The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood 16)

V took a drag and spoke through the exhale. “Kind of a change for you and your capitalistic mores.”

“Money means little to me now.”

Vishous frowned, his dark brows sinking low over his bright white eyes, those tattoos at his temple shifting shape. “Yeah. I know that feeling. It sucks when you lose your female.”

“I told you, I’m not talking about it.”

The Brother got to his feet. “I need you to do what you have to in order to set things up for me and your supplier, but move quick. These attacks are happening regularly.”

“Aye. I shall have to get home to arrange things, however. The phone that I use is there.”

“I’ll have someone drive you out—”

“Actually, just send someone to the house, will you? Tell my cousins that the burner is in the left top drawer of my desk.”

“Roger that. Thanks.”

As Vishous strode to the door, his heavy boots marking the path with hard strikes, Assail envied the Brother his purpose…but it was rather in the way one might view an artifact from an ancient civilization, a leftover from a period in history long, long ago.

An anachronism that was naught but a curiosity without current relevance.

Before Vishous opened the way out, the Brother looked across the break room. “You know, you don’t have to strike her memories. You can keep her, if you want. Wrath’s a lot more lenient about that shit—and he should be, considering his Queen is a half-breed.”

Assail thought about brushing the conversation point off, but instead he shrugged. “A fine piece of advice, and much appreciated. However, my female is summarily horrified by me, so I’m afraid that will not be a course of action which will be available to me now or in the future.”

“That sucks.”

“You know, I find you have put together two most salient words on the subject.”

When Vishous left without any expression of heartfelt emotion or deep, male-tinted commiseration, Assail began to truly like and appreciate the Brother. And as for this new threat to the species? There was a time when it would have at least moderately intrigued him—insofar as it might possibly have affected his ability to garner income. Now, he was providing an introduction only out of a lukewarm obligation to…

Hell, he didn’t know why he was bothering at all. The idea some innocent had been killed by the Omega was not a newsflash, and he certainly wasn’t scared of the Brotherhood retaliating against him if he chose not to honor his word. That fear, after all, would have required some interest in staying alive, and he had none—

As the door opened again, he didn’t bother to look up. “More advice? Or another demand.”

“Neither,” Marisol said.

Assail whipped his head up. “Marisol…”

She frowned at that, and he guessed she didn’t want her name rolling off his lips ever again. But instead of setting that boundary, she cleared her throat.

“I need to go to your house at some point. I want to get my things and the car. There’s no hurry, though. At least not until my grandmother is released.”

She was so beautiful as she stood there in her casual clothes of winter, the black fleece bringing out that blond hair she’d given herself, her blue jeans loose and comfortable, her shoes practical for the season.

To him, she might as well have been in a ball gown and draped in jewels—

Abruptly, her weight went back and forth, and she crossed her arms around herself as if the way he were looking at her made her uncomfortable.

“As you wish,” he said, lowering his eyes. “Whenever you want to go, just let me know—and if you don’t feel comfortable with me coming along, then you may of course go with whomever you wish.”

“Except during the day,” she said bitterly. “Isn’t that right.”

After a moment, he replied, “That is correct.”

* * *

—

You know, Sola thought, it would be so much easier to be angry if the guy didn’t look so hollowed out and defeated.

Across the break room, Assail sat in a chair that, under different circumstances, she would have said was far beneath his standards: For all the time she had known him, he had had the air of a wealthy man. No, it was more than just wealthy. It was rich-for-all-of-his-life, the arrogance and intelligence he had worn along with his handmade clothes the kind of thing that she suspected came only when generation after generation of a family had had tremendous assets.

The kind of thing, for example, that Ricardo Benloise had tried to approximate, but had never quite gotten right.

“I should go,” she muttered.

Yet for some reason, she just stood there. As opposed to retreating out into the corridor and…well, just standing out there.

She and Jane had talked for only a little bit longer after she had laid down the law about leaving—and then, whether it was that tea or just exhaustion, Sola had leaned back and crashed for a good hour and a half. When she’d woken up, Jane had been texting on her phone and looking worried—and the woman had seemed relieved to be able to come back to the clinic and return to work. Or maybe it was something else.

Who knew, and Sola most certainly hadn’t asked. She already had too much banging around in her brain.

“Is there anything else you require?” Assail said without lifting his head.

Yeah, actually, can we go back to when you were just a recovering cocaine addict who had given up a life of crime and the two of us were going to off-into-the-horizon together to live happily ever after with my grandmother?

“I can’t decide whether I wish you had told me sooner or not at all,” she heard herself say.

“I can answer that.” He moved his head back and forth as if his neck were sore. “Not at all would have been better.”

“So you like being a liar.”

“When it comes to you”—his moonlight-colored eyes looked up at her—“I do not. Which was how you and I have come unto this estrangement. No, I say that rather because you looking at me as if I am a dangerous stranger is a far, far worse reality than even my deepest stretch of paranoia.”

“Don’t guilt-trip me.”

“ ’Tis a statement of fact. And besides, there is no guilting you about anything. I know you far too well for that—”

“You don’t know me at all.”

“Indeed? That is an incorrect statement. I believe the correct one is that you wish I didn’t know you.”

His eyes shifted away and yet did not seem to light on any concrete object.

“I want to throw things at you,” she blurted. “I want to curse you and punch you, and if I had a gun, I would shoot you.”

“I can get you a weapon, and there is a gun range down here.”

“Do not mock me.”

“I am not. Trust me, death is preferable to this state I am currently in.”

As he rubbed his palms together, she couldn’t tell whether he was trying to warm that which was cold or was regarding with glee the prospect of a grave.

“Do you have any idea how hard this is?” she said abruptly, tears forming in her eyes. “To be here, once again.”

Assail looked up in alarm, and she spoke before he could ask anything. “My father…” She brushed her cheeks impatiently. “My father was everything to me when I was young. He was my hero, he was my protector, he was…my world. He worked outside of the home my grandmother and I lived in, and I didn’t see him very often—but when he came to stay with us from time to time and brought us money for food and blankets and clothes, I idolized him.”

Well, shit, she thought as her eyes refused to get with the program and dry the fuck up.

“I was twelve years old when I found out what he was doing—what his work was, what he was. He was a thief. He stole things from people and for people—and worse that than, he was a druggie. The shit he gave us? He didn’t buy any of it. I found out later it was always handouts he got from shelters or churches. He never took care of us—he just wanted it to seem like that was the case.”

Her tears were coming so hard now, she stopped bothering to try to mop them up. “When he got arrested and was put in jail the first time, he sent word to my grandmother in the village we stayed in. He had a stash of money he kept in the walls of our shitty house, and she got it out and gave it to me. She told me to take it to the jail and bribe the officials to let him out.” k a drag and spoke through the exhale. “Kind of a change for you and your capitalistic mores.”

“Money means little to me now.”

Vishous frowned, his dark brows sinking low over his bright white eyes, those tattoos at his temple shifting shape. “Yeah. I know that feeling. It sucks when you lose your female.”

“I told you, I’m not talking about it.”

The Brother got to his feet. “I need you to do what you have to in order to set things up for me and your supplier, but move quick. These attacks are happening regularly.”

“Aye. I shall have to get home to arrange things, however. The phone that I use is there.”

“I’ll have someone drive you out—”

“Actually, just send someone to the house, will you? Tell my cousins that the burner is in the left top drawer of my desk.”

“Roger that. Thanks.”

As Vishous strode to the door, his heavy boots marking the path with hard strikes, Assail envied the Brother his purpose…but it was rather in the way one might view an artifact from an ancient civilization, a leftover from a period in history long, long ago.

An anachronism that was naught but a curiosity without current relevance.

Before Vishous opened the way out, the Brother looked across the break room. “You know, you don’t have to strike her memories. You can keep her, if you want. Wrath’s a lot more lenient about that shit—and he should be, considering his Queen is a half-breed.”

Assail thought about brushing the conversation point off, but instead he shrugged. “A fine piece of advice, and much appreciated. However, my female is summarily horrified by me, so I’m afraid that will not be a course of action which will be available to me now or in the future.”

“That sucks.”

“You know, I find you have put together two most salient words on the subject.”

When Vishous left without any expression of heartfelt emotion or deep, male-tinted commiseration, Assail began to truly like and appreciate the Brother. And as for this new threat to the species? There was a time when it would have at least moderately intrigued him—insofar as it might possibly have affected his ability to garner income. Now, he was providing an introduction only out of a lukewarm obligation to…

Hell, he didn’t know why he was bothering at all. The idea some innocent had been killed by the Omega was not a newsflash, and he certainly wasn’t scared of the Brotherhood retaliating against him if he chose not to honor his word. That fear, after all, would have required some interest in staying alive, and he had none—

As the door opened again, he didn’t bother to look up. “More advice? Or another demand.”

“Neither,” Marisol said.

Assail whipped his head up. “Marisol…”

She frowned at that, and he guessed she didn’t want her name rolling off his lips ever again. But instead of setting that boundary, she cleared her throat.

“I need to go to your house at some point. I want to get my things and the car. There’s no hurry, though. At least not until my grandmother is released.”

She was so beautiful as she stood there in her casual clothes of winter, the black fleece bringing out that blond hair she’d given herself, her blue jeans loose and comfortable, her shoes practical for the season.

To him, she might as well have been in a ball gown and draped in jewels—

Abruptly, her weight went back and forth, and she crossed her arms around herself as if the way he were looking at her made her uncomfortable.

“As you wish,” he said, lowering his eyes. “Whenever you want to go, just let me know—and if you don’t feel comfortable with me coming along, then you may of course go with whomever you wish.”

“Except during the day,” she said bitterly. “Isn’t that right.”

After a moment, he replied, “That is correct.”

* * *

—

You know, Sola thought, it would be so much easier to be angry if the guy didn’t look so hollowed out and defeated.

Across the break room, Assail sat in a chair that, under different circumstances, she would have said was far beneath his standards: For all the time she had known him, he had had the air of a wealthy man. No, it was more than just wealthy. It was rich-for-all-of-his-life, the arrogance and intelligence he had worn along with his handmade clothes the kind of thing that she suspected came only when generation after generation of a family had had tremendous assets.

The kind of thing, for example, that Ricardo Benloise had tried to approximate, but had never quite gotten right.

“I should go,” she muttered.

Yet for some reason, she just stood there. As opposed to retreating out into the corridor and…well, just standing out there.

She and Jane had talked for only a little bit longer after she had laid down the law about leaving—and then, whether it was that tea or just exhaustion, Sola had leaned back and crashed for a good hour and a half. When she’d woken up, Jane had been texting on her phone and looking worried—and the woman had seemed relieved to be able to come back to the clinic and return to work. Or maybe it was something else.

Who knew, and Sola most certainly hadn’t asked. She already had too much banging around in her brain.

“Is there anything else you require?” Assail said without lifting his head.

Yeah, actually, can we go back to when you were just a recovering cocaine addict who had given up a life of crime and the two of us were going to off-into-the-horizon together to live happily ever after with my grandmother?

“I can’t decide whether I wish you had told me sooner or not at all,” she heard herself say.

“I can answer that.” He moved his head back and forth as if his neck were sore. “Not at all would have been better.”

“So you like being a liar.”

“When it comes to you”—his moonlight-colored eyes looked up at her—“I do not. Which was how you and I have come unto this estrangement. No, I say that rather because you looking at me as if I am a dangerous stranger is a far, far worse reality than even my deepest stretch of paranoia.”

“Don’t guilt-trip me.”

“ ’Tis a statement of fact. And besides, there is no guilting you about anything. I know you far too well for that—”

“You don’t know me at all.”

“Indeed? That is an incorrect statement. I believe the correct one is that you wish I didn’t know you.”

His eyes shifted away and yet did not seem to light on any concrete object.

“I want to throw things at you,” she blurted. “I want to curse you and punch you, and if I had a gun, I would shoot you.”

“I can get you a weapon, and there is a gun range down here.”

“Do not mock me.”

“I am not. Trust me, death is preferable to this state I am currently in.”

As he rubbed his palms together, she couldn’t tell whether he was trying to warm that which was cold or was regarding with glee the prospect of a grave.

“Do you have any idea how hard this is?” she said abruptly, tears forming in her eyes. “To be here, once again.”

Assail looked up in alarm, and she spoke before he could ask anything. “My father…” She brushed her cheeks impatiently. “My father was everything to me when I was young. He was my hero, he was my protector, he was…my world. He worked outside of the home my grandmother and I lived in, and I didn’t see him very often—but when he came to stay with us from time to time and brought us money for food and blankets and clothes, I idolized him.”

Well, shit, she thought as her eyes refused to get with the program and dry the fuck up.

“I was twelve years old when I found out what he was doing—what his work was, what he was. He was a thief. He stole things from people and for people—and worse that than, he was a druggie. The shit he gave us? He didn’t buy any of it. I found out later it was always handouts he got from shelters or churches. He never took care of us—he just wanted it to seem like that was the case.”

Her tears were coming so hard now, she stopped bothering to try to mop them up. “When he got arrested and was put in jail the first time, he sent word to my grandmother in the village we stayed in. He had a stash of money he kept in the walls of our shitty house, and she got it out and gave it to me. She told me to take it to the jail and bribe the officials to let him out.”