Page 77 of Raven

I nod. “Good. You’re on, then. I’ll get Nilanski to call you.”

He nods, too. “I’ll be outside.”

I wish Maddy and I could unwind and fuck each other’s brains out because I’m in the mood to get her naked. But tonight is not the best time. I’m struggling with what to say to her, and she doesn’t say much either. She is chewing on the inside of her cheek.

“I’m sorry for what happened earlier,” I finally say, not used to apologizing.

She raises her pretty eyes at me. “You know it’s not your fault. If anything, it’s mine. Probably is. It was… Unexpected. The attack and the outcome.”

“The outcome?”

She studies me thoughtfully. “I guess that was a flashback to what it was like back in the day.”

She means Russia? Her father? Whatever lifestyle she had back then?

I nod. “This is not what you want to hear, but I liked seeing the real you.”

It’s the truth. A guy who worked for me once said, “It’s not what weapon you own but what you do with it when you face an enemy that shows what sort of person you are.”

Maddy arches her brow in surprise. She definitely didn’t expect that. “Do you?”

“I’d like to see more of you, what you used to be like. Probably not a good thing.” I look away, smiling, and open the door.

“It’s a deal, Raven.”

I halt, my hand on the door handle, as I look over my shoulder at her.

She locks her eyes with mine. “Tomorrow night? The real me?”

I don’t know what this means, but I’m in. She never offered herself before, and I hope that’s what she is doing.

And I love hearing her say my name, though it’s changed lately. It used to sound challenging. Now it sounds cautious. Does something scare her? I tried to weed the streets out of me for the last ten years. Reading, studying, watching myself, my language, controlling my emotions. They say you can't take the streets out of you if you grew up there. Wrong. You can do anything if you want change.

Outside, Ali walks the perimeter of the brightly lit porch, studying the trees.

“Mind if I turn off the auto-light?” he asks.

“You should.”

I am walking away when I hear his, “Thank you.”

I don’t turn around. I know what he means. And I don’t need to pat myself on the shoulder for getting him his meds. Everything is a deal, right?

I get home and take a shower, standing for the longest time under the hot water as my mind replays the attack from earlier. Those were guys from town. And nothing happens in town without Butcher’s orders. I wish I could dust the motherfucker, but then it would be murder. Does one murder justify saving many?

Most of all, I keep seeing Maddy’s face, that smudge of blood on her cheek, her fingers viciously curled around the tactical pen, her eyes full of determination as they lock with mine.

There was danger in them, and somehow, it resonated with my heart. I can’t erase that image from my mind. I dry myself off with the towel as those images jump around in my head. The attack. Maddy with bloodied hands. That ruthlessness in her eyes. Her checking their pulses. The blood smudge on her cheek. Her calm voice.

My body is on edge, and before I can stop myself, I drop the towel to the floor and wrap my hand around my erection. It takes me less than a minute to get off on those images, the sick fuck that I am, and then I have to take a shower again.

I check my phone in the living room.

Andrew Skiba: Dropped another box of supplies at the port. The previous ones were gone.

That’s the second time we dropped the food at the caves next to the far-end fence at the port. As per my request, they installed a camera there. I go to the feed on my phone. It’s dark. The cave is empty. I rewind the footage until it gets light outside, seven o’clock to be exact, and pause when I see action—three little kids crouching from behind the chain fence among the rocks and snatching the box with the speed of lightning. The box gets stuck, under the fence, too big to go through the tiny slit between the fence and the ground, so the little dudes unpack it and within a minute, slide everything underneath, then flatten the box and do the same.

I smile to myself. I will show it to Sonny tomorrow. That will make him happy. At some point, when we have a better grip on Port Mrei again, we should do something about homeless kids there.

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