Wildblood

Chapter 24

24

The feral munchkin yowled like he was being skinned alive.

“Shut up, you drama queen.” Kai plunked the cat carrier onto the bar top and dropped into a stool. His elbows met the counter, and he ran his fingers through his unruly hair.

“Bro, why do you have a cat?” Connor slid a glass of water toward him and bent over to peer through the mesh door of the nylon bread box.

“That isn’t a cat,” Kai droned. “It’s an orange banshee.”

Connor poked the mesh, and the cat shrieked and swiped at him. He snatched his hand back. “Is it Ursula’s?”

“I call him Ripper.”

“Fitting,” Connor laughed.

Maybe Kai should’ve foisted the furry terror on Ursula. He picked up the glass of water, inspecting it like it was alien goop. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“You look hung over,” said Connor.

Hung over was one way of putting it. He’d woken up feeling worse than that time he’d gotten mauled by a bus. Sure, the sex was great, but it didn’t do shit to salve his self-loathing. Guilt spooled in his stomach, his insides a sticky knot. He had nowhere to put that ugly lump—didn’t know what to do with it —so it sat idle, growing into something thorny. It didn’t help that Miya wore her upset like a pair of manacles. She tried to be pleasant, reassuring him with her affection, but he felt her soreness like the bullet wound in his gut. Her brooding only subsided once she’d found the damn cat skulking behind the microwave. The furball must’ve fled from under the couch after they’d rattled his safe space, then taken cover behind Kai’s favorite appliance.

Caelan was out like a brick all morning, and after checking to make sure she was still breathing, Miya demanded Kai take Ripper to the vet and a groomer. He carried the hellcat under his arm the whole way, ignoring the screeching, biting, and bladed flailing. Horrified, the vet tech donated a carrier, sliding it across the exam table with an awkward smile. Now vaccinated, de-matted, and de-wormed, Ripper boasted a shiny new rabies tag and no longer posed a public health hazard.

“Hey—” Connor waved a hand in front of Kai’s face.

Seizing the bartender’s wrist, Kai gently pushed him away and gulped down the water. “I’m not hung over.” He nodded toward the carrier. “And that…is my new cockroach exterminator.”

Connor rubbed his wrist with a frown. “You could choke out a grizzly bear with that grip. Why not just squash the suckers yourself?”

“Too much work, too much mess,” said Kai, waving him off. “The cat will kill and eat them. Waste management and disposal in one stubby-legged package.

“Right…” Connor trailed off, crossing his arms. “That all?”

Kai shrugged. “A small peace offering to the Lambchop, though it’s a work in progress.”

“Uh huh,” Connor deadpanned. “So that hang over?—”

“Yeah, I fucked up a bit.”

“A bit…” The bartender raised a brow. “You kidnapped a feral cat, dude. How bad did you fuck up that you figured animal abduction would be a good solution?”

Kai bared his teeth. “Fine. I fucked up big, but I’m dealing with it.”

“By…getting your feral cat vaccinated?” Connor ventured.

Kai thumped his forehead to the bar and groaned. “No.” He paused, his next words leaving him as a muffled slur. “I need to find a shrink.”

Connor choked on his lunchtime beer, then pounded a fist to his chest. “C-come again?”

“You heard me,” Kai growled, his head snapping up.

Connor tossed a thumb toward the carrier. “Is your therapy animal not cutting it?”

Kai’s eyes narrowed to slits, and he pushed the water glass across the counter. “You think I’m screwing with you, you goddamn potato brain?”

“I think you screwed up, you goddamn cabbage cock.”

Kissing his teeth, Kai glanced around the near-empty bar. A pair of men whispered to each other at a corner table, each of them white knuckling their pints like it was a competition. Behind them, Kai glimpsed the woman with the auburn hair—his fan —sharing lunch with a guy who looked straight out of a ’90s crime thriller. Hardly anyone came around midday, making it the ideal meeting place for illicit business. Connor tolerated it so long as no one started trouble.

“So, you’re serious?”

Kai offered a curt nod.

“Damn…” Connor rubbed the back of his head, his hair let down to graze his shoulders. “All right, fine. I might know someone.”

“Really?” Kai watched the demonic furball settle into a loaf now that its bread box was on a solid surface.

“There’s this woman—forgot her name—but she works with mobsters’ wives. A distant cousin of mine’s still in the biz—real prick, that guy—but his girl Shawna used to come around here and vent to Carol. Talked about her sessions with this chick a lot.”

Kai’s face scrunched. “I’m not looking for an aesthetician.”

“No, no.” Connor waved a bulky hand. “She’s the real deal. Clinical psychologist. Her clientele is just…very specific. Confidentiality is her bread and butter. Besides, you know how it is with these ladies. Their lives are rough. Some of them get in real young—think it’s glamorous to marry a thug. Their whole world falls apart when they realize they’ve been duped. Husband’s got three mistresses on the side but won’t stand for divorce. Lies about what he’s up to. Makes threats if she complains too much. Some of them do all right, but a lot of them don’t.”

The acrid taste of doubt coated Kai’s tongue. He was adjacent to the mob, but the proximity was enough to make him sweat. Sergei had already maneuvered him deeper than he wanted to be, and he’d lied to Miya because of it. How long until she became one of those women, purging to a stranger because he’d made her a ghost in their home?

“I’m not a jilted wife,” Kai said stonily.

Connor pulled the tap and helped himself to another pint. “Look, there aren’t many therapists who’ll know what to do with you. You’ve got problems at home with your girl? Go talk to the woman who’s hearing it from the other team. Whatever you’re dealing with can’t be worse than what a hitman’s wife puts up with.”

No, it wasn’t, but that didn’t mean it was good or that Miya should tolerate it. And she wouldn’t—not forever. Kai tried imagining his life without her, remaking himself in the shape of solitude. It was a shape he recognized—one he’d owned for the better part of his life. He didn’t want it back. Didn’t want an existence where his loneliness ate him alive, and his only salve was a parade of sloppy hookups night after night. If Miya left him for her own reasons, so be it, but he refused to be the cause. He just didn’t know how not to be, and that scared the shit out of him.

The kitchen doors burst open, and out waltzed Carol.

“Connor!” she barked. “Where the hell’s my lettuce order?”

Pint glass raised to his lips, Connor gulped his beer down with his terror. “Should be here?—”

“Well, it’s not! How am I supposed to make all those salads without lettuce, hm?” She crossed her arms over her chest, ignoring Kai as she drilled holes into her boss.

“All right, fuck. I’ll do a store run before the kitchen opens,” Connor appeased.

Carol widened her stance. “If I see you lurking around here in twenty minutes, I’ll throw a damn skillet at your head.”

“Yes ma’am.” Connor shook his head, muttering to Kai, “You’d think she owns my ass, not the other way around.”

Carol’s hand came down on Kai’s back in a hearty slap. “Damn right I do, boy. This place would do just fine if you were out with a broken skull, but there ain’t no Confessional without Carol.”

Kai winced as she rattled his spine. “You don’t seem like the type to forgive people their sins, you crazy old bat.”

“Shut up.” Carol threateningly squeezed Kai’s shoulder as he snorted on a laugh.

“Speaking of sins”—Connor snapped his fingers—“what was the name of that shrink Shawna used to visit?”

“Shawna!” Carol guffawed. “Yeah, I remember her. She was married to your dingus of a cousin?—”

“Second cousin twice removed,” Connor corrected.

Carol belched. “Whatever. No wonder she ran away with that hairy Cosa Nostra bastard. Are you thinking of Dr. Kruni??”

“Yes!” Connor jabbed a triumphant finger at her. “That’s the one.”

Carol nodded, stretching her limbs. “Hristina Kruni?. Certified badass. She’ll rip your dick off, grill it over some hot coals, then hand it back to you.”

Kai scoffed. “How nurturing…”

“Text me her number,” Connor said as Carol pivoted toward the kitchen.

“Only if you get me my lettuce,” she called over her shoulder.

“Well, you heard Carol. Dr. Kruni? will trim off your excess manhood.” Connor grinned ear to ear, clearly pleased with himself. “Hey?—”

“What?” Kai grumbled, ignoring the conversation that’d transpired.

“I’m proud of you. Getting help takes balls.” He leaned over the counter and spread his arms. “Bring it in?—”

“Fuck off and get me a drink,” Kai snarled, lightly shoving him back.

Connor erupted into raucous laughter, turning a few heads across the dining room. He grabbed the nearest bottle of bourbon and poured Kai a finger, then frowned as the bell on the door chimed.

Kai knew who it was before Connor could sneer the name.

“I thought I might find you here.”

Hairs standing on end, Kai resisted the urge to swing an elbow at Sergei’s face as he stopped by the bar. He slammed back his bourbon instead.

“I’ve got to buy that lettuce before Carol chops my fingers off and uses them for croutons.” Connor eyed Sergei warily, then tipped his chin up at his friend. “You good?”

“Get me that number. I’ll survive the rest.” Kai reached around the carrier and slid it toward the bartender. “Take this thing with you. Drop it off at my place.”

Connor nodded, then spared Sergei a final glower before he grabbed his jacket and slung the carrier strap over his shoulder. The whole case rattled as Ripper yowled and spun. Once Connor was out of earshot, Sergei helped himself to the stool next to Kai. “So, how’d it go?” he asked as he slipped out of his tweed coat.

Kai stared down his empty glass, debating whether to hop the counter and filch the whole bottle. “It’s complicated.”

“I don’t have time for your deflections,” Sergei said impatiently. “I’ve got business to deal with.”

Kai exhaled harshly through his nose, a smirk ghosting his lips. “I thought the forgery is pressing.”

“It is.”

“Then what’s got your nuts in a twist? A snitch?”

After some tight-lipped tooth-gnashing, Sergei nodded tersely, his watch clanking as he brought his forearms to the counter. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?” Kai feigned, staring at the wall.

“Don’t play stupid. Did you get the forgery or not?”

“It’s not a what .” Kai’s grip closed around the empty tumbler. Before he could change his mind, he snatched a bottle from the shelf. “It’s a who .”

Sergei’s mouth opened, a strangled sound catching in his throat before shock clamped his jaw. “It’s…a person?”

“A kid.” Uncorking the bottle, Kai fisted the neck and tilted his head back, chasing down the bitter taste with more bourbon.

“Jesus.” Sergei ran a shaky hand through his hair, straw-colored strands tumbling around his face. “They kidnapped a kid?”

“Yeah, you cunt, they did.” What did the idiot expect? That his life as a gangster would be clean? Kai dipped into Bratva’s shadows now and again, but even that was too much. They were dragging him into their miasma, a phantom quicksand coaxing him further underground.

“I…I don’t do that messed up stuff,” Sergei said more to himself than to Kai. He folded his hands on the bar top, nails clipping a nick in the wood. “I arrange fights, oversee money laundering and gambling—not human trafficking.”

Kai clanked the bottle down and rotated on his stool, leveling Sergei with a withering look. “Who did you think you work for?”

“Who did you think you work for?” Sergei shot back, his eyes glassy with panic.

Kai angled forward until they were nose to nose. The mobster went rigid like a piece of brittle wood, and true to nature, he snapped under pressure, cowering just enough to show his hand. He was afraid.

“I never worked for anyone, you shivering little shit.” Kai’s lips lifted from his teeth. “You know our arrangement. My connection to you begins and ends right here in this bar. You’re the one who brought your mess into my house.”

Sergei was a petty criminal with the fashion sense of a corporate goon. He was squeamish, hiding his gelatinous spine behind busy work in underground fight clubs and gambling dens. Crime was a family business. Sergei may have been born into it, but that didn’t mean he was well-suited for it.

“Why does Pyotr want the kid?” Kai asked when the shell-shocked pissant failed to muster a reply.

“No clue.” Sergei rubbed his palms over his face, his skin blotchy and red. “Listen, you’ve got to keep this kid hidden. Don’t give them back to their family. If you do, Pyotr will find out, butcher them all like rabbits, then call it a burglary gone wrong.” He pressed his forehead to his knuckles. “Just…give me some time. I’ll get intel and figure something out.”

Kai had no intention of returning Caelan to her family. It would be like herding sheep into a slaughterhouse. “Fine.” He passed Sergei the booze. “Guess you’re not a steaming wad of phlegm.”

He reluctantly accepted the bottle. “That’s…very specific.”

Kai shrugged. “I like to paint a picture.”

Sergei shook his head and handed the bourbon back to Kai, then slipped his arms through his coat sleeves.

“Going after your snitch?” Kai asked, staring down the glass neck as he rotated the base.

“A thorn in my side, but it must be dealt with.”

Kai rose from the stool and drained the last few ounces of liquor. Shaking off the sting, he planted the bottle atop the bar. “Let’s go for a walk, milyy .”

Sergei rolled his eyes. “And why exactly are you so intent on joining me?”

Despite the question, he didn’t protest when Kai kept stride with him. “A favor for a favor. I’ll help you with your rat, and you can’t say I owe you for buying the kid time.”

“Fair enough,” Sergei conceded. “I’ve always admired your aversion to debts.”

Kai’s mouth slashed into a chilly smile, and he swallowed down the fury that licked up his throat. “I promise, I pay mine with interest.”