Yet no matter how unsettled he was, Andrej felt himself relaxing slowly, lulled into some semblance of calm by the heat and the paradoxical sense of security that came with the presence of far too many weapons not currently pointed at him.

The company might’ve had something to do with it too.

“So that’s Misha.”

Andrej glanced up from his bowl of chili, but J.C. looked perfectly neutral. Just making conversation. No pressure. It made Andrej grin, because, damn, that must be taking some effort. J.C. was curious by nature and paranoid by choice. He had to be dying to know what the hell was going on. So, of course, instead of answering, Andrej only nodded an affirmative and went back to eating. There might’ve been the tiniest grinding sound from J.C.’s jaws working, but when Andrej checked, J.C.

merely blinked lazily and took a pull from his bottle.

They sat in silence for a while, Andrej wolfing down the best damn chili he’d had in ages and J.C. sharing his space like he belonged there. The ancient rock of the canyon wall was warm and rough against Andrej’s back,

the ground dirty under his ass. Around them the compound buzzed with quiet activity. Machinery moved back and forth, disappearing into side canyons and behind camouflage tarps, stirring up dust. Once, Andrej could’ve sworn he heard a muffled explosion from somewhere. The ground trembled slightly. Andrej put down the empty bowl and reached over to steal J.C.’s beer to wash down the last bite.

“Are you seriously digging bunkers now?” he inquired mildly.

“Something like that.” J.C. smiled, the crow’s feet around his eyes deepening. He hadn’t changed all that much, Andrej noted fondly. There was more gray in his beard and hair than the last time they’d met, a new scar peeking out from under his collar, but mostly he was still the same John Charles King, deceptively laid back on the surface and rock solid beneath. The only friend Andrej had outside of syndicate circles; well, except for Riley, maybe. He wasn’t sure whether he could still count Riley as a friend. They’d lied to him a lot and Riley Cooper wasn’t the type to forgive easily. Andrej had never had to lie to J.C., who was every bit as dangerous as the crowd Andrej usually ran with, though not nearly as cold-blooded. A different kind of crazy. J.C. was much more likely to kill you for personal reasons than for business or an abstract idea of honor. It was a fine distinction, but one Andrej appreciated.

He handed back the bottle with a warm smile of his own. “Thanks for taking us in,” he said, and stretched out his legs. Almost as good as lounging in a deck chair. Almost. He shifted his hip, lifted up, and reached down to brush a particularly obnoxious piece of rock from under his ass.

Nature was not his friend.