Page 5 of The Hard Way (The Kinky Bank Robbers #5)

Chapter Four

Thor was sitting on the veranda when I rose, sunlight making his long blond hair look like spun gold. He’d ordered up coffee and pastries; you could see the steam rising off his mug.

He looked up as I stepped out. “Another perfect Roman holiday morning,” he said, putting his tablet aside.

I took a seat. We liked to sit out there early in the morning and watch the street wake up—the shutters would get flung open, the shop gates would be pulled up. The tiny cars would start buzzing around. It was still early for that, though. Just sunrise.

From his serious mood, I guessed he’d been checking in on the clinic. “Things okay at the clinic?”

He hesitated. Then, “Yeah.”

He was a doctor by trade, though being a fugitive made it a bitch to get hospital privileges. He’d started a clinic in Mexico, but we’d had to leave even that behind last month when we fled. He’d left another doctor in charge, a woman named Rosa. It supersucked. He loved that clinic.

Zeus had started a detective agency, and we’d had to leave that, too, even though we’d been awesome at solving our first case.

When you were a fugitive, you got used to leaving things behind. You got used to missing things.

You got used to having no home. I never imagined that with all of the glamorous places we visited all the time, and our many adventures, that I’d long so fiercely for a real home.

I didn’t like to talk about it much. My men—my husbands now—wanted to give me everything I desired.

They’d hate that there was this one thing they could never provide.

In addition to a real home, I missed my sisters something awful, and I worried about them all the time.

My only contact with them was through the newsletter they sent out—I’d signed up with a fake name, of course, because I had to maintain the fiction I was dead—for their protection.

But they hadn’t sent out a newsletter in forever.

What was going on? I told myself it was just the success of the artisan sheep cheeses. Too many orders to fill!

I also missed our Los Angeles safehouse, but now that our deadly and powerful enemies knew about it, it was as dangerous as it was awesome, like wading through a vat of gasoline while juggling flares.

Here in Italy, we could actually relax for once. You don’t know what a luxury it is to sit at an outdoor café table in full view of everyone until you’re a fugitive on every top hitter’s hit list. Even sitting on a balcony like a normal person was a rare treat.

“Zeus out running?” I asked.

“Yup.” Thor pushed the plate of pastries at me. “Nab the last almond croissant now if you want it.”

I took it.

He picked up the book he’d been reading. War and Peace. You know you have a lot of time on your hands when you’re literally reading War and Peace.

I tore my pastry in half. Zeus and I sometimes split the almond ones. I poured a cup of coffee and grabbed my own book, but I wasn’ t in the mood to read. So I sipped. I waited for people to start moving.

“Odin’s not up?”

Thor flipped a page. “I haven’t seen him yet.”

“He’s not going to like that we let him sleep.”

“Maybe he’s tired out from your magical butt-fucking experience.”

I nodded. It actually seemed plausible. “I don’t know why it was so magical,” I said after a while. “We butt-fucked before. But it really was magical!”

Thor gazed out at the cobblestones; steam was starting to rise up in the patches where the morning sun hit. “Every time we have sex, it’s different,” Thor said. “Like a different animal with a different personality. Last night it was a unicorn.”

I frowned, thinking maybe a little bit too hard about that analogy. “Ow,” I said. “I’m not sure if the unicorn butt-fucking comparison is working so well for me.”

“Elephant?”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Sperm whale?”

“New rule: no more animal comparisons.”

“Fine.” Thor picked up his book again.

We read for a while. When Odin still didn’t make an appearance, I fixed a plate with coffee, a plain croissant, and spicy fig jam—his favorite—and took it to his room.

The door was ajar, so I pushed it open, and there he was, sleeping, hair inky against the snowy white of the bedding, dark eyelashes like ruffled curtains for his eyes.

He looked troubled, though. Even in his sleep.

I hated it. I hated that he’d had such horrible trauma in his life that not even unconsciousness could give him respite.

“Hey,” I whispered.

He began to mumble, and then he started pleading in some other language .

I set the tray on the bedside table and stretched out next to him. “Hey, it’s okay,” I whispered.

He quieted at my touch, but I could see his eyes moving behind his lashes.

Odin had had a hard life. He’d done terrible things in the intelligence agency where he and Zeus met—things that he didn’t like to talk about.

And before that he’d had terrible things done to him during his stay in a certain Algerian prison that was under the control of a man named Mahfoud—Mahfoud the Sadist, Odin called him.

The prison was where his nightmares had started, and according to the guys, his nightmares had gotten progressively worse every year—until I joined the gang. That’s when they stopped getting worse.

But now they were worsening once more.

I gazed at his sweet sleeping face, wishing I could chase them away.

You calm him, Thor sometimes said. Even when you’re in the next room, his face looks softer.

That was one of the most amazing parts about our foursome, that we were better together. If only Odin would trust that.

But he never let me sleep with him.

“Let me care about you,” I whispered. “Let me love you the way you love me.”

He mumbled—he seemed troubled. I brushed back his hair. “Shhh.”

He seemed to sink more deeply into slumber. I stretched out beside him. It really seemed like I was helping him to sleep more peacefully.

And that was when he went wild, flailing, arms churning. He was like a wild animal—aggressive, frantic.

I scrambled away from him, but not before he cracked me in the ribs and the mouth. I tripped and toppled onto the floor, taking half the sheets and a lamp with me .

Thor rushed in. He took one look at me, and he went white. “Ice! Oh my god!”

I sat up, shaken, tasting blood. “I’m okay.”

Odin woke up then, rubbing his face, confused. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said from the floor. “I startled you.”

Odin looked horrified. “Goddess…did I…”

Thor knelt in front of me and touched my lip. Sticky. Bleeding.

“Isis.” Odin sprung out of bed. “Oh my god!” He came to me, kneeling next to Thor, trembling hands hovering on either side of my cheeks, as though he was frightened even to touch me. “I hurt you.”

“It’s nothing.” I stood and winced as a sharp pain seemed to rip into my lung. I bit back my cry— just barely.

“Isis! God!”

“Probably a rib out of place,” Thor said. “She’s okay.”

“It’s nothing,” I said again.

“It’s not fucking-g nothing. Stop saying it’s nothing!”

“I’m saying it’s nothing, too,” Thor said, “because it’s nothing, Odin. Because she’s fine. Go fill the ice bucket.”

Odin took my hand, horror in his eyes. “What did I do to you?”

Thor huffed out a breath and stormed away, returning with a damp towel. Odin took it from him and blotted my chin.

“It’s okay, really.” I tried for a smile. “I should apologize for startling you.”

Odin just stared, eyes steely with pain, like all the happiness and warmth had gone out of them.

Thor helped me out to the front room. “Seriously, Odin. Ice bucket. Now.”

Odin left, and Thor settled me into a chair. “How bad is it really? Your chest. ”

“It’s sharp when I breathe. I feel like I can’t take a deep breath!” I was starting to panic.

“You’re okay. Stay calm.” Thor dabbed my chin with a damp towel; when he pulled it away, it was pink. He poured a whiskey into an empty coffee cup. “Drink. Down it.”

I threw it back. Warmth moved into my chest. It actually did calm me. “Whiskey for breakfast. It’s definitely a vacation now.” I laughed, and then the knife of pain stabbed me. “Ow. Fuck!”

Odin stood in the doorway holding the ice bucket, looking devastated. “I did this to you.”

“No.”

“You wanted to help me. You wanted to love me, and I lashed out.”

“I did it to me. You warned me not to try and sleep with you, and I went ahead and tried it.”

“How about both of you stop apologizing. Shit happens.” Thor twisted the ice into a towel and gave it to Odin. “Hold this to her lip.”

Odin held it to my lip. “You trusted me, and I hurt you.”

“It’s so nothing,” I said.

“Everyone’s fine,” Thor growled. “Isis isn’t made of glass.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You can ask the unicorns, hippos, and sperm whales about that.” I snorted at my own joke, then winced again.

“Goddess!” Odin said.

“I’m fine! Sheesh!”

Odin wasn’t buying my sheesh . “Oh, Isis!” he said. I’d never seen him so upset, and we’d been through some big things together.

Thor seemed worried. “You’re flipping out over nothing, Odin.”

“She’s not breathing right,” Odin said. “You made her drink whiskey.”

“Yeah, and it tasted great. And I might have Zeus’s half of the almond croissant, now, too,” I said .

Odin frowned.

“Get over it. She startled you, and she has a hurt rib,” Thor said. “A minor injury that she’ll have the best care for. Because who is the best doctor in the world?”

Odin grumbled.

“That’s right, brother. I am.”

“Except this is getting a little too cold.” I took the makeshift ice pack from him and shifted it. “Um…the croissant, please?”

Odin studied my face and then went off to the porch to get it.

I forced myself to eat it, even though it didn’t go that well with the whiskey. But Odin was upset. Like, really upset. And I’d noticed that my guys liked it when I ate. It seemed to comfort them. Like eating was a sign of well-being. Like with a dog.

“Yum.” I took over the ice-holding after that. “I don’t know how much more of this ice I need.”

Odin paced. He still wore the boxers he’d worn to bed and nothing else. His beautiful hair was askew. “I’ll never forgive myself, goddess.”

“Wait, did you go down to the lobby and fill the ice bucket just wearing those underpants? Because Odin, that kind of makes up for it.”

Odin wasn’t fooled. He paced back and forth some more.

“That’s it,” Thor said. “You’re putting on your clothes and going out for aspirin.”