Page 13 of Breakdown
Stav dropped his voice to a whisper. “I can’t say much. But I hear shit, you know? Some guys just don’t know how to keep their traps shut in here.” He sounded suddenly afraid, as though he was disappointed at not keeping quiet himself.
“What are they saying?”
There was another long pause on the other end of the line. “Pete. Listen, I don’t know how to say the version of this that makes any kind of sense. I’m bad. I’m probably bad in a way that can’t be fixed, you know. I could tell you I’m sorry for everything. I’m fucked up enough to even mean it right now. Tomorrow, I probably wouldn’t, you know. I’m sick, and it wasn’t just the fucking drugs. You were so broken when we met, and I just filled in the cracks with the parts of me that I couldn’t stand. And then I told you that you were just like me. And I guess I regret that. I regret a lot of things. Or maybe I just don’t like the consequences.” His voice caught, and Stav forced the sob into a bark of laughter. “Fuck, I got soft in prison. People who live our life don’t usually get happy endings. I’m telling you that you’ve got to be ready to protect yours.”
“Come on, you’ve gotta give me more than that, Stav,” Peter pleaded into the phone, his stomach roiling.
“Thing is they record these calls. Goodbye, Pete.” There was a click.
“Stav? Stav?” Peter shouted into a dead line.
When Nik came down, Peter had one hand still on his phone and the other gripped like a vice onto the lip of the island. It was the only way he could keep them from shaking.
“I heard yelling. Is everything okay in here?” Nik asked, sliding beside Peter. His brows creased in a worried line.
“No,” Peter said, truthfully and quietly. As long as Peter stayed in the picture, nothing was ever going to be okay for Nik.
“Do you care to elaborate on that?” Nik asked.
Peter sighed. “I think you should get out of LA for a while. Maybe drive down the coast, take Mia to see the grandparents or something.”
Nik’s tentative smile curdled. “So, no. You are just going to keep shutting me out then.” He made a move to go around Peter.
“Just until things cool off. I’m trying to protect you.” Peter put a hand on Nik’s shoulder and Nik immediately shrugged it off.
“You are not protecting me by hiding things from me, Peter. The fact that you do not understand that about me—”
“I get it, okay, Nik?”
“Do you?” Nik’s voice stayed quiet so as not to wake Mia, but anger flared behind his eyes.
“Yeah, I do. I get that your wife hid shit from you and she ended up dead. And that you are never, ever going to stop blaming yourself for that even though it’s not your fault,” Peter said. “I get it because I fucking love you, okay?” It was the truth, but he’d delivered it far more bluntly than he should have.
“I love you too,” Nik replied automatically, but he sounded a thousand miles away.
He sidestepped Peter and Peter let him this time, watching as Nik fished a crumpled, nearly-empty pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the cupboard above the refrigerator. Peter waited for a moment, and then followed him through the sliding glass doors into the night.
Nik sparked the lighter, its thin flame throwing his face into bright, unfamiliar planes and dark, alien shadows. He touched it to the cigarette and inhaled deeply. The smoke smelled stale and acrid, and Peter wondered how long Nik’d been hiding that pack from him. In the grand scheme of things, it was far less egregious than most of Peter’s secrets. Nik took a seat on the steps of the deck. Gingerly, Peter eased himself down next to him, waiting for a rebuke that never came.
Instead, Nik smoked the cigarette down to the filter before he spoke. “You need to tell me what is going on,” he said flatly. “I will not be kept in the dark. That is one thing I cannot do again, so please do not ask me to.”
Peter flinched. He understood Helena now, more than he ever had. The impulse to keep Nik at a distance from the worst things in the world was strong. He had a maddening sense of justice. If something was wrong, all he knew how to do was point himself at it and charge. It made him a hard man to keep safe.
“You’re right. It’s just that I’m not sure exactly what’s going on beyond a bad feeling about things,” Peter admitted, knowing Nik was due more of an explanation than that. For once, he deserved at least a little bit of truth from Peter. “Shit. Look, Stavros called me while you were putting Mia to bed.”
“Oh,” Nik said, less of a word than a soft, startled note of surprise escaping him.
“He was pretty vague, but the gist of it was that I should watch my back. He sounded... I don’t know, vulnerable.” Peter could see the muscles in Nik’s jaw tense and he plowed on. “There’s a storm brewing in LA—has been for a long time—and, like it or not, I’m going to end up caught up in it. Between Stav’s call and then whatever Liv’s cooking up—”
“Something illegal?” Nik interrupted hoarsely, grinding the butt of his cigarette into the concrete. He fumbled for the pack in his pocket, lighting another without hesitation. “A job for you?” It was barely a question.
Peter shrugged. “I don’t know all the details. But yeah, sounds like she wants my help.”
Nik exhaled a billowing cloud of smoke. “So, you say no. You do not owe her anymore, Peter. You especially do not owe her your legitimacy. You have worked hard for that.”
Nik would never really get it. God knew Peter’s sister had her flaws—she was a Bauer, after all—but Peter wouldn’t have any of this without Liv.
“You don’t understand. She’s family, Nik...”
