flinched, but Damon barked a laugh. “At spotting a tail, Rugo. Not life in general. Now tell us about the grenade?”
He laid it out in a few short sentences, feeling Brian get tenser and tenser beside him.
“That was enterprising of him,” Damon said as if he was talking about a lemonade stand.
“Did you know that would happen?” A pulse of anger beat in Nick’s temples. There was something about Damon’s tone that was too mellow for the danger Brian and Lori had been in.
“Would I have been in that room if I did? Sounds like ninety percent coincidence, ten percent pure fucking stupidity.”
That wasn’t quite an answer. “That’s bullshit.”
“Is it?” Damon’s eyebrow winged upward. “I wonder if they’ll find out the grenade was a dud. Can’t trust that stolen army shit. Good thing you spotted him before he could launch it, though. I’m impressed, Rugo.”
Nick gritted his teeth against the impulse to scream out what an asshole Damon was and demand real answers. “Enterprising of him.” Did Damon aim that young man at that meeting, like some kind of fucked-up backup plan? It sounded all too like Damon’s plans within plans. Short of beating the truth out of him, odds were they’d never find out. “Who was the shooter?”
“Would I know? Boris has a whole lot of enemies. Most of them arms or drug dealers.”
“Yes, I bet you fucking would know.”
Damon’s laugh sounded genuine. “You keep this guy, Bry. He’s all right.”
“Brian. I’m Brian.” A crease marred Brian’s smooth forehead.
“You sure are.” Warmth threaded Damon’s tone. “You did it perfect. I’m proud of you.”
“For finally being a good liar?”
“Sure. If you like.” Nick thought he caught a thread of hurt in Damon’s voice, but maybe he was imagining it.
On impulse, Nick said, “For standing tall. For being the guy you were meant to be all along if life had been fair.”
Brian turned to him, eyes brighter. “You think so?”
“You were amazing, and I say that as an undercover cop who knows how hard it is to lie convincingly to high-powered scum like Boris.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Brian’s expression softened. “You used to do that too.”
“In a good cause.”
Lori said, “What was that last bit, Damon? About working for him? I thought you said this would get us out from under for good.”
“Get you out from under.” Damon steered easily, three fingers on the wheel. “Now you’re off the hook, boring and useless. You can stay put, and as long as the cops don’t find Lori, you can raise the spawn and the sheep and whatever else you want.”
“While you work for Boris.” Brian didn’t make it a question.
“A man’s got to work.” Damon’s eyes met Nick’s fleetingly in the rearview, but it was like looking at one-way glass, impenetrable. “The jobs I’m fit for are on the dark side. Don’t worry, though. I expect to be running the show by this time next year.”
“Can’t you do something else?” Brian asked. “I bet you could be good at so many jobs.”
“Sure, I could, but do I want to?” Damon nudged Lori with his elbow. “Call that straight-arrow you’re living with and let him know we survived.”
Lori pulled out the burner phone and dialed Charlie, tapping over to speaker as he answered, “Yeah?”
“It’s me,” she said. “Temporary number.”
“Lori? Are you all okay?”
“We’re fine. Went like clockwork.”
Nick could hear Charlie’s soft laugh. “Really? Free and clear?”
“Turov’s little worm decided we were not the people he saw on the yacht. Boris sent us on our way.”
“After Nicko stopped an assassination by rocket grenade,” Damon put in.
“After Nick what?”
By the time Nick had explained it to Charlie, saving his suspicions about Damon for a private moment, they were cruising at fifty-five, halfway home. Brian asked Damon, “What do you think will happen to the guy with the grenade launcher?”
Damon shrugged. “Nothing worse than would happen to seven people in a room with an exploding grenade.”
“I guess. I feel bad, though.”
Nick rubbed Brian’s leg. Maybe launcher-guy was a coincidence, maybe Damon had set the whole thing up, but it was true that the bastard on the rooftop had been willing to turn the room into a death chamber. You could say what happened to him now was on Nick, who’d caught him, but there’d been no moment he could’ve called the cops instead. Not before Boris’s men arrived. Or after. “Sometimes we have to accept that we can’t save everyone.” It was the hardest lesson he’d learned on the job.
“The guy was probably scum,” Damon murmured. Nick figured