Page 43 of Root

I nod.

He holds out a hand and I give them to him.

He has his with whiskey.

“Yeah,” he says, “I did. I wanted to see if you were paying attention. We don’t have much on Jessica Carabella. Other than she has a brother who’s into motorcycle gangs and petty thievery. So, pay attention when you show her around, get close, find out what you can.”

“She’s not going to talk. She already knows she’s basically a prisoner.”

“Guest.”

“Who can’t leave.”

He shrugs. Drums his fingers on the desk. “The fucking attack shouldn’t have happened.”

I think about it.

“So they were watching me? The guys who jumped me?”

Nikolai looks at me. “What does that tell you?”

I hate it when he’s like this. Another fucking lecture. I get it. I’m heading toward thirty and I fucking despise that I keep coming across as a failure, that Nikolai thinks I need his protection. I don’t. I’m not him, but I can take care of myself. I can fight and kill. How is it my fault I don’t want to rule the fucking world as the prince of fucking darkness?

That’s his job.

There’s trouble here, though. He smells it and I can, too. “It tells me I was being watched, and targeted and maybe it’s important to know why. I don’t go making enemies. Unless they’re disgruntled boyfriends.”

“Or yours.”

“Yours, Nikolai.”

He doesn’t look amused.

“I think it’s not telling me much but it’s making me ask questions.”

“Like?”

Ah, fuck. Now I feel like a master betrayer. And I shouldn’t. I don’t know Jess. “I’d ask why she was at the ready to come and save me.”

“Yeah, my thoughts, too,” he says, frowning.

I eye the bottle of whiskey on the desk, remembering the night at the bar when I had one cracked over my head. Fuck, had that hurt. “Maybe she helped because I stepped in where I shouldn’t have, or maybe…”

Nikolai looks at me. “What?”

“Maybe she got hurt because of me.”

“And maybe she’s involved in the strange shit that’s causing small waves.”

“Maybe. Nikolai, why are we having this conversation again?”

“It’s a different one. And when you’re with Miss Carabella—”

“Is that her last name?”

Nikolai’s eyes narrow. “Yes. She also has a brother, but that’s all I have right now, so when you’re with her, think about this conversation. Got it?”

Carabella. It’s pretty, exotic in a way, and it’s her. It’s—

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