V dropped down to the antique carpet, punched his palms into the delicate, swirly rug, and assumed a plank position. Then he pumped it out.
“One, two, three—”
“It’s the Jackal’s choice,” Butch said over the counting. “That’s my point. If it were me, I’d be eaten alive by the fact that I didn’t get others out.”
“—eleven, twelve—”
“Is he really doing push-ups,” Wrath muttered. “Jesus, V, give it a rest.”
“—eighteen, nineteen, twenty—”
“No one is paying attention to your pneumatic display.” The King cursed. “Can one of you get him back on track? And I’m going to let the Jackal—”
V upped the ante on his volume. “—twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty—”
“—MAKE HIS OWN DECISION.” Wrath spoke up loudly. “If the motherfucker wants to be involved in finding the place, and then go in with you when you do, it’s up to him. But you bunch of maladjusted meatheads have to let him know the score. He gets left behind if things go tits up, and his life will not be prioritized above any of yours. If he’s fine with that playing field, I’m not going to get in his way.”
“That’s fair,” Butch hollered.
“Good,” Rhage barked over the counting. “Glad we got that settled.”
“—thirty-one, thirty-two—”
“Will you stop him,” Wrath ordered, “before I throw a dagger at him.”
From out of the corner of his eye, V notice Rhage bursting up—which kind of made sense. Wrath was capable of a lot of things, and could handle himself in a fight even without his eyesight—but you didn’t necessarily want to be in range of him pitching a blade across a room.
“—thirty-three, thirty-four—OW!”
A tremendous weight landed on V’s back, like someone had dropped a car on his spine from three stories up. And as his elbows gave out under Rhage’s cop-a-squat, the rug rose up to slap him in the pie-hole.
“Get off me,” V growled.
The bag of M&M’s appeared next to his eyeballs.
With a roar, he snatched the candy and pitched Rhage off, the brother flying backwards across the room, antiques no doubt cringing everywhere.
Except Hollywood somehow managed to flop into a lie-down on the sofa he’d started out in.
“Nailed it,” he said with a wink as he put his hands behind his head and relaxed like the stretch-out totally worked for him. “And I’m just taking a page from your armchair example, my brother.”
V headed for the door with the M&M’s, ripping open the bag and pouring some in his mouth to chew—because it was either that or he was going to be up-close-and-personal with Rhage’s shit-eating grin in a way that would cause a lot of swelling in the guy’s pretty features.
“I think you’re all making the wrong call,” V said around the melted candy in his mouth. “And if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find a lighter.”
“Are you eating chocolate?” Wrath asked as V yanked open the way out.
“No, I’m not.”
As he poured more M&M’s down his gullet, he caught sight of Rhage glancing over at Butch, and making little circles next to his head.
“Oh, and P.S., we haven’t found the new location yet,” V said over his shoulder as he stepped free of the study. “So the Jackal and his codependency issues with people in his past are a moot point.”
God, where had his post-session float gone?
It was like that shit with Jane hadn’t even happened, he thought as he finished the bag out in the hall.
If she wants to go to the workroom, we go with her.”
As Apex laid things out like that, Rio appreciated the unexpected ally. Walking up to him, she nodded at the door. “All you have to do is take me back down the hall. I’ve got the layout of the room. I’ll be in and out in a second with a sample.”
Looking over her shoulder, she cut Luke’s protest off. “I know the drugs. I sell them. When was the last time you were picking between bales of white powder and knowing the difference between coke and heroin? You’re a negotiator, not a processor, right?”
“It’s not that hard,” he said remotely. “One lick and I know the difference.”
“Do you know how to test it? Do you know what to do with the pure stuff?”
He opened his mouth. Shut it. Opened it again.
“Let’s get this done and over with,” she said. “You told me that it was quiet during the day. We just killed the two guards outside, and the head of it all. No one knows we’re up here right now. Things will never be safer.”
Luke’s eyes burned—but not from anger. It was from something else, something she wasn’t sure she could handle right now. Or maybe at all.
“Rio, it’s an unnecessary risk—”
Apex spoke up. “To who? Not to me. Not to fucking Kane. It’s not unnecessary at all. And she’s right, we don’t handle drugs. We’re not part of the workers, and never have been. What the hell do we know?”