Page 96 of Slashed Bonds

No name. No number I’ve saved.

I open it and tilt my head.

I’d drop the bitch if you want the best for you.

Unknown caller.

“Well, damn,” I hum.

The smile that assembles on my face would concern anyone who was watching me, which nobody is, because the only two people in the vicinity are running.

Now who do I have the honor of pissing off already?

Nine hours.

She’s been on this roster nine hours. Somebody’s found my number, and decided the play is intimidation.

It’s a bad play.

I’d tell them so if they’d signed it.

Intimidation works on people who’ve got something to protect and haven’t decided what it’s worth yet. It doesn’t work on a man who’s already decided.

I made my decision at a trophy case on a Tuesday night with a dog on my chest.

I don’t react.

Not to the text, and not to the presence that’s arrived over my shoulder, since the scent got here before the man did.

Smoked vetiver. Black tea. Clove. The smell of a cigarette he’s told me he quit.

A tilt of the head, and there’s Killian, reading the same screen.

I pull my headphones down with my other hand in time to hear him whistle. Low. Two notes. Then his eyes come up to mine.

“Didn’t take them long, huh?”

“You’re assuming it’s her ex-pack.”

“Ex-pack, ex-team, ex-anything.” He sits down on the bench beside me, and the aluminum complains. “Somebody who’s been watching her. That’s a watcher’s message.”

He’s in casual clothes.

Black on black, sleeves shoved up, hair still damp. Which means he’s already worked out, showered, and has no intention of doing a single productive thing for the rest of the day.

His eyes are calm.

Too calm. A quarter dose, maybe. Enough to take the edge off, not enough to take him with it.

I don’t say anything about it. I keep the bottle.

He knows I keep the bottle.

If he’s found a way to get a quarter out of it without asking, that’s a conversation for a day that isn’t this one.

Or he asked Niko.

Niko has a key to my room, because Niko has a key to everything, and Niko would give Killian a quarter without a second’s hesitation and then tell me about it at the exact moment it became useful for me to know.