Kestrel nodded and started the engine. I forgot about JD and the warehouse and the rats. I still hadn’t figured out how to tell them—any of them—what I needed to, and yet here they were, going out of their way to make me safe.
More, to make me feel safe.
And they were doing it.
For real.
Chapter 10
Rome
My neck tingled with the awareness of her presence in the backseat. She’d taken the spot directly behind mine and put her seatbelt on. While I approved of the safety, I’d rather she were able to lean up between the seats where I could see her more easily.
As it was, I kept my gaze fixed on the side mirror for the glimpses of her it revealed. On the way to the coffee shop, Kestrel took the longer way around. For someone in a hurry, he didn’t take the easiest or fastest routes. I flexed my left hand. The punch had left my knuckles aching.
I didn’t like JD. I didn’t like the way he looked at Starling. I really didn’t like it when he talked to her. Then he called her the one word she’d been adamant she didn’t want applied to her. If I had to break every one of the rats’ faces, they would get the message.
Despite the traffic pattern, Kestrel navigated to the wrong lane, and I finally understood what he planned. I sighed, and he shot me a grin. I didn’t even bother to raise my hand when I flipped him off. Somehow, he’d figured out where I’d been working.
Curling my fingers into my palm again, I cracked my knuckles. I’d finished late the night before. They didn’t want me out working on my own while the 19Ds were being problematic. Liam had crawled up my ass the last few days. Where I went, he appeared. I’d already gone through my stuff to make sure he hadn’t placed a tracker on me. Might seem like a stretch, but they made cheap tracking devices these days, and you could get them at most electronics stores.
I wouldn’t put it past my brother. He worried too much.
The soft inhale of breath from behind me made all the hairs on my body stand up. Kestrel must have heard it too, because he slowed enough that someone behind us blasted their horn and then flipped us off as they jerked around us in traffic.
It had taken me a few days to finish the whole side of the old goods warehouse that once served as an exchange hub between the incoming freight trains and the port. The stockyards were right next door, though neither was used anymore. The city had been threatening to knock them down for years, but they still stood.
The warehouse had been one of our favorite hangouts when we were younger. We’d learned a lot inside those old brick walls. Maybe my latest piece would help inspire change in this part of the neighborhood. I stared at my work. It wasn’t my best. I’d changed my mind a third of the way through and started over.
Still, traffic all along the road had begun to slow. I glanced at the side mirror, hoping to see her reaction. The little inhale was one thing, but I wanted to know what she thought of the dancer I’d put up along the east-facing side of the building.
“Nice, man,” Kestrel murmured, and I nodded. My brothers always appreciated the work, even if none of them really cared about the art itself. I had a feeling he cared more about this one. Kind of like I did.
It was Starling up there. Well, the silhouette of her. I knew every single line of her body, from the dip of her waist and the faint flare out from her hips, to her thighs where taut muscle demonstrated her strength.
She had a near perfect figure. Curves softened her muscular frame. The symmetry of her facial features beckoned to the artist in me, but so did the rest of her. When she danced, she was everything. Everything good about the world could be isolated down to the movement of her body as she conveyed a wealth of emotion and stories.
That was why I had to change the painting. It was her up there. I knew every line of it, but I kept her in shadow. The first bits had been her eyes. Those indelible dark pools that reminded me of mysterious woods and aged whiskey all in the same breath.
Not that I’d seen much in the