Page 148 of The Wild Charge

“I took the liberty of ordering,” Waverly said. “You like porterhouse?”

“Of course.”

Waverly grunted an approving noise and stared at him, elbows on the table. He hadn’t been born into money, unlike his son; according to Wikipedia, his father had been a welder, his mother a homemaker, and Jack himself had spent his teen years loading and unloading trucks for minimum wage. He entered the world of film production as a PA, fetching coffee and granola bars, and the story goes – according to his website – that he “worked his way up from there.”

In Tenny’s experience, that sort of meteoric rise was the result of knowing some very ugly things about some very important people.

“So,” Waverly drawled. “You’re him.”

“Hm?” Tenny hummed, that quiet, agreeable sound Ian made that could have meant he wasn’t bothered or was planning your murder. It was a clever façade, one Tenny intended to make the most of.

Waverly gestured in an impatient way. “This Shaman I keep hearing about.” His gaze raked like claws. “Not what I expected.”

“Really?” Tenny affected one of Ian’s seemingly casual poses, leaned back in his chair, hand raised to a lazy angle. “Taller or shorter than you imagined?”

Waverly’s stare was contemptuous. “Prissier.”

Tenny tossed his hair back with a quick flick of his fingers. “I prefer to think of it as ‘fastidious and well-dressed.’”

“I bet you do.”

“Mr. Waverly,” Tenny said, as a waiter arrived bearing plates of steak and angel hair pasta, “you doubtless have far more experience in the area than I have, given our respective ages and years in business, but I don’t typically begin a meeting with personal insults.”

To his credit, the waiter didn’t react. He dropped a basket of bread in the center of the table and retreated.

Waverly smoothed his napkin over his lap, picked up his silverware, and then settled a glare on Ian.

Ian grinned. “Can we not have at least a pretense of cordiality, Mr. Waverly?”

A long, tense moment passed, and then Waverly snorted and dropped his gaze to his plate. A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth as he cut into his steak. “Well, they got one thing right: you’re a real smartass.”

Heh. Tenny kept his smile restrained and serene, though inwardly felt the warm glow of victory. “An exceptional one, even.”

Forty

This sucked. It sucked so much.

Cassandra didn’t have the same hang-ups about Dad that her sister and brothers did. For the longest time, they’d shaken their heads and waved away her inquiries about Devin’s sins against them. They hadn’t wanted to taint her opinion, given that Devin had, “inexplicably” according to Raven, spent more time being a part of Cassandra’s childhood than he had with any of the rest of them. Cassandra’s mother, who likewise didn’t hate him as much as the other mothers, had said, “I’m not saying he’s a good man – but he’s getting older, and I think that’s changed his priorities.” And so Cass had fuzzy memories of him tucking her in at night when she was small; he’d visited often, and brought her gifts, and called her “my girl.” He wasn’t like her friends’ fathers: parked in front of rugby with a beer; Sunday afternoons at the park; Christmas mornings – except for that one time – or her cringey school plays. But he was a real father, in his own way. And she didn’t hate him.

She’d grown up knowing, however, that thanks to his past career and exploits, and thanks to her brothers’ involvement with the Lean Dogs, life wasn’t the candy-coated adventure of so many childhoods. The world was a dangerous place full of dangerous people. But everyone from Phil down tended to betoonervous;toocynical and overeager to assume that everyone who so much as looked at them funny was some sort of enemy. There were good people out there, too. Friends. Allies. Safe places and good intentions.

The clinic was real enough, that they’d been able to confirm through multiple sources. And the friends she’d met in the chat had shared photos of themselves, and their art; they spoke like people her age, liked the same shows she did. They had a lot in common!

Apparently, she’d been catfished.

She wanted to die.

She sighed and fiddled with her hair where it lay over her shoulders. She’d chosen her outfit weeks ago with bubbly excitement in her stomach, but now all she felt was regret and nerves. The reason their suites had turned into a circus, the reason her brothers had come to the city, was because she’d been careless. Because she’d once again proved herself to be the little kid of the family, the stupid baby who didn’t know any better.

Itsucked.

Someone rapped on the doorframe, and she turned to find her dad with a shoulder resting casually against the jamb, arms folded.

He smiled. “Ready to go?”

She found she couldn’t smile back, but nodded. “Yeah.”

She gathered her bag and portfolio on the way out of the bedroom, thankful, when she reached the sitting room behind Dad, that Raven had another assignment today. Fox’s stare was judgmental enough.

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