The enforcer shook his head. “Not yet. I’m going to start with your parents. Your mother first. Then your father. And it’s not going to be pretty.” The male’s stare never wavered. “I’ve been ordered to tie her up and shave her head first—then rape her and cut her so she bleeds out slow. Your father is going to watch it all and then what I do to him will be worse. If you honor them in any way, talk to your brother. Get him to the Territory. Make him do the right thing. She’s not going to stop until she gets him—and just so we’re clear, I will not hesitate to do my job.”
iAm braced his hands on the granite counter and leaned into his arms. The situation with their parents was … complicated, to use a Facebook term. But that didn’t mean he wanted them dead and/or desecrated.
As s’Ex got to his feet and slung his executioner’s hood over his shoulder, iAm heard himself say, “You didn’t touch your coffee.”
“You might have poisoned it.” The enforcer shrugged. “I don’t take chances with anybody—sorry.”
“Smart.” iAm measured the male. “But then, you’re a real professional.”
“And I have my reputation for a good reason, iAm.”
“I know.” He cursed under his breath. “I am well aware of your work.”
“Don’t pull my trigger. I didn’t have parents, and wish I had. I’m not looking forward to this.”
“Goddamn it, it’s not up to me.” iAm curled up two fists. “And I don’t know if Trez is going to care, to be honest. He hates them.”
s’Ex shook his head. “That’s not good news. For any of you.”
“Why the hell can’t she just get someone else.”
“Not a question I’d be asking if I were you.” s’Ex looked around the apartment. “Nice place, by the way. Just my style—and I’ve been enjoying the view while I’m here.”
iAm narrowed his eyes at the odd tone in that deep voice. Son of a bitch … “You get it, don’t you.”
“What? How someone would want out of the Territory. To be free to live their own life.” Abruptly, s’Ex’s face turned into a mask. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The enforcer turned away and stalked back to the slider. As he moved, his robes wafted behind him, his body shifting with the grace of a predator.
“s’Ex.”
The male looked over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
iAm reached out and took the coffee he’d poured for his guest. Lifting it to his lips, he drank long and hard, finishing the shit on a oner even as it burned its way down to his gut.
As he put the empty mug back down, the enforcer bowed. “You have more honor than most, iAm. And that’s why I came to you. I actually like you—not that that’s going to help you much further than tonight.”
“I appreciate it.”
The enforcer looked around, as if he were storing the memories for later. “Back at the s’Hisbe, I’ll do what I can to delay things, but this is on you. Your brother may be the one with his neck in a noose—but you’re the guy who’s going to have to get him where he needs to go.”
“He’s not clean, you realize.”
“How so?”
“He’s been f**king humans. A lot of them.”
s’Ex threw his head back and laughed. “I should goddamn hope so. If I were on the outside, I would.”
“Bet your queen won’t feel like that.”
“She’s your ruler, too—and I wouldn’t play that card if I were you.” s’Ex pointed his forefinger across the distance. “She’ll put him through a cleanse, and if he survives that—which is not a foregone conclusion—he’ll never be the same. You need to shut your f**king mouth on his love life, trust me. Oh, and AnsLai doesn’t know I’ve come. Let’s keep this our little secret, shall we.”
After the enforcer went out and disappeared into thin air, iAm strode over and closed the door. Then he proceeded directly to the bar at the far end of the open space and poured himself a bourbon.
Looked like Trez’s get-out-of-jail-free card had a hole in it: His sex addiction was not going to be the turnoff they’d been hoping it would.
Great.
And if s’Ex hadn’t shown up here and told him to keep all that f**king on the QT? God only knew what would have happened.
He hadn’t even heard about cleansing, but he could guess.
One thing was sure: He never thought in a million years he’d ever owe that coldhearted executioner a solid. Then again, it looked like Trez wasn’t the only one balking at the restrictions of the Territory.
The question was … now what. And he had about ten minutes to figure the shit out before the high priest got here.
FIFTEEN
“I never expected to see you again. They said you’d left town.”
As St. Francis’s Chief of Neurology leaned into the computer screen, the guy seemed to be talking to himself. And sure enough, as Manny Manello didn’t answer him, he didn’t seem to care.
Beth stepped in a little closer to take a look herself—although, come on, it wasn’t as if the multiple views of her brother’s brain up on that monitor meant anything to her. Hopefully, however, this guy in the white coat with the impressive credentials came at things from a different angle.
The dim anteroom they were all squeezed into was like something out of a Star Trek episode, high-tech equipment whirring and blinking, the massive MRI machine in the chamber beyond kept separate by a thick plate-glass window. And actually, the neurologist, sitting in front of that banked console, was kind of like Lieutenant Sulu as he faced off at the computer screens, the keyboards, a telephone or two, another laptop.
“How long did this most recent seizure last?” the neurologist asked absently.
“About fifteen minutes,” Beth answered as John glanced over at her.
“Any numbness or tingling?”
When John shook his head, Beth said, “No. Nothing.”
John had come out of the hollow doughnut about ten minutes ago and changed from his hospital johnny back into his relatively innocuous-looking jeans and Giants T-shirt. The IV that had pumped contrast into his body was out of his arm, a little white Band-Aid in the place of its needle, and his shitkickers were back on.
He’d left his weapons at home.
Xhex, however, was fully loaded as she stood next to him, a black Nike baseball cap pulled down low over her eyes. Payne was the other backup, the fighter dressed in black and wearing the same kind of loose coat John’s wife was.