17. Nick

She’s gone. Oona, my love, my sweetheart, my mate. She’s gone. Just like that. Like she was never truly here to begin with.

I linger on the docks for what feels like an eternity, scanning the water for any signs of her. Hoping she’ll change her mind and come with me. I can’t go after her. Not now. I’d be taken by the current and drown. But I also can’t accept that she’s gone, either. One of the lamps overhead blinks a few times, and I hear the tell-tale sizzle of an insect getting zapped by the lightbulb. Soaking wet and shivering, it’s probably best that I leave before I wind up with hypothermia. Even on a mild evening such as this, there’s still the risk I’ll end up freezing.

My Oona is gone. Left to go back home to her tree house. To our home. Without me. My heart feels like someone took a hammer to it. How am I supposed to go on without her? And … where am I supposed to go? I could go to the shelter, I guess, but someone might recognize me on the streets. It’s only now that I realize I hadn’t thought any of this through. What was I even going to do with Oona once we got here? I let my fantasies override my judgment yet again. Once a na?ve idiot, always a na?ve idiot, I guess.

When I turn to leave, I notice three silhouettes shuffling by in the distance. I freeze as my heart leaps into my throat and my hands ball at my sides. Fuck. This area is notorious for criminal activity. It’s where most drug deals go down. I know this, because I’ve been here for drop-offs. Didn’t know I was dealing in Stim at the time, but that doesn’t matter. That’s in the past now, and I’m wiping my hands clean of it. All of it. It was only three months ago, yet it feels like a lifetime has passed.

A lifetime ago, when I used to put a gun to people’s temples on the orders of my boss. I’ve never pulled the trigger on anyone, but if he’d ordered me to, I probably would have. Would have to unless I wanted to get bumped off. But had I not opposed him and the rest of the family three months ago, I wouldn’t have met Oona.

Oona….

Now isn’t the time. I can nurse my broken heart later. For now, I just need to get the fuck out of Sugardove City. I need some cash, and then I need to get on a bus to anywhere but here.

I slip behind a large wooden crate labeled “FRAGILE” and wait for the group of men to amble past. Then I scurry across the dock, as far away from the lights as possible, to cower behind another crate.

Stealthy I am not, because the second I make it to my next hiding spot, I hear someone yell, “Oy! You! Come out!”

My heart thunders in my ears as I step out from behind the crate with my hands up. Hopefully, they’ll see I’m sopping wet and unarmed. Hopefully, they won’t riddle my body with bullets and toss me into the channel for my girlfriend to find later.

I clench my eyes tightly, hoping that whatever happens, it’ll be over soon. Then I hear a familiar laugh. A chortle, really, and a few heavy, plodding footsteps approaching. When I open my eyes, I see Maurice’s familiar white mustache and the scar across his right eye. A friendly face, if there ever was one in the mafia, but I know better than to greet him like an old friend. He was complicit in my murder attempt, after all.

“Well, well, well … looks like we’ve got a ghost haunting us, boys,” he says. I don’t miss the amusement in his gruff voice, though there’s an edge to it as well. The other two men step into the light. I don’t recognize them. They must be new. Poor bastards. “Nick. You’re alive.”

I’m shivering and can’t stop my teeth from chattering as I grind out, “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Maurice closes the gap between us, claps a meaty paw on my shoulder, and pulls me into a tight bear hug that squeezes the air out of my lungs. I’m stunned. Speechless, in fact. Here I thought he was about to finish the job from three months ago, and now he’s hugging me. When he finally releases me, he throws an arm around my neck and pulls me into his side. “This is Nick. The boss tried to off him three months ago, but somehow, he’s survived. Like a cockroach!”

I am so confused right now. The other two men are slender and almost identical in their appearance. One wears thin, dark-rimmed glasses and a white crew-neck t-shirt despite the cold. A couple others are at least in black hoodies and jeans, a more practical choice when trying to go incognito at night. The sides of their heads are shaved, and their dark hair falls into their equally dark eyes. They look like they haven’t eaten or slept in weeks. I looked like that when I first joined up, too. Definitely new. They laugh at Maurice’s poor attempt at a joke.

“We offed Luther a few weeks after you were left in the lagoon,” Maurice says by way of explanation. “Gone. I took over. Glad to see you made it. Wasn’t right what he did to you. An apology would have sufficed in my book, man. You’ve more than proven you’re loyal.”

Again, I’m speechless and unsure what else to say in that moment, so I mutter, “Yeah. Loyal.”

“He’s a good egg,” Maurice says to his henchmen, then releases his stone-cold grip on my neck. I gulp down a deep breath as my body shudders again. “We need to get you some clean clothes, though, before you shiver yourself to death. Hah!”

I smile weakly, and he leads me away from the docks toward one of the black Cadillacs parked in front of the warehouse. When I look over my shoulder, I silently murmur a prayer to whatever god might be listening that Oona is long gone by now. I wouldn’t want her to see me like this.

Back at headquarters,Maurice and some of the others are caught up in a noisy pinball game while I lay on the couch staring up at the ceiling fan. I’m not sure how long I’ve been like this, but it’s been long enough for the new guys to get piss-ass drunk and pass out. Maurice, who’s always been better at holding his liquor, grabs a chair, pulls it up, and sits on it backwards.

“Hey,” he says. He’s using his pep talk voice. Great. Exactly what I was hoping for. “You look like you’ve been through hell, friend. Want to talk about it?”

Maurice takes a long pull from his beer bottle. When I sit up, he holds up a fresh bottle he just opened. I’m really not in the mood for drinking, but I take it anyway.

“Nah. Nothing to talk about,” I say with a sigh, then take a swig from the bottle. It tastes like dog piss. No alcohol in three months evidently made me lose the taste for it.

But Maurice has never been one to live and let live when it comes to the mental health of his crew, and he lets go of a long, exhausted sigh. “I hear you. What you went through … no one should have to go through something like that. Were you out there by yourself for three months, or were you somewhere else lyin’ low? No judgment. Just curious.”

I could make something up. Lie. But would he even believe me if I said I survived in the wilderness on my own for three months eating nothing but bugs and rabbits? Probably not. Maurice isn’t an idiot, even if he likes to act like one.

“Nah. I was lying low, yeah,” I say, and Maurice nods slowly.

“I would, too, if I were you. Wish we had known where you were. Would have pulled you back into the family ages ago,” he muttered. No doubt he would have, too, because Maurice and I had always gotten along well enough.

He’s not a bad guy … except no, he kind of is. I used to tell myself that none of these guys were actually bad. That life itself made them turn to crime. It was the system that broke us and spit us back out. Made us all what we were. Poor circumstances. Maurice’s sister, Genevieve, is at least a stable influence on his life. But Maurice’s own father tried to off him when he was just a kid. Burned their house down with him in it. His mother and sister couldn’t hold things together anymore, and he was placed in the foster care system like I was. Then he “graduated” when he turned eighteen … just like me. Turned to a life of crime, also like me.

But I want out. I don’t—can’t—keep living like this.

More than anything though, I just want to be with Oona somewhere far, far away, on a strip of land to call our own. A pipe dream, I’m now realizing, because what kind of future could a human have with a lagoon woman? I was delusional to even entertain thoughts of a future with her. Maybe that’s why she left me. She knew we could never work out and never intended for us to be anything more than… allies? Friends? I was company to her, nothing else. God, how could I have been such a fool?

“You have pain in your eyes, brother,” Maurice says before finishing off his beer and chucking the bottle across the room to hit the recycling bin. We might be mafia, but we care about the planet, apparently. “Tell me about her.”

I arch an eyebrow, and he smirks. “You think I can’t tell this is about a woman? C’mon, man. No one would have you so down unless it was a girl. So tell me about it.”

I mean, there’s also the fact that my “family” almost succeeded in killing me. That would get a person down, too. But I don’t say that out loud because I don’t feel like getting into it with him. Not right now.

Shrugging, I say, “What’s there to tell? She was the light of my life and now she’s gone.”

He goes quiet for a few long moments. Then he narrows his eyes as his knee bounces, one of his few tells that he’s deep in thought.

“She was beautiful. And smart.” I think about Oona teaching me how to use tools those first few days in the woods. How she showed me the best way to open up clam shells. The best way to skin a rabbit without damaging its fur. All sorts of things they don’t teach you in school or, hell, even Cub Scouts. My brilliant, beautiful Oona with so much fire in her heart.

Maurice slaps his hands on both knees and stands up. “Come on. Get your jacket. We’re going out.”

I sputter, “W-What, now? It’s late, isn’t it?”

He arches an eyebrow and looks down at his Rolex. “It’s ten. Since when are you an ‘in bed by ten’ kind of guy?”

“I don’t know, ever since my employer tried to off me and let me wash up on the docks three months later?” I spit out. My words are like venom and linger in the air for a few, uncomfortable moments. He’s out of his mind if he thinks I want to hang out like old times after everything. And he should know better.

He nods, pointing at me. “Yeah. Good point. But this will cheer you up. I guarantee it. We’re going to Risque’s.”

Groaning, I stand up and go over to the coat rack to grab my jacket. Because when Maurice wants to go to the strip club, nothing—and I mean nothing—will get him to back down. Maurice has always called the shots as far as entertainment goes. New movie opened and he wants to see it? We’re going. Risque’s is hosting free shots nights? We’re going. The man wants to bet on some horses? We’re going.

“I’ll get the rest of the guys ready,” he says, then starts up the stairwell. “It’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

Yeah, like hell it will.

The strip club did not,in fact, make me feel better. If anything, it made me feel worse. It made me miss my giant lizard woman even more than I already do, and that’s saying something.

Normally, I’d never pass down the opportunity to have a thong-clad ass shoved in my face. But tonight, I turn down every single woman who approaches me for a little VIP time. Maurice is irritated with my rebuffing, of course, and tries to pay every woman in the joint to suck my dick. Nothing against the lovely ladies of Risque’s, of course. They always did the trick in the past when I was feeling lonely and horny. But all I can think about is Oona and her thick thighs. Her elegant, strong tail and the way she’d wrap it around my leg to pin me in place. The way she tasted when she’d position herself over my face.

Maurice grumbles into his vodka tonic and grinds out, “At least let one of them give you a blow job. Get your mind off things.”

I sigh as the bright lights of the club start to give me a migraine. I’m still not used to being awake this late, for one thing, and to have pulsing club music throbbing in my head isn’t helping. Normally, Oona and I would be curled up together in her bed, trying not to push each other out of it onto the floor. Her tail would curl around my middle protectively, possessively, as I’d rest my head on her collarbone. And then I’d fall asleep to the sound of her chest rising and falling in slow, rhythmic beats.

“No,” I say again for the tenth time. I haven’t touched my rum and Coke, either. “You know, most people would let their friend rest after they survived an ordeal as shitty as mine.”

Maurice’s eyes narrow as he takes another pull of his drink. “Just trying to help.”

“Help less,” I snap, then I’m on my feet before I know what I’m doing. Did I really just snap at Maurice, a man who could make me a red stain on the floor in the blink of an eye? The man who I’ve seen turn men into piles of pulp on the carpet?

Maurice works his jaw as he watches me grab my jacket. He doesn’t say a word when I nod to the rest of the guys, who are eagerly receiving lap dances from the strippers. Doesn’t say anything as I sling my jacket over my shoulders, head out onto the street, and start the slow walk back to headquarters.

When I finally get there, it’s after midnight, and I have to buzz to get in. Maurice opens the door and steps aside, allowing me to slide past him in the darkened hallway. We don’t say anything to one another for a long, torturous moment while I hang up my jacket and loosen my tie.

Then he inhales deeply, and his booming voice sends a chill down my spine when he says, “You shouldn’t have left.”

I chew my bottom lip, unsure of what to say to that. So, I say nothing, not wanting to piss him off more than I already have.

“You shouldn’t have left. I’m sorry I pushed so fucking hard. I just … I really missed you. We used to have a lot of fun, before. Thought maybe this would loosen you up. Get you back on your feet.”

I scrub my hand through my hair and turn to meet his eyes. “Look, Maurice. It’s not like I don’t appreciate you trying to help.” A lie. I’m glad he’s alive and doing okay, of course, but I’m not sure how we can go back to the way things were. If we even can. It’s not that I wish him ill, but I don’t wish him well, either. Not after everything that’s happened. “But I need time, man. Time and rest.”

A strip club right after I swam across the channel with my girlfriend? Seriously? Who does that? Maurice, apparently. But he also thinks I’ve just been lying low somewhere in the city for the past three months. He has no clue I’ve been roughing it out in a tree house with a lizard woman. And I’d like to keep it that way, too. Don’t need a bunch of humans trying to hunt her down to turn her into a sideshow attraction or sell her to the highest bidder or force her into a lab somewhere. The thought of any of those things happening makes my stomach curdle.

Maurice nods and lumbers past me, drunker than he’d ever let on. He reeks of alcohol, cheap perfume, and cigars. He catches the corner of the hall with his side and lets out a grumble before heading off to sleep off his liquor on the sofa. Just like old times.

“We’ll talk again in the morning,” he slurs.

“I won’t be here,” I say, and I mean it. I’m not staying. I’ll go to a hostel if I have to, or sleep on a park bench somewhere if it keeps me out of the mafia for another night.

Maurice jerks upright on the sofa and hiccups. “What do you mean, you won’t be here?” he asks.

I linger in the doorway, about to turn back. “I don’t want to be apart of any ‘family’ that tried to kill me.”

“Nick…” Maurice starts, but I shake my head, already reaching for the door handle.

“Stop. Just stop it,” I hiss. “You’re incredible, you know that? You sat on that fucking boat and watched them throw me into the lagoon. You tried to drown me. And when I come back soaking wet, your first response is ‘welcome back, buddy, let’s go to the titty bar?’ Fuck you.”

Maurice’s throat bobs up and down, then he runs his palms down his face, like he’s trying to sober himself up.

“He had my mother,” he mutters.

I arch a brow. My hand is still on the handle, but I want to hear this first. Let’s see what excuses he can come up with to keep me trapped in this toxic cycle of abuse. “What?”

Maurice swings his legs around to the side of the couch then stands, albeit wobbly, and starts toward me. I tense.

“They had my mother. And Genevieve, too,” he says, and though his words are still slurring, I can hear the sincerity in them. He’s telling the truth, as impossible as it is to comprehend. That’s deplorable. Depressing, too, that Luther would stoop so low as to kidnap a bedridden woman and Maurice’s sister. “They locked them up in some warehouse somewhere and showed me the pictures. Told me what he’d have his men do to them should I not listen to his orders.”

Maurice had been getting out of line a little often, even before I was tossed into the lagoon. Everyone knew it. It was little things at first. Refusing to kill someone, or hesitating. Questioning Luther too much. I had no idea Luther would do that to one of his right-hand men, though.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

Maurice straightens. “No one did. But it was the last straw, when Luther ordered me to come get you. I knew what he was going to do. I tried to talk him out of it, but he showed me a picture of little Genevieve with a gun to her head, and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t say no, Nick. I’m so sorry.”

I drop my hand from the door handle and make my way toward Maurice. He hangs his head, genuinely remorseful, and I sigh. “I understand. I get it. I do. Is that … is that why you guys killed him, then?”

Maurice lifts his gaze to mine and nods. “Yeah. It took a while to find the right time and work everything out, but in the end, we got ’em. Flushed the ranks a bit. Offed his loyalists. Took on some new hires, which you saw.”

“Yeah,” I say, then work my jaw. I don’t love that more young men got swept up in all of this, but I’m glad that they at least took out the guy who tried to kill me and hurt Maurice’s family. That man was scum.

“Got out of the Stim business, too,” Maurice says.

I couldn’t have been more surprised if he said he just signed up for clown academy.

“Wait, what?”

He smiles. “Yeah. Was one of the first things we did. Got out of it. Don’t want to deal in that shit. The new boys are happy to just hang out at the club and casino.”

I blink. Luther owned several casinos and strip clubs throughout the city. Acquired them like they were Fabergé eggs to place inside his dusty cabinet. To show off his wealth and influence.

“That’s all, then?” I ask.

“That’s all,” Maurice says. “So, please don’t be too hard on the others. They weren’t a part of the old guard, and they’re not involved with Stim. I know what it did to your mother. We won’t let it happen to anyone else. I promise.”

All the air escapes my lungs. Holy shit. This is … this is huge. Still, the mafia is the mafia. You can replenish the ranks and get out of drug business, but it’s still a criminal organization. And I want to get clean. Live my life differently. I want to find Oona, if she’ll even have me.

“Your room is still last on the right, by the way. All your things are still there,” he mumbles into his pillow, so incoherent I almost miss it.

I blink. Huh. They tossed me into the lagoon like a piece of trash but kept my things.

“I couldn’t get rid of them,” he says, his voice so low I almost miss it. “Just couldn’t.”