Page 87 of Born for Starlight

I saw Bruno check out the connecting room in one glance, the open door, the second room, the setup of the whole floor.

Pinto nodded to the room in general. "Senhores."

"And who's that?" Jase asked.

"He’s helping." I put a hand on his chest. "Jase. Sit down. Let me explain what I can, and you have to let me get dressed, because I have somewhere to be at five, and it's not optional."

Something moved behind his eyes. He'd heard the what I can. Jase was a hothead, not a fool, and that's a difference the world always forgets.

"Okay," he said, and I actually believed him for a second. He pulled out a chair, turned it around, and sat on it backward. "Okay. I'm calm. Tell me what’s up with Matthew."

"He's doing a good job at protecting me."

"That's not what I asked. Grandma said you had concerns."

"Grandma exaggerates."

"Grandma has never exaggerated once in her life." He kept his voice level, and I could see it cost him. Somebody, probably his wife, had sat him down and said do not walk in there and explode at your sister. He was trying. It was almost sweet. "So, I'm asking my sister, one time, totally calm. Do you trust this man? Yes or no."

Behind him, low, I heard Bruno's voice, warm and idle, aimed at Pinto. "How many you running on the day shift?"

"Angel." Jase snapped his fingers, gentle. "Eyes here. Do you trust him?"

"Yes."

"You said concerns."

"I said Grandma exaggerates."

"See, here's the thing." And there it went, the volcano I knew starting to rumble, right on schedule. "Your track record. That's the thing. You remember Eric? Because I remember Renzo remembering Eric. I remember Renzo having to fly out to California to explain some things to Eric with his fists, in a parking garage. Because my little sister has a gift, Angel, a real gift. For handing her heart to exactly the wrong⁠—"

"Don't." Bruno didn't even turn around. "Leave Renzo out of it."

"—the wrong guy, every single time. And now Grandma's calling me at midnight to tell me you called her upset. I'm supposed to be calm?"

"Perhaps I can—" Vargas started. He stepped in with both hands out, the smoothing voice, the de-escalation they must teach at whatever school these men attend.

"Don't bother," I told him.

He recalculated his entire afternoon in one blink and stepped back to the wall.

From the couch, quiet as a cat, Layla murmured, "So they are all protectors. Every one of them." She tipped her head and studied my brothers like specimens. "Interesting."

Behind Jase, Bruno again, lower. "And your local liaison? Who do you coordinate with?"

"That is above me, senhor." Pinto's voice came out flat and careful.

Bruno's just being thorough, I told myself. Poor Pinto.

"I am thirty-two years old, Jase." I stepped over to him, glad he was sitting so I had the advantage of looking down at him. "I have made my own money, my own career, and yes, some of my own mistakes, and I cleaned up every one of them, sometimes with Renzo's help and mostly without. I do not need you to fly to another hemisphere to vet a man for me. I need you to trust that I know what I'm standing in."

"Then tell me what you're standing in."

"I can't."

"Can't." His jaw went tight. "Or he told you that you can't."

Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Layla's gaze had drifted off Jase and me and onto Bruno. She watched him work Pinto with a look I couldn't read, somewhere between amusement and calculation.