Neither of us moved for a long moment. The city hummed outside the window, completely indifferent to what had just happened in this room.
“Fuck,” he said finally, into my skin.
“Yeah.”
He pulled back enough to look at my face. His hair was wrecked, jaw flushed, mouth swollen. He looked nothing like the man who'd opened the door in a perfectly tailored suit and I found that deeply satisfying.
He reached up and wiped my chin with his thumb, collecting the dried mess there from earlier, and looked at it for a second before looking back at me.
“Bathroom's through there,” he said, nodding toward the door to his left. Completely matter-of-fact, like we were colleagues who'd just finished a meeting and not two men who'd just fucked each other raw.
I stumbled to the bathroom on shaking legs. Cleaned myself up as best I could, splashed water on my face, and tried to look like I hadn't just been taken apart and put back together by my former mentor.
When I came back out, Luka had two glasses of whiskey waiting on the nightstand. He'd pulled on his boxer briefs but otherwise looked put together in a way that should have been illegal after what we'd just done, sitting against the headboard like nothing had happened.
I took the glass he offered. Drank half of it in one go, felt the burn slide down and settle warm in my chest.
We sat on opposite ends of the couch, both of us settling into the comfortable silence that came from years of knowing each other. The easy version of quiet where neither of us felt the need to fill the space with bullshit.
“You look like shit,” Luka said finally.
“Thanks. You really know how to make a guy feel special.”
“I'm serious.” His eyes tracked over the bruising on my face, the careful way I was sitting to keep pressure off my ribs. “How bad is it?”
“I've had worse.”
“That's not an answer.”
“It's the only one you're getting.” I took another drink. “So are we doing this? The whole concerned mentor routine?”
“Would you prefer I pretend not to notice you're moving like someone worked you over with a crowbar?”
“I'd prefer you remember I can handle myself.”
“Handling yourself and getting the shit kicked out of you aren't mutually exclusive, Troy.” But there was warmth in his voice, almost fond. Like he'd missed arguing with me. “You win the fight?”
“I'm here, aren't I?”
“Also not an answer.”
“Yeah, well, you're not entitled to all my secrets just because you fucked me.” I stretched out slightly, testing my ribs. They screamed. I ignored them. “How's New York?”
“Complicated.”
“You said there were issues with the survivors from last month. What issues?”
“The version where half of them don't have legal documentation, two are minors without guardians, and one tried to bolt the first night because she thought we were just another trafficking operation with better branding.” He swirled his whiskey, watching the liquid catch the light. “Ash has been running point on getting them stable. Placement, therapy, legal aid. The works.”
“That's a lot.”
“It's necessary.” His jaw tightened. “We pulled them out of a nightmare. Making sure they don't end up back in one or dead in a ditch somewhere is the bare minimum.”
I'd worked enough Sentinel operations to know the statistics. Knew how many survivors got retrafficked within the first year. Knew how many disappeared because they didn't have support systems or resources or any fucking reason to believe the world could be different than what they'd been shown.
“How many are we talking?” I asked.
“Fifteen. Twelve women, three men. Ages ranging from sixteen to thirty-four.” Luka set his glass down, leaned back. “The two minors are the biggest headache. One's from Moldova, barely speaks English. The other's American but her family's been looking for her for three years, and now that we've found her she doesn't want to go back.”
