Page 44 of Nothing More

Then he turned his head away, hair falling forward and shielding his face. His voice sounded strained when he said, “You shouldn’t ask that.”

She wasn’t prepared for the devastation of his rejection. Said, “I won’t ask it again.”

“Good.”

Raven scraped up the shattered remnants of her dignity, heart beating too fast, palms clammy, and stood; stepped away from him. “Night, then,” she said, lightly, unbothered;I don’t care, take it or leave it, ha ha ha!

She’d reached the mouth of the hall before he ground out a quiet, “G’night,” behind her, a single syllable rough as a cough.

Ten

At six a.m., Toly stood on the balcony smoking a cigarette, winter wind cutting through the thin sleeves of his borrowed shirt, phone pressed to his ear. It rang and rang and rang, and then went to voicemail. “This is Mav, leave a message.” He dialed again right away, and Maverick picked up on the first ring.

He sounded wide awake. “Hey, sorry, I was on the other line.”

Toly was convinced he never slept, that he had a secret IV drip of caffeine hidden under his desk.

Without preamble, Toly said, “You need to put someone else on Raven.”

A pause. He could envision Mav’s face, his thoughtful frown. “Is there a problem?”

A big one. In his pants.

Pongo would have choked to death laughing if he’d ever said something like that aloud.

“I don’t think I’m the right man for it,” he said instead.

Last night, he’d stood for a long while at the kitchen island, eyes tracing sightlessly over the whorls and rivers of the veining in the marble, listening to the quiet sounds of weight on floorboards and water pipes running that signaled Raven readying for bed. Then it had grown silent, save the low hum of electricity in the building, and still he’d stood, her invitation filling every corner of his mind.

Had she meant it? Or was she merely feeling vulnerable, lonely, and tipsy? What would she have done if he’d said okay, and offered a hand to her? Would she have come willingly? Would she have come to her senses sometime in the middle of things, pushed him off her, shouted, covered herself and turned away, horrified by what she viewed as a moment of weakness? There was a difference between wanting someone from a distance, entertaining a fantasy, wondering, admiring, and actually going through with the deed.

But it had beenso easyto envision. She’d unlocked the door of possibility, pushed it open a crack, and his imagination had shouldered its way through. He’d imagined taking her hair down, filling his hands with it; tipping her head back until she felt the strain in her neck, and knew that he could hurt her, but wouldn’t. Until she slipped down off that pedestal a bit, and let him catch her. Her mouth would have tasted like wine, her skin like expensive moisturizer, and he thought that if he put his mouth in just the right place, she’d unravel with a whole host of soft, bitten-off little sounds, an eagerness she kept closely guarded in her day to day life.

Sex had always been easy and readily available in the bratva, from before he hit puberty; if you could think it, it could happen, one phone call, one snap of the fingers. There was no time for longing to build, not a chance for fantasy. He’d only ever fantasized about the blue-eyed girl on the perfume billboard…and now here she was, inviting him to bed.

He had not gone into the guest bathroom, shoved down his sweats, and taken himself in-hand.

But he nearly had.

Even now, taking a long drag on the first of what would be many cigarettes, he could feel blood traveling south at the thought of her, over just thememoryof fantasizing.

“Toly?”

He’d been quiet too long. He said, “Sorry. What?”

“I said, we talked about this. All of us. The whole club. About who would be the best fit for this assignment. I’ve got brawlers, and hot tempers, but you’re my best weapon.” He said it kindly, and meant it as a compliment. It didn’t sting, per se, because Toly knew exactly what he was, and what he was good at; knew that he was, in fact, the perfect fit for this job. But he felt too human, buzzing with too much awareness at the moment, to feel Mav’s words as any sort of praise.

“You have the skills and experience we need,” Mav continued, heedless of his internal turmoil. “I don’t trust anyone’s eyes like I do yours.”

He took another drag.

Mav’s tone shifted, less president, more friend. He was always doing that, trying to be their friend, even as he told them what to do. Toly imagined it was how a father would behave, but didn’t know, personally, having never known his own father. “I know you’re not squeamish about a couple of body parts, and you’re more confident than anyone I know. So I don’t think you’re doubting your abilities.” Damn his perceptiveness. “What’s going on, Toly?” It was easy to picture him in a cardigan, taking his shoes off.Won’t you be my neighbor?That voice so encouraging, and safe.You can tell me, I promise. “What happened? And I’m not talking about the finger or the ear.” His voice turned wry. “Is it Raven? She giving you hell?”

Yes. A personal, hard-dick sort of hell.

“No,” he lied. And then, even worse: “She doesn’t like me. I piss her off, says I’m an asshole. So she doesn’t listen to me. You should put someone else in the office and the apartment and let me do surveillance from a distance. I work better alone. I can find who’s doing this quicker from the outside.”

It wasn’t acompletelie. That somehow made it worse than an outright one; tasted foul on the back of his tongue. He was better suited for surveillance; for quiet hits; for melting out of the shadows, knife-first. In his work as part of the Obshchak, by the time a mark saw his face, it was too late to run. He was a stealth killer, even still, and not one of Maverick’s “brawlers,” as he’d put it.