Chapter 19 Kitty
NINETEEN
KITTY
As Neev, Raisin, and I danced in a circle, I roared along as Becky Hill sang about pieces of her.
Neev hadn’t left my side once, whereas Raisin had grown tired of being the meat in a German-dude sandwich and had returned to us.
Pleasantly drunk after a few too many shots of tequila, I’d let myself relax after accepting that waiting for Stan to text wouldn’t make a message appear.
Still, mellow from the alcohol or not, my instincts raged.
I was always on red alert where my sisters’ safety was concerned.
That meant I saw him from the corner of my eye before he approached.
Everything about him screamed trouble.
When he slid his arms around my waist from behind, I stiffened. “Back off.”
“Don’t be like that, baby.” The stranger revealed an accent that belonged south of the Mason-Dixon line. “You know you want to dance—”
“Get away from her,” Neev snapped.
But he didn’t listen.
His hands tightened, slipping lower, shifting around my hips. I stayed still. My heart didn’t, though. My pulse spiked as the scent of cheap cologne, shitty watermelon vape juice, and sweat combined, sucking up the oxygen around me.
I wasn’t scared, but I needed him to relax around me. To think I was.
Then I’d fucking brain him.
“Nah, I think she likes me.”
“She has better taste than that,” Neev growled. “You have to trawl the clubs for girls that are under the influence because only beer goggles would make up for a face that not even your mom’d love.”
I had to laugh. “Neev!”
“What? It’s true. He looks like the fuzzy coin you find underneath a sofa cushion.”
The guy stiffened. “Bitch!”
“Leave us alone,” Raisin snarled, shoving his shoulder.
“I don’t see her struggling,” the American asswipe reasoned, arms tightening as his nose settled in my throat.
I stared at my sisters, shooting them a warning look that they begrudgingly obeyed. Still swaying to the music, letting him think I was into this when I wanted to gouge out his eyes, I waited until I heard him chuckle before I slowly bowed my head.
Smoothing my fingers over his hands, letting them tangle with his sweaty ones, I withheld a gag, barely, before I pitched my head back so fast that he wasn’t the only one seeing stars when my skull collided with his forehead.
As he howled, “CUNT,” I lifted my leg and slammed my foot into his instep. Then, spinning around in a pirouette that’d have impressed my fourth-grade ballet teacher who’d expelled me from class for rowdiness, I raised my knee and let it collide with the family rocks.
When his howl morphed into a shriek, I expected him to tumble onto the packed dance floor where nobody had bothered to help us.
Only, the dumbass didn’t.
He rushed at me like he was a stampeding bull.
At least, he tried.
The bullet got to him before I could.
Jumping back, Raisin screeched, “What the fuck?!”
The sound of a gun being fired had the music roaring to a halt. His cry of agony contributed to the other screams as people yeeted themselves from the nightclub like rats fleeing a sinking ship.
Accustomed to more rowdiness than this on any given night in the ER, and probably drunker than I cared to admit, I turned to the guy with the goddamn gun.
At the back of my mind, I accepted that my brothers would likely kill me if they ever heard I faced an active shooter. But see above: drunker than I cared admit.
I found the guy who wasn’t even hiding—he ambled toward me like this was an everyday occurrence.
His slick suit told me that maybe it was, but that didn’t stop me from stacking my hands on my hips and challenging: “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The guy’s brows lifted. “He was attacking you?”
“Is that a question? Because you should know the answer before you freakin’ shoot someone!”
Neev, too drunk for purpose, turned coy—batting her lashes at the stranger while sticking out her chest. “You’re our hero.”
Scoffing and accepting that we’d all drunk more than was wise, I ordered Raisin, “Keep an eye on her. You know what she’s like for a Latino accent!
” That earned me a chuckle from our would-be savior, but I squinted at him.
“Who the hell are you, and why are you the only person who helped us in this nightclub?”
“Because the rest of the crowd are pussies and I’m a Lobo Rojo.”
My woozy brain struggled to translate. “Red wolf?” Huh, why did I recognize that name?
“Sí.” He studied us with a frown. “I expected more screaming.”
“We don’t scare easily,” Raisin mocked as she made herself a human barrier between him and Neev, who had a sudden fascination with the guy’s sports coat.
“Has this turned into a paranormal romance and nobody told me? Are you a shifter?”
“He can shift for me,” Neev purred.
Snorting, he muttered something about gringas locas before stating, “We run this city.”
Ohhhhhh.
“Fuuuuuck,” I breathed. “The State Department website never said shit about any red wolves owning Cancún.”
Before I could panic, he kicked the victim of his GSW in the shoulder. “Who is this piece of trash anyway?”
“Another question you should have asked before you shot him.” I glanced at the guy who was busy bleeding out on the dance floor. “Anyway, I soooo could have taken him.”
“Why try to when I had a gun, mama?”
Sniffing my disdain for that methodology and annoyed that my training kicked in, I couldn’t help but notice the blood from the GSW flowed a lot faster than my initial diagnosis. “Think you nicked an artery.”
‘Abstaining from deleterious and mischievous behavior’ to the podcast bro who’d oozed slime and hit on me while puking up hard kombucha?
Ugh.
Sometimes, I really hated the Nightingale Pledge.
Tucking his piece away, the Lobo Rojo shrugged. “One less asswipe roaming my streets sounds good to me.”
As I fought the inclination to jump into nursing mode, I sniped, “You might be okay with this, Mr. Wolf, but I don’t feel like spending the night in a jail cell!”
“There’s no way they have AC—”
“Priorities, Raisin!”
The guy tipped his head to the side. “Why are none of you freaking out?”
“Hello? This is me freaking out.”
He hummed. “No need to worry about jails.”
“God, do you think he knows how hot he is?” Neev whispered. Only, her whisper was louder than a scream in the silent nightclub. “What’s your name, oh, savior ours?”
I tossed a glare at her, whereas Raisin tried and failed to hide her amusement but did me a favor by slapping a hand over our baby sister’s mouth.
“Miguel Martinez.”
“Fine. Miguel. You decided to save us, why? What the hell is going on? I feel like you’re here for a reason—”
“Can’t I be a gentleman?”
“No. Not if ‘you run this city.’” I used air quotes and everything.
“Touché”
“That’s how I roll.”
“You have an affiliation.”
“No,” I was quick to correct. Shit. Shit. Shit. “We don’t. Our brothers do.”
“Then that means you do too. You should have warned my boss that you were entering our territory. He’d like to meet with you.”
So, this was what palpitations felt like. “Are you for real? I’m a nurse and Neev is barely getting through college—”
“Hey!” Neev protested.
“—and my sister is a wannabe esthetician who can’t get her colors right! We’re hardly Thelma, Louise, and Sue too.”
“What are you talking about? Who the hell is Sue?” Miguel frowned in confusion. “Look, would you come with me, please?”
I stood my ground. “I’m not afraid to bite you.”
“Kitty,” Raisin warned, but the whisper of fear that threaded my name further pricked my temper. “Maybe we should go with him.”
“And never see the light of day again?! This guy just shot someone in public! Do you know how much power he must have—”
Neev moaned.
I glared at her. “Neev! I know the adrenaline is making you loopy but purlease, keep your hormones contained.”
Miguel’s brows lifted, but he reached for his phone and then handed it to me. When I saw it was ringing, I put the call on speaker.
A flurry of Spanish came at me, but high school had been a long time ago, and I might have passed the class without sucking off my teacher—unlike some of my siblings—but that didn’t mean I had any fluency in the language.
“Um… Hello?”
There was a pregnant pause. “This is Miguel’s phone.”
“He passed it to me. Who are you?”
More Spanish sounded in the background, then there was a change of gender and nationality as a wholly American voice answered, “You are safe with him.”
“Well, thanks for that, random woman on a phone. But I don’t have a clue who you are so why would I trust you?”
The woman chuckled. “Miguel is my husband’s cousin—”
“And? I have some jerk cousins. That’s no reassurance.”
“I’m sure you do,” came the amused retort. “But in this instance, I’ll cut his balls off if he hurts you—”
“Is that Kitty?”
My brows lifted at the interruption. “Stan?”
I didn’t know whether to be shocked or relieved.
“It’s her.”
“Let me talk to her.”
When I heard the transfer, I blurted out, “Stan? What the fuck is going on? Where are you?” Now wasn’t the time to ask about him not texting, right?
“Neither of us informed the local faction about our arrival on their turf.”
Consoled by the straight answer, even if his voice was gruffer than I’d ever heard it, and that included his time in the ER, I still whimpered. “I checked the State Department’s website.”
This was the moment I should have realized how fucked I was.
That I viewed him as safety.
That I knew he’d protect not just me, but my sisters too.
That I leaned on him when I leaned on no man. Not even my brothers.
But again, see above: drunker than I cared to admit.
“Yes, well, the State Department doesn’t regularly update their citizens about the gerrymandering of gang warfare.
“Kitty, you’re safe. Just do as you’re told. I know that goes against the grain, gattaredda, but the man who’s there is supposed to bring you to the Lobos Rojos’ compound.”
“But I don’t want to go!”
“I know you don’t, duci. Trust me, we were supposed to be having a nice meal right about now—” I sincerely regretted putting this call on speaker when Neev cackled.
“—and I’d have given you your reward much earlier than this, but we don’t exactly have a choice.
If you do as he says, I’ll make it up to you. ”
One mention of that word ‘reward’ and I completely forgot where we were. The implication that I was the nice meal he should be having made me purr, “Oh, yeah? How?”
“For God’s sake, Kitty.” Raisin eyed the finger I twirled in my hair with disdain. “This isn’t the time for flirting!”
With Miguel snickering like he was watching a great episode of SNL, I scowled at them both for killing my buzz.
“Never mind, Stan. Tell me later. You sure this dude’s safe?
He shot someone and they’re bleeding out on the floor.
” Nightingale Pledge forgotten, I kicked the would-be Lothario with the toe of my shoe.
“He’s, like, a minute away from being dead. ”
“What?!” Stan boomed. “Put him on the line.”
His anger didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but it did fill me with the warmth of knowing we weren’t alone.
Stan would fix this.
I passed the phone to Miguel and smirked when Stan roared: “You killed someone in front of her?”
Ooof.
Hot.
“He was coming onto her—”
“You better not have scared her.”
“Did you hear her? She’s not scared. It’d be impressive if it wasn’t weird.”
“Takes more than that to scare me,” I asserted, but it was a total lie.
Why the fuck did we come here again?! Key West would have been a great time.
“Hear that?” Miguel reasoned. “Look, are they coming with me or not?”
“We are. But only because Stan asked me to.”
Grunting, Miguel rumbled something in Spanish that I figured wasn’t very complimentary.
“Drive carefully. Now, put Kitty back on the phone.”
Biting my lip, I accepted the device again but only because I recognized his voice. “Stan?”
“I promise you’ll be fine, okay?”
I shot the floor a dopey smile. “Okay.”
“Now, come to me, gattaredda.”
I could literally feel the heat in my cheeks. “See you soon, Stan.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” Raisin chided as I ended the call. “I’m the only sister with any sense!”
“Can we make a move?” Miguel finally holstered his weapon. “I have to get someone in to clear this mess up.”
“Don’t make out like this is our fault. You didn’t need to shoot him. I was going to bite his ear off.”
Just like Daddy told me.
Inside, I cackled.
On the outside, I stared at Miguel, who spluttered, “You were going to bite his ear off?”
“Doesn’t come with a murder one charge.”
“You’re not in America now,” Miguel reminded us, which wasn’t the least bit reassuring.
So I warned, “I’ll bite more than your ears off if you hurt my sisters.”
As he threw up his hands, declaring, “I don’t get paid enough for this shit,” Neev whispered in my ear, “What kind of reward are we talking about here?”