Page 132 of Nothing More

~*~

“So,” Toly said, tucking his hair behind his ear, head bent over the potatoes as he concentrated on stirring them. His cheeks were pink, and his voice had grown stilted at the end, heavy with self-consciousness. “That’s what happened. By the time I finished eating, he’d talked me into riding back to Albany with him.” He shrugged, potatoes hissing beneath the quick back-and-forth of the spoon.

With a bit of a shock, Raven realized she’d gone misty-eyed. She reached as subtly as she could for a napkin in the rack on the counter, and dabbed at the unshed tears. His head came up, and he noticed the movement, and his eyes widened in a shock of his own.

“Sorry,” she said, and offered a smile. “I’m not normally one to get weepy at stories. I never even cried when I watchedThe Notebook.”

“The what?”

“Oh, come on, you must have heard of it. Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams. She has Alzheimer’s?”

He looked blank.

“Doesn’t matter. A silly movie. Point being: I don’t do this.” She waved the napkin at her face and blinked the last of the moisture away. Dabbed at her nose for good measure and twisted the napkin away in her palm.

He was watching her, frowning a little.

“Toly,” she said, serious again. “That’s – what happened – I’m so–”

He cut her off, frown deepening. “I didn’t tell you that so you’d pity me.”

“No, I know, and I don’t. Honestly,” she added, when he didn’t look convinced. She started to say something else along the lines ofthat must have been terrible for you, but scrapped it. He didn’t want that from her. Instead, she stretched her empty hand across the island toward him, palm up. “Thank you for telling me that. For trusting me with it.” The words felt trite and too-formal the moment they’d left her lips, but she didn’t know how else to convey what it meant to have him finally open up to her – and with an intimate, ugly memory like that no less.

He watched her another moment, then nodded, and lifted the skillet so he could scrape the potatoes out into a bowl.

Her hand looked foolish just sitting there, a pale, hopeful flower half-opened and abandoned. She drew it back, folded it across her middle with the other, and tried not to feel the sting of rejection.

Twenty-Six

“I’m setting up a perimeter,” Maverick said, perching a hip on the arm of the sofa and surveying the safehouse apartment with a quiet awe. He’d not exclaimed over the place, nor whistled appreciatively the way Topino had minutes ago, before he’d gone back down to the street level, but Toly knew him well enough to read his startlement at the fineness of the place. “And Ian’s hired extra private security for Raven and Cassandra, in addition to our boys, of course.”

Toly was seated in a chair that faced the kitchen, all the dazzling winter sunlight that poured in through the terrace doors. He nodded, and toyed with the fraying hem of his hoodie, impatience crawling like ants over his skin.

“I spoke with Tenny on the phone when I stopped for gas, earlier, and he said he and Reese are running down leads today. He’s convinced he can land a parlay with the bratva and not get himself killed in the process. I guess if anyone can manage it, it’s him.”

It’s not the bratva, Toly could have said.It’s a vindictive son, and the Kozlov Pakhan is helping me find him.

Maverick cocked his head to the side, and his tone shifted from presidential to personal. “I know it’s boring being cooped up.” When Toly met his gaze, his brows lifted. “Okay, more like ‘enraging,’ I guess.”

Toly sighed, and slumped down deeper into his chair. “You shouldn’t be protecting me. If they want me dead, that’s my business, and my problem to solve.”

Maverick sighed back. “If you remember,yourproblems started beingourproblems when you put your neck on the line for a Dog. Scottie says ‘hi,’ by the way.”

Toly made a face, because Maverick was right. Or, he was at least right about the bratva having a vendetta with the Dogs, even if he was wrong about the particulars of this situation. “HowisScottie?”

“Not any smarter. Don’t change the subject.”

Toly made another face.

“Keep doing that, and it’ll stick that way.”

“Thanks,” Toly deadpanned, “Dad.”

Maverick snorted. “And yet you’ve never given me a Father’s Day present.” When Toly finally cracked a smile, he said, “I know this sucks. But we’re going to get it fixed, and then you can go back out into the great big world and keep kicking ass for me, yeah? I just need you to hold tight a little longer.”

Though they all joked about it, Mav really did sound like everyone’s dad.

Toly said, “I’m surprised you agreed to let Raven go back to the office.” He himself had been adamantly opposed, but everyone else was on board so he was outnumbered, and on house arrest besides. (He dreaded the lecture he’d get if Mav found out about his sneaking out to meet Misha.)