Shannon McKenna Bundle: Ultimate Weapon, Extreme Danger, Behind Closed Doors, Hot Night, & Return to Me. Shannon McKenna

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      “It would seem not.” Imre’s voice was uncharacteristically hard. “So you are being called to heel, Vajda? Like a good hound?”

      Val swallowed the anger, with effort. He forced himself to take the three steps back. There was no point in getting his fur ruffled over the flat truth. “Don’t call me Vajda,” he said stiffly.

      Imre’s eyebrow twitched upward. “It is hard for a tired old man to change the habits of a lifetime,” he complained.

      What horseshit. Even at eighty, Imre’s mind was as flexible as a circus contortionist. “Try to remember,” he said. “Vajda is dead. I am Valery.”

      “Are you indeed?” the old man murmured. “And who is this Valery? Do you even know, boy?”

      His anger flashed up again, sharper and incandescent. He clamped down on it grimly. “As well as anyone,” he snapped.

      “I think not,” Imre went on, relentless. “I thought that PSS would be better than Novak, but they are not. Not for you. Novak may have stolen your life and your future, but PSS took away your whole self.”

      Very abruptly, Val was all too aware of why he had come back to Budapest so seldom in recent years. Imre’s tendency to speak the raw, unpalatable truth had always been annoying.

      “I’ll go into hiding,” he said on impulse. “Fuck them all. It’s the only way to be rid of them.”

      Imre blinked and looked politely doubtful. “You told me yourself how vast PSS’s resources are. It would be so easy?”

      “Easy, no. Possible, yes,” Val said. “Expensive, yes, but that is no problem. I have money coming out my ass now.”

      Imre looked pained. “Please, Vajda. And your business?”

      Val hesitated. In point of fact, it would hurt to give up Capriccio Consulting. The business had come into existence years ago as a cover while he wormed his way into the inner circle of a drug smuggling ring, but since then, and almost by accident, it had evolved into a profitable legitimate enterprise that he truly enjoyed. Fulfilling whims. Finding and obtaining objects, treasures, information. He was good at it.

      He was secretly proud of himself for having created something that functioned so well; something that was not a scam, cover, or lie. His business did what it promised to do, with an excellent success rate. God, how he liked that. The simplicity of it, the dignity. Was it so much to ask to mind his business, satisfy his clients, make his money?

      But like everything else, it was dangerous to be attached.

      He let out a long breath and tried to take the three steps back, but he didn’t feel the click of disengagement, the floating feeling.

      “I’ll find something else to do,” he said, after a moment. “I’ll buy you a new passport. Come with me. We’ll go someplace hot. A desert would be good for your arthritis. I could keep a better eye on you. We could play chess every night.”

      But Imre was already shaking his head. “This is my home,” he said. “Near Ilona and little Tina.”

      Stubborn old sentimentalist. Trotting out his wife, dead thirty years, and his daughter who had died in infancy, buried together at the cemetery. Val rubbed his face with a groan. “For two mossy graves, you stay in this moldering dump? I can look after you if you’re close to me!”

      “You already look after me.” Imre’s voice was tranquil. “l will stay here. And I will die here. It’s all right to die, Vajda.”

      “Spare me the cloying platitudes,” Val snarled. “This isn’t one of your fucking philosophy lessons.”

      Imre regarded him for a moment, his thin shoulders stiff. “Calm yourself, please,” he said haughtily. “I will make us a pot of tea. Or should I bother? Do you have to scurry off to lick your handler’s feet?”

      Val let out a long, slow breath before he allowed himself to reply.

      “I’ll make the goddamn tea,” he said before Imre could rise. He needed a moment for his self-control. And he didn’t want to watch Imre’s pained, arthritic shuffle toward the kitchen.

      Hegel would be furious to be kept waiting. Val did not care.

      The kitchen was dirty. The dishes in the sink stank. He made a note to scold the agency he paid to send someone to cook and clean for Imre. Lazy cow. It would never occur to Imre, the perfect gentleman with his head in the clouds, to scold the stupid woman for slacking off.

      Perhaps she’d been too upset by finding Imre in such a terrible state, but even so. This was accumulated weeks of mess, not days.

      He put the kettle on, dumped some cookies onto a plate. The chipped, stained porcelain teapot unleashed a flood of memories.

      The first time he’d seen that teapot, or sat at that table was twenty-two years ago. He’d been Vajda then, a tough, slit-eyed twelve-year-old, small for his age, trolling the streets for a trick, a pocket to pick, any way to make his quota for that prick Kustler, and avoid the beating or cutting or cigarette burns that were his punishment if he didn’t. He’d seen the man, shabby clothes flapping on his thin body, staring from across the street. He had an intense look in his deep-set eyes, as if he recognized the boy from somewhere.

      Vajda thought he knew what that look meant, so he sauntered over and tried to bum a cigarette. The man had told him sternly that he was too young to smoke, which made Vajda practically choke laughing.

      Then the man had invited him up to his apartment, which was a stroke of luck, as it was beginning to snow. Kustler had taken his coat that morning. Vajda hadn’t had a chance to steal a replacement yet.

      The apartment had seemed luxurious and rich to him at the time, lined with books, crowded with antique furniture. He’d expected the man to open his pants, tell him to undress. Imre had not done so. He’d just summoned the boy into the kitchen and poured him cup after cup of sweet, milky tea while he soaked bread in egg and fried it in butter. The first food Vajda had eaten that day, perhaps longer. Delicious.

      It had disoriented him. He’d told Imre angrily that if he wanted tail, get the fuck on with it, because he had places to go, things to do.

      Imre had beckoned him into the parlor, lit the lamp, sat him down and proceeded to teach him the rudiments of chess. The place was so warm. The snow outside so cold. It was strange. He had stayed.

      When he started to nod off, the man gave him a blanket, and let him stretch out on the divan. He’d slept like the dead, and wakened in the morning, confused and scared. Imre sat across from him, staring at him, and Vajda thought then, with a rush of bitterness, Here’s where it starts. He’s just like all the others. He just needs a lot of lead-in time.

      But Imre had only dug some money out of his pocket, more or less what Vajda might have earned in a good night. “Up with you,” he said. “You may use the bathroom. There is milk and bread in the kitchen, and then you must go. My first music student will arrive shortly.”

      Vajda stared at the money in his hand. “Why…?”

      “I don’t want you to suffer when you must account for your time,” Imre said, matter-of-factly. “I enjoyed your company.”

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