Page 409 of Wicked Brutal

The door opens again — still no knock. Penny comes through carrying two trays, X behind her with a cooler under one arm and a faint discoloration along his cheek from Vegas. Not enough to bother him. More than enough for the boys helping Tobias outside to see through the open door.

One of them stops dead. “Holy shit.” Tobias looks at him. “That’s Xander Anderson.”

Tobias frowns. “He’s always at my house.”

X hears him. “Dude.”

Tobias walks in. “Your face looks better.”

“Thanks.”

“MY Walter said you got hit a lot.”

“I also hit him.”

“Did you win?”

Penny lifts her left hand, the ring catching the light. Tobias nods. “Right. You won twice.”

Penny kisses Tobias’s head as she passes. “Smartest person here.”

X laughs. "Fuck off."

Then she and X head toward the kitchen, and Piper’s hand appears in front of him. “Dollar.”

Tobias’s appears over her shoulder. “Twenty-five.”

X looks between them. “Why are there two rates? She’s four. And you’re a criminal.”

“Thirty,” Piper adds.

Penny laughs. X reaches for his wallet. “I’m surrounded by assholes.”

Piper gasps — another dollar.

Tobias lifts his hand higher. “Forty.”

“You can’t keep changing it.”

“Inflation.”

The front door opens again. Danny walks straight in, Becca behind him, Delilah with them, home from California where they’ve built their whole loud life.

Danny looks at X standing in the foyer with his wallet open and two children extorting him. “Good. We’re home.”

Becca doesn’t even slow down — kisses my cheek, then Ryan’s, then sees Tobias and says something in Russian. He answers immediately. Not a word. Not a phrase. A whole sentence. Becca responds. He fires something back. She switches to French, and he follows. Then Spanish.

His eyes narrow. “Don’t.”

Becca smiles, and says another sentence.

“I don’t speak Spanish.”

“I know.”

“You’re doing it on purpose.” She says something in Mandarin, and Tobias points at her. “See? That’s rude.”

Danny grabs something from the refrigerator. “She has two new weapons now.”