Page 120 of Beware of Dog

Ruiz had twisted around in his chair—they must have been making a lot of noise—and his expression was a blend of fear and dark satisfaction. Shep imagined shoving Pongo aside and bearing down on Ruiz; wrapping hands around his throat and squeezing until he gurgled. Digging his thumbs into his eyes until blood ran down his cheeks like tears.

“Shep,” Mav said, not loudly, but firmly. “Please.”

Toly released his hood and pinched something in his neck that liquified all his nerves.

“Ah! Shit!”

“Sit down,” Toly hissed in his ear, and Shep allowed himself to be shoved and corralled back into his chair.

Pongo kept both hands pressed to his shoulders after. “Dude,” he said, “don’t fuck this up.”

“Let go of me.” He swatted at them, and they lifted their hands, but didn’t step back, ready to tackle him if he made another run at Ruiz.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the thugs watching him. One of them was grinning. Shep breathed roughly through his mouth, lungs pumping, heart racing. He wanted todo something.

Mav’s voice took on a new, flinty edge as he sat back down. “Hector, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and I’m going to explain this to you. Once. The ‘girl’ you were tasked with assaulting? She has eight brothers, and all of them are Lean Dogs. One of them’s in the room with us right now. And the guywho wants to choke you out over there? That’s her man. Her sister is a very publicly well-known model and fashion designer.”

What the fuck?Shep wanted to yell.Don’t tell him all of that.

But Mav continued, “Believe me when I tell you that if you or any member of your crew harms Cassandra Green, you won’t even live to regret it. You’ll be gone.” He tilted his head to a meaningful angle. “Do you understand?”

Ruiz sat back in his chair. “Yeah. I understand.”

~*~

Natalia was the first of Cass’s nieces that she’d gotten to spend any real time around. She liked babies, but she couldn’t decide if that was just because she didn’t have one of her own. It was fun to be Aunt Cass: to hold Nat’s solid, warm weight in her arms, like she did now, and watch her perfect, soft little eyelids twitch in her sleep; to see her tiny fingers curl and uncurl. There was something magic in all the miniature aspects of babyhood: the knee creases, the toenails, the button nose. But who was to say she’d feel that way if she was in charge of one twenty-four-seven?

She sat cross-legged in one corner of the massive sectional sofa, Raven in the other. They’d set out to have a girls’ movie night, but neither of them was paying much attention toPride & Prejudice.

Raven tipped against the back of the couch and propped her temple on her fist. “Why are you so good at that? Getting her to sleep.”

“It’s not me. She cried for four hours, so now she’s asleep.”

“I know. Little goblin,” Raven said, lovingly.

“Don’t listen to your mum,” Cass stage-whispered to the sleeping baby. “She’s mean.”

Raven stretched out her leg and flicked Cass in the ankle with her toes. “Brat.”

“Do you hear her?” Cass said, mock-scandalized. “And after I got you to sleep.”

“Wah-wah,” Raven said. And then, in a startling about-face: “Do you want one? A baby, I mean.”

Cass jostled the one currently in her arms as she snapped her head Raven’s direction. Nat squirmed, and she relaxed her hold, and took a few deep breaths, and saw that Raven was staring at her, entirely serious, that concerned groove between her brows. “Um.What?”

“I don’t mean now, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” Cass mocked, but her heartbeat quickened, and her voice came out faint.

“I told Shep, when he came to see me, and he told me about the two of you, that he should wait until after you were done with school.”

“Because it’s his decision?”

“Darling, I think everyone knows that you’re driving this whole Cass-and-Shep bus. But he knows to be careful. He knows your education is important. So I don’t meannow, but I’m asking. In the future. Do you see yourself wanting children?”

Three weeks ago, Raven was asking if she was keeping up with her homework, and now Raven had spent most of the evening paging through wedding magazines trying to narrow down a dress style for her, and was now asking her about babies. It left her head spinning.

But when she glanced down at Nat sleeping in the crook of her elbow, and she took a deep breath, the surreal nature of the conversation gave way to what she’d always known. “Yes. I always have. I just didn’t think…”

---