Page 46 of Pistols and Plush Toys

Elliot nodded, wiping at his eyes again because his tears kept falling. Poor Nikolai. Elliot’s stupid little problems were nothing compared to Nikolai’s fucked up childhood.

“I am… sorry for telling you,” Nikolai said.

“No—” Elliot’s voice was clogged, and he cleared his throat. “No, I asked you. I wanted to know. It–it helps, knowing that about you. About your dad. That you’re not like him. Or…” he swallowed. “Or like M-Mattia.”

Nikolai sighed, and tucked the piece of metal back into his pocket. “I’m not good man either. A woman almost died because Vitale is angry with me. People who work for me are in danger. I’m not knowing if I can fix what Vitale broke.”

Elliot sniffed and forced himself to breathe. When he thought his voice wouldn’t crack, he said quietly, “Will… will you tell me what Mattia did? Exactly?”

“Why?” Nikolai asked, sounding baffled.

Elliot made himself meet his eyes. “Because I want to know the kind of man I’ve been dating.”

Nikolai stared at him, and after a long moment, nodded.

Then he told Elliot everything that had happened in the last week.

Chapter 10: Nikolai

There were about a dozen fires that Nikolai needed to be putting out. Emails he needed to respond to, calls he needed to make. There was… everything with the blown up store that needed to be taken care of.

Yet instead, Nikolai just kept ruminating on the conversation with Brooks from yesterday. He’d been honest when Brooks had asked if he’d ever killed someone. He’d told Brooks the full story.

It had felt like the very least of what he owed Brooks after the prior day's incident. After acting like some brute, terrifying him and hurting him.

But Nikolai had promised himself he’d never tell anyone what had happened to him. What he’ddone.What he’d chosen to do. The only other time he’d ever broken that promise to himself was when he’d told Gerard, as a much younger man.

Gerard was the nearest that Nikolai had to a best friend. Over a decade ago, when they’d been men trying to make their way in the world, stiff and divested from their emotions, they’d spent a long night drinking together after being passed on by a prospective vendor, and they’d gotten to talking over a bottle of vodka.

Maybe that was why Nikolai’s tongue had loosened. He’d been with a friend, instead of drinking alone, and so hadn’t fallen into the numbness.

Gerard hadn’t cried when Nikolai had told him the story of his past. He’d nodded in understanding, cursed out Nikolai’s fucker of a father, and then held up his glass to toast to a better and brighter future.

That Nikolai could handle. He didn’t know what to do with the odd coil of feelings that Brooks’s reaction had brought up. So far the only real emotion Nikolai had seen on Brooks had been fear, aside from the few times he’d gotten Brooks to talk about cooking or food—then Nikolai had been able to see excitement, even joy. He hadn’t expected Brooks to be horrified, even angry, on Nikolai’s behalf. For something that had happened so long ago, that Nikolai had chosen.

No! You were a child! That’s not your fault.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, and then stared blankly once more at the computer screen. He needed to be working. He needed to be doing anything productive, anything at all.

Nikolai reached for his phone and went to his messages. He had texts from Meredith, Alex, and Gerard. No one had called him yet though, so at least nothing else was on fire. He tapped his fingers idly on the desk. He needed to solve the problem with Vitale. Needed to knock his own head into a wall a few times until some better idea shook itself loose.

Until then though, he had work heneeded to be fucking doing.

He opened the texts from Gerard.

For as close as they were, he didn’t see as much of Gerard as he liked. As the other face of the company, Gerard was almost always where Nikolai wasn’t. Often, he handled the late night imports and deliveries, since Gerard was a trained gemologist on top of being Nikolai’s right hand.

The text was about the explosion. Gerard wanted to know what they were doing about it, and what their next move was.

Nikolai growled to himself. The next move was finding the bastards that blew their store up. Vitale was pulling the strings, but the lowly henchman needed to be taken care of too. To let them off the hook was to invite more people to try getting in Nikolai’s way.

He typed out said thoughts to Gerard, then he hit send. Less than a minute later he got a reply–just a check mark emoji. It was Gerard’s universal symbol forconsider it done.

That taken care of, Nikolai turned his attention back to his computer. He forced himself to answer emails and make phone calls all through the morning hours. He’d put off going down to the station, so he scheduled that for the afternoon. He’d go down and spin some story that no one was going to buy, but would become the official record. Grit his teeth and bear it.

Between all the work, he managed to put in order for sushi. Brooks had said he liked everything but crab, so Nikolai ordered a wide variety of rolls and sashimi.

He wondered if Brooks had ever made sushi.

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