Page 208 of Nothing More

She wanted to wrap him up, spoon broth into him, kiss his forehead and promise him he was safe…but she didn’t think he would allow that, not even now, after everything. But she had to do something.

Slowly, she sat down on the edge of the bed, facing him. His head twitched toward her, and through the faint part in the curtain of his hair, she saw the flicker of his lashes as his gaze tracked her. She grabbed for her pleasant, matter-of-fact voice, the one she used in important meetings when she wanted to play Nice Boss instead of Head Bitch in Charge.

“You’re in Albany,” she repeated, “at the clubhouse. The blue room, with a view of the goat pasture. There were a pair of does out there earlier, as the sun was coming up, frolicking like fawns. Now, it’s ten ‘til one, and by the sound of it, Joanna is downstairs preparing lunch. Shepherd put in your IV line, and treated all your lacerations – for such a lecherous, disrespectful tosser, he knows his way around a first aid kit. You’ve had four bags of fluids, and–”

“Raven.” His voice was steadier now, and it silenced her. He’d tucked his hair back behind his ears, and though his face was still pale and drawn, his expression was his own again; a troubled frown, groove between his brows, gaze the sort of impassive she’d come to learn was a shield, one thick and smooth, meant to keep anyone and everyone from guessing what he was feeling. It stung to have it directed at her now, but she’d expected it, really.

He dampened his lips with his tongue, tip of it pausing when he reached the place where his lip ring ought to be, and where a dark line of stitches perched instead. Someone, Misha or Rosovsky, had ripped it out. She didn’t want to have to say that, and the quick flex of his brows told her she didn’t have to, he’d figured it out for himself. The tongue slipped back in, and he went back to flatly resigned. “What happened?”

“For starters, I’ll need to send a massive gift basket to Melissa Dixon. Thanks to an ‘anonymous tip’ – I suppose Kat Rydell needs a basket of his own as well – she was able to orchestrate a joint raid on Misha’s place. He wasn’t there, but they found Antonina’s body in a freezer…”

The shadows moved across the floor in the time it took her to detail the whole, wild scheme, all the parts they’d played. Noise ebbed and flowed downstairs; creak of the front door, call of male voices, answer of Joanna fussing and running someone out of the kitchen; bright peal of Cassandra’s laughter, and an answering, masculine bark that sounded like Shep; dear God, don’t lethimbe the Dog Cassandra finally settled on.

“…all that’s left to figure out is the identity of the dirty cop who plugged you into the NYPD’s DNA database. If we can get to him, Melissa can twist his arm with a fat stack of evidence and get him to shut his trap. Or, better yet, the bratva’s new management can relocate him to the bottom of the Hudson. I must say I rather like that idea.”

His expression had stayed resolutely blank throughout save the occasional sideways twitch of his mouth, and the flicker of his lashes. His jaw flexed, now, throat jerking in a painful-looking way as he swallowed. He said, “Misha’s here?”

She wished she could tell what he thought of that. Wished too that she could wipe away the inevitable complication for him. “Yes. There’s an old shed up the hill, in the woods. He’s, uh…enjoying Mercy Lécuyer’s hospitality at the moment.”

His brows shifted, finally, in reaction. “Mercy’s here?”

“We needed information, and no one extracts it better than him. Misha’s a stubborn nut. There was no way any of the locals could have cracked him, though Tenny offered to try. We decided to leave it to the professional.”

He let out a deep breath. “Rosovsky’s dead?”

“Yes. In Pongo’s words: as a motherfucker. Fox thought to take photos, if you’d like to see them. Assuage your mind about it.”

Another exhale, this one bigger, louder. His shoulders sagged, and when he reached with both hands to wipe at his face, his relief leaked through so that it was visible, colored with a distinct shade of grief that would take him weeks, months, years to parse and pack away.

He shifted, and then winced. His hands fell to his lap, and he looked down at his legs, the long bumps of them under the blankets. “How bad’s the damage?”

Uncertainty crawled across the back of her neck. “The good news is, despite his reputation and that of his father, he didn’t cut any bits off. All ten fingers, and toes, and all the necessary equipment is still intact. I don’t know why he held back, or if Misha made him, but the damage is superficial. You should make a full recovery…but there will be scars, Shep thinks. They’ll fade with time,” she rushed to add, “and I know of a wonderful cream–”

“I want to see them.”

“They’re bandaged.”

He chewed at his lip stitches, then thought better of it. Shook his head. More firmly: “I want to see them. Now.”

“Okay.”

She helped him fold back the covers, revealing the way his boxers had been pushed up to accommodate for the thick gauze pads taped from the tops of his thighs all the way down his shins. She noted the brief widening of his eyes when he saw them, the miles long lengths of both legs totally swaddled.

She fitted a nail under the first bit of tape and said, “You’re due a bandage change, anyway. After this we’ll clean you up and put on fresh.” She attempted a jocular tone. “I had the foresight to shave your legs so the tape wouldn’t pull at hair. You’re welcome for the baby-smooth softness.”

He didn’t laugh, gaze fixed on his own legs.

She peeled the bandages back, one by one.

The lacerations on his shins were straight-line cuts that had bit into bone – not difficult, given the thinness of the skin – and would heal well and quickly. The soles of his feet would take time and be difficult, opening afresh whenever he walked. But the worst, and the ugliest, puckered and puffy and red in the sunlight, were the deep cuts on his thighs. Not just deep, but then picked at, pulled apart, their edges intentionally roughed up with something saw-toothed and jagged, the flesh left to go proud, infection brewing. Impossible to stitch, so Shep had flushed them thoroughly with sterile solution, having to pry them apart further to get all the crevices, then slathered them with antibiotic ointment and left to heal from the inside out.

Devin, Fox, and Tenny had leaned over the work table and hissed when they caught sight of them. According to them, the worst part wasn’t the damage, the pain, the chance of a worsening infection, but the fact that these were no random marks. They were words carved into his flesh, one on each leg, in Cyrillic.

“What do they say?” she’d asked.

They’d told her.

She watched now as Toly lifted a shaking hand as if to touch them, and curled it into a fist instead; pressed it down to the mattress at his hip, the shakes moving up his arm, his throat, turning his breath stuttery as it passed his lips.