Page 77 of Root

Box mac and cheese.

Dante looks at Rush and lets out a loud meow.

“This is a feast.” There’s a tiny smile, a flash that’s gone in an instant. “Contraband and delicious.”

“Are you five?”

He sets his bowl down and opens the fridge, pulling out a few glass containers and putting them all back apart from the one with a chicken breast. “My contraband food taste buds are probably six. Nikolai’s a monster, make no mistake. He forbids shit like this. Everything is made from scratch.”

“Oh, poor you.”

“I know.” He tears up a good portion of the chicken, and Dante leaps off the counter onto the floor, somehow managing to purr and exude worry at the same time. “Here you go, spawn of feline Satan.”

He puts the chicken in the ceramic bowl marked Dante and scratches his ears. Dante doesn’t react, his face is buried in his bowl.

“Was that his?”

“Nikolai can make more of his boring chicken. I mean, have you seen the juices and fresh veg in here?” He shakes his head and shudders.

“Oh yeah, so wrong.” I poke a pasta elbow. “What is he thinking?”

“He’s a man of so-called refined tastes.”

I look at him. “Like Rose?”

“Trust, we’ve shared more than one packet of contraband shit.” Then he smiles and puts his empty bowl down on the floor for the cat, who sniffs it and then licks a little of the cheese sauce still in there. “Like your damned master.”

Dante meows.

“What does your cousin say to that?” Because I somehow can’t see them getting away with that and Nikolai not knowing.

My phone sits heavily in my back pocket. I don’t think much gets past Nikolai Wilder. Which means I have to be careful. Very careful.

“Not a word. But…” He comes over and slides his palms over my thighs, the warmth of his touch spreading deep beneath my skin. “At first it was Mia with the mac and cheese. I was…fuck, I don’t know. Seven? Anyway, I was upset over something, so I got a box of magic.”

“Of course. Spoiled.”

He smiles, dipping his head as his palms slip over the denim. It feels so fucking good in ways no touch should feel.

“Maybe, and it’s always been quality. So I think Mia didn’t just find it, but got it, at least. I think it was her because he’s been about me growing up right, you know? But then, after the first time we had box mac and cheese and some other junk, all of a sudden the contraband upped its game. Organic. The best of the best. This shit?” He nods at the blue box. “I got that.”

He can’t see it.

But I can.

Mia’s got a mind of her own, at least, from what little I’ve seen, but like every single other person here—every person who isn’t Rose or Rush—she obeys her king.

Nikolai is king.

A respected one.

And one who made sure the golden prince got his contraband. Quality, but the things he liked.

Maybe it takes an outsider, one with no stakes in his game—because I don’t, no matter how good he feels or how fascinating he is, no matter how I might be trapped by circumstance. His game is nothing to me.

Delivering to the Ten64 is.

But…as an outsider, I see things. About him, about all of them. I get structure. Life growing up in institutional walls means I’ve learned to observe, pick up on small things.

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