Page 21 of The Company We Keep

"Please," Dust said, smiling wider now. "Ca phe sua da,"

Carrow nodded. A good order. No alcohol — not during a meeting this important. One of the Kamarra bartenders had been watching them, and he made his way to the table the minute Carrow caught his eye.

"An iced coffee," Carrow said once the man was within earshot. "Two," he said, after a moment.

Until Dust wasthrough the door and walking down the aisle of Kamarra, the importance of the next few minutes of his life had not entirely occurred to him.

He'd read about those turning points for people, good and bad: the moment they picked up a syringe for the first time, the moment they met their wife, the moment they decided to get behind the wheel of a car after the fourth cocktail of the night.

Not until he laid eyes on Ansel R. Carrow did Dust think about the fact that this could very well behis moment.

He felt none of the things that he had expected to feel.

For the first time since he had taken the assignment, he had no fear of discovery — he simplywasDustin Wrenshall, there was not and there had never been a Charlie Judge. It was a transformative moment and one he would never forget.Nothing he would say after that point felt like a lie. They were statements of fact, testaments to the man he had always been.

He had no fear of Carrow — that he would say the wrong thing and the man would mark him as a liability or cut him down right there in the dark.

He had no fear of even flopping this meeting, of being rejected from The Company and missing his one chance.

From the first moment, he was Dust. And Dust Wrenshall had no doubts.

Dust, he was learning, was fearless beyond belief.

They sat for a moment there in the plush, round booth, waiting for the restaurant's staff to brew their coffees. Carrow was assessing him, and Dust did not shrink under his steady gaze.

The man's presence was so unlike what Dust had expected.

Dust was reminded, in that moment, of a Russian brawler-turned-professional fighter he had learned about through a documentary years ago. The athlete had an exceptional record of knockouts and submissions, and had never suffered the type of injury that would keep him out of the ring, making millions off of his fists and abilities over a lifetime. The man was not physically exceptional — wasn't scarred, wasn't tall, didn't sport well-defined muscles. If someone passed him on the street, they might not give him a second look.

But when youknewwhat he was capable of, you saw his strength, his power, his intelligence in every movement he made. You saw it in the way he smiled knowingly at the man interviewing him, in the way he lifted his bag to his shoulder.

You knew just from watching him move and speak that this was a human being who lived in a different world than you did. His abilities were so beyond your imagination thathis entire approach to living was also beyond your comprehension.

Dust had sat down with straightlaced CEOs and he'd spent time with hardened criminals. It was as if Carrow had plucked the best attributes from both types of man and then digested them to become something altogether better, more powerful.

Dust's heart hammered in his chest, then, not from fear or apprehension but from the thrill of finally —finally —finding himself in this man's presence.

Maybe that was why he could never bring himself to spend too long looking at A.R. Carrow’s section in the binder Caroline Leiby had handed him back at AIIB. Maybe it was a bit too much like looking into a crystal ball that told Dust his future.

Had he resisted learning about Carrow because he wanted to be surprised?

Was there some part of him that knew all along — even back when he was the imposter, Charlie Judge — that he would only spend 60 seconds in the criminal’s presence before he found himselfwanting him?

Perhaps the only thing more frightening than A.R. Carrow himself was the sudden realization that Dust would do anything in that moment to please him, to earn his respect, and to make himself wanted in return.

After the serverhad come and gone, Dust poured the strong little cup of coffee over the ice and condensed milk with the precision that one would expect from someone accustomed to setting up sensitive, unpredictable explosives.

Carrow found himself arrested by the sight in spite of himself.

Something crackled in the air between the two men and all they’d managed to utter was a drink order. Could he be imagining this, he wondered as he watched the young man’s hands move delicately, purposefully.

Would that steadiness and slow confidence translate to everything those hands do?Carrow wondered, barely able to chide himself fast enough for the thought, for the visceral throb that rolled through his body as he imagined those hands trying to please him.

"So, do I give you a copy of my resume at this point or what?"

Dustin had caught him staring, and when Carrow looked up from his hands, the young man was smiling but not challenging. It was as if heenjoyedbeing under scrutiny, being watched.

He raised an eyebrow at the joke and Dust smiled wider.

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