Page 36 of Kept in the Dark (Hitmen of Ulysses #2)

The jar has clear walls, so I can see the off-white color. It does kind of look like yogurt, except for the bubbles. I know it can’t be too bad since—judging from the name—it goes into sourdough bread, which is edible. But I can’t help slipping back into my Nurse Nicole skin.

“What’s in that?”

“Well, it’s wild yeast growing in raw flour, so it’s not the best thing for him to eat, but he’ll probably live.

Unfortunately,” she snipes, and he glares back.

“You know, I’ve been keeping the Yeastie Boys alive for nine years.

If you got your mouth germs in it and it grows mold and dies, I’m going to be so pissed at you. ”

“‘Mouth germs’?” he shoots back, sneering.

“‘Yeastie Boys’?” I repeat with a faint smile.

Damn it. Now I kind of like her .

She shakes her head and turns back around to the stove, which, I now realize, is actively cooking something.

I’m staring, I know, but I’m just so thrown off to find someone who looks so much like…

well, like me. She’s a big girl—thick, like me.

Not as tall as me, but hardly any women I come across are.

She’s sturdy in a way that makes me feel a kinship to her.

“Nicole, I am going to speak with Wesley for a moment. You will be all right here with Eleanor for—what is that?” he cries in disgust, leaning over her shoulder, where she’s stirring something in a cast-iron skillet full of oil. “I said no fried food!”

“They’re just a garnish; you don’t have to use them,” she replies, her tone bored with exaggerated patience. Then she turns back to me and stage-whispers, “He’s going to use them.”

This time, I don’t even try not to smile.

After how weird everything has been—meeting James and Wesley, and casually discussing completely insane things like incriminating USB drives and Russian mafia men and coroner’s reports and murder—her casually friendly air feels out of place, but in a very welcome way.

With a noise of frustration, Dimitri returns his attention to me. His hard expression doesn’t shift. “I will be back.”

As he strides away, my stomach lets out an embarrassingly audible growl, and I glance at the woman to see if she noticed.

But she’s busy rolling her eyes at Dimitri. “You must be Nicole. I’m Eleanor, Mac’s… uh, fiancée. Oh, wow, that’s fun to say.” She extends her hand to me with a huge smile.

The title shocks me even more than her easygoing demeanor.

My eyes flick down to her other hand as we shake and—sure enough—she’s got one of those silicone bands around her ring finger that some of my coworkers wear when they don’t want to damage their real rings or have the diamonds catch on the latex gloves we put on and take off dozens of times a day .

She’s engaged to one of these guys? But she seems so… normal. I let my hand fall with the silence that settles around us, and glance behind her at the pans on the fire. “So you’re, like, the cook?” I ask, then I wince because I didn’t mean for it to come out sounding so snooty.

But she just smiles brightly. “Mhm. Are you hungry?”

“I am, but I’m a vegetarian,” I admit with a bit of regret.

I’m just as sure that whatever she’s making smells divine as I am that it used to moo.

Not that I don’t make concessions when I have to—like on a carnivore’s houseboat with no other options—but now that I have the luxury of choice back, I’m eager to get back to my normal diet.

“What?” she gasps, turning accusatory eyes on the door where Dimitri exited. “He didn’t tell me that when he asked me to make you a sandwich!”

Suddenly, I’m not even a little bit surprised that she’s the one who made it for me.

It was too good to have been made by someone who seemed just fine with chalky protein bars and pepper-flavored desiccated cow meat.

“He didn’t know…” I trail off, self-conscious about defending him against this woman who clearly knows him so well.

“It’s not for religious reasons or anything, just a preference.

It started as a texture thing, and then it became a habit. ”

“Of course. Have a seat. I’ll make you a plate and we can chat!” She turns back to the stove, carefully lifting the fried shallots out of the oil with a slotted spoon.

When I say nothing, she continues to fill the silence with her disarming, lighthearted rambling.

“Sorry if that came off weird and eager, I’m just drowning in a sea of testosterone, here.

I can’t wait to talk to someone who isn’t going to scratch his balls or pull out a gun to clean it in the middle of a conversation. ”

I snort, shake my head at how strange my life has become, then turn to take in my surroundings as I move towards the seat she indicated.

I look around the room, at the small mess on the island counter, the chairs askew around the dining table, and the pans in the sink.

It’s clear that despite the grandeur, regular people live here—there’s something comforting about that.

My gaze drifts out to the rolling grass visible through the wall of windows. At least it’s a nice place to be holed up with mafia men after you.

“Do you eat eggs? Dairy?”

“Yeah.” I slide into the seat at the literal-island-sized marble kitchen island so I can watch her cook.

“Hope an omelet is okay. I’ll add some meatless protein to our next grocery order, since I guess you might be staying a while.”

The thought of someone making me food and going out of her way to make concessions to my dietary restrictions makes me uncomfortable. She doesn’t owe me anything. Why would she do that? It feels almost calculated, like her friendliness is supposed to help lower my guard.

Especially when she says, “So you saw Dimitri kill a guy, huh? We should start a club.”

Maybe it’s the acknowledgement of the elephant in the room, but I’m so shocked I can’t speak for several seconds. “He told you that? What else do you know?”

When she replies, her head is in the fridge, so it’s muffled at first. “Um… Mac told me. He said there might be some pretty nasty people after you. Something about a USB?” The door closes with a soft snick, and she emerges with several eggs, some half and half, and a block of cheese in her hands.

“I guess that’s the gist of my story. I don’t really feel like getting into any of the details. It’s too… raw.”

She sets the things in her arms on the counter, then shoots me a conciliatory look as she cracks eggs into a bowl. “I get that.”

“What’s your story? Not to be rude, but you seem like a fairly normal person. How is it that you’re engaged to a…”

Her eyes snap up to meet mine, and the whisk in her hand stills.

“Dangerous man?” she supplies, with a smile that falls short of her eyes.

“I’ll save you the whole saga, but our stories have similar beginnings—wrong place, wrong time.

I was minding my own damn business, and I caught Mac in my apartment with a sniper rifle one night. It all kind of spiraled from there.”

It’s not what I was expecting her to say, and it’s a kick to the stomach. “So, you know how this feels?”

“Yeah, I do.” Her voice is so kind, it actually hurts.

“How did you… I mean, you seem very well-adjusted. How did you—”

“Cope?”

“Yeah.” My eyes prickle, and I sniff once and look down.

I feel like I’ve been treading water with weights on my feet. Being able to talk to someone who understands is a comfort I didn’t dare let myself hope for, and now that I don’t have to just suppress everything, it’s dredging up a lot of unpleasant emotions.

She considers it, lifting the back of her hand to brush her bangs out of her eyes. “Well, I definitely spent a lot of time feeling pretty sorry for myself and being mad at Mac for dragging me into all this.”

Check and check.

“But eventually I realized that being mad at the person who was actually on my side was kind of silly. He didn’t mean to involve me, and I definitely wouldn’t have gotten through it without him.

He helped me find perspective and a strength I didn’t see in myself before.

” She stops, then rolls her eyes. “God, that was so fucking precious. Sorry, I’m prone to serious mushiness.

I just… love him, ya know? And Wes and Dimitri, too. They’re like my family now.”

She chops vegetables, and I watch her silently for a moment, digesting that. “You seem very close with Dimitri. ”

“More like… he accepts my place here, and I know what lines not to cross. And getting to this point took some time. He’s so…

um…” She cranes her neck to check for the subject of her gossip, then lowers her voice, “big and mean-looking. But now I think sometimes he’s intimidated by me ,” she says, and she looks so pleased with herself that it takes me aback.

I can’t remember ever wanting someone to be intimidated by me—it’s a word that’s been used against me in the past, and never meant as a compliment.

She continues, sliding chopped spinach into a bowl and starting on a pepper. “I also realized he’s not really mean; he’s just not polite. Does that make sense? He is who he is; he’s not going to cater to your feelings. Sometimes he’s a giant asshole about it, but it’s kind of grown on me.”

I nod. That’s similar to observations I’ve made before, and I’m oddly pleased that her assessment agrees with mine.

“But he never really forgave me for taking over the cooking. So, sometimes I give him things to object to so he feels like he contributed.” She gestures to the paper towel with fried shallots.

“Like I would do with my niece and nephew. ‘I don’t like peas,’” she mimics the high-pitched tone of a child.

“Wait, you’re here and you’re with one of them—like, with him—and you have a family?”

“Most people have families,” she points out with a small smile.

“I meant…”

“I know what you mean,” she says, letting me off the hook.

“Yes, I have a family. Yes, I worry about them a lot more than I used to before I got involved with Mac. It doesn’t change the fact that Mac is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I wouldn’t change my life with him for anything.

In case you’re considering getting involved with Dimitri,” she adds.

I decide to ignore the implications of her sly look .

“Oh, hey, before I forget—he asked me to help get you some shoes. Ya know, before he had a temper tantrum and stormed off.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, I guess it’s not an option to go back to my place for a little bit.” Which is a shame, considering it would be pretty easy to just drive the U-Haul here.

“Been there,” she commiserates.

“You wouldn’t happen to be a size 12?” I lift my brows, and she shakes her head. Tall girl problems.

“No, but I have an internet connection.”

“Okay. I don’t have a way to pay you back right now, but as soon as I can, I will.”

She cocks her head at me, then digs into her pocket and tosses a heavy plastic rectangle onto the counter between us. It skips across the marble, landing right in front of me. “He gave me his credit card.”

“He… what?”

He wants to buy me stuff? Well, he wants me to pick it out, but he wants to pay for it. My heart pounds a little harder in my chest. That’s… nice. No, it’s too much. Is it? My poor, stupid, emotional little heart latches onto the act, like it’s proof that he wants to take care of me.

Her eyes drop meaningfully to the too-tight t-shirt and pants that are pretty clearly his. “Yup. He only specifically said shoes, though. Can’t imagine why he’d fail to mention the rest of the clothes you need,” she says, like she very much can.

At that, I think I actually do feel my cheeks heat.

“Okay. I say you eat this fabulous omelet, and I go get my phone, then we spend a bunch of Dimitri’s money, pop some corn, and watch a Japanese horror movie that Wes downloaded for me. They’re super weird; you’re either gonna love it or hate it. What do you say?”

Sounds like I have a new friend and much-needed ally.