“I’m sorry,” Caleb said quietly, reaching across the table to take her hand, his long fingers curling around her own. His skin was so warm and his touch so comforting that it took everything in her to remember this wasn’t a real date. “It must have been hard raising your brother when you were pretty much still a kid yourself. Did he help out at all?”
“No. Honestly? Julian was a complete jerk.” She would have laughed at how much of an understatement that was if there’d been anything even remotely funny about it. “He got arrested for the first time when he was thirteen—for shoplifting. Instead of scaring him into behaving himself, it made him even more impulsive. He never once considered the consequences of his actions because he was too busy looking for a quick score. He barely made it through his secondary education. He got involved with the wrong people and fired from every job he somehow managed to get. By the time he was twenty, he’d been labeled an incorrigible delinquent by the authorities and was involved in car theft, larceny, possession of an illegal substance, and the sale of alcohol without a license. I can’t tell you how many times I had to bail him out of jail or arrange to get him a lawyer.”
Caleb scowled and pushed his empty bowl aside. “If he was such a screwup, why keep going to his rescue?”
“Because he’s the only family I have left.” She glanced down and realized she’d finished her risotto, too, without even remembering eating it. “I’m never going to give up on him, no matter how many times he screws up. That’s what family means. To me at least.”
She expected a negative comment out of Caleb—or, at the very least, something snarky—but instead, he nodded, his handsome face thoughtful.
“I’ve never really had a connection to my family,” he said after a moment. “Not like the one you have with your brother—good or bad. But I understand what it means to have someone in your life who leads you to make irrational decisions. That part I definitely have experience with.”
Brielle opened her mouth to ask for details, but the server chose that exact moment to bring out their main course, and as they started eating, it seemed that the moment to ply him with questions had already slipped away. Instead, she found herself telling him stories of some of Julian’s dumber exploits, starting with the time he’d tried to sell a truckload of stolen toothpaste and ending with his scheme to sell heroin in Turkey. That one had ended up with him being sentenced to twenty years in the worst prison on the planet.
“You never did tell us exactly how you got him out of there,” Caleb said casually, glancing at her as he speared a piece of lamb.
“No, I didn’t.” She wasn’t ready to get into that part of her personal life with Caleb, even if she was incredibly comfortable with him. “Perhaps another time.”
Brielle expected at least a little push back, so she was pleasantly surprised when he nodded and took another bite of lamb. She did the same, chewing slowly. The meat was so tender that it practically melted in her mouth.
“So…Quebec? That’s where you and Julian disappeared to after leaving Calais?” Caleb asked, steering the conversation back onto more comfortable ground. “They speak French there, right? Is that why you picked the place?”
Brielle ate some of the parsnip puree before answering. “It certainly didn’t hurt, but I speak several languages, so we could have moved somewhere else. We went there mostly because of their immigration laws. It’s simple for a French citizen to move there and immediately get a job. I thought Julian and I could blend in easily. At least, until STAT forgot about us.”
Caleb gazed at her again, and she was startled at how effortless it was to get lost in those warm brown eyes of his. For a dangerous, violent man, they were so soft and inviting. Then again, perhaps that made him even more dangerous, just in another way.
“I’m sorry STAT and McKay threatened you the way they did,” he said. “Holding a lifetime prison sentence over you and your brother so they could use your abilities to find other supernaturals to recruit was a shitty thing to do.”
While she agreed, Brielle shook her head. “It’s not on you to apologize for what they wanted to do,” she said and hoped he realized that she truly meant it. “I never thought it was you or the other members of your team who wanted me locked up in some secret American prison for the rest of my life. Besides, McKay already apologized a long time ago.”
Caleb looked shocked. “He did? When?”
Strangely happy at the idea of catching him by surprise, Brielle almost laughed, but then stopped herself as she remembered what else had been happening around that time.
“It was while you and your teammates were moving on the nuclear power plant to stop Yegor,” she said softly. “I was waiting in the operation center with everyone else when McKay pulled me aside and apologized, saying he’d never intended for things to happen the way they had. He gave me his private cell number and told me to call him if I ever changed my mind about working for STAT—or if I ever needed help. Which, as it turns out, I did.”
Whatever Caleb was going to say was interrupted by two big men entering the dining room and heading straight for Lestari and his table. Thanks to her brother, Brielle had been around enough bad people to recognize them when she saw them. Tensing, she glanced at Lestari’s bodyguards, expecting to see weapons coming out, but instead, they remained where they were as the two newcomers stopped in front of their boss.
Caleb keyed his microphone. “Jake, we have two new players in the game. And from the way Lestari is looking at them, something tells me that he’s been waiting for them.”
“We got them on video, and Misty and Genevieve are running facial recognition right now,” Jake said. “I’m hoping Lestari will address them by name so we can identify them quicker. Until then, sit tight.”
That hope went out the window the moment Lestari and the two men started talking and nothing but gobbledygook came through their earpieces.
“Crap,” Misty said over the radio. “I’m not sure what language they’re speaking, but it’s nothing the software recognizes. So unless one of you guys happens to understand what they’re saying, we’re screwed.”
Brielle set down her fork and pushed back her chair. “I’ll be right back,” she said to Caleb. “Meet me on the dance floor in two minutes.”
Caleb frowned and started to get to his feet, but she waved him back down, praying he wouldn’t do anything stupid.
She made her way toward the back corner of the restaurant, taking a circuitous route through the tables, then skirting the dance floor so that her path took her right past Lestari’s table. As she stepped around the two newcomers, she pretended to stumble, grabbing on to one of the men’s shoulders. He turned sharply in his chair to catch her, and she immediately took the hand he held out, steadying herself.