Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Kane closed his eyes. “I am so sorry, Nadya.”
“I found out because… I overheard some of the males who were doing the drug deals down in Caldwell talking about the raids. They mentioned specific houses and I knew where my sire and mahmen had gone to work because, back when I was living with the nurse, I would return to their house to check on them from afar. When they moved out, the new family in our home gave me their forwarding address. That’s how I found out the name of the mansion. That’s how I recognized the name when I heard the males say it.”
Her voice cracked at the end. And then she lowered her hands into her lap.
“I am grateful for what you did for me. But I will go back to the prison camp because that is all I have.”
Kane cursed. Because he didn’t know what else to do.
Then he sat forward on the sofa. “Look at me. Nadya. Look up, at me.”
When her focus shifted to him, he braced his palms on his knees. “You were about to be killed. When I found you? You were mounted on that wall like a piece of meat, and they were going to kill you. If you want to fall on the sword of your guilt, or whatever it is? That’s your business. I’ll take you back myself. But you’ll be dead before I’m off the property.”
She blinked. A number of times.
As tears came to her eyes, he cursed again and got up to walk away, but where was he going? When he found himself standing over the sink, he ran some water and splashed his face a couple of times. There was a roll of soft paper by the basin, and he dried himself off.
Then he pivoted around and leaned back against the counter. He tried to imagine taking her back to that abandoned human hospital, with its underground cruelties and its drug dealing and all those guards.
He’d thought she wouldn’t last without protection before. Now she was on the guards’ list of things to do. He might as well drive her up to the Fade and drop her off in front of that white door.
“Why do you care so much,” she asked.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he didn’t know, he really didn’t.
Instead, the truth jumped out of his mouth: “I couldn’t save my shellan. I guess I’ve decided to try to save you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The following evening, after night had fallen, V was in the Pit, sitting in front of his Four Toys and playing with his mouse. Which was not as sexy as it sounded. His dick’s nickname had nothing to do with any of the thirty-eight or more species in the genus Mus, so, yes, he was actually moving his wireless palm puck around in circles.
“You coming to First Meal?”
His roommate was talking as he came down the hallway from where the bedrooms were, and as Butch stepped into the living room, the former homicide detective was dressed for the field. Instead of as someone from the cast of Bridgerton.
Fucker might have had a narrow wardrobe when he’d been human, but he’d been making up for the deficit ever since. He had more clothes than the Metropolitan Museum had art. Unfortunately, most were in the hallway that led down to their cribs. Every time V had to leave his and Doc Jane’s room, he felt like he was in the last thirty feet of a car wash. The fact that he hadn’t taken a flamethrower to the threads proved how much he loved the guy.
“Hello?” Butch said. “You in there?”
“I think we need to start at the beginning.”
The cop’s brows popped up over his baby hazels. “Well, considering that involved Fritz asking you all to kill me out behind the house because he didn’t want to bloody his rugs—I mean, do we have to go back there?”
“Har-har.”
V watched his arrow make the perimeter around the Firefox window he’d opened to the Caldwell Courier Journal’s website. Then he switched over to his Microsoft Outlook. “Why the hell is there so much spam. I spend my fucking life sending things to my junk folder—and every fucking night, it’s a new crop dusting. Like I’ve ever ordered anything from Wayfair?”
“Oh, that was me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Shoe sorter. You know the ones you hang on the backs of closet doors?”
V sat deeper into his chair. “You already have one of those.”
“I’m going to hang the new one on the wall. Like it’s art.”
“Jesus.”
Butch made the sign of the cross and went over to the leather sofa. “So, what are we going back to the beginning on.”
“Finding the prison camp. We need to follow the drugs again. That’s the income source for the place, and no matter where they are or who is in charge, they will keep that business going. Even if they change the packaging, we’ll be able to track them down somehow.”