by J. R. Ward
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.”
He didn’t leave until she had closed herself in, and she was willing to bet he waited until he heard the turn of the dead bolt before taking off.
Going over to the big window in the front, she pushed the venetian blinds aside and waited for him to emerge onto the sidewalk and get back in the car. As the Mercedes eased away from the curb and drove off, she looked at the business card. Only a number. No name or address.
What did she expect, though. Vampires-R-Us?
The shaking started as she sat down on her couch, knees together, ankles touching, hands resting on her thighs, just as she had been taught by her adoptive parents.
As her eyes traveled around her meager belongings—the framed photograph of a field of sunflowers on her wall, the notebook she’d left out before she’d gone to work, the sweater draped over the chair in the alcove—she didn’t recognize anything at all. Not the things she owned or those she had recently touched. Not the towel she had used on her own body and hung on that rod there in the bath. Not the bed she could see through the open door, the one that she always slept in.
Jo didn’t recognize even the clothes she had on. The boots seemed owned by another, the jeans something borrowed, the fleece and jacket the sort of thing she had taken from a kind soul who had wanted her to stay warm in the brisk spring night.
And the longer she sat here, in a quiet that was only interrupted when the couple above her started moving around to begin their day, she became even more estranged from herself.
Memory by memory, Jo sifted through her childhood, her school days, her college era, and then, more recently, her job at that real estate company, her unrequited crush on her playboy boss, and her meeting of Bill that had gotten her to the CCJ.
From time to time, in a relationship, perhaps with a lover or a friend, maybe even with a family member, information came to you, either firsthand, through something you witnessed, or secondhand, through something you heard from a credible source, that changed everything.
Like a bright light turned on in a dim room, suddenly, you saw things that you had been unaware of. And now that you did see them, even if that light was later extinguished, you could not return to your earlier opinion of, and connection to, the space. The furnishings. The wallpaper and the lamp.
Forever changed.
It was a relatively normal phenomenon, inevitable as you opened your life to others.
You just never expected it to happen with your own self. Or at least Jo didn’t.
Fumbling into her pocket, she took out her phone. Syn still had not called or texted, and she told herself not to try him again.
A minute later, she was calling him, and when she got his voice mail, she meant to hang up. She told herself to hang up. She ordered her hand to drop the damn thing away from her ear—
“Syn,” she heard herself say. “I, ah…”
Closing her eyes, she added her second palm to the hold, as if the cell was a precious object with a slippery surface, prone to a drop-and-shatter from which she would never recover.
“Can you please call me. I need to talk to you. I need to talk to… someone.”
To you, she amended in her head.
Everybody she had met in that underground facility had been kind to her… solicitous, concerned, and beyond nonthreatening. But the one she wanted to connect to, the anchor for her, the voice she needed to hear, was Syn’s.
There were all kinds of reasons this made no sense.
But it was the only thing she could choose in this situation that was, on all other levels, so completely, fricking unreal and out of her control.
Of course, she could only do the dialing part on her end.
Whether he answered her?
That was another thing she had no influence over.
* * *
Butch was on his leather sofa in the Pit, legs stretched out laterally across the cushions, torso propped against the armrest, when V looked up from his Four Toys.
“According to the tunnel’s security camera, we’ve got another visitor.”
“Like Grand Central here this morning.” But Butch didn’t care. There was no sleep to be had. FFS, he couldn’t even pretend to be dozing. “Who is it?”
When there was a subtle knock, they both called out, “Yup!”
The door up from the underground tunnel opened, and—
“Balz,” V said as he refocused on his monitors. “How’re ya.”
The Bastard glanced down the hall where the bedrooms were. “You got a minute? Are your shellans asleep?”
“Nope.” Butch pushed himself up a little higher. “Marissa’s staying the day at Safe Place.”
“And Jane’s at the training center.” V sat back in his ass palace. “What’s up.”
Balthazar was the kind of thief who, after he’d been in your crib, you’d probably want to perform an inventory of every single thing that was worth more than five bucks—even if the guy had been right in front of you the entire time. Fortunately, he was also the kind of thief who had an off-limits safe list, and all members of the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood’s household, were on it.
“Have a seat,” Butch said as he bent his knees to create room. “You look like I feel.”
Balz came over and took a load off, groaning as he sat back. But instead of launching into whatever topic was clearly constipating his pie hole, he crossed his arms over his chest. Worked his jaw like he was trying to wear down the ridges of his back molars. Rolled his shoulder until it cracked.
“So your cousin was just here,” Butch murmured. “Did you miss Syn on purpose? Or is it luck.”
When the male didn’t say anything, Butch got to his feet and went to the kitchen. “Scotch?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Hand-rolled?” V offered from the computers.
“Yes. Please.”
The poor Bastard didn’t speak until he had drank half the Lag Butch poured him and smoked half the cigarette V gave him.
And when he decided to talk, he still had to clear his voice. “So, Butch… I understand that you’re a direct relation of Jo Early, the half-breed—”
“Please don’t call her that,” Butch said.
Balz inclined his head in deference. “My apologies. The female.”
“Thanks. And yeah, she’s my sister.”
“Indeed…” Balz tossed back the last of the scotch. “Look, there’s no easy way to say this. Syn has asked me to be the one who attends to her. In the event the change comes.”
Butch sat up. “Excuse me? No offense, but what the hell business of it is his—”
“He’s bonded with her.”
Easing back into his recline, Butch decided he was really done with life’s little curveballs. Although… “You know, in a way, this is a good thing. I was getting ready to have a super-fun conversation with the guy—’cuz there’s no way I want him alone with my sister.”
Balz took a drag on his hand-rolled. “He’s never done anything like this before.”
“You mean fed a female in her transition?”
“No, watched out for one like this.” Balz tapped his cigarette into his empty glass. “And I’m the closest one to him. Which is why he asked me.”
“What’d you say?” V asked.
“I have a bad habit of cleaning up after my cousin. So of course, it was a yes. I figured you”—he glanced at Butch—“would be witnessing the transition if it comes for her. You and Manny, that is. No matter what Syn’s saying, you two are in charge. She’s an unmated female, and you’re her closest male relations. It’s ultimately your choice.”
Butch stared at the guy wi
th fresh eyes. Funny how you considered a male differently when he was going to get close to your sister.
The only opinion he’d ever had about Balz was that you wanted to chain your wallet when he was around—preferably inside your pants. Other than that? The fighter was brutal in the field, quick with the snark, and you had to respect the way he looked after that loose cannon cousin of his. So all the way around, he was a good addition to the roster.
Now, though, Butch thought the Bastard was a little too good-looking. Too well-built. Too well used—and by that, he was not talking about in-the-field hours.
More in-the-sheets was what he was thinking.
“You will witness it,” Balz repeated. “Nothing will happen other than her at my wrist. I swear on my grandmahmen—who is the only female I have ever honored.”
As the Bastard looked over, his eyes did not waver. And after a tense moment, Butch found himself nodding.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll consent. Have you talked with Manny about this?”
“I figured I’d start with you.”
“Tell Manny it’s okay with me—but he and I will both be there, so you need his permission, too.”
“Of course. I’d expect nothing less. If it were my sister, I’d do the same.”
“And Jo gets a vote. If for some reason—”
“Absolutely.” Balz put his hand up. “If she doesn’t like me, we’ll get someone else.”
“Assuming there’s time,” V interjected. “Personal choice is all well and good, but biology is going to win this argument.”
“She can meet him at nightfall,” Butch said.
“Anywhere, anytime. It’s all about whatever makes her feel more comfortable.”
This was going to work out, Butch thought when the Bastard eventually left.
If only because Syn was likely not to kill the very guy he’d asked to take care of Jo.
Or at least… there was a better than average chance that he wouldn’t. Bonded males were a thing. And that was before you added on that Bastard’s penchant for murder.
“Can you tell me if she is going to live?” Butch asked his roommate tightly.
V leaned out around the monitors again, and his diamond eyes answered the question before his voice did. “I’m sorry.”
“Nah, it’s cool. I know what we’re up against. It’s just… I lost one sister already. I don’t want to lose another.”
Although technically, he’d lost all of his family—even his mother, in spite of the fact that he could still see her. Odell O’Neal had Alzheimer’s and was in a nursing home. Which was the only reason he could visit her on occasion.
“Can we keep Jo,” he said, “even if she stays human. And I don’t mean as in, in a closet somewhere. If she’s related to me, she’s related to Wrath—and he needs to know this.”
“He already does. Jane told him everything.”
“So he’ll let Jo stay.”
“I don’t know. It’s a big risk.”
“Manny’s here.”
“Because Payne mated him. You think Syn’s getting her name carved in his back anytime soon?”
“Jane’s here.”
“I let her go first, though.” V got a distant look in his eyes. “Worst hot chocolate I ever made.”
“Murhder has Sarah.”
“Again. See also, mated male and shellan.”
“Goddamn it. Doesn’t it count if she’s my sister? Manny’s?”
“If she stays a human? I don’t know, cop. I really don’t. What I am sure about is that we’re stretched thin as it is and the war is hitting a crucial point. Plus there’s that little supernatural bait-and-switch shit with that ‘old friend’ of yours in the basement of that building we visited tonight. You want to tell where, in this panoply of crap, we have room for an unattended human to come join the party?”
Butch cursed and looked at the glass Balz had been drinking out of. If his stomach still wasn’t iffy from what he’d done in the Tomb, he would have been sucking back the Lag like you read about.
But he was kind of done with the sucking for the foreseeable future.
Or… at least until nightfall.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
You’re fired. Effective immediately.”
As Jo sat across from Dick in his office at the paper, she was somehow not surprised. What was a shocker, if you considered the strong-arm tactics she had used just earlier in the week to keep her byline, was that she really didn’t give a shit.
Having made his pronouncement from on high, Dick smiled with all the trademark satisfaction of a letch who had gotten what he wanted. Not sex, this time, no. But she was out, and that clearly made him a happy congestive heart failure patient.
“And before you ask, Miss Early, we’re restructuring the newsroom and eliminating the online editorial position as part of a further round of cost savings.” Dick sat back in his chair and put his hands on the flanks of his protruding stomach like he’d just eaten. “Going forward, we’re outsourcing all our online support. It’s the wave of the future. So there is no way you can frame this in any other fashion, and I’ve already cleared it with our lawyers. If you try any kind of retaliation against me personally, regardless of what you may think the grounds are, I’m afraid I won’t be able to give you a reference—”
Jo got up. “Do I get severance or am I filing unemployment right away?”
Dick blinked like her pragmatism had stunned him. “Two weeks’ severance, effective today, and you’ll have health benefits through COBRA for eighteen months. But I want you out of the newsroom right now.”
“Fine. Do you have anything for me to sign?”
“My lawyer is mailing everything to your home address with instructions. But you have the termination letter on your email as we speak. It is nonnegotiable, however.”
“All right, then.”
As she turned and walked away from him, she could sense his confusion. But it wasn’t the kind of thing she was going to bother clearing up for him.
“I’m serious, Early,” he belted out. “Don’t try anything. You won’t like what happens to you.”
With her hand on the doorknob, she looked over her shoulder. “I’ll sign everything and you won’t hear from me again. And you won’t last long at that desk. It’s a race between the paper closing and your heart clogging from that diet of yours. Either way, I’ll leave you to your fate.”
She didn’t wait for a response, and closed the door quietly behind herself. Heading over to her desk, she sat down and glanced at Bill.
Her friend was staring at the monitor in front of him, clearly not seeing the email displayed on it.
“So I’m going now,” she said.
Bill jumped and glanced over. “Sorry, what was that?”
She swiveled her chair to face her friend. “I’m leaving.”
“It’s early for lunch—”
“They’re eliminating my position.”
“He just fired you?” Bill said with a recoil.
She put her hand out before he could entertain any thoughts of trying to be a hero. “No, it’s okay. Really. I’ll find something else. I’d rather you keep your job than have my own.”
Bill glanced at all the empty desks around them and then pedaled his rolling chair over to her. As he kept his voice low, she was tempted to tell him not to worry about discretion. It wasn’t like there was anybody else to hear.
“You should fight this,” he whispered. “You’ve done tremendous reporting on the—”
“Like I said, I’ll find something else. The economy’s good, you know? And at least I have some bylines now.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll land on my feet. I always do.”
“This isn’t right.”
“Actually, it’s good timing.” She looked at her uncluttered desk and realized she didn’t need a box to put her personal things in. She had no “personal things” to box. “I feel the need to reinvent myself.”
&n
bsp; “Away from Caldwell?”
“Yes. And Pennsylvania. And… anywhere else I’ve ever been.” Jo looked at her friend and knew she was covering her bases. Whether she went through the transition or not, she was not staying where she was. “But we’ll still keep in touch, I promise. You and Lydia have been beyond good friends to me.”
As her phone went off, she didn’t bother checking to see who was calling. It was undoubtedly another scammer. Telemarketer. Survey about nothing she wanted to be surveyed about.
It sure as hell wasn’t going to be Syn.
“Let me send you all my notes and drafts so you’re up to speed on the articles.” Jo signed into her computer. “I’ll email them now before my login gets canceled.”
After she was finished, she turned to Bill. Her friend was staring down at the floor.
“I’m going to be fine,” she told him.
“It’s not right.” He shook his head. “Dick is…”
“Named appropriately.” Jo leaned down under her desk and got her purse. “We can just leave it at that.”
To make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, she quickly went through all the drawers. Nothing but stationery and office supplies that were owned by the paper anyway.
“I don’t know how to cancel my pass card,” she murmured.
“I can take care of it. I was the one who created it.”
“Okay.” She got up. “So… I guess I’ll see you around, okay?”
“Promise?”
As the man stared up at her in a forlorn way, she had a feeling she wasn’t going to see him again. Or maybe that was just her mood talking, rather than any kind of prescience. Either way, her chest hurt.
“Yes, I promise,” Jo said.
Before there could be any kind of awkward hug thing happening, she took her swipe card out of her jacket pocket and handed it to Bill.
“That’s that,” she said with a smile.
Giving his shoulder a pat, she walked away, heading for the rear door into the parking lot. Before she stepped out for the last time, she glanced back. She had liked the job. She had loved Bill.
“Tell Tony I said bye?” she called out.
