Looked like this was another case of fate giving him what he deserved.
As he washed himself, the soap wasn’t half as soft as Blay’s skin, and didn’t smell a quarter as good. The water wasn’t as hot as the fighter’s blood had been, and the shampoo wasn’t as soothing. Nothing came close.
Nothing ever would.
As Qhuinn turned his face to the spray and opened his mouth, he found himself praying Saxton wandered off the range again—even though that was a shitty thing to hope for.
Problem was, he had a horrible feeling that another case of the infidelities was the only way Blay would come to him again.
Closing his eyes, he went back to that moment when he’d kissed Blay at the end…really, truly kissed him, their mouths meeting gently in the quiet after the storm. As his mind rewrote the script, he wasn’t pushed away to the far side of a boundary he himself had created. No, in his imagination, things ended as they should have, with him stroking Blay’s face and willing the lights on so they could look at each other.
In his fantasy, he kissed his best friend again, pulled back, and…
“I love you,” he said into the spray of the shower. “I…love you.”
As he closed his eyes against the pain, it was hard to know how much of what ran down his cheeks was water, and how much was something else.
TWENTY-NINE
The following day, late in the afternoon, Assail’s visitor came back.
As the sun set and the last of the dusky pink rays pierced through the forest, he watched on his monitor as a lone figure on cross-country skis stood among the trees, poles balanced against hips, binoculars up at the face.
Or her hips, and her face, as it were.
The good news was that his security cameras not only had fantastic zoom, but their focus and sight line were easily manipulated by the computer’s joystick.
So he went in even tighter.
As the woman dropped the binoculars, he measured the individual lashes around her dark, calculating eyes, and the red tinge to her fine-pored cheeks, and the steady rhythm that beat in the artery running up to her jawline.
The warning he’d given to Benloise had been received. And yet here she was again.
It was clear she was connected in some way with that drug wholesaler—and the night before she had apparently been angered by Benloise, given the way she had marched out of the back of that gallery looking like someone had insulted her.
And yet Assail had not seen her before, and that was odd. In the past year or so, he had familiarized himself with the each-and-everys of Benloise’s operation, from the incalculable number of bodyguards, to the irrelevant gallery staff, to the canny importers, to the man’s flesh-and-blood brother who oversaw the finances.
So he could only assume she was an independent contractor, hired for a specific purpose.
Except why was she still on his own property?
He checked the digital readout on the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Four thirty-seven. Ordinarily, hardly a time to rejoice, as it was still too early to go out. But daylight saving time had kicked in, and that human invention to manipulate the sun actually worked in his favor six months out of the year.
It was going to be a little hot out there, but he would deal with it.
Assail dressed quickly, pulling on a Gucci suit along with a white silk shirt, and grabbing his double-breasted camel-hair overcoat. His pair of Smith & Wesson forties were the perfect accessories, of course.
Gunmetal was forever the new black.
Grabbing his iPhone, he frowned as he touched the screen. A call had come in from Rehvenge, along with a message.
Striding out of his room, he summoned the leahdyre of the Council’s voice mail and listened to it on the way downstairs.
The male’s voice was all about the no-bullshit, and one had to respect that: “Assail, you know who this is. I’m calling a Council meeting, and I want not just a quorum, but perfect attendance—the king’s going to be there, and so will the Brotherhood. As the eldest surviving male of your bloodline, you’ve been on the Council roster, but recorded as inactive because you stayed in the Old Country. Now that you’re back, it’s time to start going to these happy little get-togethers. Call me with your schedule, so I can work out a time and location for everyone.”
Coming to a halt before the steel door that blocked off the bottom of the stairs, he put the phone in one of his inside pockets, unlatched the lock, and slid the way open.
The first floor was dark because of the filtering shades that blocked out all light, and the huge open space of the living room appeared like a cavern in the earth rather than a glass cage perched on the shores of a river.
From the direction of the kitchen, he heard sizzling and smelled bacon.
Walking in the opposite direction, he went into the burled walnut–paneled office he’d given his cousins to use and entered his twenty-square-foot walk-in humidor. Inside, the temperate air, which was kept at a precise seventy degrees, and a humidity of exactly sixty-nine percent, was perfumed with the tobacco from dozens and dozens of boxes of cigars. After due consideration of his lineup, he took three Cubans.
The Cubans were the best, after all.
And were another thing Benloise provided him with—for a price.
Sealing up his precious collection, he reemerged into the living room. The sizzling had stopped, the subtle sounds of silver on china replacing the hiss.
As he came around into the kitchen, his two cousins were sitting on bar stools at the granite counter, the pair of them eating in precisely the same rhythm, as if there was some drumbeat, unheard by others, that regulated their movements.
They both looked up at him with the same angle to their heads.
“I’m leaving for the evening. You know how to reach me,” he said.
Ehric wiped his mouth. “I’ve tracked down three of those missing dealers—they’re back in action, ready to move. I’m making a delivery at midnight.”
“Good, good.” Assail quickly ran a check of his guns. “Try to find out where they were, will you?”
“As you wish.”
The pair of them bowed their heads in a joint bob, and then went back to their breakfasts.
No food for him. Over by the coffeepot, he picked up an amber-colored vial and unscrewed the top. The lid had a little silver spoon attached to it, and the thing made a tinkling noise as he filled its belly with coke. One hit per nostril.
Wakey-wakey.
He took the rest with him, putting it into the same pocket as his cigars. It had been a while since he’d fed and he was beginning to feel the effects, his body lagging, his mind prone to a fuzziness that was unfamiliar.
The downside to the New World? Harder to find females.
Fortunately, uncut cocaine was a good substitute, at least for the time being.
Slipping a pair of nearly opaque-lensed sunglasses on, he went through the mudroom and braced himself at the back door.
Throwing the thing open—
Assail recoiled and groaned at the onslaught, his weight weaving in his loafers: In spite of the fact that ninety-nine percent of his skin was covered by multiple layers of clothing, and even with the dark glasses, the fading light in the sky was enough to make him falter.
But there was no time to give in to biology.
Forcing himself to dematerialize into the woods behind his house, he set about tracking the woman in the near darkness. It was easy enough to locate her. She was on the retreat, moving with speed on those cross-country skis, winding her way through the fluffy pine boughs and the skeletal oaks and maples. Extrapolating from her trajectory, and applying the same internal logic she had demonstrated on the security tapes from the previous morning, he was soon out ahead of her, anticipating right where her…