27. You fucked him?

Chapter 27: You fucked him?

"Why the library," Mikaela asked, tearing a strip off a piece of bread. "Out of nowhere. You've never said a word about books."

He grunted, didn't look up from the meat, and she waited a second longer, eyebrows raised, before giving up with a small shake of her head.

"Fine. Keep your secrets. Not like I care anyway." She grunted.

They finished eating in the usual way, her small bowl gone in a few bites while he worked through a mountain that would've fed a table of six, and she complained about it anyway, out of habit more than anything, muttering something about how it wasn't fair that a man that size could eat like that and still move like a cat.

Downstairs, Erik and Freya were still deep in conversation at the counter, heads bent close, and neither so much as glanced up as Mikaela and Eto crossed behind them and out the door.

The street outside had gone busy with the afternoon crowd, vendors calling, carts rattling over cobblestone, and Mikaela led the way at her still uneven pace, one hand occasionally braced against a wall for balance, cutting down a side street toward a squat building a few blocks over with faded lettering over the door.

They didn't make it halfway there.

A hand closed around Mikaela's arm from a gap between two buildings, yanking her sideways into the shadow of the alley before she could so much as yelp, and Eto's head snapped toward the sound half a second too late.

"Well, well." The man had her pinned against the brick, forearm across her collarbone, a thin scar running from his eyebrow to his jaw. "Didn't think I'd find you walking around like nothing happened."

"Kaplan." Mikaela's voice came out steadier than her face looked. "Let go of me."

"Let go." He laughed, short and humorless. "You know what I walked into two days ago? A camp burned down to the dirt. Bodies everywhere. My camp. Rulo's camp. Soya's camp. And here you are, wandering around Torak like you're on holiday, with some muscle brained idiot trailing behind you."

"It wasn't like that." She tried to deny.

"Then tell me what it was like?" the man demanded.

"The job went wrong." Her words came fast now, tumbling. "The noble, the one we were hired to hit, one of the guards survived, he killed everyone, burned the whole camp to the ground looking for whoever did it. I only survived because of him," she glanced toward Eto, "he found me first. Pulled me out before the fire got to that side of camp."

Kaplan's eyes flicked to Eto, sizing him up, and came back to her, unconvinced. "You expect me to believe that shit you bitch?!"

"It's the truth."

"The truth is Rulo's dead. Soya's dead. The crew I've run with for ten years is dead because of you, and the only one who walked away just happens to be cozying up with the muscle who probably killed them. You think I’m stupid."

Eto had heard enough by then to understand the shape of it, even without understanding a single word of the encounter, and he closed the distance in three strides, one hand closing around Kaplan's collar and hauling him off Mikaela like he weighed nothing, tossing him a full body length back into the alley.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Kaplan hit the ground rolling, came up with a knife already drawn, and lunged.

It didn't go anywhere. Eto caught the wrist mid strike, twisted, and the knife clattered to the stone, and a second later Kaplan was on his knees with his arm bent somewhere it shouldn't bend, teeth gritted against the pain.

"Alright," Kaplan hissed. "Alright, point made." He appeared to surrender.

Eto let go. Kaplan cradled the arm, breathing hard, and when he looked up his eyes had gone sharp with something colder than anger.

"Fine. I can't kill you myself because of him. Fine." He got to his feet slow. "But I can still walk to the city guard. I don’t have to do it myself. When I tell them what I know about her." He nodded at Mikaela. "About the jobs. About who she's worked for. You think a woman with her history walks into a city like Torak clean? One word from me and she's in chains before sundown." He didn’t know Kaizen didn’t understand a word of what he just said.

"Kaplan, please." Mikaela's voice cracked on it. She walked up to him. Pleading. "Don't. We’ve known each other for a long time. You can’t do this to me, I won’t be able to show myself anywhere in Rosatlio ever again."

Eto saw the desperation in her. He couldn’t understand but he could read body language and this man was causing his woman distress. So he stepped between them again, voice low. "I kill him?" He asked in Keth.

“What the?” Kaplan wondered hearing the language. “A Keth, you betrayed us for a fucking Keth of all people. You don’t change do you Mikaela? Always the same old same old. This is the very reason you were banished by the king and now you’ve got this fool who can’t understand a shit of what I am saying wrapped around your little finger.”

"Eto, no, wait, there's got to be another way, just, give me a second." Mikaela pleaded. Holding him back. She then turned back to Kaplan. “It’s not what you think, I promise you I have changed. Let me explain what happened. The real truth this time. What happened wasn’t my fault. We had actually done our job for the hit. Till this guy showed up and talked to the noble before he died. Rulo ordered me to kill him but we only angered him by attacking him first. He chased me back to the camp and attacked everyone, killed everyone, I only survived because…” She couldn’t finish the last words.

“You fucked him?” Kaplan asked. Grossed out.

“I told him I’d do anything if he spared my life.” Mikaela admitted. “Listen I know you don’t trust me but I did what I had to do to survive. Some others ran off too when they saw this guy kill everyone it wasn’t only me. Tudor. Rolin. Oline. Stacy. So please don’t tell the guards about me. There must be some other way we can settle this and before you ask I can’t sleep with you. This guy now things of me as his woman and as you already saw you don’t want to anger him.”

“He thinks of you as his women huh?” Kaplan asked. Looking up at the big man and the muscles that looked like they were sculpted by the gods themselves. Kaplan's eyes darted between the two of them, and something calculating settled into his face. “I believe you kid. This time I believe you because of his reaction. Not because I suddenly trust your poisonous words. So there is another way. Actually."

"I'm listening," Mikaela said.

"It's not about her." He nodded at Mikaela but his eyes were on Eto now, still rubbing his wrist. "It's about what I lost. Rulo and Soya weren't just crew. They were like family to me, not like those bastards you mentioned that ran away. We were together foren years, the three of us. So don't want coin, don't insult me with coin."

"He can’t understand you remember?" She reminded him.

"Right, fucking Keth.” Kaplan remembered." He straightened, wincing. "You know the old children's home, edge of town, by the slums?"

"Vaguely."

"Strange things happening there. Been happening a while. Something strange going on with the kids. The caretakers are baffled. City guard doesn't care, it's the slums, nobody with coin lives there, nobody with coin's gonna push the guild to look into it. But something's wrong in that place. You go look into it. Both of you. If you can find out whats happening and fix it. Consider our business done and I won’t report you to the guards."

Mikaela glanced at Eto, then back at Kaplan. "That's vague. What kind of strange."

"I don’t know myself. I grew up there myself but left when I became of age. An old buddy of mine that also grew up there who’s now a city guard told me about it. Not even he is sure what’s going on. That's the point. Nobody knows. That's what you're gonna find out."

She was quiet a moment, weighing it, then nodded, slow. "Fine. We'll look into it. I can't promise we'll fix whatever it is. But we'll look."

Kaplan held her eyes a second longer, then turned and walked off without another word, disappearing around the corner of the alley, and Mikaela let out a breath she'd clearly been holding since his hand first closed around her arm.

"Well," she said, straightening her sleeve. "That's a way to ruin a trip to the bookstore."