Page 133 of Long Way Down

“Oh, I’m way past pissed,” Pongo ground out through his teeth. “If you’re still wondering if they’re a good ally, go ahead and take into consideration that after one meeting with the bastards, they went running to you to tell you I've misbehaved like a dog who shit on the rug.”

“That’s not–”

“You couldn’t even call me? You’ve never even met this Prince guy in person, but he calls, and you come running to see how bad I screwed up?”

“Pongo–”

“One of his guys is on that tape, too, and he’s got these big ol’ tats on each hand.” He turned the naked backs of his own toward him in demonstration. “So it’s not like the Dogs are the only ones with something to lose here.”

“Hey, dipshit,” Shepherd barked, hiking a hip up to perch on the back of the couch. He flicked open a knife and started cleaning beneath his nails, unbothered. “If you’d shut up for a second, maybe he could explain it to you.”

Pongo shot him a glare, which, judging by Shepherd’s responding smirk, was ruined by the fact that he trembled faintly all over.

“Shep,” Maverick warned. To Pongo: “Sit.”

It was a matter of his legs giving out and falling backward into the other recliner, but whatever.

Toly clattered around in the kitchen; the air was beginning to smell of olive oil and garlic.

There were moments – like now – when Maverick’s cut – tonight worn over a soft chambray shirt and unzipped Carhartt jacket – seemed out of place. His dark hair, effortlessly stylish in a casual, real-man sort of way, long enough to fall over the tops of his ears, had a generous sprinkling of salt in its pepper depths these days, and gray was threaded through his close-kept beard and sideburns. His perpetually tan face was smooth-skinned, save for the deep sun and laugh lines around eyes and mouth that gave him a sort of tooled leather look – in a good way. His was a kind, craggy-featured face, eyes dark, and soft, and full of wisdom. Not the shifty, shark-eyed, threat-in-tight-jeans façade of so many of Pongo’s brothers. Nor the gray and grizzled, long-bearded old timers who’d traded their rebuilt Panheads for trikes. If you’d dressed him up right, he could have been your average everyman, gentle, and patient, and handsome andreal.

It was a genuine mystery, for Pongo, why the man had never taken on an old lady. Women seemed to gravitate toward him.

In the kitchen, a knife worked over a cutting board, and Pongo wondered idly when the apartment had acquired one; certainly not on his watch.

Maverick said, “Prince called me – now, hold on, like I said – because he was worried you might be in over your head all by yourself on this rapist case. He said” – here he snorted – “that I was showing a dereliction of my presidential duty letting you take it on solo, without backup and without direct oversight.”

“Fucking prick,” Shepherd muttered.

That had been Pongo’s estimation of Prince upon meeting him, but was loath to agree with the sergeant-at-arms now. Shep was firmly in the Pongo’s An Idiot Baby clique within the club.

Maverick lifted a hand, silencing him. “He’s not wrong. Prince, I mean.” His offered a quick, wry smile. “You either, Shep, but. Yeah. I’ve been derelict. He said his guy – Kat, was it? – was worried about you, gave him the lowdown of what went on at the…museum? Or was it a school?”

“It’s an art gallery that’s part of the school,” Pongo said, woodenly. His heart was still beating double time and he hadn’t the foggiest which direction this conversation was going to go.

“Right. Okay.” Mav tilted his head. “Imagine my surprise when I had no idea what Prince was talking about.”

“Typical Pup, running off, doing his own thing, not reporting in,” Shepherd said.

“Shep,” Maverick snapped, and for a split second, the president persona roared to the surface. His gaze snapped to his third in command, and his eyes were hard and dark, leveling a warning only an idiot would ignore.

Shepherdwasan idiot, but not in this sense. His smirk fell away, and he nodded. Stood. “Guess I’ll see what the Rusky’s doing,” he muttered, and shuffled toward the kitchen.

Something banged down on the counter, and a stream of terse Russian issued from the pass-through, but Shep stayed in the kitchen, and something hit the hot pan with a hiss and sizzle.

Maverick turned back to Pongo with a sigh. The smile returned, though. “Why didn’t you tell me, kiddo?”

Pongo loved and hated when he called him that. His own father was a bit of a cardboard cutout. Loving, yes, but spent most of his time in front of the TV; his idea of fathering included passing hair ruffles and rhetorical questions. So there was a part of Pongo who craved the paternal inflection in Mav’s voice that always accompaniedkiddo. And a fearful hatred of what that said about him.

“Tell you what?”

“That Dixon isn’t just a mark and a resource anymore.”

She wasworldsmore than that, now, but admitting it felt like disloyalty to his club, which had been and should be his first love; his greatest commitment.

“Did you think I’d be angry?”

It was difficult to swallow, given the way his throat was fluttering. “Angry about what?”