Panic hit, full-force and hotly metallic; it filled her mouth and squeezed her chest and echoed shrilly in her ears, pressure suddenly dropping inside her head as if she’d fallen.
This was it. Someone had sent her a finger in a box. Afinger. And now they’d sent someone to finish her off. Which of her brothers would getherfinger in the post? King? Charlie? Albert? She–
Ian’s breath was warm against her ear. “It’s Anatoly,” he whispered. And then, straightening, while her heart tried to restart, he said, “Is the car ready?”
It…itwasToly.
She took a breath, and then another, and silently berated herself for such a flighty, uncharacteristic response.
Toly pushed off the wall and leaned over to stub his cigarette out in the sand-pit top of the trash bin he stood beside. He must have showered, because his black hair was wet and limp down on his shoulders, longer than it was the last time she’d seen it down. Its sharp fringe half-shielded his eyes, and made his face look narrower, harsher. He wore his cut, and a black hoodie with white bleach flecks on the sleeve. His wallet chain chimed quietly as he shifted, and the black metal lip ring winked as he stepped into the spill of light from the elevator and said, “Yeah. He’s bringing it around now.”
“Good,” Ian said. He touched Raven’s shoulder and turned her toward him. He smiled, but his brows were drawn together with concern. “I’ll call you later. You’ll be fine.”
She swallowed with some difficulty and nodded. “Yes.” Her voice was faint, uncertain.
Ian leaned in to brush a kiss to her cheek and then stepped back. Tried to tousle Cass’s hair on the way out of the elevator and earned a dodge and a huff. “I leave them in your capable hands, Mr. Kobliska.” He ducked his head, briefly, in Toly’s direction as he headed through the airlock and double glass doors, Bruce at his heels. Raven glimpsed his black Jag idling just beyond; as she watched, her Range Rover pulled up behind it, her usual driver, Hugh, recognizable behind the wheel.
She looked back to Toly, who’d flicked the hair out of his eyes and watched her with something like impatience. “We should go,” he said, head tilting to the doors. “Car’s here.”
Miles and Cassandra headed toward it.
Raven stepped out of the elevator until she was toe-to-toe with Toly; it was more gratifying than it should have been to lookupat him, even in her heels. No offense meant to her brothers, but there was nothing less arousing than a man shorter than her.
Her love life, however, had been strictly limited to tall men of the short-haired, buffed-nailed, sharply-dressed variety. With Eton accents and wan smiles and impeccable taste in wines. Pale, with high foreheads, and hairlines slowly retreating week to week. Dry, and joyless, and certainly not sporting little black hoops in their ears, and on their lips. They had certainly never startled her, triggered her fight or flight instinct, and then stared her down like they expected to be obeyed.
(To be fair, plenty of the men in her past had expected her obedience…but in a bloodless, mannerly sort of way that was all about feeling powerful, and nothing like this: like a predator trying to guard her from other, more frightening predators. A wolf playing sheepdog.)
She attempted to recapture a little of her usual cool superiority. Lifted her brows. “We? You’re on duty here, at the office. Not at my flat.”
One corner of his mouth pulled sideways onwe. She had no idea what he was thinking, and was frustrated by that.
“Change of plans,” he said, and extended an arm toward the double doors, encouraging her to lead the way. His other arm made as if to encircle her…but never made contact. It hovered back there, and she swore she felt the heat rolling off it. It was a kind of threat:go on, or I’ll lay hands on you and make you go.
She was also frustrated by the way the thought left her skin prickling with awareness.
“This is absurd,” she informed him.
The fingers on his extended hand curled, once, urging her forward. He said, “But it’s happening.”
It was. So she slipped her Chanel sunglasses onto her face and marched out to the Rover, his booted footfalls silent behind her, his presence palpable as if he’d touched her after all.
~*~
Toly had known luxury – or at least rubbed up against it – in Moscow, once Andrei plucked his mother from the gutter. Andrei’s apartment had been three floors, in a building above a restaurant that saw no more than four customers a day, and served as a not-so-hidden front for the bratva. It had been packed wall-to-wall with Persian and Aubusson rugs; with gleaming cherry sideboards, and authentic Louis XVI chairs. Layered textiles, and gilt mirrors, and modern marble statues of nothing in particular. The tiles in the entryway were imported, as was the hookah pipe in the corner of the drawing room where he entertained “business associates.” He and his men drove a fleet of black Mercedes, wore Rolex and Armani, flashed Gucci wallets when they paid anywhere in fat rolls of cash.
All of it had reeked of a kind of desperation. A need to show off, without regard for any sort of style or cohesion. He’d favored reds and deep blues, and altogether, the textiles and smooth surfaces of the apartment had lent the place the air of a bordello. Each room crowded with knickknacks of different origin and aesthetic. The man had expensive taste…minus the taste.
By contrast, Raven’s apartment was a portrait of harmonious balance; she’d madeexpensivelook like a happy accident – the way she did with her clothes, and her hair, and jewelry. Real luxury, he’d learned in her shadow, looked effortless.
They rode silently up to the twentieth floor of her building in an elevator paneled in white-painted wood, its mirrors framed in silver so that the whole cab resembled a fancy drawing room. There were only two apartments on each floor, and they stepped off the elevator into a marble-floored hallway with a cream and blue carpet runner down the center, a round table bearing an urn full of fresh flowers: today, it was blue iris and plum dahlias.
Raven’s apartment was to the left, and Bennet stood in front of the door, his dusty cut and broke-down jeans wildly at odds with the cream walls and soft runner.
Raven paused, shoulders slumping as she sighed. “Out in the hall now? For everyone to see?”
Bennet was built like a linebacker gone soft in the middle; his hair and close-kept beard more gray than brown these days. He had a big laugh, which he employed now, and a big, lopsided grin that, despite the odds, always seemed to put Raven at ease.
It didn’t tonight. Nor did his loud assurance of, “Don’t worry, sweetheart, that fancy-pants across the hall hasn’t gotten home yet.” He slapped his own chest. “Nothin’ to see here.”
