Sherry's gaze shifted over the others. Victor was ushering Elvi after her and Basil, but the others--including her father, Alexander--all stood around the body in the alley, talking quietly.
"I don't know his name."
Basil glanced to Sherry and saw that she was peering over his shoulder at the scene he'd just taken her from. "Livius," he said. "His name was Leonius Livius."
She shook her head. "Not him. My father. I know his first name is Alexander, but I have no idea what his last name is." She stiffened suddenly, her eyes shooting to his face as she asked, "He isn't an Argeneau, is he?"
"No. We are not related," he assured her at once.
Sherry relaxed with a little sigh. "Good. I mean what would it make us if you were my cousin or an uncle or something?"
"It would make us most unfortunate," he said dryly.
"I'll say," she muttered, and then glanced around when he stopped. Seeing that they had arrived at the door, she reached out to pull it open for him without being asked. Basil caught the bottom of it with his foot and kicked it open wider, then ducked inside with her. When she sighed and leaned her cheek on his shoulder, he held her a little tighter, wanting to keep her there, just like that, forever.
Basil had never been more scared in his life than when he'd rushed out of the store and spotted Sherry in Leo's grip. The moments before it had been stressful as well. First, Bricker had called in to say he'd spotted Leo's boys in a coffee shop directly across from the mouth of the alley behind the store. Lucian had ordered him to park and pursue them.
Bricker had headed across the store then, intent on reaching Sherry and making sure she was okay. Lucian had followed, calling Basha as they went, and getting ahold of her just as she reached the entrance to the coffee shop and spotted the men inside. Bricker had heard him order her to wait for him and Alexander and then to help them handle the four men. Basil had barely hung up when Elvi suddenly burst out of the door to the office ahead of them. He hadn't needed her to shout that Sherry was gone or to tell him there was a problem--the woman's pale face and horrified expression had been enough to make him race past her and up into the office. He'd come to a shuddering halt on the upper landing, however, when he saw that Sherry was indeed gone.
"The back door," Lucian had barked right behind him, and Basil started moving again, charging down the stairs and out into the alley. He would remember the moment when he'd spotted Leo and Sherry for the rest of his life. It was burned into his mind, into his very heart. The monster had his woman, and he was helpless to do a damned thing to save her. Still, he would have tried. He'd rushed forward, intending to tackle the bastard, which probably would have gotten Sherry killed or at least hurt, but he hadn't been thinking. Fortunately, Lucian was, and had caught his arm to stop him.
Reaching the office now, Basil moved to the chair behind Sherry's desk. He'd intended to set her in the chair, but once he got there, he settled in it himself with her on his lap. He wasn't ready to let her go. He might never let her go again.
"What do I do?" Sherry asked, and he peered down into her face.
"You let me turn you like I wanted to do last night," he said firmly, and when her eyes widened in surprise, he found himself suddenly angry. "You could have died, Sherry. Leo had you and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. You could have died."
Sherry hesitated, but then pointed out gently, "Being immortal doesn't really protect against that, Basil. Leo was immortal and he's dead now."
When Basil stared at her blankly, she sighed and admitted, "I was actually asking what I should do about not knowing my father's last name."
"Oh." He frowned, and then glanced toward the door as it opened and Victor ushered Elvi inside.
"Are you okay?" Elvi asked anxiously, rushing around the desk toward them.
"Yes. I'm fine, really." Sherry started to sit up, but Basil held her in place. She glanced toward him with surprise, and then turned back when Elvi began to speak again.
"It scared the crap out of me when I came back in and realized you were gone, and then I saw that the back door was cracked open, and I just knew Leo must have got in," Elvi babbled. Squeezing her hands, she added, "Thank God you're all right."
"Yes, but more importantly, Stephanie is safe now," Sherry pointed out with a smile, and Basil could have crushed the woman's bloody neck. Who cared if Stephanie was safe? Stephanie had been safe in Port Henry. She was the one who had nearly died, dammit!
"Oh, my," Elvi breathed, her eyes widening. Apparently, that hadn't yet occurred to her. Now that it had, Basil couldn't tell if she was going to burst into tears or shout with glee. The tears won out, and Elvi turned to Victor and buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking.
Much to Basil's amusement, Victor peered down at his woman as if she'd lost her mind.
"Honey, this is a good thing," he pointed out, his arms automatically going around her.
Elvi lifted her head to sob, "I knowwww," and then buried her face in his chest once more.
"She's just happy and relieved," Sherry said, rubbing the other woman's back sympathetically. "She must have been terribly scared for Stephanie. It must have killed her to let her out of her sight to come to Toronto."
"It diddddd," Elvi cried, burrowing deeper into Victor's chest.
Victor peered helplessly from his woman to his brother. "I . . . er . . . I think I should . . . er . . ." Giving it up, he scooped Elvi into his arms and turned toward the stairs, only to pause to allow Lucian and Bricker to pass him and come into the room. The moment the way was clear, though, he headed down the stairs that led into the store.
"What the hell is going on?" Bricker asked with amazement as they watched Victor carry Elvi out. "First Basil's carrying Sherry away, and then Marcus is carting a blubbering Basha off, and now Elvi's sobbing to beat the band and Victor is playing he-man too. Have the women gone crazy or is this an immortal caveman convention?"
Lucian reached out and biffed the younger man in the back of the head.
"Ow," Bricker complained, rubbing the spot. "What?"
"Show some respect," Lucian snapped. "Basha just killed the man she's thought of as her son for two millennia. There was no shame in her weeping over that."
"Yeah, okay," Bricker agreed. "I get that."
Lucian grunted and turned back to peer at Basil, only to scowl when the young hunter said, "But what about Elvi and Sherry?"
"I wanted to get Sherry away from the scene as quickly as possible. She is not crying," Basil pointed out. "But she is mortal. Watching a man beheaded and dealing with the aftermath is not a common occurrence for her."
"Okay, I can see that too," Bricker allowed, and then glanced from Basil to Lucian and asked, "But what was Elvi's deal?"
Lucian scowled when the young man settled his gaze on him. It seemed obvious to Basil that his brother had no idea why Elvi was crying, but rather than say so, he simply said, "She is a woman. They don't need a reason to cry. They just do."
Sherry released what sounded suspiciously like a snort, her body jerking against his, and then she explained to Bricker, "Elvi is just relieved that Stephanie's life is no longer in danger. It has been a great strain on her to worry about the girl for so long."
"Ah," Bricker said with understanding. But now Lucian was scowling even harder.
"She should be happy now then. Stephanie is safe," Lucian pointed out.
"She is happy," Sherry assured him patiently. "That's why she was crying."
If anything, that seemed to confuse Lucian more. Shaking his head, he turned to Bricker and said, "You see? It's as I said, women don't need a reason to cry. They just do."
"Yeah, right. You'd best not be suggesting Leigh is the crybaby type," Bricker said with amusement. "She's the strongest woman I know. She has to be to put up with you."
Lucian glowered at the man. "She cried when she was pregnant. A lot. Hormonal, Marguerite called it," he added morosely, and then shuddered and confessed, "It made me glad we
can only have children every hundred years."
Basil smiled widely. He knew Lucian adored his wife as much as he himself adored Sherry, and it was so damned fine to see him acting like a human again. His smile faded as he tuned into his own thoughts. He adored Sherry?
Yes, Basil acknowledged. He did. At the start, he had simply noted that he couldn't read or control her, and accepted that she was his life mate. It had been that simple, like A + B = C, his inability to read plus the inability to control, equaled life mate in his mind. End of story. But that was then. Now he'd gotten to know her.
Basil knew Sherry's ambitions, her determination, even how she'd briefly lost her way. He enjoyed her sense of humor, her intelligence, and her kindness. She had a decency that made the world a better place and a passion equal to his own. She also had courage. In the penultimate moment, when Leo had held her life in his hands, no one could have saved her from him without a high risk of getting her killed instead. Whether she had known that or not, she had not stood as a victim to the man, helpless to his whims and waiting to be saved, but stabbed him in the balls and got the hell away from him. Sherry had saved herself in the end.
Even if no one else had been there, and if Basha had not stepped up to lop off his head the moment Sherry was out of the way, Basil was quite sure Leo would not have got up quickly from the wound Sherry had given him. The man had been about to collapse on the ground screaming in agony when Basha forever silenced him with her sword. Had Sherry been there alone, he was quite sure that she would have had a good deal of time to escape before Leo healed enough to follow. And Basil was damned proud of her. But more than that, he loved her for it. And now he wanted more than for her to accept the turn and agree to be his life mate. He wanted her to love him back. Needed it, even.
"Is my father still out in the alley?" Sherry asked, breaking into his thoughts.
Basil glanced to Lucian at her question and noted that he was staring at him with silent concentration. No doubt Lucian had been listening in on his revelations. He didn't care. He would be happy to shout from the rooftops that he loved this woman.
"No," Bricker answered when Lucian simply continued to stare at Basil. "Decker and Anders took him back to the Enforcer house with the others."
"Oh no. We have to do something." Sherry began to struggle to rise, and Basil again held on at first, but then he let her go and stood as well. He knew she wanted to find out her father's last name. She'd probably hoped to ask him before he was taken away.
"Actually, at the moment she is more worried about his ding-dong than his last name," Lucian growled, proving he had been not only in Basil's thoughts, and still was, but in Sherry's as well.
"His what?" Basil asked with a start.
"The punishment for interfering with a married woman," Lucian reminded him. "They shred his ding-dong. Bricker's term, not mine, if you'll recall," he added with dignity.
Basil glanced around, intending to soothe Sherry, but she'd somehow disappeared during the few seconds he had been distracted.
"Where the hell did she go?" he muttered, moving to the landing between the stairs that led down to the store, and the ones leading down to the door to the alley. Both doors were closed and he had no idea which way she'd gone.
"She dragged Bricker out through the store," Lucian said calmly, following Basil when he plunged down the stairs. "She intends for him to drive her to the Enforcer house."
The store appeared empty when Basil came out into it, but he glanced around to be sure. He saw no one, though, so rushed out onto the sidewalk and peered first one way and then the other. Cursing when he didn't see either Sherry or the young Enforcer, he spun back to the store impatiently and then hurried back to the door and opened it to shout, "Will you hurry up, dammit! Which way is the truck?"
"Relax," Lucian said dryly. "Bricker will not leave without me. The SUV is--"
"What?" Basil asked when his brother paused with his arm half raised, shock crossing his features.
"The little shit just drove away without me," Lucian said with amazement.
Looking in the direction Lucian had started to point, Basil saw the black SUV that was even now merging with traffic. The word he used then was much worse than the little shit Lucian had called Bricker.
Seventeen
"You know, Lucian is going to be seriously pissed at our taking off like this," Justin warned as he pulled into traffic.
"I don't care," Sherry assured him. "This is urgent. My father's ding-dong is in my hands."
"Yeahhhhh, that just sounds wrong," Bricker drawled.
"What?" Sherry asked with bewilderment, then realized what she'd said and clucked her tongue impatiently. "You know what I mean."
"Actually, I don't," he informed her. "The council decides these things, Sherry. His ding-dong is not in your hands at all."
She bit her lip at this news and then asked, "Well, surely if I tell Mortimer that I don't want them to shred his ding-dong a hundred times or whatever, he'll let him go? I mean I am the victim here. Well, my mother was, but she's dead, so that leaves only me to care one way or another. Besides, isn't there a statute of limitations or something? It happened thirty-two years ago, for heaven's sake."
"Yeahhhh, I'll just drive around the block and pick up Lucian and Basil now," Bricker decided.
"What? Why?" Sherry asked with a frown. "I wanted to get back to the house before them to convince Mortimer to release my father to me."
"Yeah, but it's not going to work, honey pie," Bricker informed her. "You can plead with Mortimer until you're blue in the face and he won't release your father without Lucian's say so. And," he added dryly, "all our leaving them behind would do is piss off Lucian and make him less likely to listen to your pleas."
Her eyes widened in dismay as she realized what he said was probably true. "Turn around. Go back."
"I am," Bricker said soothingly as he took the next corner.
Sherry bit her lip and began to wring her hands, worrying over whether the men had come out yet, and realized that they had left. As Bricker took the next corner, she muttered, "I wished you'd said that earlier. Why did you agree to leave them in the first place?"
"Because I wanted to know what you were up to, whether you planned to try to break your father out of jail or what," he admitted with a shrug, and then paused as he negotiated the next corner before pointing out, "I'm an Enforcer. It's my job to make sure you won't be a problem."
Sherry turned on him with dismay at this news.
Bricker caught her expression, grinned and admitted, "I also couldn't resist seeing what Lucian's expression would be when I pulled out and left him behind." His grin widened into a full-blown savoring smile, and he assured her, "Believe me, that was priceless."
Eyes narrowing, Sherry growled, "You're a shit disturber."
"That I am," he agreed easily.
"Ass," she muttered with disgust.
"Oh, don't be like that, Sherry. Look on the bright side, this way you can nag the hell out of them all the way to the house," he pointed out brightly as he took the next turn. "They'll be captive listeners, unable to escape your arguments. See how this all works out so well?"
Sherry merely scowled again. It was pretty obvious that Bricker had a bit of a twisted sense of humor. It made her wonder just what kind of woman the nanos would pick out for him.
"I think Lucian wants the front seat," Bricker said with amusement.
Sherry glanced around to see that they'd stopped in front of the store and Lucian now stood outside the passenger door, scowling unpleasantly. She considered locking the door and making him get in the back, but it didn't seem the smart thing to do when she wanted something from the man.
Unsnapping her seat belt, she slid out of the seat and crawled into the back as Basil opened the door to get in beside her.
"We thought you'd left without us," Basil admitted as he closed the door and claimed the seat next to her.
"We drove around the block," she muttered as s
he did up her seat belt. When she finished and straightened, she found Lucian in the front passenger seat, peering from her to Bricker with a glowering expression. He, of course, could read her. Grimacing, she pointed out, "We came back for you."
"Bricker always intended to. You, however, only agreed because you are concerned about your father's family jewels," Lucian said dryly.
"You are?" Basil asked with concern, taking her hand.
"Er . . . actually, the family jewels aren't what are imperiled," Bricker announced. "Family jewels are the testicles, Lucian. Not the ding-dong."
"Well then give me another name for the item in question, because I am not saying ding-dong again. It's ridiculous."
"You just did . . . say it again, I mean," Bricker pointed out with amusement, and when Lucian scowled at him, he shrugged. "Okay, well let's see, there's ankle spanker."
Sherry blinked at the name. "Ankle spanker? Seriously? No man is that big."
Justin considered for a minute. "Okay then, how about disco stick, or bed snake?"
When Lucian merely scowled at him, he shrugged and offered more suggestions.
"Winkie? Flesh flute? Tallywhacker? Baby maker? Quiver bone? Joystick? Fun stick? Lap rocket? Love muscle? Wedding tackle? One-eyed wonder weasel? Helmet head? Wang? Trouser snake? Giggle stick? Schlong? Mushroom head? Love rod? Pecker? Thundersw--"
"Enough!" Lucian barked, and when Bricker paused and glanced to him questioningly, he said, "I do not know what alarms me more, that you have so many names for cock or what it means in regard to how much time you spend thinking about cock." And then arching an eyebrow, he asked, "Is there something you wish to tell us, Bricker?"
"What?" Justin said with dismay, and then he squawked, "No! I read them online once. This Web site had, like, a hundred and seventy or eighty names like that. Those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head."
"Hmm," Lucian muttered dubiously. "Well, since you just went through a red light, I suggest you stop thinking about cock and pay attention to the road."
"Fine," Bricker snapped, and then muttered, "Jeez, try to help a guy out . . ."
Lucian ignored him and turned in his seat to peer at Sherry. "So . . . you are concerned about your father's equipment."
"Yes, of course," Sherry said with a frown. "Wouldn't you be?"