"Not the Cabal, exactly—From Jean-Paul."
"I will not need help." He turns on a heel and goes up into the jet, and I hear him talking to the pilots about how soon they can take off.
I look at Inez. "What crawled up his ass and died?"
"I believe he is feeling a combination of jealousy, loneliness, and bitterness regarding past traumas, If I were to guess," she answers. "Best to let him go and deal with it his own way."
Rev growls a laugh. "If the pattern holds, he'll show up with a woman."
"Sol too," Chance says. "But I gotta admit, I have a hard time seeing the woman who can crack that man's shell."
Silas and I both laugh.
"No one gets past his shell," I say. "We're his fuckin' brothers and he doesn't say shit to us about himself, his feelings, or his life. I don't even know what happened to land him here in the first place."
"Solomon is a deep, dark, difficult, dangerous man," Silas says.
"He's the only human I truly fear," I say.
Terra laughs, and then looks at me. "Wait, you're not joking."
I shake my head. "Not even a little. He scares the hell out of me."
"If I had to pick anyone to show up out of the shadows to save my ass," Kane says, "it'd be Lash. There's ghosts, and then there's that motherfucker."
Terra looks at the other women, who are clustered together. "Do they always talk about each other like that?"
Myka laughs. "Yes. But to be fair, they're not wrong. Solomon is terrifying, and Lash is an utter mystery."
I head for the nearest SUV. "Put it this way, honey: my brother makes me seem like the little gingerbread man."
"And Lash?"
No one answers. Eventually, Inez speaks up, sliding behind the wheel of the SUV—Kane and Anjalee wedge in next to Terra in the second row.
"Lash does not exist. He is not in any database, anywhere in the world. No country of origin. No known birth date. No known family or next of kin. No service record in any military organization, anywhere." Inez pauses to let that sink in. "My knowledge of him extends so far as to suggest that he operated, in some capacity, for the German military's special forces, but again, there is no official record of him—under his own name or any other."
"Oh," Terra says. "That's a little weird."
"He told us a bit, once. But only a very little bit," Kane says.
"And I know only a tiny bit more than that, myself," Inez says. "But I happen to agree with you, Kane—if I required backup, especially in the part of the world where your brother is, I would choose Lash."
"Well, let's hope he's in time to help Sol," I say.
"I have a feeling he'll be rescuing the other guys from Sol," Kane says.
We're passing through the touristy part of Las Vegas on our way to the Club. Terra is wide-eyed, taking everything in. She's thinking, though, I can tell.
I glance over my shoulder at her. "Hey, you good?"
She nods without looking at me. And then, abruptly, she slaps her hand on the window. "Inez? Can you pull over?"
Inez complies, stopping at the curb. "Yes?"
