Chapter 36
36
Kai had never liked silence. He gravitated toward bars because of the noise; the din strummed at his bones, leaving him fuller, less alone. Now, in the quiet of Dr. Kruni?’s office, the stillness spooled into an invisible knot, impossible to untangle. Things unsaid in the quiet of an empty room weighed heavier than the threat of violence.
It’d been three days since his face off with Pyotr at Chrysanthemum, and he hadn’t done shit since. Miya said they were laying low, but to Kai it felt like hiding. As long as they had Caelan, she’d bargained with him, Zverev was no closer to finding her. But Kai remained agitated; his instinct was to act, and he wanted solutions now . Pyotr wouldn’t wait forever—another week, tops. His veneer of control would splinter, and he’d raze the city to get his way. A desperate mobster was an ugly thing.
“How are things at home?” Dr. Kruni? asked casually.
To say Kai was sitting in the armchair would’ve been generous. He’d sprawled out sideways, legs akimbo over the armrest. His eyes drifted shut as his neck arched against the curve of the cushion. Why the hell had he agreed to come here twice a week? “Fine.”
The shrink narrowed her eyes. “Last time, you mentioned that your partner asked you to come here. Are you communicating with her about our sessions?”
“You mean, is she still pissed at me?” Kai lifted his head and squinted at her. “She’s not.”
“How do you know?”
Their night in the field flitted through his mind, the sting of Miya’s palm against his cheek caressing his mouth into a smirk. “I just know.”
“Ah, so you’re intuitive.”
He wrinkled his nose. Intuitive wasn’t the word he’d use after a lifetime of being told he was insensitive, emotionally stupid.
“What’s wrong?” she asked with an infuriating little smile.
“Don’t really see myself that way,” he admitted.
“Then what do you think your partner sees in you?”
Kai arched an eyebrow at the doctor. “Damn. No mincing words with you.”
She shrugged, twirling the pen around her fingers. “I adjust my approach to my clients’ needs. You like directness. No coddling. I can accommodate that.”
Smoothly sitting up, Kai planted his feet on the floor and faced forward. What did Miya see in him? He’d lost sight of it after five years, found himself wondering if it’d been anything beyond circumstance. They were both outcasts, loneliness cutting to the bone, and she’d been in danger. For once, Kai wasn’t the threat; it was everyone else. “She feels safe, I think.” He glimpsed Kruni? wrestle back her surprise. “I know, sounds batshit. I’m the last person anyone should feel safe with, but things aren’t always what they seem.”
Dr. Kruni? crossed her legs, eyeing him curiously. “How do you mean?”
Kai scraped a fingernail against a callus on his palm. “Wearing a suit and plastering a smile on your face doesn’t make you reliable or trustworthy. Your dry cleaning’s useless when shit hits the fan. You want someone who’s got your back…even if they’re a bigger monster than whatever’s trying to eat you.”
“Do you consider yourself that monster?” she asked without missing a beat.
Kai inhaled slowly. “I’m a monster who knows what people want.”
“And what did your girlfriend want when she fell in love with you?”
“To stop pretending.” He thought back to the girl he met in the woods of Black Hollow—that unmoored college student crushed under the weight of social expectation. “She just wants to be herself.”
“And you give her space for that.” It wasn’t a question, but a conclusion. She almost sounded smug.
Maybe Kruni? was right yet again. He was so plugged into his senses, it was impossible not to know what people felt. Even if he didn’t always understand it, those insights helped him survive. Kai wasn’t completely without charm, and so long as he wasn’t possessed by demons or bleeding out in a street gutter, he knew how to turn heads. That was the intuition he’d taken for granted since his teens, and it’d helped him cultivate a mask for his basest impulses. He could smell which douchebags to pick fights with so he wouldn’t get banned from his favorite dives. Never had trouble getting laid because he knew when a crass word got a woman wet and when it was unwelcome. He paid attention, and he adapted.
“Do you think you’re a good person?” Kruni? asked, tapping the tip of her pen against her chin.
Kai snorted. “I don’t care about being a good person.”
She stared at him unblinkingly, her expression deadpan. “A reporter asks an oil tycoon if he thinks his company is good for the environment. The oil tycoon responds that he’s not an environmentalist. How does that sound, hm?”
Kai groaned and shifted in the chair, kicking his legs up over the armrest again. “Say what you mean.”
“You’re evading,” she said flatly. “Whether you care about being a good person is irrelevant to my question. In fact, you must have an answer to conclude that you don’t care. So, I’ll ask you again: do you think you’re a good person?”
With a glower trained on the wall, Kai gnashed his teeth until his jaw hurt from the tension. He hated how hard it was to form the word—that stupid one-syllable word that made him feel like an ass-naked drunk who’d stumbled into a Sunday cookout. “No.”
It came out as a begrudging mutter, but the doctor heard him loud and clear. She nodded like she’d already known, but her features softened as she folded her hands in her lap. “Do you think you deserve to be happy? To have good things come your way?”
His gaze dropped to his hand, splayed casually over his thigh. He’d hurt a lot of people with that hand. Just the other night, he’d beaten a man for a morsel of intel, then threatened his life if he didn’t fuck off the continent. He’d also wanted to kill Pyotr—would’ve if Zverev hadn’t shown up to rattle him out of his flaring temper. His apparent cousin had a face as interesting as a bus stop billboard, but a mere whiff of him raised Kai’s hackles. Now, he’d have to fend off the beast to protect Caelan. More violence. More bloodshed. He seemed fated to it—suited for it. To say he regretted it would be a lie, but he wasn’t proud either. It was just life, and he did what was necessary to survive. He never once thought he deserved all the bullshit the universe rained down on him, but he didn’t think he deserved better either.
“No.” The admission was quiet, almost reticent. “I want those things,” he volunteered, “but I don’t think I deserve them. I’m not sure anyone deserves anything.”
The therapist canted her head and asked, “What do you mean by that?”
Kai’s lip curled as a sliver of irritation needled his chest. “ Deserve is a dumb word. To deserve something, there needs to be some…” he trailed off, searching for the right phrase, “…cosmic balance. Someone’s got to decide, right? People make up these systems—morality, ethics, capitalism, whatever—and they all have their rules. When good things happen, people think it’s because they followed the rules. They think they’re being rewarded.”
He let out a breathy laugh, then twisted in the armchair, his boots landing on the floor with a thud. He’d always been like this—restless, itching for an end to the stillness. Planting his elbows on his knees, he fixated on the stained wood between his feet. “It’s all bullshit. When you live outside of it, you know that. People aren’t rewarded for anything. Some walk around like they were born with a four-leaf clover up their ass while others are a skidding matchstick in a world made of flint. Some make smart choices, others don’t, and sometimes, even good choices bite you in the dick. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty. But there’s no deserving anything. You get what you get, and thinking about whether it’s fair is a waste of time.” Kai raised his head, boring into her with a seething stare. “So, doc, when you ask me if I think I’m a good person—if I think I deserve good—you’re asking the wrong question. I’m not good, and I don’t deserve good, but none of that matters because it’s not about what I deserve. It’s about what I want.”
He heard her heartrate jack up, her pupils dilating as her breath hitched and she jerked back. Kai averted his gaze; he hadn’t meant to scare her.
She cleared her throat, recovering quickly. “Last time you were here, you told me you valued your independence more than anything. That what you want is to”—she flipped through her notes—“do whatever the fuck you want.” Letting the page drop, she looked up at him. “And when I asked if you should be allowed to do whatever the fuck you want, what did you say?”
Kai rolled his eyes. “I said no .”
Her lips quirked triumphantly. “And why is that?”
He clamped his mouth shut, his impassive expression morphing into something thorny.
She went on, “I accept your critique of cosmic arbitrators, and I agree that the systems in place are manmade smorgasbords that serve some individuals and harm most others. But if you’re as amoral as you claim, then wouldn’t you do whatever you want without qualms? Why suggest that your ability to pursue your desires should be regulated?”
“Because—”
“Because you think some of your desires are bad? Destructive? Harmful?” She clicked her tongue. “Those sound like moral evaluations to me, Kai.”
“They have consequences ,” he ground out.
“Of course they do!” She waved her pen through the air. “But someone who cares only for his wants won’t let consequences stop him! How do you think we get serial killers? Mobsters? CEOs? Politicians?” She fell back into her chair, her shoulders relaxing. “Why hold back the worst parts of yourself if you don’t care about being good?”
Kai hung his head in defeat. He’d momentarily considered giving Caelan up to wash his hands of her. Normally, he’d trade anyone’s life for Miya’s safety, but he knew that some sacrifices weren’t worth the demons. His childhood had been cut short by his parents’ murder, and any hope of wholeness fractured with Alice’s death. He’d spent the last fifteen years living on pure instinct—unthinking, reactive—but he couldn’t survive that way anymore. Miya demanded he look in the mirror, and what stared back at him took the shape of a fifteen-year-old girl with too many secrets for her skinny bones to hold. He couldn’t betray her. His reflection would never forgive him, and neither would Miya.
“Good job,” he congratulated dryly. “You’ve convinced me I’m not a total piece of shit.”
Hristina Kruni? chuckled like she was savoring a secret. “Have you forgotten who comprises my clientele? Trust me. You’re not the Big Bad Wolf you think you are.”
Kai’s lips twitched, and he laughed darkly.
She blinked back. “What?”
“Nothing.” He stood from the armchair. “I think we’re done for today.”
She clicked the top of her pen—a nervous tick, he’d noticed. “All right. I’ll see you soon. Same time, I presume?”
Kai nodded as he riffled through his tattered wallet, his eyes snagging on the lilac birthday card. He slapped the cash down next to the candy bowl on the end table, then grabbed his jacket. “See you, doc.”
As he disappeared through the door, he felt her scrutinizing the meaning behind his baleful laugh. No matter , he thought.
The Big Bad Wolf was a ghost he’d never give up.