7. Kai
Kai
The girl sips on her long island iced tea through a straw, her lips still annoyingly red from her lipstick.
No, I don’t want a fucking drink. She’s already asked me ten times. She’s also tried to bait me about yesterday.
There was no fucking yesterday.
My conniving twin paid the blue-eyed girl a visit, before I rocked up. That very thought has my teeth clamping tightly together, until my jaw starts to ache.
She can’t be around him.
I already know I’ll hear about it tonight at the meeting Ash called. Instead of calling Kaleb to go to the studio and investigate, I called Griffen.
I haven’t spoken more than five words to Griffen. Until today.
The bells on the door rattle as someone else enters the shabby bar and my eyes lock onto the person walking in. They seem harmless enough. Just an older man thirsty for a beer.
Doesn’t matter. In my periphery, I watch them all, in the booth against the back wall. Watching. Waiting.
We shouldn’t be here.
If she wants to drink so bad, we should be at Club Pitch. Surrounded by Devils ready to defend her. I didn’t bother suggesting it. Her answer would have been no.
So here we are, in a bar that smells like brine and mildew. Her favourite place she said.
Swirling her straw, she blinks at me. Her eyes almost glow in the low-lit space, lined with dark wings and thick lashes.
“Do you have any siblings?” she asks, apparently trying to get to know me. “Any pets? Teddies?”
It confirms what I already know. She doesn’t know about Kaleb. And she won’t.
Her eyes roll when I don’t answer. Her nails tap against that baseball bat she always carries.
I know that need to keep it close. My brother has the same tendency with a certain butterfly knife.
With a huff, she drops her chin into her hand.
“Fuck, what a mess,” she mumbles to herself.
Only three drinks in and she’s already slurring. Fucking hell.
Her eyes follow the movement of her hand, ice cubes clinking around the tall glass as she mindlessly spins her straw.
Giving into the urge, my eyes dip to the bandage on her hand.
I shouldn’t have done it. The thought of Kaleb tasting her blood made me snap, if only for that moment.
Her delicate hand closes around the glass.
So fragile So fucking close. A measly bandage between her blood and my lips.
I could have her hand pinned on the table in less than a second, with the bleeding wound spreading for me.
“What am I going to do?” she mutters, shaking her head softly. “It took me years to make that studio what it was. Years of literal blood, sweat, and tears.” Finally, her eyes flick to mine. “I don’t think I have it in me to do it again.”
I watch her curiously.
She shrugs, turning her attention back to her drink. “Doesn’t matter anyway. They’ll find it eventually, and ruin that one too.”
If I had in me, I might’ve felt bad for her. But I don’t have it in me.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask her about her brother.
Isaac and Ethan. From what I know, the fuckers are little delinquents.
Petty criminals who work for the Wraiths, doing drug deals and manning the bars of their shitty establishments.
What are they doing harassing their little sister? Not that I can talk...
I can and will find those answers myself. So, I sit here in silence.
And the girl is more than happy to fill it.
She scoffs, shaking her head. “What do they want? With me? Fucking hell, I don’t even exist to them.
Not unless they needed a tattoo, back when I did them in my room.
Or their shitty friends. I don’t fucking exist.” She swallows, her teeth baring.
“Jacob wanted things. Everything. And my fucking brothers never batted an eye.
A coldness seeps into me. The man with the caved-in face. A long line of charges on his record, including sexual assault and domestic violence.
If he wasn’t torn apart limb from limb and thrown into the harbour already, I would have killed him myself.
And what I have to offer would make a baseball bat to the face seem like a tropical vacation.
“Oh well,” she smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Perks of being a Kavanagh, I guess.”
“Maybe you should kill them,” I murmur.
My voice seems to make her jump. I don’t really blame her. I hardly use it.
Her lips twist mischievously, as if she thinks I’m joking. I’m not.
“I think one murder is enough for me,” she says.
One murder.
I wonder what she’d do if she found out how many lives I’ve taken. Would she run for the hills screaming? She should.
“I can do it for you,” I say simply.
Her smile falters, eyes flickering between mine. Searching for a joke she won’t find.
“You’re scary,” she whispers, but something sparks in her gaze. “It’s kind of hot.”
The urge to roll my eyes hits me, and it throws me off. Never, not once, in my entire life have I ever rolled my eyes.
It reminds me...
“Roxanne,” I murmur.
Her eyes harden. “I told you before, it’s Roxy,” she bites out.
No, you didn’t, I want to say, before the realisation that she probably has. Just not to me.
“Roxy,” I correct. “You and I will not have sex again.”
Kaleb might be a sick man, but he’s a smart one. And he was right when he told me that I’d kill her. My momentary lapse of control today in the destroyed studio proves it.
And I’d rather not have to explain to Maddy why her best friend is bleeding out in my bed.
One dark brow rises.
“Is that so?”
All I give her is a dip of my chin. I’ve said what I needed to say.
Her full lips twist to the side, a smirk full of sin. “And who said I wanted to fuck you again?”
Most people survive my stare. They last a few seconds before their eyes drop, folding beneath my gaze.
Not this girl.
She holds it with a challenge, the corner of her mouth curving up, as if she’s daring me to look away first.
I won’t.
“Anyway, I’m already taking low-iron tablets,” she taunts. “Another night with you and I might not have any blood left.”
She sticks her tongue out, and sure enough, right down the middle is a faint pink cut. Mostly healed now.
My brother is clinical with his knife. Knows where and how hard to cut, to draw blood, or pain, or death. The one on her tongue wasn’t put there to hurt.
The leather around my knuckles strains, wrists throbbing.
Her lips wrap around the plastic straw, throat bobbing with each swallow. She sips her drink with infuriating slowness.
A glassiness shines in her eyes, and it hits me that she skipped breakfast and has nothing in her stomach except three strong fucking drinks.
Reaching over the table, I take the drink from her, sliding it out of her reach.
Her mouth pops open, narrowing her eyes on me. “Excuse me?” She reaches over, trying to grab it from me, and failing miserably. “I wasn’t finished with that!”
“You are now.”
Her arms cross stubbornly, and my heart slows. The motion lifts the swell of her tanned cleavage. The thin fabric clings to her soft frame, leaving for too much skin exposed for winter. It’s December, but apparently, she doesn’t know that.
Patches of ink run up and down her arms and legs. It reminds me of the one I saw between her breasts. The one of the black heart wrapped in barbed wire.
“If Maddy were here, she’d let me wallow and drink as much as I pleased,” she grumbles, sticking a pouty bottom lip out. “If you hadn’t noticed, my entire life has been turned upside down. So, excuse me for wanting to be a little self-destructive for five fucking minutes.”
I want to sigh. To tell her I have more important things to be doing than baby-sitting a Wraith’s sister. A stubborn, bratty one at that.
“Eat first,” I murmur.
She watches me for a second before huffing and pushing herself up from the table. I stay where I am, watching the bar. Unable to stop myself from glaring at her round backside as it sways with each step.
Winged moths stretch across the backs of her thighs; intricate lines etched into her toned legs.
She seems to recognise the man at the bar. Just as he seems to recognise her. The smile that curves on his face is all too familiar. Roxy leans against the bar, that long, black ponytail of hers spilling down her back all the way to her hips.
Her laugh grates through me. It’s raspy and free. Tinged with tipsiness.
The man leans closer to her, and she throws her head back at something he says. He smiles wider, victory flashing in his eyes.
He’s too close. My jaw tightens.
Tattoos snake up his arm, the one that settles on the bar right next to hers. For a second, I wonder if she put them there. If she sat for hours, letting him make her laugh while she decorated his skin.
The image of holding her by the throat, against my body while I force her to watch Kaleb peel each drawing off his skin with a knife makes my groin ache. It makes me reach into my pocket and fiddle with the bloodstained shard of glass. I don’t know why I took it.
Exhaling, I focus on the door. On the other visitors. The docks that stretch out through the glass windows.
Her laugh cuts over the tinny music again, and my body jolts upright. Fingers curl with the need to kill. I close the distance between us, stalking quietly until I’m next to her.
She didn’t hear me approaching, but when she feels me next to her, she smirks as if she is trying to get under my skin.
You got what you wanted, sweetheart. Now you can live with taking another man’s life.
The asshole behind the bar doesn’t spare me a glance. I doubt he’s even noticed me. It’s one thing I’ve learnt to live with. Going unnoticed.
My gun is wrapped in my hand in a second, and now that it’s pointed straight at him, he’s noticed me.
Funny that.
My thumb cocks the slide with a sharp click, and his eyes widen comically as he stumbles back towards the bottles of liquor, hands coming up.
“Kai!” Roxy gasps.
“Dude!” he pleads, terror draining the colour from his face. “I didn’t know she was taken. My bad, man!”
Faintly, over the rushing in my ears, I hear people dropping behind booths or whimpering in fear. I can smell it.
“Stop, Kai,” Roxy pleads, her hand wrapping around my forearm. “Please!”
The barrel doesn’t waver as I slowly turn my head towards her. “Get in the car.”
The drive back was silent. A part of me expected her to scream. Demand answers about why I did what I did. Answers that I don’t have. The steering wheel creaks under my grip, and my boot is pressed flat against the accelerator.
I need to get to that meeting with the Devils.
Find out what our next steps are.
I can feel her staring at me. Her eyes burn the side of my face.
I don’t look at her. Not a glance when I hop into the elevator beside her, pressing the penthouse button. Not for a second when I unlock the door and walk her in.
Ash will have someone come and stand by her front door, just while I attend the meeting. I don’t tell her that.
Silently, she wanders through the house. Finally, I look at her. Only when she won’t notice. Like now, as she marvels at the huge windows and the city below us.
Stalking through the kitchen, I pull out a bottle of water and place it on the island as a silent reminder, before turning to leave.
“Wait,” she whispers, and I freeze with my back to her. “You can’t just do that and walk away without an explanation.”
The muscles in my back go taut. I can do exactly that.
Her soft footsteps approach me. A delicate hand lands over my spine. Lands over a scar that she doesn’t know exists.
“Kai,” she murmurs.
I hate the way she says my name. It sounds like a plea.
Her hand slides from my back, fingertips skimming down my arm until they find my wrist. Another raw scar she can’t see.
“Stay,” she whispers.
This girl.
Asking me to stay after I just pulled a weapon on a guy for making her laugh.
The only reason I didn’t decorate that liquor shelf with brains was because of the horror on her face when I first walked into that studio and she stood frozen, eyes locked on the beautifully caved in skull at her feet.
While she was horrified, my dick twitched when I saw it.
A part of me wants to go back to the bar and finish the job.
Why isn’t she scared? She should be scared.
Anger bubbles up at the way she’s touching me.
Spinning, her sweet gasp falls out as my hand circles her throat, slamming her against the glass window. The glass shudders behind her.
I squeeze until her breaths come out sharp and ragged.
My eyes bore into hers, and finally... finally I see a flicker of fear. But more than fear, I see her defiance. Even in my grip, hand circled around the vital structures of her throat, her chin lifts.
I squeeze harder, her mouth parting in a silent, helpless, delicious gasp for air.
Stepping closer to her, her chest heaves, soft breasts pushing against me as her head cranes to meet my gaze.
“Don’t mistake my silence for weakness,” I murmur, my lips a whisper away from hers.
Her lip trembles.
“I didn’t,” she rasps through my grip on her throat.
My eyes search hers, piercing through the icy blue ones that blink up at me through dark lashes.
“Good.”
It takes every bit of control that I don’t have to unwrap my fingers from her delicate neck and to turn away. Leaving her here, without carving my name into her soft skin.