The Beast

Indeed, he looked as dead as he felt. But he reached into his inside suit coat for his cell phone anyway.

* * *

Vishous was heading past the training center’s weight room and gym when his cell phone went off, thanks to the training center’s Wi-Fi. Taking the thing out of his ass pocket, he put his code in and then smiled at the text.

It was a picture from Assail—of the back of a dark haired female’s head as she was bent doggy-style over a sofa. The message below was short and to the point: I am in.

Gd job, V typed back. Enjoy t ride.

“And bring us back some shit,” he said as he returned the phone to its place.

That male’s addiction was a potential problem, but it appeared as if Wrath had made the right call with the sonofabitch. Assail looked good, had money, and was a total bastard with the right bloodline. He was the perfect ringer to plant in the glymera.

The question was going to be what he found out. And how long he was going to be a good boy and play by the rules.

Any independent thinking on his part and V was going to slit that throat open wider than a garage door. But until that time came, Assail was solidly in the Useful, Allow to Keep Breathing column.

As Vishous came up to the entrance of the gun range, he bent down and snagged a black duffel bag that he’d left at the door hours ago. Heading into the low-ceilinged, musty-smelling space, he called out a wassup.

“How we doing?” he said, walking around the shooting booth and proceeding onto the concrete target area.

Blay got up from the folding chair he’d been in, stretching his arms over his head and flattening his palms on the ceiling. “No change.”

“But I’ve beaten this guy twice at gin rummy,” Lassiter cut in.

“That’s because you cheat.”

Vishous glanced over—and shook his head at the angel. “What are you doing here? And why are you in a lawn chair?”

“Lumbar support—”

At that moment, the piece of meat on V’s rack twitched—and V had to give the black-and-blond asshole in the tanning position credit: Lassiter was up and out of that thing faster than a blink, gun pointed at Xcor’s chest like he was prepared to blow a hole through his heart.

“Easy, cowboy,” V said. “It was just an involuntary muscle spasm.”

The angel didn’t seem to hear him—or maybe he didn’t care for anybody else making an assessment for his trigger finger, even if they’d had medical training.

Hard not to approve of the guy. Hard also not to notice that Lassiter clearly wasn’t leaving Xcor, as if he trusted only himself to take care of business.

Shit, as long as that angel didn’t open his mouth, and provided V didn’t think about their little difficulties in the past, you could almost forget how much you wanted to shank the motherfucker.

Going over to their prisoner, Vishous performed a visual assessment on Xcor. When they’d brought the bastard in here, V had strapped him onto the wooden slab table face-up and spread-eagled, locking stainless-steel cuffs on those wrists and ankles and around that thick neck—and what do you know, the guy was right where he’d left him. Color was passable. Eyes were closed. Head wound at the rear of the skull was no longer leaking, having healed already.

“Do you need help?” Blay asked.

“Nah, I got it.”

Opening up the duffel, V used what was inside to check heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and oxygenation. The thing he was most concerned with was the inevitable hematoma from where he’d pistol-whipped the fucker—and its possible complications, which included anything from the inconvenient to the catastrophic. However, without moving him or bringing in some seriously heavy and expensive equipment, there was going to be no way of checking any of that out.

He had his suspicions, though. It was entirely possible the concussion had caused an ischemic stroke due to a blood clot blocking a vessel.

Just their frickin’ luck. They capture the enemy and the bastard goes brain-dead on them.

After V had put his toys away and made his notes in the digital file with his phone, he took a step back and just stared at the male’s ugly face. In the absence of being able to do a battery of tests, he had to rely on his own observation—and sometimes, even with the heavy-duty equipment, nothing beat a medic’s own extraoplation from what he could see.

Narrowing his eyes, he tracked every single breath, each exhale . . . the twitches across the brows and the stillness of the lids . . . the random movements of fingers . . . the skin contractions across the thighs.

Stroke. Definitely a stroke. No movement on the left side at all.

Wake the fuck up, V thought. So I can give you a pounding and put you back to sleep.

“Goddamn it.”

“What’s wrong?” Blay asked.

If there was no change in status soon, he was going to have to make a judgment call on whether to keep Xcor—or throw his body out with the trash.

“Are you okay?”

V turned to Blay. “What?”

“Your eye is having a seizure.”

Vishous rubbed at the thing until it stopped. And then wondered, with everything that was going on, whether he was going to be next on the TIA stroke list.

“Let me know if he regains consciousness?”

“Will do,” Lassiter said. “And I’ll also tell you when I need my next strawberry milk shake.”

“I’m not your butler, true.” V put the duffel back up on his shoulder and headed for the door. “And you blow me a kiss again? Ima put an MRI in you, instead of the other way around.”