, and he had to say, they’d never let him down. The two dozen or so IT experts monitored about a hundred properties as well as countless databases of civilians. They also aided in the investigations of crimes, kept up with the human world, and were available for special projects at the drop of a hat.
This was a 24/7 operation, with people coming in at sundown and staying for forty-eight-hour shifts. Down on the lower level, there were plenty of sleeping quarters, a kitchen that the doggen kept stocked with prepared meals, and a gym. And in a move hearkening back to the good ol’ days of the human tech boom, you were allowed to bring your dog to work if it behaved itself, with the servant staff more than willing to take them out during the daylight hours as required.
It had taken a lot of thought, facility construction, and hiring to put this living organism of an IT department together, and he took great satisfaction in the service they provided the Brotherhood, the King, and the species at large.
Not that he was feeling good about tonight.
That shit didn’t have anything to do with his people, though.
Rounding the corner of his office, he stared over at the desk that had been set right against the barn’s back wall. There were even more monitors on its surface than the other workstations, and the dark-haired, underdeveloped male who was bent over one of three keyboards and comparing four different tables of data at the same time was probably smarter than Vishous himself.
Take out the “probably.”
When there was no response to his presence, he cleared his throat—something that should have been unnecessary given his exhale of Turkish smoke.
Allhan glanced over his shoulder in surprise and took out one of his earbuds. “Nothing of value yet.”
V lowered his voice. “You eat tonight, son?”
As a blank look softened those dark brows, V was pretty sure it was a “no.” Besides, that long, lean face was longer and leaner, and paler, too.
“I think so?”
Crooking his finger, V shook his head. “Come with me.”
Allhan glanced with panic at his screens. “But I haven’t found George. Or Gheorge. Or Georghe. Or Georghes—”
“Now.”
Like he’d been called to attention in a military school, Allhan ditched the keyboard and scrambled to his feet, his gray SUNY Caldwell t-shirt waving like a flag from his bony shoulders, his loose jeans flapping around his stickpin legs. His shoes were black Crocs that had more scuffs on them than a dance floor, and his socks were mismatched. Dark green and light blue.
“Yes, sir.” The kid took his other earbud out and started forward with an earnestness that was heartbreaking. “What did I do?”
Vishous took a drag on his hand-rolled and wished he’d never met the young male. “Nothing. You’re good. I just want you to come with me.”
One of the two stairwells down to the lower level was next to the back side of V’s office, and as he opened things and stood aside, Allhan jangled by him and hit the steps like his arms and legs were only loosely attached to his torso. As V followed, he had no fucking clue how he’d gone from a hard-ass Dom to a… dad.
Was that what he was, though? Except goddamn it, what else would someone call it. He was constantly worried about whether some pretrans had put a fork in their mouth. Whether Allhan had slept. If he was feeling okay, was he sick, did he need more clothes, or less time in front of those monitors…
Oh, and that was just the little shit. The big one was stark terror over a biological process that was as unstoppable and untreatable as time itself.
Or death, for that matter.
FFS, whether Allhan made it through the transition was totally out of V’s control—and he knew this terrible reality was keeping Jane up during the day, too.
As Allhan bottomed out in the break area, the kid seemed lost, like he’d never seen the tables and the buffet line before.