Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“No, he’s a landscaper. A lot of the planting you see around Moscow? He and his team probably had a hand in it. I can still point out the trees I helped plant when I worked on his crew for a summer job. Then I did another summer with my mother, acting as her assistant while her real assistant was out for maternity leave.”
Grinning at the memories and conscious of Theo’s attentive interest, he said, “Pasha and I switched off, since my parents refused to have us both on the same job at the same time. Said we were menaces together.” Which, in fairness, was the absolute truth.
One twin: fairly well-behaved, invested, and useful.
Both twins: demons who pulled every prank possible while still being useful and invested.
“How about you?” he asked as the light-studded buildings of central Moscow began to appear in the distance against the black cloak of night. “You do any fun summer jobs?”
“I worked for my grandfather,” she said in a flat tone that made his fur bristle and all his doubts about the truth of Theo roar to the surface.
It took effort not to allow his bear’s rumble to color his voice, demand she reveal herself to him. “Yeah? Filing and that sort of office stuff?”
“Something like that.”
The bristling intensified. She was lying to him. According to what Silver had told him, Theo had been sidelined and considered unimportant during her grandfather’s reign, such an insignificant cog in the machine that she had no psychic or digital footprint beyond the most basic facts.
Yet he’d put good money on the fact that Theo had done exactly what she said she’d done: worked for her grandfather. That wasn’t the lie. The lie was in her answer as to what she’d done for Marshall Hyde, the man who’d been a Councilor during some of the Council’s ugliest periods. The same man Theo herself had just told him would think nothing of kidnapping an innocent cub.
What then, Yasha, asked his internal bear, did that man do to his unimportant and unnoticed granddaughter?
A bearish rumble building in his chest, his emotions colliding. Because the Theo with secrets dark and perhaps ugly was the same Theo who’d once been a child held in a monster’s punishing grip.
Chapter 21
“Mischief Bear One!”
“Here, Babulya!”
“Mischief Bear Two!”
“Present, Babulya!”
“Fall in line. It’s time to go jumping in your favorite mud pool.”
—“Three Bears, a Mud Pool, and a Rabid Squirrel,” a true family tale as told by Quyen Kuznets
NEITHER ONE OF them spoke again until he pulled into a parking spot outside the small bar and restaurant that was a favorite of his. Set up by a human couple who’d moved from Mexico City to Moscow for a work contract and fallen in love with the city, Jorge’s Cantina—named after a man important to both the owners—had a mellow vibe and gentle warmth.
And regardless of all he didn’t know about Theo, what he did know was that she’d had one hell of a horrific day. Fuck if he was just going to drop her off at her no-doubt sterile Psy apartment to handle the aftermath all alone.
He was a goddamn Stepyrev on one side and a Kuznets on the other, with Morais, Nguyen, Li, and more in the mix, too. His ancestors would roll over in their graves, while his living forebears would keel over—after slapping him upside the head—if he did anything but feed her. And pet her.
Only then could he grill her.
And he would—because he was also one of Valentin’s seconds, and he couldn’t work with Theo without being able to trust that she posed no threat to the clan. For that, he needed total honesty.
“Best Mexican food in the city,” he said to her once they’d exited the vehicle. “Owners are also happy to alter the spice level to their diners’ needs.” Some might say that made the dishes less authentic, but Juana, who ran front of house while her husband Videl ran the kitchen, said food was about comfort, and comfort came from being welcomed.
No wonder Jorge’s had a steady clientele of bears.
Inside, the cantina was all earth tones, from the dark cream of the walls to the polished wood of the floor and the rugs thrown here and there. The rugs as well as the place mats were handwoven in Juana’s hometown by an artists’ cooperative, while the plates, mugs, and glasses were supplied by another cooperative in the same city.
He glanced around, spotted a group of five thirtysomething humans discussing the menu, a single elderly human enjoying a leisurely dinner, and two bears. Good, that was as he’d expected for nine on a Friday night. Jorge’s was small and, despite its name, was set up more for food than as a bar, so folks in party mode tended to come by earlier, eat, then bounce to do their hellraising.