Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Hollywood put his arms to the ceiling like it was a stickup. “DontcomeformeImstarving—”
“What a great night.” V walked over and hugged the big, blond asshole. “Good to see ya. Lookin’ fine there, my brother.”
As the pastry chefs came back in with empty trays from the waiting room, V put his palms up to the doggen for high-fiving. When they didn’t respond out of shock and confusion, he went across and lifted their hands for a sturdy slap.
“How we doing? Great night, huh.” V snagged the Danish out of Rhage’s piehole and took a bite of it. “Fan-fucking-tastic. You guys are the best.”
As the chefs looked at the other brother with bug eyes, Rhage murmured, “I don’t know. I think that concussion messed him up maybe?”
V shoved the pastry in his piehole—sorry, Danish-hole—and nodded at the exit. “Come on, we be late, bitch. Can’t keep the King waiting.”
He was chewing and then whistling as he entered the core, and when he ran into Butch, he gave the cop a big smacker on the cheek. “Let’s go get it.”
The Dhestroyer did a double take. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“Like what?”
“As if you won Powerball.” Still, his best friend threw an arm over his shoulders. “What’s doin’.”
Oh, nothing. Just the son that he shouldn’t have wasn’t involved in shady shit, but was dating a beautiful female. Simple as that.
“High on life, cop.” He opened the way into the Audience Room. “Nothing all that mysterious.”
As they entered, Wrath was in his armchair with George, his golden, in his lap. On a little folding table next to them, a flattened McDonald’s bag was being used as a plate for two plain hamburgers. The dog was taking gentle bites from a third burger held by his master, and the soft encouragement that the King was offering was nothing you’d hear coming out of that stern mouth under any other circumstance.
“So what we got going on tonight, huh?” V sauntered over and shook Tohr’s hand. “We good? What’s up, hey, Phury, my man. Z? ’Sup.”
He worked his way around the room, and when he got back to Tohr, the King’s second-in-command cleared his throat.
“Look, no offense, but who died and made you a politician?”
“Ha-ha, good one.” He clapped the brother on the shoulder. “You’re a funny guy, true? What a good night this is, don’t ya think?”
“It’s so cold my nuts frosted over as I walked from the car to the door,” Butch offered. “But no one’s woken up dead, so, yeah, it’s better than most.”
“Amen, brother.” V repositioned his Sox hat and lit up a hand-rolled. “But for reals, what we got on the docket. I’m ready for some fun.”
As he exhaled and looked up, everybody was staring at him. Even Wrath. And no doubt George would have been, too, if it hadn’t been for the next hamburger.
“I think we’ve entered a parallel dimension,” someone said.
“Fuck, this means Lassiter has stopped watching TV and taken up fucking with us.”
Vishous laughed. “Damn, you guys are killin’ it tonight. Killin’ it.”
It was hard to describe the feeling he had, and he guessed it was what he’d overheard parents say from time to time about how their young’s happiness hit different. He didn’t understand what the fuck business of his it was that Allhan had someone he was hanging out with, but it was incandescent good news.
And it felt like a long, long time since there had been any of that.
So much death. Destruction. War. Stress.
But somehow, that awkward pretrans, who had come out of his transition tall and strong and good looking, had connected with another carbon-based life-form. And that gave a father faith that sometimes, some things worked out.
“So tell me who we’re seeing?” V asked before he went too far and started explaining exactly why he was laughing-gas happy.
The knock on the door was quintessential Saxton, loud enough to be heard, not too loud in case there was something that the King didn’t want to be interrupted.
“Come in,” Wrath announced.
The solicitor leaned inside the room, his perfectly sculpted blond hair and natty, Saville Row style making him look like the English monarchy had dropped an eighteenth-century earl into present-day Caldwell.
“They’re here, if you’re ready?”
“Yeah, send ’em in.” Wrath refocused on his dog and grabbed for the remaining burger. “They won’t care if George is finishing his dinner.”
“One moment, my Lord.”
Saxton bowed and ducked out, and V went over to the corner he and Butch usually hung in. When he needed an ashtray, he tapped things in the crystal one Fritz kept on the windowsill just for his use. Undoubtedly, the butler, with all his standards, would not have chosen that spot to be where the heavy crystal basin lived, but that was how that head doggen rolled. Whatever anybody needed, that was what—
Saxton reopened the door. “Her Serene Highness Queen Catra, and His Sublime Highness the Prince Consort iAm.”