The Sinner (Black Dagger Brotherhood 18)

“You.”

As Jane spoke the word, Butch blanked for a moment—because, hello, after the night he’d had, he hadn’t expected to be adding family members to his Christmas list on top of everything else. But then he thought back to a photograph Manny had shown him a while ago, one of a man who had looked shockingly like Butch himself.

“Sonofabitch,” he murmured. “So the hunch was right.”

* * *

Talk about whiplash, Jo thought. So far this evening, she’d gone from thinking she had a mom, to learning she didn’t have that mom, to discovering who her father was… and adding two brothers to her family tree.

Oh, yeah, and then there was the whole vampire thing, too.

Details, details.

But at least she wasn’t the only one who was at the end of the bungee cord of life. Butch, the one with the Boston accent, the one she had seen that first night in the Red Sox baseball hat, the one who had seemed so nice earlier at the scene of all the carnage… was also looking a little poleaxed.

Join the club, she thought.

Doc Jane spoke up. “Yup. The bloodline database—which you’d previously given a sample to, but which Manny had not—confirms that you and Jo have a first-degree male ancestry in common with him. You all have the same father.”

“Holy… shit.” Butch looked over at the male with the goatee who he’d come in with. “So this means she’s also related to—”

The male cut him off. “We’re going to have to talk about the implications of it all later.”

“Yeah, we’re going to have to.”

When Butch turned to Jo, she rose to her feet and tried to not look as if she were recording every nuance of his face. “So… um. Hi.”

She stuck out her hand. And as it floated there on the breeze by its lonesome, she felt foolish and dropped her arm. Just because the male had accepted a guy he already knew so readily did not mean the courtesy had to be extended to a stranger who was more human than his kind. For the moment, at any rate.

“Sorry,” she said as she rubbed her palm on the seat of her jeans.

“Well, I’m not,” Butch said roughly. “It’s really nice to meet you, sis.”

The next thing she knew, she was being pulled into a hard hug—at the same time Manny was being yanked up off the sofa. Butch had the arm span to hold them both… and after a moment, Jo let herself fall into the embraces.

Her brothers.

For the first time in her life, she was among her own family, and part of her was overjoyed, her destination reached, the search over. The problem was, she knew better than to start making Sunday dinner plans for the next seven hundred years. If she didn’t go through her transition, they were going to have to make it so she remembered absolutely nothing about this seminal moment in her life.

Manny had explained how it had to work.

With the war coming to an end, there could be no chances with the secrecy of the race. Especially not with a human… who happened to be a reporter.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

About an hour before dawn, Jo was taken back to the real world, and what a chariot she had to ride off into the sunrise with. The long, powerful black Mercedes was, like, Uber Titanium or something—and naturally, it came with a driver in uniform.

Who happened to look like something out of a P. G. Wodehouse novel.

If he hadn’t been introduced to her as Fritz, she would have called him Jeeves.

Not that Jo spent all that much time talking to him. Before they pulled out of the underground parking garage, he apologized profusely and explained that the partition between the front and the back had to be raised for security purposes—and she’d told him she understood. But like there was any other response?

As a result, she knew nothing of where they were. The rear windows of the sedan were so deeply tinted, they might as well have been made of funeral draping, and then there were her eyelids. The subtle ride of the luxury suspension, coupled with the deep bucket seat, meant things felt like she was in a cradle, and after all the drama, it wasn’t long before she—

“Madam?”

Jo woke up with a spastic slapping, her panic-palms hitting the leather acreage of the back seat like it was a horse’s rump.

The butler, who had opened the rear door and was leaning in, looked apoplectic. “Madam, my sincerest apologies! Forgive me, I have been attempting to rouse you and—”

“It’s okay, it’s all right.” Jo pushed her hair out of her face and blinked as she glanced past his shoulder. “That’s where I live.”

Stupid response. Like he’d thrown a dart at a map of Caldwell’s suburbs and had no idea where they were?

“Yes, madam, I have returned you safely unto your abode.”

In another panicked flare-up—this time, an internal one—Jo went into her brain and double-checked what she remembered of the night. Thank God, she had it all: The fighting scene at the abandoned mall, the training center’s facilities, the blood tests… Manny and Butch… Syn.

Who she had not been able to say goodbye to. And who still hadn’t texted her back.

The butler stepped to the side as she got out, and even though he stood by her, clearly waiting to be dismissed, she had to take a moment to look toward the light in the horizon. A new day had arrived.

In more ways than one.

“Thank you,” she said to the—what were they called? Doggen?—butler.

“You are most welcome, madam.” The old male bowed low. “I will see you to your door the now.”

He closed the car up and locked it, and then they walked together to the entrance of her apartment building.

“How can you be out in the sunlight?” she asked.

The butler’s snow-white brows went up. “I, ah, it is my kind. We are able to tolerate it quite well. It helps us serve our masters. We can perform tasks that they cannot when the sun is high. It is our pleasure to be of indispensable utility.”

He reached forward to the heavy door, and Jo, concerned he would struggle, leaned in to help him with the weight. But that old man pulled things open like they didn’t weigh a thing.

So much stronger than he looked.

“So, um… thank you,” Jo said as she stepped inside.

She expected to say her goodbyes there. Instead, he followed her all the way to her apartment, a cheerful, sprightly figure in his formal uniform—who got some serious attention from her neighbors as they stepped out of their own door for their morning jog.

The couple from across the hall stopped dead in their Lululemons as they got a gander at him.

“Hi,” Jo said to the pair. No reason to make an introduction.

“Greetings,” the butler said as he bowed low.

Before he could offer to go in and scramble them up some eggs or maybe make their bed, Jo gave a wave that she hoped was the kind of hi-goodbye her fellow tenants would be efficient in returning.

And to think that a butler would be the least of the things she might have to explain.

After the couple hopped out of the building, Jo unlocked her door and turned to the doggen. “I’m going to say thank you again.”

“Call us if you need us, madam.” He presented her with a card and bowed low. “And I shall be pleased to collect you at any time.” o;You.”

As Jane spoke the word, Butch blanked for a moment—because, hello, after the night he’d had, he hadn’t expected to be adding family members to his Christmas list on top of everything else. But then he thought back to a photograph Manny had shown him a while ago, one of a man who had looked shockingly like Butch himself.

“Sonofabitch,” he murmured. “So the hunch was right.”

* * *

Talk about whiplash, Jo thought. So far this evening, she’d gone from thinking she had a mom, to learning she didn’t have that mom, to discovering who her father was… and adding two brothers to her family tree.

Oh, yeah, and then there was the whole vampire thing, too.

Details, details.

But at least she wasn’t the only one who was at the end of the bungee cord of life. Butch, the one with the Boston accent, the one she had seen that first night in the Red Sox baseball hat, the one who had seemed so nice earlier at the scene of all the carnage… was also looking a little poleaxed.

Join the club, she thought.

Doc Jane spoke up. “Yup. The bloodline database—which you’d previously given a sample to, but which Manny had not—confirms that you and Jo have a first-degree male ancestry in common with him. You all have the same father.”

“Holy… shit.” Butch looked over at the male with the goatee who he’d come in with. “So this means she’s also related to—”

The male cut him off. “We’re going to have to talk about the implications of it all later.”

“Yeah, we’re going to have to.”

When Butch turned to Jo, she rose to her feet and tried to not look as if she were recording every nuance of his face. “So… um. Hi.”

She stuck out her hand. And as it floated there on the breeze by its lonesome, she felt foolish and dropped her arm. Just because the male had accepted a guy he already knew so readily did not mean the courtesy had to be extended to a stranger who was more human than his kind. For the moment, at any rate.

“Sorry,” she said as she rubbed her palm on the seat of her jeans.

“Well, I’m not,” Butch said roughly. “It’s really nice to meet you, sis.”

The next thing she knew, she was being pulled into a hard hug—at the same time Manny was being yanked up off the sofa. Butch had the arm span to hold them both… and after a moment, Jo let herself fall into the embraces.

Her brothers.

For the first time in her life, she was among her own family, and part of her was overjoyed, her destination reached, the search over. The problem was, she knew better than to start making Sunday dinner plans for the next seven hundred years. If she didn’t go through her transition, they were going to have to make it so she remembered absolutely nothing about this seminal moment in her life.

Manny had explained how it had to work.

With the war coming to an end, there could be no chances with the secrecy of the race. Especially not with a human… who happened to be a reporter.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

About an hour before dawn, Jo was taken back to the real world, and what a chariot she had to ride off into the sunrise with. The long, powerful black Mercedes was, like, Uber Titanium or something—and naturally, it came with a driver in uniform.

Who happened to look like something out of a P. G. Wodehouse novel.

If he hadn’t been introduced to her as Fritz, she would have called him Jeeves.

Not that Jo spent all that much time talking to him. Before they pulled out of the underground parking garage, he apologized profusely and explained that the partition between the front and the back had to be raised for security purposes—and she’d told him she understood. But like there was any other response?

As a result, she knew nothing of where they were. The rear windows of the sedan were so deeply tinted, they might as well have been made of funeral draping, and then there were her eyelids. The subtle ride of the luxury suspension, coupled with the deep bucket seat, meant things felt like she was in a cradle, and after all the drama, it wasn’t long before she—

“Madam?”

Jo woke up with a spastic slapping, her panic-palms hitting the leather acreage of the back seat like it was a horse’s rump.

The butler, who had opened the rear door and was leaning in, looked apoplectic. “Madam, my sincerest apologies! Forgive me, I have been attempting to rouse you and—”

“It’s okay, it’s all right.” Jo pushed her hair out of her face and blinked as she glanced past his shoulder. “That’s where I live.”

Stupid response. Like he’d thrown a dart at a map of Caldwell’s suburbs and had no idea where they were?

“Yes, madam, I have returned you safely unto your abode.”

In another panicked flare-up—this time, an internal one—Jo went into her brain and double-checked what she remembered of the night. Thank God, she had it all: The fighting scene at the abandoned mall, the training center’s facilities, the blood tests… Manny and Butch… Syn.

Who she had not been able to say goodbye to. And who still hadn’t texted her back.

The butler stepped to the side as she got out, and even though he stood by her, clearly waiting to be dismissed, she had to take a moment to look toward the light in the horizon. A new day had arrived.

In more ways than one.

“Thank you,” she said to the—what were they called? Doggen?—butler.

“You are most welcome, madam.” The old male bowed low. “I will see you to your door the now.”

He closed the car up and locked it, and then they walked together to the entrance of her apartment building.

“How can you be out in the sunlight?” she asked.

The butler’s snow-white brows went up. “I, ah, it is my kind. We are able to tolerate it quite well. It helps us serve our masters. We can perform tasks that they cannot when the sun is high. It is our pleasure to be of indispensable utility.”

He reached forward to the heavy door, and Jo, concerned he would struggle, leaned in to help him with the weight. But that old man pulled things open like they didn’t weigh a thing.

So much stronger than he looked.

“So, um… thank you,” Jo said as she stepped inside.

She expected to say her goodbyes there. Instead, he followed her all the way to her apartment, a cheerful, sprightly figure in his formal uniform—who got some serious attention from her neighbors as they stepped out of their own door for their morning jog.

The couple from across the hall stopped dead in their Lululemons as they got a gander at him.

“Hi,” Jo said to the pair. No reason to make an introduction.

“Greetings,” the butler said as he bowed low.

Before he could offer to go in and scramble them up some eggs or maybe make their bed, Jo gave a wave that she hoped was the kind of hi-goodbye her fellow tenants would be efficient in returning.

And to think that a butler would be the least of the things she might have to explain.

After the couple hopped out of the building, Jo unlocked her door and turned to the doggen. “I’m going to say thank you again.”

“Call us if you need us, madam.” He presented her with a card and bowed low. “And I shall be pleased to collect you at any time.”