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His dark eyes are wide with shock when he sees me with Seraphina, like he’s been caught at something. Then his eyebrows pull in, low and creased, the exact look my patients’ families get in the hallway right before they ask me if their person is going to make it.
Then Seraphina slams into his legs, both arms wrapped around his knee, and he looks down at her.
Whatever was on his face a second ago gets shoved somewhere else fast, and he bends down and picks her up in one easy motion, settling her on his hip like he’s done it a hundred times, which apparently he has.
She immediately grabs a fistful of his shirt and starts babbling something about the tea party, pointing back at the mat with total authority, and he nods along like every word of it is critically important information.
He doesn’t look at me while he does it.
He murmurs something to her I can’t hear, pats the top of her head, and sets her back down.
She races off toward the toys, already forgetting he exists, the way two year olds do.
Then his eyes find mine.
Whatever I saw a moment ago is gone, folded back under that calm, easy mask he wears like a second skin.
He straightens, gives me the smallest nod and walks away without saying a single word.
I watch the empty doorway for a second too long, feeling…dejected.
Where is the man who had his way with me on the library floor the other day?
The one who claims he’s obsessed with me?
For some reason, I want to call out to him and ask him to come back.
Somehow, I think I miss him.
“Pwincess,” Seraphina announces, tugging my sleeve, already bored of the tea party, onto the next demand. “Pwincess now.”
“Okay,” I say, glad to have some type of distraction from my thoughts. “Princess now.”
But for the rest of the morning—through the tea party’s abrupt cancellation, breakfast, a truly ambitious game of dress-up, and Seraphina falling asleep mid-sentence against my shoulder an hour later—I keep thinking about that look on his face.
12
NICO
Days later, Luca comes in with the morning briefing himself instead of sending it up with anyone else, which tells me before he even opens his mouth that it’s bad.
I do a double take when I see my brother.
Damn, he looks like hell.
If I remember correctly, he’s still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, or close to it.
There’s a shadow of stubble coming in dark along his jaw, darker than mine ever grows, and his eyes have that flat, overcaffeinated look he gets when he’s been up half the night reading intercepts by himself instead of waking me for them.
He drops into the chair across from my desk and he lands hard enough that the chair legs scrape against the floor.
He slides a folder across the desk at me.
“Read it,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “I’ll wait.”
Giving him an odd look, I open it while still holding my coffee. I expect the usual—troop movements, money, nothing that needs more than five minutes before I move on with my day.
Russo’s network larger than previously assessed.
