Page 39 of Savage Empire

If I don’t have to figure out the godforsaken shopping app on my own, Leon might have just mademyday.

“If you say so.”

“Daddy?” Leo asks, his sweet little voice chiming quietly. “Juice?”

“Do you have?—”

“I’ve got it,” I cut him off, jumping right up. “Apple or grape?”

“Apple, thank you.”

I rush into the kitchen, smiling to myself. Maybe I’m not so bad at this adult socializing thing after all. Or maybe Leon just makes it easy.

Chapter Twelve

Apollo

The unmistakable sound of laughter hits me as soon as Yordan opens the door. It isn’t what I expect to hear when returning him to the apartment. Especially since the noise isn’t a singular feminine laugh, and it isn’t coming from the television. No, it’s too prominent to be a digital recording, it’s coming from human mouths.

Yordan turns over his shoulder, giving me a baffled look. “Did Elio beat us here?”

No. No, he did not.

Elio drove separately from myself and Yordan after our day together had concluded. He’s bringing a spare vehicle for the Todorov siblings to use whenever they wish to leave the house without one of us. Even if he’d passed us on the road, he would still need to park the car in the underground garage, not right on the side of the building where I pulled up moments ago. Whoever Rayna is laughing with, it’s not Elio.

“No,” I tell him, putting a hand on his shoulder to pass him. My hand instinctively goes to my belt, reaching for my pistol.

“Do you need that?” Yordan whispers, sounding panicked. “She’s laughing.”

And that’s the only reason my hand is hovering above it, rather than wrapped around it. The door falls shut behind us, clicking softly since neither of us continued to hold it open.

“Yordan? That you?” Rayna calls out.

Her voice is perfectly steady, without a hint of fear to cloud it.

“Yeah,” Yordan calls back without a second thought.

Fuck it.

I throw out any semblance of cunning, stomping into the apartment toward the sound of her voice. Rounding into the kitchen, I stop dead in my tracks, finding the source of Rayna’s laughter.

“Oh,” she grumbles, the ghost of a smile vanishing from her face. “You, again. You could have just dropped him off, you didn’t need to come in.”

I can’t even respond to her snark, because I can’t process the sight in front of me. Rayna is sitting at the kitchen counter with Leo in her lap, holding the small boy while he draws wiggly shapes with his fingers. The counter top is smeared with white shaving cream, speckled with various cookie cutter shapes and plastic spoons. Sitting close to his son and Rayna, Leon holds a small towel covered in smears of shaving cream.

My eyes bounce between all three of them, digesting the strange combination. None of this makes sense. At all.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, eyes narrowing on Leon.

“Nice to see you too, brother.” He sighs, shaking his head.

“Oh, hey,” Yordan chirps, coming up from behind me. “I remember this! Sensory activity, right? Shaving cream?”

He took the time to secure the locks while I stormed in. I don’t know why he wasn’t more concerned about the male laughter in the apartment his sister was supposed to be alone in, but apparently we’ll need to work on his level of protectiveness.

Rayna smiles at her little brother. “Yes, shaving cream. I’m surprised you remember this, you haven’t done it since you were like five.”

“You had pictures of it, though.” Yordan grins, watching as Leo slams his palm down into the fluffy product-covered counter. The shaving cream splatters and he bursts out with a high-pitched giggle. “He looks like he’s having a blast.”