Tenny took the lead; strolled right up to the table and set his bag down. The others lined up beside him and did the same.
“It’s done?” Ilya asked, brows lifted. “You have the bastard?”
“All wrapped up and headed for Albany. We’ll be in contact with your uncle about hissentencing.”
“Hm.” Ilya maintained a glare…but it was for show. His eyes shone with approval. He nodded, and stuck out his hand. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
“Likewise. I suspect we’ll be in touch.” Tenny shook his hand, and then the Dogs turned as one, and walked away.
Tenny was grinning before they reached the staircase that led up to the street. “Now that’s how it’s done, boys.” He shot a look toward the New York Dogs, who looked far too unimpressed with him. “Take note.”
“Please don’t feed his ego,” Reese said flatly.
“Hey! You tit.”
Topino sighed as they headed up the stairs. “When’s Mercy getting here?”
“Tomorrow, probably,” Reese said.
Tenny turned around and walked up the stairs backward – quite the feat, thank you very much, not that any of them noticed – and said, “Is no one going to remark on my amazing plan? The plan that justworked?”
“Technically, it was your dad and Fox’s plan.”
“Youtit.”
Pongo laughed, and Tenny tripped on the next step, which made him laugh harder.
Ah, well. Fuck ‘em. Tenny couldn’t pretend to be an ass, not when he was smiling like Christmas morning. He’d spend the next two weeks arguing with his father and brother over whose plan it had been, but the thing making him smile? Ithadworked.
He faced forward and jogged up the last few steps. “Let’s go home.”
Home, he’d learned months ago, was wherever his stupid, sorry, amazing family was.
Not that he’d admit that to anyone but Reese. He couldn’t go changingallhis habits.
Thirty-Five
The sun was coming up. Through the parted lace curtains of a clubhouse bedroom, Raven saw the first bright orange blush of it across the frosted grass, through the trees. Mist curled up from the ground, and a pair of does went leaping through the goat pasture. A frigid, picturesque moment, made more beautiful by the sound of the deep, regular breathing of the man laid out in the bed behind her.
In, out. In, out. She’d matched her own breathing to it some time ago, as she sat in the window seat and watched the sky lighten by degrees, Toly asleep with a fresh bag of IV fluids hooked in his arm.
She turned now to glance at him – she’d done it so frequently through the night that she was getting a crick in her neck – and wanted to believe his color was better. Both his eyes were black, his lips chapped, his cheeks sunken and sallow. But they’d pumped him with fluids and pain meds, had treated and bandaged his legs, wiped the grime away with warm damp towels. He looked better…but it was all too obvious he’d been through an ordeal. He looked impossibly young, greasy hair fanned across the pillow, breath whistling through his nose while he slept. Each time she glanced his way, her chest squeezed all over again, half in soaring gladness, half in grief. He was alive, and mostly whole, but he would have more than external scars, she knew.
A light tap sounded at the door, and Cassandra slipped inside, steaming mug in one hand.
“Cass,” Raven whispered, surprised. “What are you doing up this early?”
Cass’s smile was small and uncertain. She lifted the mug. “I brought you tea.”
Raven reached for it with one hand, and patted the other half of the window seat with the other. “Thank you, darling,” she said, once the mug was warming her hand, and Cass was settled cross-legged next to her, perched on the very edge of the seat. Again: uncertain. They’d never been that with one another.
Cassandra picked at her fingernails and nodded toward the bed. “How is he?”
Raven took a much-needed sip of tea. Cass had gotten the perfect balance of milk and sugar. Downstairs, something thumped, movement in the kitchen. Joanna had come to stay at the clubhouse and “look after them all.” Raven had insisted it wasn’t necessary, but was hugely appreciative that she didn’t have to cook.
“Resting easier, I think. And not quite as pale.”
“Hm.” Cass nodded. “Who’d have thought Shep was an Army field medic, huh?” She cracked a fleeting grin, tinged with affection. It quickly faded. “Good thing he knew how to put in an IV and stuff.”
