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Rubble’s voice bounced between the Macha club buildings, but Kevlar didn’t stop walking. His past was suddenly chasing him, and every emotion swiftly bubbled in his heart. Attaining the clubhouse door, he swung it open and whizzed past the three nymphs in the hallway, ignoring their calls to him. Sex wasn’t on his mind at the moment. Only Kita was.
Finding the refrigerator, he pulled out three beers and headed toward the den. It was the one place he could count on no one being there.I hope.He cracked the top of the first beer and guzzled half of it by the time he reached the cool, dark den. Letting out a sigh of relief at the emptiness, he sunk into the leather recliner and closed his eyes.
Memory after memory of his senior year at the academy invaded him. He’d met Nikita at a kegger off campus of Columbia University where she attended.
“Jesus Christ, Kevlar, since when do you stalk off like a little bitch?”
Popping open his eyes, he swallowed a mouthful of beer. Rubble plopped into the couch, a curious expression on his bearded face. It was a wonder he could see the man at all, but his shiny, bald head served as a beacon in the darkness.
“I don’t.”
Rubble harrumphed. “Not what just happened.” He snatched one of the beers from him. “Spill.”
“You don’t want to hear this shit.”
“Seeing how we served together, and you never mentioned that woman with a very gorgeous ass, yeah I do.” He tipped back the bottle of beer.
“Nikita and I met in college. I was at the academy and she was a freshman at Columbia.” He paused to see if that would appease the big man. The blank stare persuaded him otherwise.
“It was one of those whirlwind relationships you hear about. Fell in love fast, but by the time spring break came around, she disappeared.”
Rubble sat up slightly. “Disappeared?”
He sipped the beer. “Yeah. She went home to help with family drama. She didn’t say what it was. After that, I never heard from her again. I went to the address she gave me, but it was a vacant trailer.” He ran his fingers through his short hair, a habit he couldn’t cease despite barely having any there. “Her cell phone was disconnected. The cops didn’t seem to care at all about her whereabouts. Neither did the FBI.” He stared off into the darkness, reliving the heartache. “It was as if she wentpoof.”
“You never heard from her again?”
“Nope. I finished my year, then was sent overseas.” He finished off his bottle and grabbed another. The moment he spotted her; his gut dropped to new depths. He couldn’t keep his distance either. He had to be closer to her, smell that intoxicating jasmine scent she wore. It wrecked him tonight just like it did when they first met.
Kevlar shook his head. For years, he couldn’t accept that she’d simply leave him without so much as a word goodbye. But she did and he spent years pining after a ghost. He rubbed a fist over his heart, the throb there pulsing through his ribcage. Seeing her dredged up all the emotions he locked away. Letting them loose was dangerous, but he couldn’t help it. “Sometimes, I think I hallucinated her.”
“I saw the way you reacted tonight.” Rubble lightly nudged Kevlar’s boot. “You didn’t make her up. You loved her.”
“Once upon a time, sure, but now? I don’t even know who that person was at the bar.” He stood and started pacing. The mere notion of Nikita—his Kita—being with a Greenback Cutthroat tore up his gut. “She acted so cold, so rough. That’s not Kita.”
“It’s been years, brother. We all grow up.”
He took a long draught of beer. “No, she couldn’t change that much.”
For a moment, neither spoke. Kevlar’s mind hummed at the different scenarios that could’ve led to Kita being a club girl. None of them made sense. She was too smart to fall prey to the vileness of the Cutthroats. Something had set her down this path and it killed him that she wouldn’t talk to him. He swallowed hard, worry filling his gut more than the Irish beer.
Finally, Rubble asked the question Kevlar couldn’t get out of his head. “You think she’s in trouble?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible, but she did say she didn’t need rescuing.”
Rubble rolled his eyes, bottle pressed to his lips. “Women always say that bullshit.”
He nodded. “From Kita, I almost believe her. She was a badass fifteen years ago. I know she can handle her own.” He sat back down on the edge of the seat. “But something never felt right.”
Rubble cocked his left brow. “What was her last name back then?”
“Morales.”
Rubble choked on his beer. “Wait, Morales? That’s the same last name as Diablos’s president. “
Kevlar’s mouth went dry as he quickly connected the dots. “No, that’s not possible.”
“Brother, Estevan Morales was incarcerated about fifteen years ago. That’s right around the time Nikita went dark, right?”
