“So, if I drive you crazy, why did you stay?”
I wiped the crumbs from my lip and looked him square in the face. “Because I was forced to. Either I stay with you, or Jameson takes the shop. And fuck him if he thinks I’m going to let him take what I’ve worked to build.” My voice tightens. The words come out raw and honest, and I don’t know why I’m telling him anything.
He studied me for a minute, and for an instant the hard set of him went slack. “I doubt that is what he intends.”
“He implied it, and that’s enough for me to not trust him. Jameson knows damn well he’s on my shit list.”
He laughs, a short, sharp sound. “He does, does he?”
“Hell yeah, he does. Who does he think he is?”
“The President of the Royal Bastards, Grace. And he did it for your own good.”
“Doesn’t matter. He’s still on my shit list and all of you should think twice before threatening a witch.”
“Or what?” he says, plucking a fry off my plate.
I lean forward until my face is inches from his. “Or I’ll hex your balls off.”
He let out a laugh; the sound is enormous in the tiny shop. People glanced at us, smiled, and went back to their eggs. His laugh made heat move through my chest.
“You’re a trip, Desdemone. I’d come back and haunt you even as a hexed piece of meat.”
I scowled and chewed. We banter and stab at each other with the ease of people who’ve circled the block a hundred times. It kept us honest. It kept the dangerous things out of reach for a little while.
Hellsing then changes the subject and tells me about what went down in the hangar, down at the Boneyard.
“Macabre found the kid, he was shaking so bad I thought he was going to piss himself.”
“Did he?” I asked coldly. Feeling slightly apprehensive with the kid who ruined my business.
“No, but Jameson laid in on him good until the kid confessed.”
“Why did he do it?” I asked quietly.
“It was an initiation. The kid was so fucking scared; he shook when he told us the Scorpions told him to carve their mark.” Hellsing’s voice got softer as he spoke, telling me was “just a kid.” He wanted to keep him out of the system. He wanted to keep it small.
“So you just let him go?” I questioned, getting slightly angry with him. I saw the way his jaw tightened, the way his hands curled into his beer bottle, trying to hold himself together, and I regretted the question.
“You don’t understand what it does to you,” he says, and for the first time there’s something softer in the edge of his words. “Seeing a kid do that. The way they get dragged in. I remember what drove me. I couldn’t let him go through it.”
I instinctively reached across the table and pressed my fingertips to the back of his hand. He flinched slightly, thenclosed his fingers over mine. He looked at me like he’s trying to weigh whether I was dangerous or precious. I figured he could decide that on his own.
“Josh will be there first thing in the morning,” he tells me finally. “He’ll help clear the glass and anything else you need. He’ll also be watching over you when I’m not around.”
My eyes widened and I could feel that start of a flame igniting. “I knew there was something more to this.”
“I can’t watch you twenty-four-seven, Grace.”
“So, you ask a teenager? One that destroyed my establishment! Are you crazy?”
He pulled his wallet out before I could say another word. Dropping some bills on the table, he yelled out to Mary letting him know he was covering both meals. He grabbed my hand but I yanked it away from him. His jaw locked and he grabbed it again, this time gripping it tightly as he proceeded to drag me out of the restaurant. I cursed at him under my breath the entire time.
Outside, the air is hard, and the rain has stopped, leaving the street bright and clean. He offers me his jacket, and I shrug him off.
“We’re going home. I’m done arguing with you.”
“No,” I snap, the word sharp and instant. “I’m not done. I’m not going to hide.”
