Tor shot him an irritated glance and tried to regain his cool.
“Can we not talk about it here?”he asked.“Jesus, Danny, I thought you were on your way to—”
“The hotel,” Felix said.“And we will be.But first they’re dropping Josh and Liam off at Danny’s flat.”
“Oh shit,” Grace said.“I should be there.I made Hunter go to carry Josh, and—”
“And Hunter will join us at the Mozart for lunch,” Felix said.“We’re having a buffet sent to the suite in half an hour, and then Torrance and Marco can tell us whatever has been brewing between them since they arrived at the hospital this morning.”
Tor shot Marco a dark glance, but Marco, curly hair blowing in the breeze from the river and dark eyes sparkling with “I told you so,” gave him a sunny smile in return.
They hadn’t eaten at the Mozart that morning, although the food wasverygood.But Marco was a classically trained chef, with accolades and apprenticeships up the wazoo.He could probably be the head chef at the restaurant of his choosing, but he liked his family, and he liked having a life outside of work, so he enjoyed cooking for the Salingers, where he often got to share his gifts with the higher profile names Felix and Julia’s business brought into the mansion.
But when they’d jumped on board with the crew to help this op run, Tor had suggested that since they’d be in Europe, they check out as many places to sample as possible, and Marco had leapt at the chance.France had been delightful, as had Bavaria, and while Bavarian and Czech cuisine had much in common, Marco was still excited at tasting the differences, which was how they’d ended up having breakfast at the Michaelangelo Grand Hotel that morning.
The dining room had been clean and airy—much of Prague’s architecture was modern—and Tor had enjoyed the impression of great windows overlooking the white linens as they gazed at the river outside.
But it wasn’t the architecture that Tor and Marco needed to talk about.
They’d been waiting for their meal, which was, they’d been told, going to be a bit delayed.The morning sous chef was expecting his first child, and a replacement had yet to be found.While they were reassuring their server that all was well and the wait was acceptable, the table behind them was not being nearly so patient.
“I do not care if he’s giving birth to the brat himself or popping it in the pot,” came a thickly accented voice—a brutal voice.And one that Tor remembered from being on comms the night they’d switched the painting in Chicago.“If I do not get my food quickly, I shall take my money and my investment from this rathole and rip it like a torn limb until this cesspool starts hemorrhaging money.You tell your boss that, yes?You tell him that Kadjic gets his goddamned eggs benedict—”
“Right now,” came the cheerful voice of another server.He’d added something in Czech that was probably the equivalent of “Here we go, Mr.Kadjic, there’s no reason to overreact.”
Kadjic had glared at the man—and thank God it wasn’t a woman, Tor had thought, because the first server, the one he’d been eviscerating, had been female, and that note of condescension in his voice was galling—but the second server, obviously knowing the way his bread was buttered, had given a chipper wink.
Kadjic had relaxed a little and given the man’s ass a pat as he finished settling the plates and left to fetch some extra sauce.
Tor and Marco had witnessed this—but not watched it.In fact they’d pretended to make polite conversation with their own server, who was looking so uncomfortable Tor thought she was going to be sick, while the scene had gone on beyond them.
Marco had then asked the server if he could speak to their chef before Tor could stop him, and he was left alone at the table to nibble on breadsticks and try hard to listen to Kadjic’s muttered conversation with his two guards, who never left his side.
What he’d learned wasinteresting.
And then Marco had returned, face flushed with triumph and, after sitting downnextto Tor, not across from him, leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I’ll be working here for the next week.We must tell Felix and Julia—we’ve got an in.”
Tor, who had hung out of helicopters to deliver stories and had, just that January, faced down a sitting US Congressmen as he revealed the man’s investiture in his daughter’s trafficking ring, found himself cold to the pit of his balls.
“No,” he’d whispered, but at that moment, Kadjic barked something at his server, something cruel, and Tor had given Marco a thin smile that indicated “We’ll talk about this later.”
Marco—thank God—seemed as cognizant of the danger as Tor now was, and he’d smiled gently, kissed Tor on the cheek, and said, “Don’t worry so much!The chef seemed to think my credentials were completely in line, particularly since it was only breakfast service.”
Tor’s mouth watered, purely a Pavlovian response.“Are you going to make your chocolate cream cheese muffins?”
Marco grinned devilishly.“Oh no—I have a brand-new recipe to try out—you’d better be here to eat!”And then his eyes had made a completely unconscious dart toward a target neither of them could see, somewhere over Tor’s left ear, and all thoughts of Marco’s rather sublime pastry chef abilities vanished, and so did Tor’s appetite.
“No,” he mouthed, but he swallowed the syllable.
“It will be delicious,” Marco assured gently, and Tor wanted to tell him that it would bedangerous, not delicious, but he couldn’t.They had to wait until they were far away before they even broached the subject.
At that moment, their food arrived, brought by a grateful server, who comped most of their meal to thank Marco for his service the next day.
As they ate—they’d gotten crepes, one savory and the other sweet—and Marco had waxed rhapsodic over the lightness, the texture, the sublime seasoning, both of his strawberry suzette and Tor’s savory Florentine, Tor’s busy brain was at war with itself.
The lover in him—a newly awakened human, but one he found he liked better than the cold-eyed journalistic opportunist he could be—wanted so badly to guard Marco’s safety, to keep this ugliness, which he’d embraced enthusiastically, wanting to be the truthteller and the revealer of the forces the Salinger family fought, far away from this warm, sensual, amazing human being he loved.
But the cold-eyed journalist wasn’t oblivious to the opportunity.
