#TeaserTuesday - Nothing More

I'm in the midst of edits on Nothing More, which means it'll be headed your way soon! I need to finish making and applying my personal edits, then get together with my editor for her feedback, apply additional changes, and we'll go through one final proofread. Just a little longer, and then Toly and Raven will be free in the wild.

For today's Teaser Tuesday, I'm sharing the prologue and first three chapters. Typical Dartmoor content warnings apply: violence, language, criminal activity, sexual situations. All the good stuff ;) 

Nothing More

Copyright © 2023 by Lauren Gilley

All Rights Reserved 

Prologue

Moscow
14 years ago

 

“I don’t believe in second chances.” The knife was long, slender, double-edged. A knife made for stabbing. In and out between two ribs before the pain registered. It winked in the firelight when Andrei turned it over and ran the polishing cloth down its other side. “You will betray me only once, and then I’ll gut you.” 

His gaze flicked upward, briefly, to gauge his reaction, and Toly nodded. “Yes, sir.” His voice came out a croak because he used it so seldom.

Andrei nodded in return, and resumed polishing the knife.

Anatoly was twelve-years-old, scrawnier than one of the half-starved dogs he’d just passed on the street outside, and his mother had died four days ago. He hadn’t cried, and didn’t expect that he would. Her last words to him had been a slurred, “Shut up and bring me that.” It turned out vodka on top of heroin on top of cocaine, in the quantities she’d consumed, was a fatal combination. Her heart had given out, the doctor had said – the man the bratva called doctor, with his small, girlish hands, and smaller eyes, always narrow behind the perfect circles of his wire-framed glasses. He’d come into the room tracking snow across the Aubusson, smelling of cigarette smoke and a woman’s strong perfume, shirt buttoned up tight against his throat to hide a tattoo that only ever peeked out when he stretched his neck. He’d hovered his ear over Mother’s foam-streaked lips, and then pressed it to her chest, where her dress plunged the lowest. Rested his fingertips on the pulse point in her wrist; lifted each eyelid to examine her reddened sclera.

“She’s dead,” he’d announced. “Her heart.” A meaningful glance toward the glass coffee table and its heaps of glasses, and dishes, and rolled up bills told the story of why her heart had failed.

Toly hadn’t needed an explanation. He’d been expecting it to happen, really. Someday sooner rather than later. He’d even been preparing: squirreling money and canned food away into his rucksack, stealing her good leather gloves and sewing some of her less-loved furs into the lining of his coat, for warmth and for the chance to sell them, later, if the money ran out and he failed to pick the right pockets. He wouldn’t leave her, not until the end…but once he did, he was planning to disappear. He was small and quiet enough that no none would miss him.

But the maid had come in just after Mother passed, when her body was still warm and Toly was lacing his boots. She’d screamed. The water pitcher she carried shattered. Boots came running. The doctor was sent for.

Then Andrei. He’d stood over the body, expressionless save the faintest curling of his upper lip.

Then he’d turned to Toly, trying to stay half-hidden between two curtains. “You. Come.”

No chance for escape, then.

And now they’d arrived at this moment, in the man’s opulent study, fire crackling merrily beneath a heavy, dark mantel upon which Andrei had smacked a man’s forehead half-an-hour ago. Armed men stood inside the door, one on either side of it, and they’d passed others in the hallway. They had greeted Andrei with respectful ducks of their heads, and not acknowledged Toly at all.

Andrei acknowledged him, though, in the way he lifted the knife toward the light and squinted at its brightness, searching for any missed spots or smudges. “Your mother,” he began, “was a leech. She always wanted something from me: more dresses, more shoes, more furs. More trips, and more trinkets. More drugs, more booze, more caviar, more, more, more. She could have sucked me dry and it still wouldn’t have been enough. Nothing but take, take, take. A parasite.” His gaze cut over, a brown that was flat and cold, like rocks at the bottom of a lake.

Toly said, “Yes, sir.”

“And then the bitch dies, and leaves you behind.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you…” He pointed at him with the knife, head cocked, gaze narrowed, calculating. “I don’t think you’re like your mother. I think you’re a smart boy, aren’t you?”

Toly couldn’t remember when he’d last had a sip of water, and it was difficult to swallow. He kept his hands still at his sides, though, and his face composed, and he didn’t shiver the way he wanted to. He’d learned how to be very still over the years; how to tighten all his muscles so that it almost looked as if he wasn’t breathing. “I think so, sir.”

Andrei Kozlov’s smiles were rare, hard-won things. They were terrible, too, as was the one that stretched his mouth now. “See? Smart.” He twisted in his chair so he addressed the man standing large and silent behind him, Misha. “He’s smart, this one, Misha. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Pakhan turned back to Toly. Flipped the knife in one easy movement so that he was holding the blade he’d just polished, and extended the handle to Toly.

Toly knew better than to hesitate. If he flinched, or made a face, or held back in any way, that would show weakness. Would require a second chance – and Andrei didn’t believe in those. So he gripped the knife with a sure, dry hand, and held it in the way that Misha had shown him earlier.

Andrei asked, “Do you remember where to aim?”

“Yes, sir.” He turned from the fireplace, and the Pakhan sitting before it…toward the man who sat ten feet away, in the corner of the room, bound hand and foot to a chair that cost more than every stitch of ratty clothing he wore, crying in squelched little gulping sounds, face red around the gag shoved deep into his mouth.

Toly didn’t know the man’s name, nor his sins against the bratva. It wasn’t his business to know. This was a test, an initiation. And there was no room for error.

The man’s face, wet with tears and snot, was twisted and bruised, wretched to behold, and so Toly didn’t look at it. Looked instead at the man’s bird-boned chest, with its narrow shoulders, soft pectorals, and pot belly all visible in the once-white undershirt he’d been stripped to. Looked at his left collarbone, and let his gaze trail downward, searching for the right place.

The man’s whimpering grew frantic as Toly strode toward him across the rug. “Mmph-mmph-mmph!” Shrill and high even without words. He shook his head frantically, and tried to spit out the gag with a few wet gulping sounds, but to no avail.

Toly stepped between the man’s legs, and struck with the knife. Not as quickly as Misha had, when demonstrating, because it was his first time and he wanted to hit the heart on the first try. You must press hard, Misha had said, harder than you think. So he aimed carefully, and he pushed hard.

A quiet, wet crunch as the skin gave. A faint pop, of a barrier breached.

He pushed, and pushed, and he didn’t hit bone. The man screamed against his gag, a garbled, animal sound of pain and distress. Toly knew he’d hit the heart when the man spasmed, and his head fell forward.

He stepped back and withdrew the knife, moving quickly and to the side to avoid the fat stripe of arterial spray that jetted across the floor. It was hardwood; it would clean.

Then he turned and carried the bloodied knife back to Andrei.

The Pakhan offered another of those terrible smiles, and the polishing cloth, which Toly took and applied to the steaming knife.

“Very good,” Andrei said. “You’ve done well, Anatoly.”

The fresh blood was hot through the cloth as he wiped it. “Yes, sir.”

 

~*~

 

 

London

14 Years Ago

 

Her makeup was trying to melt under the lights. A harried young woman wearing a toolbelt full of brushes and powders attended to her, blotting her forehead and cheeks, dusting a bit more blush along her cheekbones. Raven closed her eyes and held her breath as the girl leaned forward and blew the excess away with one forceful breath.

She was twenty-one, and had just landed her first solo advert photoshoot: a promotion for a new brand of perfume. La Passion. This particular campaign was aimed at the Eastern European market, with billboards set to be posted in all the former bloc countries, and Russia itself. She lay on her stomach on a chaise, a sheet barely preserving her modesty from the waist down, surrounded by coils of wire, a flood of hot, bright lights on stands, and a small army of assistants of all sorts. She glimpsed her mother, and her agent, Stella, just beyond the blocked-off, white-on-white landscape of the set, standing behind the photographer with their heads bent together, whispering.

The makeup girl straightened a lock of her hair, lay it over her shoulder, and stepped back, making room for a second girl, this one bearing a can of Coke beaded with condensation.

“Thank God,” Raven sighed, and reached for it. “I’m parched.”

The girl drew the can back with an apologetic face. “Er…no. It’s not to drink.”

Raven frowned. “What’s it for?”

“Don’t frown, please.” The makeup girl swooped back in with another brush, dabbing at the corners of her mouth once she’d smoothed the frown away.

“I’m sorry,” Coke girl said. “Mr. Humphries wants you to–”

“Let’s hurry it up, ladies!” the photographer – the esteemed, highly-sought-after Mr. Humphries – called, clapping his hands together loudly enough to send the sound echoing off the steel and concrete of the studio space like a gunshot. “Clock’s ticking.”

The makeup girl fled.

The Coke girl looked as though she wanted to, biting at her lip, leaning away from Raven, Coke held out in a desperate bid for her to take it so she could leave.

“What?” Raven asked, helplessly. “What does he want?”

The girl sucked in a deep breath, and then blurted, “Use it on your tits, he said. Make your nipples pointy.” She thrust the can into Raven’s slack grip, and bolted, face crimson.

Raven looked to Humphries, who’d climbed up onto his stool, perched like a vulture behind his several-thousand-dollar camera rig. “Go on, then,” he called to her. “A little” – he mimed pressing the can to his own nipples, one at a time – “to get the girls all nice and perky, yeah? We need to wrap this up, darling. Chop, chop.”

“A moment, please,” Mother said, and stepped up to whisper furiously in Humphries’ ear. In typical Mother fashion, she was not, in fact, whispering at all.

“Her chest isn’t going to be seen in the ad! What reason could you possibly have for–”

“That doesn’t matter. People will be able to tell.”

“How?!”

“It makes them fuller, when the buttons are popped. Viewers can…”

Raven looked down at the can slowly numbing her hand with cold, and not for the first time, she wondered if this business, this career, was perhaps not her greatest passion and dream. Was perhaps, instead, something from which she wanted run, very far and very fast.

She sat up, clutching the sheet around herself, and waited, while Mother, and Stella, and Humphries argued back and forth, voices rising shrill and echoey in the cold, empty expanse of the studio. Sweat trickled down her temple, and the makeup girl came to powder her face once more.

In the end, she applied the can, just to get on with things. Lowered the sheet and lay on her stomach on the scratchy fabric of the chaise. Turned her head and made sultry eyes at the camera.

“Gorgeous. Lovely. Beautiful,” Humphries said by rote, climbing down off the stool to take the camera in-hand and walk a half-circle around her, playing with angles.

“I can’t believe that man,” Mother said, in the car on the way home, afterward. “I can’t believe he insisted on that.”

But you allowed it, Raven thought. She’d argued, yes, but she hadn’t dragged Raven away from the shoot.

She sighed, and turned to Raven not with apology, but with resignation. “I’m sorry if that was uncomfortable, darling, but I’m afraid this whole business is nothing but uncomfortable. I wouldn’t let you stay in it if I didn’t think you could handle it.”

“Yes, Mother.”

If she said it often enough, perhaps, one day, it would be true.

 

 

 

 

One

 

Raven Blake held a unique position within the Lean Dogs’ extended family. Had she been a man, she doubtless would have been a patched member – at least, had she wanted to be. As it was, all of her male relatives, save her father, were patched members with considerable influence within the club. One was a president, another a vice president, and half the others were trained assassins of some sort. It became clear, after even the briefest of encounters with the woman, that her brothers had entrusted her with more club business than many would have thought appropriate.

Though, if Toly was honest, the women within the Lean Dogs’ sphere had far more influence and were privilege to more secrets than he’d expected. It was one of the many ways the club wasn’t like the bratva, and for that reason he’d shrugged and accepted it.

Unlike the other mothers, daughters, and old ladies, however, Raven was independently wealthy. Had done well in a cutthroat industry that had enabled her to live completely free of the club…but only if she’d wanted to. Which she hadn’t, apparently. Had instead asserted herself in her brothers’ lives, and had used that considerable wealth, on more than one occasion, to assist the club. Though not official, those Dog ties had been enough to have her targeted by club enemies, which was why Toly was here, now, using his keycard to gain parking garage access to the elevators of the building which housed Shaman’s and Raven’s businesses.

This elevator, with its grippy rubber floor, and its smudged steel walls, and its faint odor of cleaning chemicals, was the last normal thing he’d see until his shift ended. Like always, a small part of him felt the tug of the parking garage, the echoing concrete, the rumble of engines, the motor oil drips and exhaust fumes. Nice and pedestrian and dirty, like he was used to. Upstairs waited only extravagance and elegance, and he wasn’t cut out for that. Never had been.

But he stood rigid, bag slung over his shoulder, as the doors slid shut and the cab lurched upward with a rush of gears.

He still wasn’t sure why he of all people had drawn this gig. Pongo was out for sure, not only because he had his own dealings to handle in Manhattan – now with the added weight of playing go-between with the club and the PD through his girlfriend, Melissa – but also because he would have been a jolly-faced little pervert about the whole thing. Raven wouldn’t have liked anyone whistling at or flirting with her models, and Toly couldn’t blame her for that.

Most of the married guys were out, too: they wanted to be in Albany, close to their families, rather than stuck indefinitely downtown on an assignment without a firm end date.

Maverick, as president, couldn’t do it himself and properly keep tabs on everyone else.

That left Toly: single, serious, with the skills and experience needed to do whatever was asked of him, and the quietness to not make a fool of himself or draw undue attention to the club.

So it did make sense, in that way.

But he’d not ever envisioned himself as a knife-wielding shadow for someone like Raven Blake.

The elevator arrived with a polite ding and let him out into a hallway floored with patterned beige carpet, the walls a creamy eggshell, the sconces a brushed brass. Even the service hallways in this place were lovely. This one housed men’s and women’s restrooms, a breakroom that offered a proper kitchen in addition to the usual vending machines and tables, and men’s and women’s changing rooms.

Toly went to the men’s changing room, pushed through the swinging door into a space with more of the patterned beige carpet, and walls lined with benches and handsome wooden lockers. Each had a discreet little key lock, and a cubby above for street shoes. A connecting door led into a tiled room of showers and sinks; he showered the product out of his hair most nights before he left.

This morning, he unlocked his cabinet and methodically undressed down to his boxers, hanging his t-shirt, and leather jacket and battered jeans up on the hangers that had come with the locker.

A garment bag waited to the far left of the rod, and, with sourness pooling in his gut, he unzipped it and withdrew the suit that waited within. It was one of five Raven had given him, designs that were a part of the new menswear line she was about to launch in partnership with “Jean-Jacque de Jardin.” One for each day of the week, each its own special brand of garish – in his opinion, anyway. Each night, when he took one off and traded it for his street clothes, he left it hanging up on the dry-cleaning rack, where it would be whisked away by an employee and reappear in a clear bag, spotless and fresh-smelling.

He loathed suits.

Andrei had insisted upon them, unless he and the other Obshchak were off bashing heads and slitting throats in the dark of night. In the Pakhan’s presence, formality was required.

Raven was nothing like Andrei…he knew that…

But. Suits.

Today’s was the one that looked black under the harsh fluorescent lights, but which shimmered deepest, iridescent burgundy in the sun. The accompanying shirt and tie were both the color of blood – not unpractical in that respect, at least – and the lapel pin on the jacket was a small, diamond-cut ruby framed in gold.

Raven had called it “subtly glamorous.” “Fit for the red carpet.”

Toly called it ostentatious – in his own head. He spoke as little as possible in her presence. In the presence of everyone, really. His accent was thick and unlosable, he’d learned the hard way; it got him looks in places where discretion was the best form.

He allowed himself a deep sigh, here in the privacy of the changing room, then pulled on the suit, careful to preserve the sharp creases in the trouser legs. His shoes were leather-soled, and sharp-toed, and absolutely useless. No ankle support; no place to stash a knife. Once he’d tied their brittle laces into neat bows, he went into the adjoining shower room to do his hair in front of a mirror: a severe slicked-back ‘do that left his face far too exposed, but which highlighted his prominent nose and sharp cheekbones in a way that was more in keeping with the suit and the agency’s environs. Next, he took out his earrings and lip ring. Painstakingly edged each eye with black liner, faintly flared at the outer corners. Just that small amount of makeup altered his appearance significantly; lent him a haughty, effete air that belied nothing of his bratva past, and MC present. In his role as bodyguard, he played Raven’s wasp-waisted assistant, his suits sharply tailored, and he looked every inch the part, now. He didn’t recognize the man staring back at him from the mirror.

A variety of weapons concealed on his person, he checked the time on his phone, and then headed back for the elevators, and the twelfth floor.

Intemporelle meant “timeless” in French, which was Raven to a T. Every inch of the agency bore her personal touch, from the antique Persian rugs, to the dainty French desks, to the elegant script on the business cards. A tasteful blend of classic, Old-World charm and modern practicality, layered with tasteful blends of color in an industry swimming in white, chrome, and more white.

Toly might have dressed like a hobo and lived like a terminal bachelor, but he could appreciate the aesthetics of the place, even if he didn’t belong. The elevator doors opened onto a hallway floored with dark gray slates, a dusty pink and pale blue carpet runner leading along a glass wall swagged with champagne-colored drapes. Double glass doors etched with the agency name and logo opened to a reception room with leggy, velvet-upholstered chairs, coffee station, minibar, and high counter manned by slender young women with sleek hair and measured smiles.

Several too-thin women and one chisel-faced man were seated in the waiting room this morning, pretending to page through magazines while nervously checking the inner door. Their eyes snapped to Toly as he entered, then skittered back toward the door. One of the girl’s looked nauseated, clutching her magazine with white-knuckled fervor. Hopeful. Despairing.

The receptionists had learned weeks ago that Toly wouldn’t return their greetings, so they didn’t offer any; merely watched him with a touch of nerves as he strode across the room, flashed his keycard under the reader, and pushed through the inner door into the heart of the agency.

A bullpen of large cubicles lit with desk lamps housed the administrative staff. Beyond, the designers worked in a glass-walled studio, the space laid out with long, narrow tables, sewing dummies, and a variety of sewing machines. The back wall was one giant pinboard papered with design sketches and inspiration photos. There was a full kitchen set up like a cafe, from which the scents of curry and seared steak rolled tantalizingly. Raven had hired a nutritionist and team of chefs to ensure that all her employees, models included, ate a healthy, balanced diet. I won’t have them swallowing juice-soaked cotton balls to look like reeds, she’d said in a meeting during which he’d stood against the back wall.

Then came the offices.

Raven, head of the agency, had the corner office, large and lavish. A non-Dog security agent stood outside of it in an enviably plain black suit, large hands folded before him. He was broad, and square-jawed, textbook hired muscle. Part of a team that traveled with her, intended to draw eyes and project outward strength, who knew that Toly was a Dog, and that he was the real security, the human shield and last line of defense. He ducked a quick, deferential nod as Toly approached.

Toly nodded back, knocked twice, and entered.

Flooded with morning light on two sides, the office boasted a jaw-dropping view of the park, its sprawling undulations and clumps of trees, the last tattered autumn leaves clinging to bare branches as winter came on hard and fast.

Raven was seated not at her desk, but on the sofa in the sitting area, files spread before her on the coffee table, steaming cup of tea in one manicured hand.

Today, she wore a powder blue, clinging turtleneck dress, black tights, black pumps. Before she glanced up, she tucked a lock of shining brown hair behind her ear, revealing a simple, pearl stud earring, lashes dark and curled on her cheeks as she gazed down at the files. When the door clicked shut behind him, she lifted her head, and her eyes, backlit by bright silver sunlight, glowed the clean blue of fresh water.

He'd never in his life entertained such a fanciful thought about a woman.

Her smile was quick, professional, but not cold. “Good morning.” Her attention returned to the table. It was alarming the way his gaze went to her lips as she sipped her tea. “Did you get this morning’s itinerary?”

He shoved all unhelpful thoughts aside and stepped deeper into the room. “Yes.” The email arrived on his phone at six on the dot every morning.

“Did you see our ten o’clock?”

Our. She did that. He didn’t know what to make of it.

“Yes,” he repeated, arriving at the coffee cart. A second cart beside it offered a bevy of breakfast options, all of which he ignored, as usual, but he wasn’t a person who could function without at least three coffees a day. He poured himself a paper cup full. “Donovan Smith.”

“Donovan Smith,” she repeated in an incredulous tone. “The real estate magnate. Oh,” her tone shifted, “there’s some cheese Danishes there. And the muffins have cranberries and white chocolate in them. Can you believe? Anyway.” Another tone shift. “His secretary called yesterday and insisted on a meeting this morning. My secretary explained that wasn’t possible, given our current schedule, but that little brat wouldn’t give up. Lucky for them, Vanessa cancelled last minute, so we had an opening. But, honestly, what does a real estate man want with a modeling and fashion agency?”

“Dunno.” He turned around and leaned back against his usual spot on the wall – to find that she was watching him. Studying him, really.

Her lips compressed, mouth twitching sideways in an expression that wasn’t quite a frown. He was still trying to decipher what it meant, exactly. “Won’t you have some breakfast?”

“No.” He sipped coffee. “Thank you.”

“Hm.” Back to her paperwork. “Anyway.” She shuffled pages, one-handed, found one she wanted, and held it out to him. “I have my suspicions about him.”

He crossed the room to take it, and Raven continued, “Given that I was targeted by Abacus, the association with the club was well-established by Waverly’s people. It stands to reason more than just the top tier of the organization know whose sister I am.”

He nodded and accepted the paper.

“As the new hierarchy establishes itself in New York, it would make sense I’d be targeted again.”

The paper she’d offered was a dossier on Donovan Smith, with a small, professional headshot in the upper lefthand corner and neat, tight lines of text. It said the man was an attorney and head of a Forbes-featured real estate brokerage firm. Sixty-two, winner of a bunch of real estate awards Toly didn’t give a shit about, father of four, member of about two dozen charity boards and community club things. He owned three homes, all the addresses listed, and there was a whole section at the bottom and over on the back that marked all the moments – charity events and club memberships – when his path might have crossed Waverly’s, or one of Waverly’s co-leaders in Abacus.

It was thorough, and Toly was impressed. “Who put this together?”

“I did,” an unfamiliar voice spoke up. Male, British. Here in the room with them.

Toly swore in Russian and tossed down the dossier; scanned the office and had the gun he kept at the small of his back drawn before he spotted the young man lounging in the corner on a tufted leather chaise. He registered long legs unfolding as the man – the boy, really – stood, and dark hair, and blue, blue eyes, brightly familiar.

Raven’s eyes.

She stood, a fast flash of powder blue in his periphery. “Down, boy,” she snapped, in the tone of a woman used to being listened to. “That’s my brother. Miles. Over from London.”

Toly blinked the adrenaline rush from his eyes and scrutinized the boy more closely. He could see the resemblance in the eyes, yes, but also in the shape of his nose, and the way he held himself. Of the brothers he’d met, he most closely resembled Tennyson Fox, though a little blurrier at the edges, and with an easy, laid-back expression that seemed natural, but would have been a disguise in Tennyson’s case.

Miles. Brother. Not a threat. Clearly, Raven had invited him in, and known he was there all along.

But why hadn’t Toly? He should have clocked him the moment he entered. Should have, as part of his guard dog duties, done a thorough search of the office, swept for bugs, looked in the wardrobes. He should have been alert…to something besides the way Raven’s gleaming hair fell against the front of her dress.

He would never have made such a mistake in his old life.

He was going soft.

Miles gave a little wave. “Hey.” He grinned. “Uh, don’t shoot, okay? I haven’t been to the top of the Empire State building yet.”

Raven let out an exasperated sound. “Honestly. Put the gun away, Anatoly.”

He shifted his gaze to meet hers, saw steel flashing in her eyes, waited a beat on principal, and finally did put the gun away.

Raven arched a single brow in silent, devastating chastisement, then sat back down with a huff.

Toly was sure not to hurry as he bent to retrieve the dossier.

“Miles is a genius with computers,” Raven said, “so I asked him to come and tighten up security here at the agency. He’s also doing some hacking for us, and installing new security software on all the desktops in the building.”

“Basically,” Miles slouched over to join his sister on the opposite side of the sofa, snagging one of the muffins and a napkin on the way, “if anyone on this floor is selling any of Raven’s private information to the highest bidder, I’ll know about it.”

“That’s…not a bad idea,” Toly allowed.

“I don’t have bad ideas,” Raven said.

“Thanks,” Miles said, smiling, and took a massive bite of muffin. Crumbs rained down into his lap and onto the sofa cushion, and Raven sent him a look that went unseen. “I designed all the programs myself.”

“As I said,” Raven said. “Genuis. Even if he doesn’t know how to use a napkin.”

Miles took another crumb-producing bite, unbothered, and spoke around it. “You’re from the New York chapter, yeah? The Russian.”

That was how the whole club saw him: the Russian. He wasn’t the only Russian in the Lean Dogs – but he was the only one who’d been bratva. Who’d been bratva and gotten out with his skin intact. That made him the Russian.

He was used to it.

“Da.”

Miles nodded. “Cool. Guess we’ll be working together, then.” More crumbs fell onto the sofa – which Raven began picking up between two pinched fingers and depositing in her other palm, lip curled in elegant disgust – and he couldn’t have looked less like an asset in this situation.

Better than Pongo, though.

“Miles is a member in London,” Raven said.

“Yeah. I know.”

He got the lifted brow again.

The intercom buzzed politely on the desk, and the secretary’s voice floated through the room: “Miss Blake, your eight-thirty is here.”

The day started early in the fashion world.

Raven stood and went to brush the crumbs off her hands into the garbage can. “Thank you, Melanie. We’re ready.”

We. That inclusion again. Hopefully this assignment would end – or he’d be removed from it – before our and we began to feel normal.

 

 

 

Two

 

Contrary to what an outsider might have thought of her, given her firm handshake and cool smile, Raven’s favorite meetings were those with the models, rather than with sponsors and fashion buyers. She’d walked the runway for a decade, and knew all its stresses, its pitfalls, its dangers. She’d had her mother, however stiff-backed and cold, to guide and support her, and there was something about taking a girl shaking with nerves by the hand and assuring her that she was safe here at Intemporelle. She kept framed headshots and runway shots of herself along one wall, not for vanity’s sake, but to remind her new clients that she wasn’t tackling this business as an outsider; wasn’t going to treat the girls like an auctioneer inspecting a horse’s teeth. She liked to schedule her meetings with them as early in the day as possible, because she knew they wouldn’t eat beforehand and didn’t want them to swoon their way in at four on an empty stomach. Had them come in at eight-thirty or nine, fed them a quinoa breakfast bowl and some green tea, and talked with them until their shaking had subsided and they were able to smile hopefully about their futures.

Normally those were her favorite meetings. But she wasn’t enjoying any of her meetings lately. Knew she wasn’t as sharp as she should have been; not as warm with the girls nor as stern with the wheedling advertisers who didn’t want to pay what her models were worth.

She hadn’t been sleeping. Had awakened at least five nights a week from a nightmare, drenched in a cold sweat and shaking wildly ever since she moved to New York. The first time it happened, she’d chalked it up to jet lag and a change of environment. She didn’t globetrot like she had in her modeling days anymore and was out of practice. The second night, she’d attributed it to the din of New York nightlife outside her windows…which was a lie because she’d lived in the heart of London her whole life and spent time in Tokyo, Paris, Dubai, St. Petersburg…the list went on. She’d taken to having a couple glasses of wine before bed, which made it worse. Then she’d tried to workout in her building’s gym for two hours after she got home from the office, and then was even more exhausted after a restless night.

She’d moved onto the hyper-caffeination stage, which made her even twitchier and jumpier. Was putting extra foundation under her eyes to hide the dark circles, and trying desperately to hide this new, unwelcome anxiety from Cassandra.

Every morning, she hauled herself, sore from tossing, eyes aching, out of her sweat-damp sheets at five, made herself a strong cup of coffee, and began the business of making herself chic and presentable. Then she had tea with Cassandra, like normal, before school. More tea at the office. Somewhere around lunchtime, she swapped back to coffee, and kept going until four. She poured the coffee from the office carafe into her tea cup and no one was the wiser. She was concealing it well – even from herself because she refused to admit what was going on.

She was going through some sort of American adjustment period.

(Lie. Raven was scared.)

She limped her way through the end of her meeting with her newest client, a fidgety girl built like a gazelle who’d been smiling and laughing by the end.

“Take care, darling,” Raven said as she waved her off from the door. “I’ll see you Monday.”

“Bye!” The girl tossed a brilliant smile over her shoulder that Raven struggled to return, and was thankful to drop when she was around the corner. She stood a moment in the threshold, and felt her left eyebrow pulsing. A fatigue twitch. Fabulous.

Grant, the hulking man at the door, turned his head slightly. “Ma’am?”

“Nothing. As you were.” She smoothed her expression – though there was nothing to do about the twitch – and retreated, closing the door on his annoying little frown.

She swept back through the office, plucked her teacup off the table as she went, and moved to the coffee cart. The cup rattled, just a little, as she set it down, which betrayed the unsteadiness of her hand. Shit. She checked over her shoulder and saw that Miles was bundled up on the chaise with a chenille throw and his laptop, oblivious. She plucked up the coffee carafe and started pouring. The teacup wouldn’t hold as much as one of the tall, paper cups on the cart, but she’d established a pattern of using real china; breaking it would blow her cover (and look a lot less her to boot; she had an image to preserve).

Quickly, she added enough cream so the milky brown resembled the way she took her tea, picked up the cup, and congratulated herself on a successful operation. She lifted it for the first, much-needed sip.

“You know–”

Panic shot through her. At having been caught. At the unexpected sound of that low, dark-edged monotone. At her own slip, for not having checked to see where Toly was and where his attention was focused. A panic chased quickly by anger, and no small amount of shame, because it was wildly ridiculous that she was skulking around sneaking coffee as if it was contraband.

“–I’ve realized you’re a hypocrite.”

She’d spilled coffee over her hand and on the edge of her sleeve, and a trickle was dripping off her chin. “Fuck,” she hissed, snapped up a napkin and blotted her face, and then her hand and sleeve. Thankfully the coffee wasn’t black, but it was still visible on the pale blue cashmere. Bollocks.

She set the coffee down on the cart, grabbed a fresh napkin she wetted in the water pitcher and blotted more aggressively. “Your street ensemble and whole…everything” – she gestured briefly to her own face and scrubbed at the coffee spots on her sleeve – “gives the impression, and then your behavior follows through: you enjoy scaring people, don’t you?”

He gave a sound somewhere between a hum and a snort, one from his usual repertoire of non-verbal vocalizations that he employed more than actual words. “I scared you?”

The inflection – the fact that he’d bothered to use any at all – brought her up short. She lifted her head, met his gaze, and froze.

There was a section of wall between her desk and the cart, in a narrow span of actual wall that wasn’t floor-to-ceiling window, that had become his spot. The first day, he’d propped his foot back against it and slouched with his arms loosely folded, until she’d glared his foot back down to the floor. He hadn’t done it since, but he persisted in slouching and arm-folding unless she had someone else in the office.

There he was, slouching, sunlight striking the side of his face so it gleamed like porcelain, his eyes bright amber, their black and ochre striations set off by the eyeliner he’d applied with expert skill. The sharp cheekbones, and clean jawline, his slanted brows…from a purely professional, artistic sense, through her lens as both model and modeling agent, he was gorgeous in that instant. His hair slicked back off his face left his severe, characterful features on full, brilliant display, the sun serving a spotlight. She blinked, and then she saw the little flaws. The narrow white scar along his jaw; the little spot on his lower lip where he’d taken his piercing out.

The suit clung to him beautifully, shirt faintly creased thanks to the angle of his shoulders, the burgundy sheen in the jacket brightened by the the color of his eyes.

The problem was, she knew exactly what he was. Well…she knew that he was a Lean Dog. She didn’t know what the hell he’d been in Russia, had only a faint gleaning as to the severity of the term bratva. When she’d called it “the mafia” in front of Fox, he’d laughed. Yeah, mafia. He’d shaken his head. The Russians make the Italians look like a children’s choir.

So she sort of knew what he was. And the problem was, moments like these, he looked ready to send down the runway, and that, paired with that sort-of knowledge, the sense of danger and intent rolling off of him, left her stomach far too fluttery for her liking.

The problem was, she’d never gotten hot over one of her brothers’ stupid brothers, and she would not break that perfect streak now, especially not over a half-mute Russian with an attitude problem who was ten years her junior. She would not.

She blinked again, tried to do something about whatever her face was doing – God, please don’t let her be gawking at the man – and only then registered his initial comment.

She frowned. “I’m sorry, what? Hypocrite? I’m a hypocrite?”

In that moment, she learned that he could lift one brow at a time, too, just as she could. It only went up the barest fraction, but on his otherwise impassive face, the effect was dramatic. He did the brow, and then looked pointedly at her spilled coffee, and let his gaze slide toward the array of muffins, bagels, pastries, and hard-boiled eggs, all of which would be swapped out for lunch things at the appropriate time.

His gaze returned, brow still elevated. “You push food on me like a crack dealer,” he said, bluntly. “And you don’t eat anything and drink enough coffee to burn a hole in your stomach.”

The bottom dropped out of said stomach. Her mouth went dry. She was transported back to prep school, in her skirt and tights and uncomfortable Mary Janes, desperately trying to hide the extra serving of Christmas pudding she’d stolen from the dining hall behind her back.

She said, “I don’t know what you mean. I never drink coffee. I’m out of tea is all.”

Holding her gaze all the while, he pushed off the wall – he was always so much taller than she expected when he bothered to stand up straight – and stepped up to the cart. First, he lifted the electric kettle and gave it a shake, so the hot water within sloshed. Then he lifted the lid of her engraved, Chinese tea box to reveal the plethora of loose leaves inside. He stepped back, and stared at her, insistent.

“Has anyone ever told you,” she asked frostily, ignoring the fine tremors that had started up in her hands. It was probably just the caffeine. “That you’re a very rude man?”

“Da.”

“Tactless, even.”

“Mmhm.”

“Oh…” She snatched up her cup. “Mind the hole in your own stomach,” she snapped, turned, and marched back toward the sofa.

Behind her, he said, “You got some on the front of your dress, too.”

For the second time that morning, she froze because of him. Glanced down, and swore when she saw the splatter of coffee all across her chest. “Bollocks.”

She thought she heard an aborted little snort of laughter, but when she looked over her shoulder, he was back to slouching, messing with his phone.

Raven slapped the coffee down on the table and went to get changed.

 

 

Three

 

Raven snatched a bag out of one of the wardrobes in her office, swept into the en suite, private bathroom, and swept back out ten minutes later wearing a sleeveless black dress that was completely chic and appropriate…but which broke Toly’s brain a little bit. In his time in every strip club and brothel in Moscow, in his time at the clubhouse and working gigs in Manhattan, he’d seen women of all shapes and sizes, from stick-thin, to trying too hard, to lusciously curved, but call him Goldilocks, because the way clothes hugged Raven Blake’s body was juuuust right.

He glanced back down at his phone as she fussed about at the coffee table, straightening and arranging and wiping a smudge off its glass surface with a licked fingertip in a gesture so practical and maternal she seemed almost human for that split-second.

It was five ‘til ten. If Miles’s dossier was correct, Donovan Smith tended to arrive two minutes early to his meeting, presumably in an attempt to throw the other attendees’ confidence and take instant control of the proceedings.

The secretary, Melanie, came bustling in with a tray bearing a fresh water carafe, glasses, and chocolates in a dish. She looked and sounded harried. “Miss Blake, we just got the call from the parking garage: Mr. Smith is on his way up.”

“That’s fine,” Raven said, soothingly. “We’re ready for him. When he arrives, please present him with this packet” – she handed over a latched folder that Melanie took with a nod – “and remind him that he never responded to the digital one I emailed him last week. See if he’d like a moment in the waiting room to go over its contents before we meet. I’ll be happy to wait.” There was a wicked edge to her voice, something that wanted a challenge, and the sound of it never failed to send a pleasant chill up the back of Toly’s neck.

It left Melanie’s shoulder sagging with relief. Her boss was in control, here, not Donovan Smith. She could relax, didn’t have to worry. Raven had the uncanny ability to be the most intimidating woman in the building, but one with a knack for setting all her people at ease. Toly had never seen anything like it. The closest example was Maverick.

“Miles,” Raven said, and turned to search for her brother when he lifted a single headphone off his ear and only half-sat up. “Miles, you can’t be in here for this. I don’t want him to know your face.”

“Oh. Okay.” He got up, then, without argument, bundled his laptop into his arms and headed for the door. He paused, though, and glanced toward Toly, frowning. “What about your face? Is that a problem?”

Raven waved dismissively as she arranged the tray to her liking, and tidied her flawless hair. “He looks nothing like that, usually. No one who saw him in proper clothes would recognize him elsewhere.”

Well. That was true.

Miles shrugged and left.

Raven stood up straight, statuesque in her high heels, smoothed her dress, and closed her eyes a moment. Took a slow breath in, and let it out just as slowly.

He’d formed a theory a couple weeks ago, and begun paying even closer attention – not merely to the fit of her clothes, but to her little tics. The behaviors she was trying to hide; the small things she did in the quiet moments between performances. She was drinking far too much coffee, which made them both hypocrites, and her hands shook, sometimes. Last Tuesday, Melanie had dropped a glass, and when it shattered, Raven’s eyes had gone wide and wild; he’d seen her pulse leaping in the hollow of her throat.

Earlier, when he’d spoken to her and she’d spilled coffee all over herself, she hadn’t merely been startled. In that first instant, her expression had been one of fear. He saw it more and more, glimpses of it when someone dropped something, or when the elevator dinged, or even when she was sipping yet another coffee, staring out the windows at her splendid view, one arm clamped protectively across her middle.

She was scared. Good luck getting her to admit it.

He saw that fear in her now, just before she squared her shoulders and opened her eyes.

The intercom beeped. “Mr. Smith is here,” Melanie called through.

Raven glanced toward Toly, as he stood up straight and moved to the edge of the conversation space – the sofa, and the table, and the two chairs – standing in his designated spot in everyone’s periphery. “Ready?” she asked.

Are you? he wondered, but didn’t say. Asking would be speaking, and speaking would be caring, and care was something he didn’t really know how to do.

He nodded.

Raven nodded back.

The door opened and two men entered. Smith he recognized from the dossier, medium in every regard, his iron-gray hair coiffed with gel, college ring heavy on his pinky finger.

The second was younger, taller, more muscular. His suit was tailored in a way that highlighted thick biceps, and his face was all aggressive angles. His pale hair was swept back off his forehead, and his smile, as Raven stepped forward to shake both their hands, was blindingly white and almost pushy in its friendliness.

Toly hated them both, instantly. But that wasn’t unusual for him.

“Miss Blake,” Smith said, drawing her hand into both of his, so his grip surrounded her (Toly’s hackles went up at that; he wanted to step forward and smack the man across the wrists until he let go). “So good of you to squeeze us in. I hear you’re a very busy woman.”

No trace of fear remained now in Raven’s face or posture. She’d drawn a cloak of professional coolness around herself, beautiful but deadly, charming as a black widow and enchanting as a poisoned butterfly. Toly always found it difficult to look away from her when she was on like this, and her two guests didn’t appear to fare any better.

“Well, aren’t we all?” Raven said, and with a smooth twist of her wrist, pulled out of his grasp. Then turned to proffer her hand, French-style, to Smith’s counterpart. “And you’ve brought a friend, I see.” Her tone was inviting, the words an accusation.

“Allow me to introduce my newest associate, Greg Ingles.”

The blond – Greg – dimpled slyly, eyes twinkling, as he took Raven’s hand and kissed the back of it. Dashingly. The asshole. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Blake,” he said, and his accent was that bland, studied blend of Nowhere Specific and Boardroom Forceful that always set Toly’s teeth on edge.

“Greg here is trying to decide between industries,” Smith said, hands going in his trouser pockets, rocking back on his heels in a pleased way, like a proud uncle. “He’s shadowing several businesses right now, bouncing around a little until he can tell the others to stick it without offending them too much, huh?” He laughed, and clapped the younger man on the shoulder.

“Oh, well, I want to make sure I examine all my options,” Greg said, cheeks coloring.

Smith gave an exaggerated wink. “Uh-huh. Sure thing.”

If all civilians talked like this, Toly was glad he’d never been one.

“Please.” Raven gestured to the chairs and smoothed the back of her dress as she seated herself on the sofa. “Won’t you have a seat?”

The men settled with lots of jacket unbuttoning, shuffling, and a deep exhale and hitch and grunt from Smith, as if his back pained him.

Raven sat forward to pour water into glasses, and Toly had the thought he should have been the one to do that, in his role as assistant; that Raven, in her black dress, and pearl studs, should have sat regal as a queen while a servant performed the menial tasks. The thought disgusted him no sooner than it had formed, and so he stayed rooted, and Raven was no less queenly for the pouring.

After, she picked up a glass for herself, sat back, and crossed her legs in a prim way that was an instant visual freeze-out. Her smile was small and inviting, but her posture was anything but. Stay back, it said, undercut by a thread of that ever-present fear he kept noticing.

“Well then, gentlemen. I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea what Intemporelle might be able to do for you. I trust you reviewed the packet I left for you with my secretary?”

“Oh yes, of course,” Smith lied. Smoothly, but Toly could tell. “I’m quite impressed with the progress you’ve been able to make since moving your agency to the States. The clothing line, the menswear, the advertising partnerships.”

Raven’s smile was close-lipped. “Actually, I’ve not moved the agency to New York – I’ve expanded here. We’re still very much based in London.”

“Oh. Yes. Right.” He leaned forward to pluck a chocolate from the dish. “May I?”

She nodded. “The women’s line was already on offer, as well. That’s expanded: more retail sellers, more affordable designs for different markets – under a different label, of course. I want the Intemporelle brand to remain deluxe.”

Smith popped the chocolate in his mouth and nodded. “Mmhm. Yes,” he said around the candy. “No sense muddying the waters.”

If Toly hadn’t hated him the moment he entered, he would have started hating him now.

“As for the menswear–” Raven began.

Smith cut her off. “It’s really good-looking stuff, Miss Blake. We’d wear it, wouldn’t he?” he asked with a gesture to Greg.

“Real sharp lines,” Greg put in.

Smith nodded. “Yes, well put. In fact, that’s why we’re here. Smith & Associates has agreed to host a charity gala for the upcoming holiday season. Well, us and several other firms. Given the exclusivity of the attendees, and the cost per plate, it’s a bit out of my price range, personally, to foot the bill.” He forced out a falsely deprecating laugh.

Raven, whose face had gone rigid at his earlier interruption, tilted her head, brows twitched fractionally together in a bland show of confusion. “Mr. Smith, if you’re hoping that Intemporelle will assist you in–”

“No, no,” he broke in again, lifting a hand to stay her.

Her nostrils flared in a dangerous way and Toly smiled inwardly.

“We have hosting duty sorted. We are, however, searching for upscale donations for our silent auction.”

Raven uncrossed, and recrossed her legs. “I’m certain,” she said, crisply, “that everyone attending your gala can afford to buy one of my suits. Why would they bid on one?”

Greg cleared his throat and scooted forward in his chair, a self-conscious movement that seemed better suited for a smaller man. “Actually, we were thinking of something a little less traditional.” From inside his jacket, he produced a folded sheet of paper that he offered to her across the table.

Again, Toly felt that pulse of I should do that. He chased it away, as he had before, but with more difficulty.

Raven let the paper hover a long heartbeat, until its edges began to tremble while Greg maintained the reach. Then she plucked it away and made a show of unfolding it and scanning its contents. When she lifted her head, a single brow lifted, too. “A ‘custom styling experience’?”

Smith started to speak, but Greg beat him to it, hands spread in a placating manner, smile sheepish. “I know it sounds a little tacky.”

Raven’s expression clearly said, You don’t say.

“And you’re probably thinking,” he went on, “that it sounds like nothing more than a simple makeover. But it isn’t. This Christmas is going to be stupid with balls, and charity events, and movie premieres. Our gala will be one of the first events of the season, and the attendees will be going to all the major events in December. The mockup you have there” – he nodded to the paper in Raven’s hand – “is just what we’ve come up with, and you would of course be able to narrow the parameters, or expand them, however you see fit. We thought the prize could be for a couple, or even a group: a chance to wear your latest designs, the prototypes that aren’t even in stores yet. Then, when the press asks Charlize who she’s wearing, she can say, ‘Raven Blake’s Intemporelle.’”

Raven’s gaze narrowed; she was thinking.

“I’m afraid we’ve taken a gamble,” Smith said. “You’re already a staple in the modeling industry, but we’re betting that your clothing line isn’t quite to household name status yet.”

Her gaze narrowed another fraction; a muscle leaped in her clenched jaw.

“You’re the first designer we thought of, and the first we’ve approached. Understandably, if you’re not interested” – he sat back in his chair, fingers lacing together over his knee, far too self-satisfied – “we’ll move to the next on our list.”

“Yes,” Raven drawled. “Understandably.”

A stare-down ensued. Greg shifted, fingers twitching on his thigh, clearly uncomfortable. But Smith held Raven’s gaze unflinching, his smile small and smug.

Still standing in attendance, unnoticed, Toly took one last opportunity to study the man. His face bore the smooth, plasticky look of Botox injections around the eyes and mouth, his tan deep and orange-tinted: spray-on rather than tanning bed dark. His age showed in his hands, the raised veins and sun spots; his nails were buffed to a high shine, the beds tidy and cuticles pushed back. Typical rich man.

The single point of interest was his insistence on maintaining his stare with Raven. Under ordinary circumstances, Toly would have chalked it up to a rich, chauvinist asshole who enjoyed intimidating women, overly used to slinging his figurative business-dick around as compensation for the doubtless shriveled one in his designer pants.

But circumstances were anything but normal, and he had to view everything through the lens of possible threat.

The young guy, Greg, kept fidgeting – but his gaze was trained on Raven, intense in a way Toly didn’t like. It was virtually impossible for men not to stare at her, but watching someone do it left Toly’s knuckles itching for a cheekbone to smash.

As the silence stretched uncomfortably, he decided that, even if he hated them, these two were simply businessmen. Dickheads, yes; pieces of shit, sure. But he’d sat in plenty of rooms with real monsters; had done their bidding, even. Smith and his lackey were the sorts of men who wound up taped to chairs in fancy rooms belonging to men like Andrei Kozlov.

In other words: harmless.

Finally, Raven drew in an audible breath and stood. Smoothed her skirt. “Well. It’s a polite offer.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m considering it. I can give you an affirmative by end of business day.”

Smith smiled a gotcha smile and stood. Buttoned his jacket before accepting her shake. Raven didn’t wince at the force of his squeeze, but that muscle in her jaw jumped again.

“It was wonderful to meet you,” Greg said, kindlier, as he offered his hand next. The way his fingers fumbled at Raven’s palm, Toly thought he’d meant to kiss the back of her hand again, but she didn’t allow it.

“Yes,” she said, tonelessly. “Lovely. I’ll be in touch.”

She walked them to the door, murmured something half-polite to their retreating backs, and then shut the door with a decisive shove. She let out an explosive sigh afterward, hand resting on the door panel, head dropping forward. Her shoulders and hips tilted at steep angles as she purposefully rolled one ankle so that her foot lay sideways on the rug. How she did that in those shoes without breaking said ankle was a mystery to him.

Donovan Smith and Greg Ingles had brought a wall of pressure into the room with them when they’d entered, like the swollen, buzzing energy just before a thunderstorm. In their absence, the air turned brittle. He watched the gentle flex of her back as she worked through a few deep breaths, and thought that if he broke the silence, he’d break something in her, too, and so he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Her fingers flexed the smallest fraction, slender and pale against the dark wood of the door. He heard her draw in a deep breath, watched her ribcage expand, a delicate fretwork of bone visible beneath the dress, where it clung to her. She wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating; was too thin, and jumpy, and scared…

And Toly wouldn’t say that he cared, not really, probably not ever, because that part of him had been severed in his early childhood, but he applied his rusty voice to the fragile air between them and said, “What did you make of them?”

Her flinch was a tiny thing; would have been invisible if he wasn’t watching her so closely. But then her head lifted, and her shoulders dropped, and she stood up straight – but not rigid. Something had eased in her. He wouldn’t flatter himself by thinking it had eased at the sound of his voice.

She turned and leaned back against the door, arms folded, sole of one shoe propped along the copper kickplate. “What did you think of them?” she countered.

He tipped his head in concession. Fair enough. Then he took the chair that Smith had abandoned and plucked a chocolate out of the dish. It was a dark Belgian chocolate with a caramel center; it tasted like money. He swallowed, as she resumed her seat on the sofa, and said, “They’re both pricks.”

She rolled her eyes. “Obviously.”

“Smith in an obvious way,” he continued, “and the young one, Greg, in a way he tries to hide with his good-boy routine.” If he made a face on those words, so be it.

Her snort said he had.

“Smith doesn’t have any respect for women, but neither of them looked at you like they wanted to…you know.”

Her brows lifted – both this time. “I know?”

He made another face, on purpose this time. “They didn’t do anything–”

“Overtly sexual, no,” she said.

The same moment he, groping for the words, finished in Russian: “That made it obvious they want to fuck you.”

Her brows lifted a fraction higher.

“Let’s go with how you said it.”

Her mouth did the sideways, not-quite-a-smile thing. “Yes. Let’s. Alright.” She eased another fraction, expression smoothing into one of gentle worry. “No, they weren’t lecherous in any way.”

That was the word he’d wanted.

“And their request isn’t necessarily…a bad one.”

“You don’t seem happy about it, though.”

“No, I’m not. It feels…” She shuddered delicately. “Cheap.”

“Hm.”

“What?” Her gaze sharpened a moment, keyed on his face. “You think that sounds elitist? It is,” she said, shrugging. “I am.”

He shrugged back and snagged another chocolate. “Eh. You’ve earned it.”

Surprise and pleasure colored her face a moment, pinked her cheeks. She smoothed her dress over her thighs, a little self-consciously, he thought. “They were typical businessman wankers, in other words,” she said.

“Da.”

“But do you think they’re…?” She winced, clearly hoping he’d allay the fears she (so far) refused to voice. She’d not been this uncertain when they first met, those whirlwind days working out of the Ritz; the evening when he’d escorted her to Times Square to watch Ian Byron skewer a movie producer with a sword cane on hundreds of billboard screens. She’d been satisfied then, riding the high of victory, of revenge, of taking control back.

But in the weeks since, working as pretend-assistant and real-security, he’d watched her confidence dim…and felt certain it was a rare sight. That she had rarely been so uncertain and frightened. In the small, back part of his hindbrain capable of sympathy, he felt a little sad for her. Raven was a brilliant jewel of a woman – a whole crown studded with them – and watching something that bright grow dull was never fun.

“Do I think they’re Abacus?”

“Or what’s left of it. Or a rival finally stepping into the spotlight.”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell, yet. Every asshole in the city might be trying to take Waverly’s place for all we know.”

She propped an elbow on the arm of the sofa and then propped her temple on her raised fist. “Now there’s a cheerful thought.” She sighed. “Oh well. I guess we’ll just have to be cautious.”

We again. He wished he didn’t keep noticing that.

“Will you give them an auction prize?” he asked, and found that he was genuinely curious.

Her nose wrinkled daintily. (Adorably.) “Probably.”

He lifted his brows, surprised.

“Oh…” She waved him off. “It’s good exposure for the clothing line. I didn’t get this far in this business saying ‘no’ to opportunities.”

“Hm.”

“What?”

“What?” he echoed.

“You don’t approve?”

He grabbed another chocolate and stood. “It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m just here to stab people.”

He turned for the coffee cart, because he wasn’t trying to hide the amount of caffeine he consumed every day.

Behind him, she said, “The worst part is, I don’t think you’re joking.”

He drained the dregs of his paper cup and poured in fresh. “I’m not.”