Page 24 of Pistols and Plush Toys

Nikolai had been forced to brush off her concerns because he didn’t have any better options, but a part of him had known she was right.

Meredith had the annoying habit ofalwaysbeing right.

But what else could he do? A bit of light kidnapping was a small price to pay for not letting Mattia Vitale ruin this city.

Still, Nikolai felt so shitty when he finally took Brooks back to his room after dinner that he didn’t even let himself have that drink he’d been thinking about all day. He marched himself to his bedroom with his laptop and did more work until the late hours of the night, stone cold sober.

It felt like penance.

The next day Nikolai kept up with what he had started yesterday afternoon and knocked on Brooks’s door in warning first, giving the man a few seconds to get himself together. He hoped it would help Brooks not be so scared.

He was… disappointed it didn’t make any headway in Brooks's jumpiness. The man still picked at breakfast, barely eating, and by lunch Nikolai was beginning to get seriously concerned about the amount of food, or lack of, that Brooks was consuming.

If this kept on, Brooks was going to wither away before Vitale saw reason, and Meredith would have to break her oath about physical violence.

Nikolai needed a different tactic. Pressing Brooks about the food only seemed to make him more nervous, and less inclined to eat. Silence, likewise, seemed to unnerve him.

When they sat down for dinner, and Brooks stared down at his plate of pasta with the air of a man about to head to the gallows, Nikolai cleared his throat. “So. Your clothes, they fit?”

Brooks, who was wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt that did hang a little big on him, looked up, fork clenched in his fist. His knuckles were white. He met Nikolai’s eyes and then his gaze returned to his plate. His shoulders hunched. “Yeah, they um. They fit fine. Thank you.”

“My assistant Meredith, she is wanting to know if you’re needing anything different,” Nikolai said.

Brooks’s gaze darted up again, then back down once more. “Yeah. Everything is–it’s good. Thank you.”

“Meredith does good work,” Nikolai said, trying to just get something out of Brooks that wasn’t abject terror. “But she is texting me five times a day to see if you’re needing anything.”

“I-I don’t need anything,” Brooks said quietly.

“If you think of something, you tell me, yes? Meredith, she is saying I’m taking bad care of you.” Which wasn’t exactly atotallie, but Nikolai maybe tried to push the point. Brooks was very clearly scared of him, so scared that he probably wouldn’t ask for anything he needed. That was… not good if his stay here was going to be more than a couple days.

And it was beginning to look like it would be more than a couple of days.

“Your wrists,” Nikolai tried, beginning to feel desperate. “How they are doing?”

Since Brooks was wearing the too-big long sleeved shirt, Nikolai couldn’t see if he was still wearing the bandages.

“Better. Thank you for–for dressing them.”

“Is nothing,” Nikolai said. “I’m not meaning for you to get hurt. I’m sorry it’s happen.”

Never in a million years would Nikolai have envisioned he’d be apologizing to a man he was holding captive. Not that Nikolai had ever imagined he’dhavea hostage like this, but his father would have dragged him straight to the basement for even daring to think about admitting he’d done something wrong.

But Nikolai was not his father. There was no basement here. And Brooks was just so… soft. There was a delicacy about him, and two days in Nikolai didn’t think he was faking it. Every line in Brooks’s body screamed that he needed to be taken care of. Treated gently.

Maybe if Nikolai managed to be gentler, Brooks would stop being so terrified of everything.

Maybe he wouldeat.

For the love of American freedom, Nikolai needed this man to eat.

Brooks's eyes met his again. There was a wrinkle between his brows, as though what Nikolai had just said had confused him. It probably had.

Nikolai saw a glimmer of opportunity there.

“You want shower after dinner?”

He watched Brooks sink his teeth into his split lip that Brooks seemedintenton not letting heal. “Stop biting,” Nikolai said, and managed not to growl it this time. Adding, “Is hurting you,” so Brooks would understand why Nikolai was so unhappy with his habit.

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