N9ne: The Tale of Kevin Clearwater (King, #9)(13)

I roll back to face the window. The sun pushes through like a stampede of unwanted light. A reminder that outside everything is okay while inside, it’s anything but. I have things to do today. Important things. And I will do them.

In a little while.

I close my eyes and shut out the light. I think about the boy from the bridge that night. The one who made me realize I wanted to live even though I’m not really living. The one whose kiss made my stomach flip for the first time. I wonder what he’s doing with his life or even if he’s still alive. I imagine he’s in grad school and spends his weekends with friends going to football games. Maybe, he has a girlfriend or even a wife? I wrinkle my nose. No, none of that seems right for some reason.

It’s a miracle, if you believe in that sort of thing, that I survived the fall. Waking up on the shore was like rising from the dead.

I chuckle to myself.

I almost died. I sort of rose up from the dead.

And all I have to show for it is a bottle-a-day vodka problem and crippling anxiety.

Your parents died, but you didn’t. You’re still alive.

This time that old bitch Anxiety might actually be right about something.

I tear off my blanket cocoon and sit up.

I begin to count to ten, but stop and get out of bed at nine, like always.

I am alive.

Today, I’ll even attempt to act like it.





Chapter Five





KEVIN AKA NINE





“Shit, I haven’t seen you in a month, and you’ve got almost as many tattoos as Preppy and are starting to look as big as King,” Pike says, getting in the passenger seat of the van.

I shrug. “Been working out. Been getting some ink.” I haven’t seen Pike that much since he bought the pawn shop and moved into the back room there. I moved out of his place a while back and in with Preppy and his family. More recently I moved into an RV to be closer to the family business, our medical marijuana field. Or as Preppy calls it, “The field of glory.”

“Been feeding off the blood of newborns or something? Because it sure looks that way.”

My phone buzzes with a text. “I gotta go to court Tuesday,” I tell Pike. I pull up the calendar and set an alert, so I don’t forget, then tuck it back into my back pocket.

“You catch another case?” Pike asks with a smirk.

“Not recently,” I reply. Putting the truck in drive and reversing out of Pike’s driveway.

“You mean to tell me that they let you walk into court, all muscles and tattoos, without slapping the cuffs on you right away? ‘Cause no offense, but you look like you’ve broken some laws.”

“None that they know about, anyway.”

Pike doesn’t exactly look innocent either. Blond hair a little too long to be stylish, matching goatee, and tattoos from a mixture of prison and juvie on his neck and knuckles. Not to mention the broken set of handcuffs he wears like bracelets on each wrist.

Everything has changed since that night on the bridge, and I do mean everything, including the way I look. Gone is the skinny kid with a target on his back. I’m bigger and stronger, in both mind and body. The only targets in my life now are the one I put on those who fuck with me and mine.

Pike’s dark eyes light up as we cross over the causeway bridge. “Hey, remember that time when I came to get you at the Sheriff’s station? When they detained you because they thought you pushed that girl from the causeway?”

Yes, I remember. Every damn day, I remember.

I give Pike a hard stare.

He raises his hands in surrender. “Sorry, but it’s been years, man. Didn’t realize you were still all sensitive about it.”

“Yeah, it has been years.” Years since she died. Years that I could’ve gotten to know her.

“So, are you gonna tell me why you’re dragging me to the uppity side of the causeway today when I could be cock deep in the three bitches I left sleeping in my bed this morning?” Pike asks.

My blood boils just thinking about the reason we’re crossing the causeway. I grip the steering wheel tightly and gnash my teeth together.

“Today, you’re additional muscle,” I tell Pike. “Gonna need you to stay sharp while I try and not strangle this motherfucker the second I see him.”

“Is this because of the investment guy?” He asks, lighting a cigarette.

I nod and clench my fists. It took me a long time to convince Bear, King, and Preppy that they needed to take some of their stored cash and invest some of it in a legit way so they could start growing something for their kids that they won’t be questioned about when it came time. I researched the shit out of investment brokers and went with the owner of Cox Funds because he was also in charge of the money laundering and accounts for the Ricci family. Ripping off Bear, King, or Preppy means certain death. Ripping off Tico Ricci means certain and painful death to you but not before you witness the limb by limb dismemberment of your entire family in front of your eyes. Using that logic, I figured our cash was safe.

I was wrong. So fucking wrong.

Not only did our account have a zero balance, but I hacked into Cox Funds servers and discovered that as of this morning, the Ricci families accounts were also empty.

“The plan is to get him to talk and to find the money before Tico Ricci does and decides he wants it all for himself.”