KENNICK: A Bad Boy Romance Novel (8 page)

Chapter
Twelve

“
Gâsc
_!
” Kennick roared, slamming his hands down on the table in front of
the boy. Pieter, named for his uncle, Ana's older brother, sat with a stubborn
look on his face, his cheeks pushed up to his eyes by his fists, lips in a
pout. He stared with intense interest at the table, refusing to meet Kennick’s
eyes. Worse still were the eyes of his mother, standing in silent anger in
front of the sink, arms crossed.

“Do you think they won’t put you in jail, just to
teach a little
schav
a lesson about
stealing? You think what you did looks good for your
kumpania
? Makes your Ma
proud?
Ah, Pieter, you are turning into a little criminal, you know that?”

“They made me do it, Kennick,” the boy whined, kicking
his feet against the table’s legs.

“Oh, they
made
you
do it, huh? Some little
gadje
put a
gun up to your head and
made you do it?
You
are a Rom, boy, and a Rom does what
he
wants
to, not what anyone else tells him to. Especially not some goddamn
sticky-fingered street rat!”

“You tell me what to do all the time!” Pieter cried
out.

“I wouldn’t have to if you didn’t do so much stupid
shit
all the time, Pieter! How do you
think your namesake would feel about you running around tarnishing his name,
huh? We’re having a hard enough time here without you making all those rumors
about us sound true!”

Pieter crumbled when Kennick called him out on his
namesake. There were few things worse to a Volanis than bringing shame to the
ancestor whose name you bore, and Pieter knew that well, even at his tender
age. Seeing how the boy finally shrank and sniffled, Kennick eased up, a strew
of curses escaping under his breath. He met Ana’s eyes and nodded.

“Listen to your Ma
now,” he growled, striding towards the door. “Do what she says, or so help
me…”

“Okay,” Pieter said, voice cracking as he held back
tears. “Geeze, I’m sorry, okay?”

“Don’t be sorry,” Kennick said, one hand on the door.
“Sorry doesn’t mean anything. Don’t do it again. Get your act together.”

Outside, in the freshly pink and dusky air, he could
hear the beginnings of Ana Volanis’ tirade against her son and smiled. She’d
been dead quiet as Kennick took his turn, but all that time she’d been stewing
up a heaping mess of insults and punishments to lay down. Pieter would get the
picture – he had to. The
kumpania
was
already treading on thin ice, and the last thing anyone needed was some
pint-sized hellion dragging their names even further into the dust.

Taking his time in the lingering sunset, Kennick began
his walk back to his trailer, passing his kin and long-time friends along the
way, exchanging waves and greetings. It was dinner time for most, and since the
weather was fair a good amount of people had set up barbecues or were eating
outside. The rich smells of grilled sausages, roast chicken, corn and squash
and fresh bread swirled around.

Kennick was in good spirits despite Pieter’s little run-in
with the local law. Mostly because of Kim. Both her promise, and the promise of
her. She was utterly beautiful to him; with long, reddish-blonde hair that ran
down her back, deep blue eyes, and the barest spattering of freckles, she
looked like a delicious mix of old world and new. And the way she
looked
at him; well, damn, not a man on
this earth could have resisted the lust in her eyes. His mind wandered to
Baba’s prophecy. She was never wrong…

When he rounded the corner of his trailer, he saw that
Cristov and Damon were already home, both spreading their legs out languidly as
they reclined in the battered lawn chairs they’d picked out of the garbage a
few years back. A cooler between them was full of ice and beer. He didn’t even
need to ask; Cristov tossed him one and he cracked it open, quickly closing his
mouth around the top to catch the foam.

“How’s kicks,” Damon asked, shoving the third lawn
chair towards Kennick, who took it with a mock curtsey.

“Pieter is a goddamn idiot,” he said, “got caught
stealing a Coke. Big ol’ howdy-doody style cop had to come dragging his ass
back home. But I got good news, too.”

“What’s that? You finally find us somewhere to get our
dicks wet?” Cristov asked, leaning forward with a spark in his eyes and a smile
on his lips. Kennick knew he was only half-serious, but it was the part that
was
serious that he wanted to slap.

“You want a wet dick, you oughta use more spit on your
hand,” he replied, kicking at the leg of Cristov’s chair. “Nah, you know that
government chick?”

Damon’s eyebrows lifted.

“The
gagic
_
,” he said, reaching behind him and picking up a guitar that had
been leaning against the trailer. Gagic_:
nice
girl.
Kennick thought that was an apt description, but the way she’d looked
at him implied she might have something more than “nice” to offer.

“That’s her. Little Mayor,” Kennick said as Damon
began to strum, filling the air with the soft sound of an old song. Cristov
snorted, taking a long swallow of his beer.

“If that’s where you’re setting your sights, Kennick,
you might as well buy some binoculars, ‘cause that possibility is a
long
way off,” he said.

“Not everything is about getting laid, Cris,” Kennick
said, growing impatient with his younger brother’s one-track mind. To be fair,
Cristov hadn’t gotten any in at least a month; with their father’s death, the
move, and the bustle of setting up camp and getting their businesses up and
running, there’d barely been time to eat, never mind troll for girls.

And the girls in their
kumpania,
who were usually up for a good time as long as there
wasn’t any blood relation, had been avoiding the brothers out of respect for
Pieter and Baba’s passing. It would be a while yet before the deaths in their
family were no longer considered a hindrance to matters of the heart – or, more
accurately, sexual organs.

The truth was, Cristov was the least likely of the
three Volanis brothers to have a one-night stand. The boy was loathe to admit
it, but he was a hopeless romantic. He always fell for the girls he slept with,
got cranky and moody when they didn’t stay. He’d been chasing Rom girls all his
life, but his mooning, adoring behavior scared them off more often than not. He
was the jealous type, and like all Rom, the women treasured their freedom.

Damon, on the other hand, the middle brother, was so
uninterested in chasing tail or finding a woman that his brothers had once
wondered if he was actually gay. That would have been fine with them, but when
asked he merely shook his head and smiled slightly. Damon
had
been known to bring a girl home on occasion, and from the
sounds that reverberated through the paper-thin walls of their trailers, he was
quite skilled in the bedroom. His silent nature, dark eyes, and strongly set
jaw had attracted more girls to his door than both his brothers combined, but
he turned most of them away with a kind, platonic pat on the back and a wan
smile.

It drove Cristov crazy, but he’d managed to convince
at least a few of those girls back into his own bedroom. Damon didn’t have a
type that either of his brothers could figure out; the few girls he selected to
spend the night with came in all shapes and sizes and ethnicities. When asked,
he shrugged. Mina told Cristov and Kennick that it was in the girl’s eyes,
which only left them more baffled. The pleased smile Damon gave Mina when she
said it spoke volumes.

Kennick fell somewhere in the middle, with a healthy
appreciation for fly-by-night encounters and a few serious relationships under
his belt – though, to Kennick, a serious relationship meant six months. Six
months, no one had lasted longer than that. He didn’t imagine it would get any
better now that he had taken his place as
rom
baro,
patriarch of the clan. It would take a strong woman to help him shoulder
that responsibility. A woman who could lead, with a level-head, and a fierce
heart. None of the Rom women he knew fit the bill. At least, none of the
single
Rom women.

“Alright, so what’s Little Mayor done that’s put you
in such a good mood?” Cristov ask, accepting his brother’s withering glance
with a shrug.

“She’s going to help us clear Dad’s name,” Kennick
said, smiling when he remembered the way she’d followed after him, taking small
steps, promising to help – and to come back.

Damon looked up with interest, hands idly strumming
out the same tune, clean and neat and drifting along the colors of the sunset.
His fingers were calloused, knuckles showing even worse wear. He had a fight
tonight, out in Dover. Cristov and Damon had been sparring earlier in
preparation. Until the strip club was up and running, with a basement to use
for the brothers’ off-the-books fight club, they’d have to travel for Damon's
fights. Kennick was confident about the night’s outcome; Damon had never lost a
fight. A win meant an extra five grand in their pockets.

“How’s she gonna do that?” Cristov asked, his
let’s-get-laid act put on the back burner while more pressing matters needed
discussion.

“Her sister’s on the newspaper,” Kennick said. “She
was interested in what I showed her, and she said she could get her sister to
write something up for us.”

Damon’s brows fell to a line above his eyes, mouth set
straight.

“Will that be enough?” he asked. “An article in the
paper?”

Kennick sighed and shrugged.

“Probably not,” he said. “But it’s a start.”

Just at that moment, Mina burst from the trailer,
singing loudly along to the tune Damon had been strumming. She held out two
plates of steaming food and Kennick and Cristov both took one. Damon refused to
eat before a fight.

“Mina,” Cristov said, sneering down at his plate of
burnt hamburger meat mixed up with egg noodles and some anonymous white, creamy
sauce. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s dinner,” she answered primly. Dressed in a long,
flowing skirt and a black tank top, she put her hands on her hips. Her curly
red hair fell around her round cheeks, her green eyes sparking defiantly as she
held her brother’s glare.

“It’s disgusting,” Cristov retorted, but took a bite
all the same, a grimace on his mouth as he turned his face upward and chewed
loudly, open-mouthed, in her face. When Mina grabbed a handful of his hair and
yanked slightly, his eyes widened and his mouth snapped shut.

“Swallow it like a good boy,” she said, giving his
hair a slight shake. Still sneering, he gulped, then stuck his tongue out at
her. “And thank your beautiful sister for making you dinner.”

“Thank you, your highness, for the swill,” he said
sarcastically. Mina released him, turning to Kennick now. The look on her face
betrayed her confident nature.

“Is it really gross, K?” she asked. He had just put a
second forkful into his mouth and swallowed hard.

“It’s really, really bad, Mina,” he said with a shrug.
“But I appreciate it all the same.”

Her face fell, but not for long. Mina had an indomitable
spirit. She smiled a moment later, shrugging her shoulders.

“Well, no one ever said you have to be a good cook to
live a happy life,” she said cheerily.

“Except maybe your future husband,” Cristov said,
raising his plastic fork to examine some unidentifiable, dripping vegetable.

“My future husband can cook for
me,
” Mina said, hopping down the trailer’s stairs. As she walked in
front of Cristov to stand by Damon, he took aim with the soggy vegetable,
pulling back on the head of the fork. He released. It went wide – far wide.
Kennick stifled a laugh.

“You’re gonna be safe tonight, right, Damon?” Mina
asked, draping her arms around her brother’s shoulders, forcing him to stop
playing the guitar for a moment.

“Aren’t I always,” he said, gruffly, but with love
behind his words. Mina sighed, satisfied, and raised herself up.

“I’m off to the pussy palace,” she said, referring to
the trailer she shared with her best friends. All three men cringed. To them,
although she was 19, Mina was still just a little girl, and to hear her use the
word “pussy” was like nails on a chalkboard. The whole reason she didn’t live
in the trailer was because they couldn’t stand the idea of her bringing guys
home, and because knowing she might be listening to the girls
they
brought home was embarrassing.