I, for some ungodly reason, let him look. Let us both…acclimate. That was the word. Acclimate to this moment.
“Peewee?” he asked, taking us back to before my frown, to the guard at the door as he took in the greens and blues and fluffy, cozy warmth of my apartment. As he pettedmytraitorous cat.
“Because she’s vertically challenged,” I deadpanned.
Villetti slanted a look at me under his still-wet hair. “Six-two, maybe -three. Six-four in boots. Vertically challenged?”
I shrugged. When coffee and tea were ready, I poured his into a mug. Crossed the kitchen. Put the mug in his free hand. Leaned my hip against the island on that side, closer to him, where I could keep an eye on him. “They either pick their names or are honored with them. Currently, I have Grizz, Raccoon, Pretty Thang, Peewee, Boots, and Peg.”
“And Pretty Thang is?” He sipped.
“The team’s medic. And a man whore. He has magic. Women fall at his feet, and his penis falls into their vaginas.”
Villetti snorted and dropped the cat when hot coffee splashed onto his hand and went up his nose.
Aurora didn’t seem insulted at being dropped and began to weave around Villetti’s legs as the cop coughed and set down his mug. He accepted a tissue from me and blew coffee from his nose.
“That was evil,tesoro mio,” he said, sounding all Italian in the wordsmy treasure.
“Thatwas perfect timing,” I said, still leaning on the island. I took a chance. “Like the catnip in a pocket or rubbed into your socks.”
He disposed of his tissue. Shoved his hair away from his face. “Figured that out, did you?”
“Mmmm.”
“Mind if we sit and eat? I’ve been on my feet all night, and I’m done in.”
“Done in,” was a Southernism. I had always loved to hear him mix his languages. Ital-glish, I had called it. When he was in college, he’d spoken four languages. I wondered how many languages he spoke now, after the war and being a covert operative.
I shrugged, took a place at the table, and dug in. The food was so far beyond divine that angels may have hovered overhead singing hymns about it. Mama & Tía Maria’s made the best breakfast in town. Cops, city workers, construction crews, members of the city council, the mayor, bankers, financiers, and every other mover and shaker in the city and county ate there, rubbing elbows. It was a place where there were no class distinctions. Mama and Tía Maria made it so. The Salvadoran breakfastel tipicoswas heavily seasoned beans tossed with rice, fried eggs with crushed red peppers to the side, tomato and lettuce, corn tortillas, and fried plantains, and both meals came with a side of wild-sow bacon, cured with Salvadoran spices and local honey and fried to a perfect crisp. It was a little piece of heaven.
We ate in silence as the sky brightened and the snow grew harder, thicker, heavier. I hoped Villetti had brought an ATV or he wasn’t getting out of here. He’d be bunking down with the guards. A thought that made me smile. His eyes caught it and I waved away the question in his lifted brows with my egg-stained fork.
When I sat back, the spicy food sat uneasily on top of the donuts. I’d need to work out extra hard to keep the pounds off.
Villetti took our dirty plates to the kitchen and washed them, setting them on the drying rack. He had always done that—cleaned up after us, no matter who cooked. Asshat had blood servants who did that sort of thing.
When Villetti sat back down, he reclined in his chair, his lean legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. Our feet brushed under the island. His face altered, just a hint of a change, but Iknewwhat was coming. He started to speak.
“Stop,” I said.
He closed his mouth.
“You’re getting ready to question me. I need to know who’s asking, Leandro or Villetti?”
His eyes constricted, just a hair, telling me what I needed to know.
In my most formal voice, I said, “You may address me as Princess Angelina. As such, I am under the protection of the queen. You will have a witness, and I will have legal representation.”
“We don’t have to do it that way, Ange. We can just talk. No taping, no notes, nothing.”
“Lessons learned the hard way,” I said. But dang it, the sun was up and Walter was asleep. “Ojos. Contact the queen’s official residence for Robere. I need a witness to listen as I am questioned by an officer of the law in my home. If a Robere is unavailable, I’ll need representation by another of the queen’s lawyers.”
“Affirmative,” the butler-accented voice said. “Communication underway. One moment.”
Villetti rubbed his forehead and said something beneath his breath in Italian. It sounded like a prayer. A lot of people on the front lines who had never believed in anything supernatural, who had never believed in prayer, had begun praying during the war. Being faced with a demon who wanted nothing more than to take you over and use you to kill everyone and everything you loved tended to send you looking for something bigger than yourself.
I’d had my own angel once upon a time. I knew we weren’talone in the universe, in the various dimensions, and that some inhabitants of other places were dangerous, and some were helpful. And some were tricky and unpredictable. I had always prayed, though Hayyel’s presence in my life for so long meant my prayers were different from most people’s.
