Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last

abandoned Brownswick School for Girls campus, Mr. C had taken up res in what had once been the headmistress’s office.
    The cracked sign outside in the hall told him so.
    As there was no heat, the ambient air temperature was exactly that of the great outdoors, but thanks to the Omega’s blood, cold was not a problem. And thank fuck for that: Across the overgrown, snow-covered lawn, in the main dormitory on the ridge, nearly fifty
lessers
were sleeping the sleep of the dead.
    If those bastards had required BTUs or food, he’d have been shit out of luck.
    But nah, all he had to do was provide them with shelter. Their inductions took care of the rest—and the fact that they needed to unplug from consciousness every twenty-four hours was a relief.
    He needed time to think.
    Jesus Christ, what a mess.
    Compelled by an urge to pace, he went to push his chair back, and then remembered that he was sitting on an overturned drywall bucket.
    “Goddamn it.”
    Looking around the decrepit room, he measured the plaster that was hanging in sheets from the ceiling rafters, the boarded-up windows, and the hole in the floorboards over in the corner. Place was just like the bank accounts he’d found.
    No money anywhere. No ammo. Weapons that could be used for blunt-force trauma, and that was about it.
    After his promotion, he’d been so fucking pumped, full of plans. Now he was staring at a whole lot of no cash, no resources, no nothing.
    The Omega, on the other hand, was expecting all kinds of results. As had been made amply clear during their little “visit” late last night.
    And that was another problem. He hated that shit.
    At least he could do something about the rest of it.
    Stretching his arms over his head and cracking his shoulders, he thanked God for two things: One, that the cell phones hadn’t been cut off—so he could communicate with his men in the field, and had Internet access. And two, that all those years on the street had given him an iron fist when it came to controlling dumb-ass young idiots in the drug trade.
    He had to bring in some paper. Stat.
    He’d had a fucking plan for that, too, sending the Society’s last nine thousand, three hundred dollars off with three of his boys at midnight last night. All those bastards had had to do was make the buy, get the dope, and bring it back here, where he’d cut the shit, then parcel it out to the new inductees for sale on the street.
    Trouble was, he was still waiting for the fucking delivery.
    And he was getting pretty goddamn impatient waiting to find out where either the drugs or his money had gone.
    It was possible the cocksuckers had run off with one or the other, but if that was the case, he was going to hunt them down like dogs and show all of the others what happened when you—
    As his phone rang, he picked the thing up, saw who it was, and hit
send
.
    “It’s about fucking time. Where the fuck are you and where is my shit.”
    There was a pause. And then the voice that came over the connection was not anything like that of the pimple-faced pusher he’d given the cell, the cash, and the last working gun the Society had to.
    “I have something you want.”
    Mr. C frowned. Very deep voice. Laced with an edge he recognized from the streets, and an accent he couldn’t place.
    “It’s not the piece-of-shit phone you’re calling me on,” Mr. C drawled. “I got plenty of those.”
    After all, when you didn’t have anything in your hand, your holster or your wallet, bluffing was your only option.
    “Well, good for you. Have you plenty of what you sent to me, too? Money? Manpower?”
    “Who the fuck is this?”
    “I’m your enemy.”
    “If you took my fucking cash, you bet your ass you are.”
    “Actually, ’tis a simplistic answer to what is a rather complex problem.”
    Mr. C burst to his feet, knocking over the bucket. “Where’s my
fucking
money, and what did you do with my men?”
    “I’m afraid they can’t come to the phone anymore. That’s why I’m calling.”
    “You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” Mr. C bit out.
    “On the contrary, you are the one at that particular disadvantage—as well as so many others.” When Mr. C was about to snap, the guy cut him off. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to call you at nightfall with a location. You, and you alone, are going to meet me there. If anyone comes with you, I will know, and you will never hear from me again.”
    Mr. C was used to feeling disdain