apricot-colored pages of the Financial Times. The years had been gentle on him; the guy she had met more than a decade ago had worn his hair shorter, carried a dozen fewer pounds around the torso, and had more of a military precision in his posture. But the lines of the jaw were still as square and clean, and his wide-set brown eyes still had that same pale glow to them.
Or maybe it was just the way he looked at her. Saw her, the way the rest of the world seemed incapable of managing. It was, damn it, sexy as hell.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“I ordered you a diet ginger ale. I thought you might need it, to ease the headache.”
They had been partners for almost eleven years now. Lovers for less than a year. She really did love him for his mind.
And, okay, the bod that housed that mind, too. But mostly his mind. And the way he did shit like that.
“Headache, huh? Someone’s been doing some research while they were waiting.” Good. If he knew what was going on, that would make life easier for her, in the “what the hell is going on” category. And maybe he could explain the “why” of it to her, too.
“Actually Doblosky called me, after we talked.” Ben Doblosky was a beat cop in the Midtown South precinct whom they had met three—no, four jobs prior, when the vigilantes were still a new threat on the block. He was also a Talent, and so part of Danny’s network. “All he said was that you were going to have a nasty current-back-lash headache, and would probably need a place to crash, somewhere out of attack-range of your apartment.”
His tone was still mild, but there were undercurrents there only someone who had known him a long time would hear; striations of, “Were you going to tell me you were the target?” blended with, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She sat down and picked up the menu, just to have something to do with her hands. “I really wish that people would stay out of my personal life. I already have a mother, and she’s more than enough.” Wren didn’t appreciate people deciding that she needed taking care of. Not even Sergei. Especially not when she was fine, damn it.
Her mom went through fourteen hours of labor to push Wren into the world. She got dispensation to fuss, much as she wanted. Nobody else.
She looked around. “Where’s the chalkboard?” The specials were always written on a chalkboard.
“Broken. There’s a sheet in the menu.”
She signed, opening the menu and staring at it. She didn’t know why she bothered. She had been on a veal kick lately, and that’s what she had gotten the last six times they were in. Or maybe seven.
“The incident outside your apartment, the one on the news. It was—”
“Cosa business.” Wren suddenly wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. She hadn’t been able to figure out why the blast was bothering her so much. Or, not the blast, but the why of it. “Just someone being cranky.”
“At you.” Sergei stared at her over the top of his reading glasses.
“Probably.” Definitely. Danny was right, there wasn’t anyone else the message could have been for. She was the only lonejack on her street, unless someone had moved in over the summer. Council members waging a little intramural rivalry she’d gotten caught up in? Unlikely. Council membership had its perks, and one of them involved protection from things like this—both from other members, and from outsiders. That was the appeal of the Council, the carrot they were offering lonejacks.
Ignoring the fact that the main problem they seemed to be offering protection from was—according to lonejack paranoia—the Council itself.
“Some sort of mini-blast. Danny stopped by. He’s looking into it.”
“You’re staying with me tonight.” Sergei caught himself before she could even give him a Look, proving that he knew exactly how she was going to take that particular pronouncement. A deep breath, his hands flat on the table, fingers not clenching by sheer force of will that she could appreciate. “If you want to stay with me tonight, I’d be glad of the company. I’m a little unnerved by anyone setting off explosives in your general vicinity.”
Slightly mollified, Wren lifted her water glass and studied the way the fluid inside it moved around the ice cubes. “You think they’re not going to set them off if you’re around?”
“My building is a little more secure. Not to mention my apartment’s farther from the street.”
A psi-bomb could be set off right next to his window. Right next to his bathroom sink, if he’d left the window open even a crack. No need to tell him that, if Doblosky—that blabbermouth—hadn’t.
“You gonna cook me breakfast?” He might be the master negotiator, but she could haggle a bit, too.
“I think I’ve got a few eggs I could scramble, somewhere in the fridge, yes. You’d know that, if—”
“Don’t go there, lover.”
There was no way she would ever give up her apartment, bare walls and unnerving memories aside. But even at her most stubborn she had to admit that there were real plusses to Sergei’s place, not the least of which was a state-of-the-art kitchen, and an owner who knew how to use it.
“Let me guess.” Callie appeared tableside, despite the fact that Wren still had the menu open. “You’re going to have hanger steak, rare, and she’s going for the veal scaloppine. You want a glass of wine, too?” That last was to Wren.
“No, I’m good, thanks.” Callie was a professional waitress, not an actor-waiting-break. More, she was a New York professional waitress. But as used to them as Callie might be, they were accustomed to her as well, which took half the fun out of it. She just nodded like some sort of benign dictator, picked up the menus, and walked away.
“Now that that’s settled. What kind of Cosa business, that involves things exploding and Ben worrying about your safety?”
Figured. Trust Didier not to be distracted, not when it involved her. She had to give him something, or he’d be impossible. Make that more impossible. “The kind everyone tells me they want me to stay out of while they keep dragging me in. P.B. came by earlier.”
“Oh?” He took a sip of his wine, swallowed appreciatively, and raised one narrow, probably professionally plucked eyebrow, inviting her to continue.
In for a dollar, in for a euro, or whatever the saying was. She took a deep breath, let it out. “Some of the more usual suspects have put together a letter to the Council, wanting to know if they’re behind the recent…problems. Walks a real pretty line between threat and whimper, I have to admit. And despite my advice to the contrary, I suspect that they’re going to send it.” Hopefully a revised version. Hopefully using her suggestions. If not…
Sergei digested that; she could almost see the wheels and gears turning in his brain. “And it will do…what?”
Wren drained half her water, and put the glass down with a thunk on the table. “Not a damn thing, if we’re lucky. If we’re not, which we never seem to be, it’s going to piss off the Council, whether they had anything to do with the disappearances in the first place or not. And then the real fun begins. Not. Fuck. Look, you’ve reassured yourself that I’m okay, can we just drop it?”
Sergei frowned, wrinkles forming between his eyes as he stared at her. She met his gaze with as much inner calm as she could manage with her head still aching, willing him to accept the fact that she was okay, all right, present and accounted for.
She knew what he was afraid of. Had been afraid of, deep down inside that stoic business-guy exterior, ever since all this began, six months ago.
Afraid that the lonejack paranoia was true. That the Council was behind the disappearances of the Talents. That the Council had been behind the attacks on the fatae, had been funding the so-called vigilantes. That they—the Council—were plotting