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)
Finally, the lights flared redder, the engine was engaged, and forward motion occurred.
They waited until Fritz had gone all the way down the private lane and taken a corner at the iron gate before dropping their arms with a couple of curses. It was as they turned around that the reason the doggen had departed became obvious.
Willhis was barreling down the snow path like he was worried they were going to both go into cardiac arrest if he didn’t show up with canapés, stat.
“Master! Sire!” The butler paddled to a halt, his spit-shined patent leather shoes having all the traction of twin ice cubes. “Allow me!”
As the duffle and its load of leather and weapons was pulled off the heir’s shoulder, Shuli was goddamn grateful when his doggen had the sense to offer him an arm. Ordinarily, he would have tough-guy’d it and marched on his own, but not after the last twenty-four hours. He loop-di-looped himself right around all the steady freddy, and together as a threesome, they started the shuffle up what was absolutely, positively the longest walkway that had ever existed.
L.W. took the lead, making better time with his crutches, and for some reason, maybe the painkillers in Shuli’s system, the dark figure the fighter cut against the stark, white house seemed like something out of a gritty noir comic book: All stark visual cuts, the “stately Wayne Manor” bullshit updated for a new audience, no longer Gothic-roofed and many-storied but as if the Guggenheim had decided to go private residence.
With all the money his parents had left him following their untimely deaths, he could afford to live anywhere, and he’d deliberately picked this place because it was not like the traditional mansion he’d grown up in. Everything was different. Every piece of furniture, all the art and rugs. The staff, too.
Fresh start.
And now he had a roommate.
“Yay,” he muttered into the cold.
Willhis had left the door wide, and L.W. hobbled right in, heading across all the polished while marble to the hallway that branched off to his wing of the house. As he disappeared down to his rooms, Shuli remembered when the whole ahstrux nohtrum shit had first gone down. It had been a relief to give the guy a whole section of the floor plan—in the hopes that the two wouldn’t run into each other very much.
There had also been a traitorous sense of security, having the fucker under his roof during the day and when they were home at night. Not that he would have admitted it to anybody, especially His Royal High Horse-ness. The reality was, though, Caldwell was getting more dangerous by the minute now, and L.W. was a cantankerous sonofabitch, but no one could argue with his fighting abilities.
After what had been done to Shuli’s parents, he didn’t sleep all that well—
Nope, he was not going there.
Willhis stopped. “Master? You’re not going where?”
Shit, he’d said that out loud. “Sorry, ignore me.”
Once he was over the threshold, he dropped the doggen’s arm and measured the floating staircase that went up to the second floor. As he tilted his head back and counted the steps, the ache over his hip sharpened to an outright pain.
“Perhaps master would like to use the elevator?”
“You’re so right, Willhis.”
“May I bring you aught?”
“I already ate at the clinic, but thanks.” He took the duffle from the butler and started walking down to the Otis. “You might want to bring some food and drink into L.W.’s room. Just make it like breakfast stuff with a carafe of fresh coffee? Knock to announce your presence, but don’t ask for permission to come in, and like, leave the tray on the bureau and walk out. Don’t ask him anything. He’ll just tell you to fuck off.”
“Oh, yes, master. I shall do that right away—”
Shuli stopped in front of the elevator doors and pushed the summoning button. “One other thing. He’s supposed to be on pain meds, but he’s not going to take them.”
“Should I prepare a pill schedule in the event he forgets?”
“No, he left the stuff back at the clinic. I want you to bring him a bottle of Jim Beam. He’ll drink it so he passes out.”
“But of course.” Willhis bowed low. “And for you, master?”
“Oh, I took everything they wanted to give me and I got backups in this duffle bag.” As a bing! sounded out, he put his hand forward. “Thank you, though.”
“My pleasure, master. I shall attend to our guest immediately.”
He swung the duffle into the elevator, where it landed with a thump. “He’s not a guest. He’s our roommate.”
Stepping in, Shuli hit the button and watched the door close on his butler’s worried face. During the ride up, he propped himself against the mirrored wall and hung on to the chrome balustrade. There was a bump to announce the arrival, and the doors opened. No reason to pretend to be a tough guy now.