"Hello to you too."
"You look less like you're waiting for a building to collapse on you. It's very unsettling. I preferred you when you were mildly paranoid and easy to read."
"I've been mildly paranoid for three years. I'm trying to be relaxed. It's experimental."
I told her everything. Not the edited version I'd given her before, but the real version. All about who I was. Who Callum McCarthy was. And why I ran from Finn O'Shea. The sale, the cage, the scar, the years of running. The reason I'd always been so skittish at the caravan park, why I'd never let her get too close, why I'd slept with a knife under my pillow.
Presley started crying somewhere around the part where I described Finn's bite.
"Oh, don't do that," I said, my own eyes stinging. "If you cry, I'm going to cry, and I've already cried twice today because Gregor bought Fergus a sweater."
"A sweater?"
"Mustard yellow. Cable-knit. He ordered it from a website for small dogs. He said it was for tactical reasons."
“You’re doing it again.” Presley wiped her nose aggressively with a tissue. "Changing the subject. I want to know everything. I knew it was bad, Maeve, but not this bad. You should have told me."
"I couldn't tell anyone. I was too scared."
"When your brothers came looking for you—"
Fergus, sensing my distress from wherever he'd been napping, trotted into the room and immediately started barking at the iPad screen. He stood on his hind legs, front paws on the desk, and produced a series of outraged yips directed at Presley's pixelated face.
The door flew open.
Ivan appeared, a combat knife spinning casually in his hand, his eyes sweeping the room for threats. "Who made you cry?"
Fergus barked again, clearly identifying the iPad as the culprit.
"No one. I'm talking to Presley. We're having a moment."
Ivan stared at the screen, where my best friend's tear-streaked face was frozen mid-blink. Then at me. Then at Fergus, who was still growling at the iPad with the conviction of a much larger animal.
"Women are strange," he muttered, and retreated.
Presley's tears had stopped. "Was that one of them?"
"Yes."
"He had a knife. I hope he’s the chef."
"That's Ivan. You know they’re Bratva. And very protective. Also very confused by recreational crying. And–" I looked over my shoulder to check Ivan had gone. “Ivan can’t put bread in the toaster without burning it.”
“Caramelizing,” Ivan yelled from the corridor.
“Nobody caramelizes toast.”
“Then I’ve invented something.” Ivan popped his head into the camera view. “And she loves me really.”
He pressed a kiss on my cheek.
“I do. Now go.”
"He's gorgeous. Are they all gorgeous?" Presley said when the coast was clear.
"All three. It's disgusting really. I can't go anywhere without feeling like I'm in a perfume advertisement for organized crime."
"You need to bring them here," Presley said, leaning closer to the camera. "All of you. Your pack and mine. Henry can talk business with Artem and Fritz can compare knife collections with Ivan and Etienne can just stand there being French while Gregor stares at him wondering if he is big enough to take him down."
