“Front?” Butch swung his head around, his eyes positively violent. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t pretend . . . you don’t know what this is like. I’ve seen you on a bender. . . . I’ve seen—” He coughed. “I’ve seen you drunk on your feet with a glass in both hands. So do not go holier-than-thou on me.”
Butch refocused on the road. “You are a miserable son of a bitch.”
“Whatever.”
Yup, that was about it for the convo.
By the time Butch tooled up in front of the mansion, both of them were wincing and blinking like they’d been hit in the puss with Mace: The sun was still buried on the far side of the horizon, but it was close enough to put a blush in the sky that was only a few megawatts south of deadly to a vampire.
They didn’t go into the big house. No fucking way. Last Meal was about to get its knife and fork on, and given both their moods, there was no reason to feed the gossip mill.
Without saying another word, V walked into the Pit and beelined for his bedroom. There was no seeing Jane or his sister looking like this, for real. Hell, given what his mug felt like, there might be no seeing them even after a shower.
In the bath, he started the water and disarmed in the dark—which involved all of taking his one dagger out of the belt holster around his waist and putting it on the counter. His clothes were filthy, covered with blood and wax and other shit, and he let them fall on the floor, unsure what he was going to do with them.
Then he got under the spray before it was warm. As the cold water hit his face and pecs, he hissed, the shock shooting down into his cock and hardening him—not that he felt any interest in doing something about the erection. He just closed his eyes as his blood and the blood of his enemy sluiced off his body and got sucked down the drain.
Man, after he got his shit washed up, he was so going to put a turtleneck on. His face was fucked-up, but maybe that could be explained away by his having been in a fight with the enemy. Turning himself into a black-and-blue canvas from head to foot?
Not so much.
Hanging his head and letting the water run off his nose and chin, he tried desperately to go back to the numb floats he’d had in the car, but with the pain fading, his drug of choice was losing its grip on him and the world was getting too clear again.
God, the sense of being out of control and pissed off choked him sure as if there were hands around his throat.
Fucking Butch. Do-gooder, nosy-ass, interfering son of a bitch.
Ten minutes later, he stepped out, grabbed a black towel, and stemmed-to-sterned the terry cloth as he walked into the bedroom. Popping open his closet, he willed a black candle on and . . . got an eyeful of wife-beaters. And leathers. Which was what happened to your wardrobe when you fought for a living and slept naked.
Not a turtleneck in sight.
Well, maybe the damage wasn’t so bad—
A quick pivot to the mirror on the back of the door and even he had to pause. He looked like he’d been clawed by Rhage’s beast, great stripes of angry red welts wrapping around his torso and pouring over his shoulders and his pecs. His face was a fucking joke, one eye so swollen that the lid was nearly inoperable . . . his lower lip split deep . . . his jaw looking like he was a squirrel stashing nuts.
Great. He was like one of Dana White’s boys.
After he grabbed his dirty clothes and stuffed them into the back of the closet, he stuck his swollen balloon head out in the hall, and took a listen. ESPN was chattering away down on the left. Something liquid was pouring to the right.
He headed for Butch and Marissa’s room buck-ass naked. No reason to hide the bruising from Butch—SOB had seen it happen.
As he stepped into the doorway, he found the cop sitting on the end of his bed, elbows on his knees, glass of Lag in his palms, bottle between his loafers.
“You know what I’m thinking about right now?” the guy said without looking up.
V could guess it was a hell of a list. “Tell me.”
“The night I watched you throw yourself off the balcony at the Commodore. The night I thought you’d died.” Butch took a swig from his glass. “I assumed we were over that.”
“If it’s any consolation . . . so did I.”
“Why don’t you go see your mom. Talk this shit out with her.”
Like there was anything that female could say at this point? “I’d kill her, cop. I don’t know how I’d do it . . . but I’d kill the bitch for this. She leaves me to that sociopath of a father—being precisely aware of what he’s like, because, hello, she sees all. Then she keeps herself a secret from me for three hundred years, before she turns up on my birthday and wants to put me out to stud for her stupid-ass religion. But I could have punted on that shiz, true? My sister, my twin, though? She put Payne away, cop. Held her against her will. For centuries. And never told me I even had a sibling? That’s too fucking much. I’m done.” V stared at the Lag. “You got some juice to spare there?”
Butch corked the bottle and tossed the thing. As V caught it in his palm, the cop said, “Waking up dead is not the answer, though. And neither is getting your ass kicked like that.”