Page 56 of Lovesick Gods

“Fine,” Mal said, pushing the bag of food into Danny’s arms, which he scrambled to take hold of. “Then you’re going to beuseful. No asking questions. No interfering. No matter what you see or hear. Anyone asksyoua question, you work for me.”

“Sure thing,boss.” Danny gave a little salute. “Do I need an alias?”

Mal wavered between cringing and breaking into a smile. “Just…be Danny.”

Danny—who apparently enjoyed make-believe. And dress up, if the Zeus suit was any indication.

“Come on,” he said to Danny, turning to head down the street. “And try to keep up.”

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Danny almost couldn’t believe he’d convinced Cho to let him stay.Andwhile he was keeping tabs on his ‘territory’. Little had Danny known how powerful Cho was. This was good intel. And kind of fun.

There were several businesses they hit, one after the other. Cho was as smooth as ever asking how things were going. Some of the proprietors said very little and that was that. Some quietly mentioned the cops hanging about or one of the Dunkirks, to which Cho made a point of responding that he needed to know the second the man showed up again. Even fewer of them asked about Danny.

“Oh, he’s new,” Cho would say. “Just giving him the fifty cent tour.”

Danny smiled but didn’t say anything. If anyone thought he looked like a cop in his neatly pressed blazer and trench coat, none of them voiced it. After all, he was with Cho.

It was after the third mention of Dunkirk that Danny realized Cho was usually the one to ask about the guy first, so betweenstops, he asked, “Which Dunkirk is giving you trouble? I thought the Irish—” but Cho shook his head.

“No questions, remember?”

There must be a territory war going on. Interesting. Danny would have to keep his ear to the ground.

For now, he focused on gleaning what intel he could—and juggling the various items some of the shop owners insisted on giving them. Cho hadn’t been lying though; not once did he ever ask for anything; the people just kept trying to give him stuff. Usually food or something new from their shop. But never, ever cash.

A few times Cho was able to deflect having to accept the gift, but the other times, Danny merely added to his burden. He had several bags to carry, some at least he could consolidate into one, by the time they reached a convenience store near Cho’s apartment.

Danny wasn’t immune to how the people of the neighborhood acted around Cho. None of them seemed afraid. Intimidated maybe. Respectful for sure. But Cho didn’t usually resort to fear. He preferred showmanship.

It was the long game, Danny told himself, as he clung to the belief that none of this—not even the young woman helping her grandmother at the local bakery who looked at Cho like some sort of savior—meant Cho was anything but bad news.

This wasn’t goodness, protecting these people. It was killing them with kindness, just like what Danny was doing to Cho. Sure, it proved Cho didn’t need to be taken down like Thanatos—he wasn’t evil and he did care about the city—but that hardly made him good. Hardly made him exempt from a little payback. Hardly meant he didn’t deserve exactly what he had coming when Danny was through with him.

Angry voices struck their ears as soon as Cho opened the door to the convenience store.

“Open the register!”

“Wrong neighborhood! Nothing for you! Go, go!” an accented voice Danny took for Middle Eastern answered the young-sounding assailant.

The cashier counter was further into the back, but he and Cho spotted the commotion right away. Cho paused to roll up his sleeves, and a frosted mist rose into the air from his iced-over hands.

“Cho,” Danny hissed.

“No questions. No interfering,” Cho answered just as quietly as he moved forward with slow, clipped steps.

The robber had a gun pointed at the cashier, who Danny could see had his hands raised but was inching toward a shotgun behind the counter. It was visible from Danny’s angle, but not from the robber’s.

Readying himself to intervene, regardless of what he’d promised Cho, Danny wasn’t sure how old the robber was—he had a ski mask on—but his voice made him sound about fifteen.

“Problem?” Cho asked, spreading his arms to show off the sheen of ice climbing to his elbows.

The robber whirled around, pointing his revolver at Cho then back at the cashier. Danny saw the moment when the young man registered who it was he was looking at—the way his eyes widened beneath his mask, hand trembling worse than it already had been.

Cho held up a misting hand to quiet the cashier when the man rattled off something Danny didn’t understand. Just how many languages did Cho speak?

“Not at the point of no return yet, kid,” Cho said, all ease and guile and fluid motion forward. “Now you know what Rashid meant by this being the wrong neighborhood. But I’m forgiving. Put down the gun. Walk out the door. Stay away from my streets. And we won’t have a problem. Try something, however,and well…you wouldn’t create the most fashionable ice sculpture with that mask, but I can make do.”

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