Liked wondering, a little sickeningly, what it would take to push her past that until she melted into a puddle. The good kind.
“Bennet,” she said. “Where are the cameras?”
“Uh…”
“If Maverick thought it was a, quote, ‘great’ idea to bring Miles over to strengthen electronic security, then I’m certain he wanted cameras installed. I don’t like the thought, but I like the thought of being cut into bits and mailed to my family even less. So. Where are the cameras? This is my home, after all: I need to know which rooms not to parade through in my knickers, don’t you think?”
That was a pretty picture.
Bennet thought so too if the way he cleared his throat was any indication. He didn’t blush or betray himself further, thankfully. “There’s only the one. Put it in myself, on the edge of that picture frame in the front hall. The one with the white house and the skinny little trees.”
The landscape featured narrow cypresses around the yard of an Italian villa. Toly had stayed in one that looked very similar once, when Andrei had sent the Obshchak after a rat who’d fled the country. He could still recall the faint metallic taste of the well water, filling his cupped hands in a sink of hammered copper, the window above overlooking a garden of lime trees. The fruit had gleamed, waxy and ripe, their weight bowing the branches toward the gleaming orange tiles of the patio.
Raven nodded.
“I didn’t get it all hooked up to a phone or anything,” Bennet said. “Thought maybe your brother could do that.”
She nodded again. “Do you have the packaging? I’ll have him do it tonight.”
The instruction booklet was passed across the island.
Raven’s look snapped to Toly. She didn’t turn her head, didn’t even seem to blink, was suddenly boring into his soul with her pale blue eyes, demanding better than perfection. “‘Change of plans,’ you said. And now you’re here, off the clock.”
Toly didn’t like that phrasing.Clock. He’d been instructed to protect a Dog’s family, with his life if necessary; he wasn’t punching in and out at a factory.
“Aw, don’t think of it like that, hon,” Bennet said. “I mean, it’s not like you’re paying us.”
Her lips compressed unhappily. “No. I’m not.”
“He’s right,” Toly said. “You didn’t hire us, which means you can’t fire us and you can’t tell us when or where to go.”
Her brows gave a single leap before settling, expression harsh, unimpressed. “Jesus. And I thought Phillip was a petty tyrant.”
Phillip Calloway, her eldest brother and president of the London chapter. Her family had been involved with the club her whole life…which meant she should have been well-used to the ways it operated by now, and knew better than to put up this much resistance. She was acting as if they’d come galloping in and trampled her free will, overtaken her life.
She did know better, which meant it was mere stubbornness and petulance driving her actions now.
It grated against him like sandpaper. “If you don’t want us here, take it up with your family. But I’m staying here until my president tells me otherwise. Stop being a brat about it.”
It was only afterward that he realized how forcefully he’d spoken – tone sharper, meaner than he ever normally showed. Bennet gave a low, surprised hum that conveyed an unspokendamn.
The most interesting thing, however, was Raven’s immediate, unchecked reaction. The wash of surprise, the wide-open eyes. The flex of her fingers tightening on the glass, and, most telling of all, the way her throat worked as she swallowed.
That was…interesting.
God knew when she’d been spoken to like that last.
He wasn’t going to apologize.
He might even do it again, if the need arose.
A long beat passed, filled only by the quiet hum of the fridge. She lifted her glass and drained it in one long swallow, head tipped back, slender throat a work of art in the warm glow of the overhead pendant lights. After, she set the glass down a little too firmly and reached for the bottle to refill it.
Toly wanted to remind her that she hadn’t eaten much today. He refrained – for now.
“Alright,” she said. “Tell me how it’s to be, then.”
Bennet’s darted glance said he suspected a trap.
