Page 191 of Nothing More

“We’re working on it,” she said, because sayingnofelt wrong.

“No,” he said, hint of steel shining through in his voice, “we’reallworking on it. I know you won’t listen if I tell you to come back to Albany and let the boys handle this one–”

“Quite right.”

“But I’m gonna insist that this be a coordinated team effort going forward. All hands on deck. I know your dad isn’t patched, but your brother is. Whether he likes it or not, he’s not running this investigation, which I’m sure Ghost is making perfectly clear to him right now.”

“Yes.”

“I’m coming down to the city – no, I am,” he said, when she gathered a breath to protest. “Don’t worry about Cass: she’s got Bennet and Joanna and Shep, and there’s other guys here fulltime. I asked Miles to doublecheck our security system, so she’s all taken care of. But I’ll come, bring my best downtown guys, and we’ll meet at the safehouse to make a plan for moving forward.” In the sort of stern, fatherly tone she’d never heard from her own father, he finished with, “The bratva’s targeted one of my guys. I take that personally. I want blood.”

Raven let out a breath. “Understood.”

When she hung up, Devin said, “Have you been properly lectured now, young lady?”

“No.” She aimed her phone at him. “You don’t get to do that.”

He chuckled.

Tenny returned with a sigh and tucked back into the food, making a face at the gone-cold eggs but shoveling them in anyway. He and Reese both tended to eat with the too-fast, mindless determination of soldiers who’d been trained to maximize calorie consumption in as short a span as possible.

“If someone doesn’t put that man on blood pressure medicine, he’s going to go toes-up before he’s sixty,” he muttered between bites.

“Now, now, son,” Devin said. “You and your sister have been naughty. It’s only right you should take your licks for it.”

Without looking, Tenny flicked a triangle of toast straight at Devin’s head – who caught it, and bit the corner off with a laugh.

Raven said, “I thinkI’mthe one who needs blood pressure medicine.”

Thirty-Two

Toly had realized that, wherever he was being kept, he was no longer in the cannery. The sounds were all wrong, for one: when Rosovsky left him – presumably to eat, to rest, to make a phone call…or to empty the bucket Toly had the indignity of using as a urinal – the cannery would have echoed, footfalls ringing out along the catwalk, down the old steel stairs, bouncing through the cavernous space. Save Rosovsky’s mind-numbing voice, and the droning of the air conditioning – another mark against the cannery, because the place hadn’t had power connected for almost a decade – there wasn’t anything to hear. No groan of pipes, or squeak of rodents in the walls. The tiles were grimy, the office equipment old and dusty, but he couldn’t detect a sound, smell, or even a glimpse out the door, when Rosovsky opened it, that offered a clue as to his whereabouts.

He knew only that he was being given just enough food and water to keep him quasi-functional, and that the AC, cranked to a ridiculous low, was designed to leave him shivering, sleepless, and uncomfortable. Off his game. Rosovsky was going to try to break him, and he was going to take his sweet time about it.

Toly shifted in his hard metal chair again, testing his bonds for the hundredth time. He picked at the tape at first, for all the good that did, and when Rosovsky had noticed, he’d done something that had turned Toly’s fingertips raw, throbbing, and too painful to continue. He’d smelled burned flesh, and thought maybe he’d used a cigarette lighter. Toly hadn’t screamed.

“You will,” Rosovsky had said, smiling the same smile he’d offered Raven in her office. “Before it’s over, you will.”

Behind him, he heard the drawing back of the bolt – something industrial and after-market that he’d have no hope of breaking from the inside – and relaxed his hands, slumped down in his chair and slitted his eyes, feigning sleep. Grateful for his long hair, hiding the stippling of goosebumps on the back of his neck. He kept his breathing slow, but his pulse picked up, sick anticipation.

Footfalls, but not Rosovsky’s, not this time.

The moment he recognized them – fresh hitch in his heartbeat, an internal swear, an ugly blossom of hope the color of a bruise – was the moment before Misha rounded his chair and came to stand before him.

He’d freshened up since Toly saw him last, clean hair, recent shave, but still wore simple, dark clothes, a thick jacket against the chill, leather gloves. His beanie was hanging out of his pocket, and his expression was that of a tired, put-out father, disappointed in a wayward child.

Even after everything, even shaking from cold and so hungry his stomach ached, the sight of his face set in those lines hit Toly like a punch. He couldn’t keep from swallowing, and Misha’s eyes tracked the movement of his throat.

Misha said, “He told you.” Not a question, but an expectation; a request for confirmation, like Andrei was wont to deliver.

Toly was surprised by the roughness of his voice. “He told me lies.”

Misha sighed…and then hitched up his trouser legs and crouched down in front of him. His hands landed on Toly’s knees, and his head tipped back, and his expression turned so pitying that Toly swallowed again, and wanted to look away more than he wanted togetaway.

“I want you to know,” Misha said, “that I did not want to do it this way. I never wanted to hurt you like this, little brother.”

“Don’t,” Toly hissed through clenched teeth. “Don’t call me that.”