Me, apparently.
Because he had been smiling slightly when he charged in. But in a blink, the second his gaze landed on me, the smile fell, he stopped walking, and a darkness seemed to come over his eyes.
"Eli," Ryan's voice said, low, deeper, almost like a warning. But a warning against what?
Eli unfroze at that, reaching into his pocket, but his eyes were still pinned on me. He brought out his cell, holding it up, and I heard the unmistakable shutter of his camera, making me jump back, my gaze going to Ryan.
"Back off, Eli," Ryan growled, louder, dropping the bowl of eggs down with a clink and switching off the burner. Then he moved to stand somewhat between me and his brother.
"Just in case," Eli said, flashing the picture at his brother, making me wince at seeing the evidence of my beating so plainly. Then he shut the phone down, slipped it back into his pocket, and looked past his brother at me. And just like that, whatever had overtaken him a moment ago slipped away, leaving him with soft eyes and an apologetic smile.
"It's okay," I offered, swallowing hard. "I know this is a bit... ah, startling," I offered, motioning to my face.
"Think the word you were going for there was 'gorgeous'," he said, easily skirting the topic of my face and saving my vanity. "I'm Eli," he said, giving me a smile. "Since my brother here has completely forgotten his manners. Don't worry," he added, moving in so that he was next to me, leaning his head toward me like he was sharing a secret, "I will be informing our mother about not introducing us. She'll straighten him out."
I smiled at that, barely noticing the way doing so made my eye and cheeks and lip hurt. "I'm Dusty," I supplied.
"Dusty. Pleasure is mine. And look, I made it just in time for breakfast!" he declared. "Two bottles of champagne," he noticed, looking over at Ryan's liquor cabinet. "Well you won't be needing two of those later. Mimosas?"
And that was when I pretty much decided that I needed Eli Mallick in my life. In a friendly capacity.
Ryan gave me a look I couldn't read then went back to the eggs, switching on the stove, then chopping up veggies to put inside.
"'Sup, you flat-faced freak," Eli said, snapping my attention back from where I had been staring at Ryan's back to find Eli standing at the island pouring orange juice into flutes... with Rocky rubbing up against his arm. Rubbing against him.
"He hates men," I blurted out, mouth parted. "Half the time he hates me," I added on a head shake.
"Now, see, if I weren't in mixed company right now..." Eli started with a wicked smile, "I would make a comment of the risqué nature."
I snorted at that, knowing exactly what kind of comment that would be.
"So, Dusty," Eli said as Ryan started filling the pan with egg. "What do you do?" he finished, handing me a mimosa.
I started for a second, feeling caught before my brain started working and I remembered I did have an answer for that. "I write."
Ryan's head swung over his shoulder, his brows drawing together, his eyes questioning. And it was then that I realized that while I had gotten closer to him than I had anyone else in years, while he saved me twice and patched me up and kissed me and slept with me (the G-rated meaning of that phrase), we were still virtual strangers to each other.
"I can read," Eli said with a smirk, making me smile again. "What do you write?"
"Teen paranormal."
"Vampires and witches who are all angsty and have love triangles?"
"So you've read my work," I laughed as he toasted my glass.
Then we all ate omelettes and drank mimosas while Eli held up most of the conversation with a little help from me because Ryan was suddenly quieter than usual.
And it was easy.
It was like I wasn't horribly out of practice.
Maybe the ease of it could be attributed to Eli and his laid-back kind of conversational skills, but no matter what the reason was, I was having breakfast with two men who weren't my uncle or Bry and I wasn't feeling like an awkward, anxiety-ridden mess.
To progress.
That was what Ryan had toasted me to in my apartment on Christmas.
It was almost like it was some kind of premonition.
I couldn't hope for magic cures.
I couldn't hope for miracles.
But I damn sure could hope for progress.
NINE
Ryan
Eli was hard to predict.
Like Hunter, Eli had never been truly cut out for the family business. He was always a little softer, calmer, more artistic. He wasn't the one starting shit on the playground like Shane or Mark. He wasn't the first to jump in when a big brawl broke out in high school. He wasn't someone for whom violence came easily.
But violence was instilled in us from a young age.
As such, because it wasn't natural to him, wasn't something that was a part of him, that he could learn to control slowly through lower levels of it, his anger was much more explosive than any I had ever seen.
So when it came up for Eli, it came up in a wild, unstoppable wave. He had his triggers sometimes, like walking into my apartment and seeing Dusty all busted up. But, just as often, he could just flip it on when the need came.
That was why he was our 'last resort' with difficult clients. When they didn't cough up money with my firm suggestions or Mark's warning or Shane's fierce beating, well, that was when Pops called on Eli. Usually, he couldn't go alone. Because most of the time, he needed to be pulled off before he killed someone.
But it went off like a switch.
He walked in, saw Dusty, started to freak, took a picture in case he ever needed to show a cop why he was beating a man half to death for what he did to her, then shut it right back off.
And Dusty responded to him.
While, like me, he had never been the slut that Shane and Mark had been, he definitely had a charm that most women reacted to. He paid attention to the small things and could always seem to keep things from getting too awkward. That, for Dusty, was huge. If the conversation slumped for even a second, you could visibly see her tensing up, watch as her eyes went slightly panicked, like she was trying to think of a way to keep things light and easy, to not show that she wasn't the best at social situations.
Part of me was thankful to him to ease her into being comfortable with someone other than her uncle and me and the Bry fuck.
The other part was irrationally jealous of how they connected, how he managed to get things out of her that I hadn't even thought to yet. For fuck's sake, I didn't even know she wrote for a living. Holding drugs for her friend was apparently just to supplement her income.
Her anxiety might have ripped her life from her, but she found a way to live other ones, to have adventures and connect with people.
After breakfast, Eli split, having his own plans for New Years Eve that put him with Mark and would likely involve too much alcohol and someone to kiss (and more) at midnight. Dusty insisted on cleaning and proved herself pretty damn stubborn in the process, so I answered a few emails in the living room.
Which was how I heard him when she didn't with the water running in the sink.
Bry.
I heard the knock and was on my feet in a blink.
"Be right back," I called. "Need to take a work call," I added, waving my phone as she gave me a smile and turned back to the dishes.
I walked into the hall, closing the door with a quiet click just as Bry pulled the door open to Dusty's apartment and stepped in the doorway. His entire body froze as soon as he did, his shoulders squaring, his hand on the knob gripping hard.
So he didn't hear me as I stepped across the hall. But he sure as fuck felt it when my hand spread wide and landed in the center of his back, shoving him forward hard and making him stumble into the wrecked apartment.
"The fuck..." he growled, whipping around as I stepped inside and closed the door, leaning against it. "Mallick?" he asked, stiffening. Then, maybe the only thing he could do to redeem himself, he looked around slowly. "What happened? Where is Dusty? She okay?"
"You know, generally, when you care about a woman, you don't put her in a position where she gets her apartment broken into, trashed, and gets a beating no woman should ever fucking be subjected to."
"Where the fuck is she?" he demanded, voice a rough growl from between his clenched teeth. He took a few threatening steps toward me but stopped before it became too much of a challenge. "Is she alright?"
"She's not fucking great with her swollen shut eye and her bruises and busted lip and..."
"Fuck," he cut me off on a loud growl, reaching out to grab what was closest to him, a book on the back of her couch, and throwing it across the room where it smashed into the wall and clattered to the floor. "Did she have to go to the hospital? She's probably fucking freaking the fuck..."
"She's not at the hospital," I cut him off.
So he did give a shit about her. I didn't get to see them together much, just his impatient slamming on her door on drop-off or pick-up days. It didn't give me the best image of the bastard. That and the fact that he would involve her in his illegal dealings didn't exactly shed him in the best light.
But judging by the way he froze about the wrecked apartment, that his immediate questions involved Dusty's wellbeing and not, say, the status of his stash, well, it said something about him.