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He shrugged, reaching for my hand, tugging once to get me to hurry along. He let go after, and I was sorry for it. It had been a while since I’d had any serious friends. I suppose after high school, after my mother died, I blocked myself off from any of my old contacts. And after I started working, started stealing, I really didn’t want to talk to anyone. Corey’s easygoing nature had me yearning for that connection to someone else that I hadn’t realized I was missing.
I couldn’t shake my curiosity about the German visitor. As we rushed back to the Sergeant Jasper and up to the seventh floor, I knew I had to keep my eyes open. I didn’t think he’d give up so easily if they put this much effort into finding Corey.
RAVEN
"Kayli!" Raven called from the bedroom the moment we re-entered the apartment.
"What?"
"Come."
I glanced at Corey. He shrugged. "He's mostly harmless."
I smiled at his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference. "Will I need a towel?" I headed to the bedroom door. I caught how Corey's blue eyes lit up when he realized I understood. That alone made my insides giddy.
Raven's bedroom was small with a tiny closet door that was closed, and with a bed shoved over to the back wall to make space. There was a fold-out table in the middle of the room. The top had been partially covered by a towel.
Raven had a handgun taken apart and in pieces in front of him on the table. He held a cleaning brush and the barrel in his hand and was scrubbing the inside. From this view with his shoulders exposed to me, I noticed more tattoos along his back and up his neck. It was a picture of some kind, but I couldn’t tell what it was yet. It was too covered by his tank top. I wondered how far down the tattoos went.
The power he held in his body, evident in his stacked muscles was almost overwhelming, too. His shoulders were as broad as Marc’s, but he definitely had more substance in the torso.
"Kayli," he called again.
"I'm right here," I said.
He twisted in his chair and looked back at me. He nodded toward the bed. “Do me a favor, little thief. Sit right over there.”
“Why?”
“Marc just called me. He wants you to stay within eyesight.”
“I was with Corey.”
“He wants you within my eyesight.”
I blew out my frustration in one heavy breath, marching over to the bed and sinking onto it, leaning back on my hands. “I wasn’t doing anything. We were just talking.”
“I don’t care. I’m just following orders.” He finished cleaning the inside of the barrel, putting the brush aside and wiping down the outside with a cloth.
There were a couple of other cases stacked nearby on the table, with Berretta and Smith & Wesson logos on the outside of them. The walls were covered with used targets, shots aimed at center mass or the head of a black cutout on a white background. By the wall was a dresser, currently holding two flak jackets and boxes of small arms ammunition stacked together neatly, sorted by size and type.
I scrunched my eyebrows together. I’d been around a handful of guns in my life, mostly old boyfriends who had been interested in them. This was the South, and half of the kids grew up hunting. “What’s with the artillery? I thought you said this was a simple job.”
Raven looked up, figuring out what I was looking at. He grunted and went back to cleaning the automatic. “Different job.”
“How many jobs do you have?”
“How many jobs will you give me?” he asked. He focused on piecing together the gun again. “These are just for training.”
“Training?”
His lips twitched, the lip ring protruding, while he finished assembly and put the gun on the table. He leaned forward, sizing me up. “What? You think I’m training these guys to kill? Is that what you’re worried about?”
Yes. “No.”
“Do I look like a killer?”
I lifted an eyebrow up. He really wanted me to answer that? “Where are you from?”
“Omsk.”
I stared at him. “Huh?”
“Omsk, Russia.”
I’d thought so before, but thinking and knowing were completely different things. Now I was nervous. No reason why, I supposed. Just too many Bond and Russian gang movies.
I leaned forward, folding my arms around my stomach. His room was cold, like a meat locker. “When did you move here?”
He grunted, and planted the gun into one of the cases, opened another, pulled out a .38 and started cleaning. “You ask too many questions.”
“You’re the one that wanted me in here.”
“Little thief, if I wanted you in here, I wouldn’t be cleaning guns right now. I’d play, but I’ve got a lot to do before tonight. I don’t really want you in here.”
“Why?”
“You’re distracting.”
“If you don’t want me to talk, give me something to do.”
He planted the gun on the table with a hard clatter, leaning forward again. His dark eyes focused on my face. “I didn’t mean you talking.”
“Huh,” I said in a non-answer. I hoped the h
eat on my cheeks was covered by make-up enough to hide it.
He cocked his head to one side. “You’re cold.”
“I’m—”
“You’ve got duck bumps.”
I raised my brows. “You mean goose bumps?”
“Duck, goose.” He waved his hand through the air and then stood up, heading to the closet. He left the light off, leaning in, and pulled out a thin cotton track suit jacket. He tossed it over the table, and I caught it. “Put it on.”
It felt like an order, although I wasn’t really complaining. I stuffed my arms into the sleeves. “Why do you have the room so cold?”
“It’s either too hot or too cold in this building. I’d rather it be cold.”
“Because you’re from Russia?”
He made a face, sinking back down into his chair. “Because there’s only so many clothes you can take off if you’re too hot. Eventually you’re naked and it’s still hot. At least when it’s cold, there’s always something else you can put on to wear and warm up.”
Made sense. I watched him clean the gun. I felt kind of stupid just watching him. Maybe it was thinking ahead to what they wanted me to do, and if I thought too much, I got nervous. I wanted to keep my hands busy. “Want me to do anything?”
He twisted his lips, glancing around the room. He pointed to the dresser. “See those boxes?”
“The bullets?”
He motioned to the pile of empty cartridges on his table. “Load them up. If you can figure out how.”
I gathered the bullets and the cartridges and returned to the bed, kicking off my boots and sitting cross-legged. I smoothed out the dark comforter so the boxes wouldn’t spill over. I opened one. The bullet heads were a gray plastic material. I held one up between my fingers. “I haven’t seen these.”
“You’ve seen others?” he asked, not looking up.
“A couple of ex-boyfriends used to go out to the woods and shoot.”
“Did you go?”
“Once, but he wouldn’t let me shoot. He was more interested in having me watch.”
He huffed, grinning. “No wonder he’s an ex.” He motioned to me without looking up. “Those are training rounds. Plastic. Cheaper. We can reload the cartridges with the bullets again and again. No need to waste the real bullets. They’re getting harder to purchase these days.”
