Chapter 29
29
A grungy saloon with cheap drink specials every night of the week, Terry’s was permanently infested by middle-aged men in baseball caps. After squeezing past a herd congregated around a dart board, Kai and Miya slid onto two empty stools at the bar. A small blackboard hung on the wall in front of the shelves, the daily specials scrawled in messy rows of blue and yellow chalk.
As they settled in with their drinks, Miya glanced around. “I guess Sergei’s informant will find us here?”
“She’ll be easy to spot given the…demographics.” Kai finished his bourbon with a pickle back, the sweet, spicy, and tangy combination surprisingly good. Glancing over at Miya to offer her some of his second round, he caught her chugging her vodka mule at alarming speed. “Uh?—”
“Sorry.” She pushed the tumbler away. “I guess I’m a little nervous.”
“You didn’t have to come along.”
“I wanted to.” She spun the glass between her palms. “So, how was therapy?”
Kai awkwardly gulped down his drink. “Fine.” It came out terser than he intended. He plucked the shot glass up and set it back down, tapping it against the counter as though he could drum his agitation away.
Miya opened her mouth to respond, but her eyes snagged on something behind Kai. He smelled the presence before he felt the need to turn and look, a syrupy-sweet perfume washing over him.
A woman slid onto the stool next to him, her bare shoulder brushing his arm. He pivoted to find her smiling as she looked him up and down. Dark lashes and smoky eyeshadow framed an icy blue stare. Her long auburn hair was impeccably styled, lush waves cascading over her collarbones.
“Hey,” she greeted. “Trouble in paradise?”
Kai recognized her immediately—the woman who came to every one of his fights. “Lidia.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, sounding very not sorry. Angling her head, she stared down the bar at Miya. “I thought we’d be meeting alone.”
“Did Sergei promise you a private audience?” Kai smiled wryly, pushing his stool back to give Miya line of sight.
Lidia waved down the bartender and ordered a Manhattan. “Girlfriend?”
“Partner in crime,” Miya replied before Kai could fumble with the question.
“Well, I suppose we should get to business then. You’re looking for information about the forgery, yes?” Lidia rolled her eyes as she took a sip of her newly arrived cocktail. “Everyone’s after that thing.”
“What’s your stake in it?” Kai asked.
“Me?” She laughed, the sound like wind chimes. “Nothing, actually. It just so happens my boyfriend’s a driver for Pyotr’s favorite goon—the one in charge of finding this forgery thing.” She scoffed. “Don’t know why it’s so precious if it’s called a fucking forgery .”
Kai and Miya exchanged a weighty look. Neither Lidia nor her boyfriend knew that the forgery wasn’t an it .
“Talk to Timur, my other half.” Lidia fished her phone out of her purse and flashed them a picture of the man in question—a gym rat with a bad fake tan, too-tight T-shirt, and more gel than hair. “He’s at a club called Eden, doing shots with his boys and grabbing some poor girl’s ass. He’ll squeal if you step on him.”
“Wait—you’re selling out your boyfriend?” Miya interjected.
Lidia smacked her lips, then withdrew the phone to stare at her boyfriend’s picture. “I’m tired of all this.”
Kai narrowed his eyes, Connor’s words about mobsters’ wives pummeling him in the gut. “You want out, and you want him to come with you.”
Her lips twitched into an uneasy smile, and she took another demure sip. “If you make him think his balls will end up on a spit, he’ll have a reason to leave the country with me, and your identity will be safe.” She rotated toward them and grinned. “Win-win.”
“He sounds…” like an asshole , Kai wanted to supply as Miya trailed off, dumbstruck at the bargain they were making. “Why not just tell him you want to go clean?”
Lidia plopped her cheek into her palm and huffed. “I have. But he just loves playing gangster with Pyotr’s lackies. Sergei thinks he’s a liability, which is why he came to me first. We both want Timur out of the biz.”
“Fine.” Kai slid his shot glass toward the bartender as he passed them. “I’ll scare him off the continent. Fair deal?”
“You’re doing me a huge favor,” Lidia crooned. “Anything I can do to repay you for your…service?”
Miya’s jaw dropped in dismay before Kai smelled the irritation billowing off her skin. He couldn’t blame her.
He squared his shoulders to Lidia and mirrored her pose. With his elbow leaned on the counter, his mouth curved into a smirk. “Are you offering to buy me a drink?”
“You look like you’re having a hard night.” She simpered, her lashes lowering as she shifted on her stool. “I’d love to make it better.”
Kai’s lips pulled back into a rakish grin. “Careful. You might regret making that offer.”
“Oh, I know a wild animal when I see one. In fact, I’ve seen exactly what you’re capable of at the Confessional.” She drew her tumbler through the air. “Go on, order anything you’d like.”
Kai canted his head toward the bartender. “I’ll have a mule.”
The man nodded, and Lidia threw down some cash. When the bartender returned, Kai grabbed the glass and stood, then snaked an arm around Miya’s waist, guiding her to her feet. Handing her the mule, he winked at Lidia. “Your boyfriend will be ready to move to the Swiss Alps by morning.”
Miya’s silent stewing morphed into shock as Lidia’s expression took the opposite trajectory. She swore at him as they turned to leave, then shouted at the bartender for another drink.
“That was a dick move,” Miya said as they wove through the throng.
“It was,” he agreed.
“I mean, she did hit on you without acknowledging my existence,” she argued with herself as she slurped up the mule. “But it also sounds like she’s stuck in a bad relationship. I feel for her.”
A bad relationship. Did people think the same about him and Miya? He hadn’t cheated on her, but things were dire enough that she’d forced him into therapy, and all that’d done was gouge a hole through him. It hurt, and he resented it. Kai took the empty glass from Miya and left it on an abandoned high table. Everyone was on the floor now, drunkenly throwing darts or dancing to classic rock music. “Let’s go find him.”
With the front door blocked, Kai laced his fingers with Miya’s and tugged her toward the fire escape. He shoved through the back door, the evening air eating away the dankness of the bar. They stumbled into an alleyway with only a flickering overhead light to illuminate their surroundings. Miya was first to thump down the metal steps.
She peered down the dark lane. “Which way to Eden?”
Kai had no intention of leaving so soon. Frustration was a sticky coat on his skin, his thoughts bouncing to his session with Kruni? and everything that’d prompted it. Even in his anger—especially in his anger—he craved Miya’s desire for him, yearned to draw it out. As she made for the main road, Kai reeled her into his chest and walked her back until she hit the brick wall by the stairwell, his mouth crashing to hers. Her breath caught, hands hovering before they found his arms. Her lips moved against his, her palms gliding up to his shoulders and around the nape of his neck.
“Someone might come out here on a smoke break,” she warned between kisses.
Kai’s tongue teased her bottom lip before he clipped it with his teeth. “They can find somewhere else to smoke.”
His fingertips stroked along her thigh, following the hem of her jeans. The denim was soft and pliable, and he easily worked his way past the waistband after slipping the button free. He brushed aside the bottom of her panties and hooked a finger along her slick opening, earning a soft gasp as her hips pushed avidly against his hand.
“You better tell me if you hear someone—” Her words died in her mouth when he gently flicked his thumb over her clit. She bit down on her lip and stifled a moan, and he pressed two fingers inside her. Grabbing his wrist, Miya held him steady as she ground against the pressure he offered. She reached between his legs, but he snatched her hand away, pinning it to the wall.
Her eyes darted to his, questioning, and he silenced her with a hungry kiss, her breaths growing labored as she writhed, caged between him and the bricks. Her fingers curled into his hair, and when she told him she was going to come, he pulled away, his hand sliding from her thighs like dead weight.
Her bewildered expression was almost as delicious as the taste of her. Kai casually sucked off each finger, then tugged on the hand he’d pinned to the wall.
“Let’s go.”