Page 38 of Cosmo

Heading in no particular direction, Liam again let it all swirl around his head. They were a crew. It made sense, after all, to bring in guys, give them a great front like the bar, let them do their moonlighting on nice fat paying jobs.

The thing was, he wasn’t against it. He’d done time for it, sure, but he guessed that the reason they were feeling him out first was to avoid guys like the one that got him busted.

Snitches.

There were a lot of them out in the world. Anything to get off their own beefs. When the heat started getting close, bam, they’d sell their own mothers out for a chance to stay out of jail.

That wasn’t him. No, he didn’t like being inside. In fact, he’d hated it, but he couldn’t live with himself if he’d have turned around and gave up the guys up the food chain.

Still…he was getting used to the idea of being a civilian, doing a civilian job that paid well and wouldn’t get him into trouble with the law.

Liam never thought about being a bad guy. He didn’t think he was. He knew bad and that was his dad. The man that had pushed a sick-minded woman into having a ton of kids, even though each one got her sicker. Then, after her and four of them were gone, he’d found another woman who was all religious and wanted what he did, to repopulate the fucking earth, or whatever the bible told them to do.

Liam had heard from an old friend that he had three new little sisters. He’d likely never meet them, and that was okay, too.

“Get him! He went behind that dumpster,” Liam heard someone say and he heard the scrambling of feet.

Fearing someone was being bullied, he rushed into the alley and saw three young teens pulling a dumpster away from the brick side wall of the bakery.

No human could fit behind there, so Liam figured it was a rat. He had little sympathy for those, but still, the fear it must feel…

Like his brothers and sisters, all feeling the poison tearing at their insides. Burning their throats, making their blood run cold…

As if Liam’s feet were working on their own, he hurried to the dumpster and placed his hand on it, keeping the thing from being pulled farther away from the wall. He glared hatefully at the boys, daring them to argue with him.

“What are you trying to get to?”

The older one, short dark hair and dark eyes, moved a step in front of his two blond friends. “It’s just a stupid stray cat. What do you care?”

A cat. Liam’s heart pounded in his chest so hard it hurt. He felt his throat filling with stones, his eyes swimming in hot, stinging tears. “And…and w-what do you plan to do to it?”

The two blond kids ran past him out of the alley, but the little fucker with the dark eyes continued to stare. “Kill it. What do you care?”

“You need to get the fuck out of this alley, or the beating you were going to give that cat is the one you’re going to get.”

Unsure, he took a step back…looking away, then he looked back at Liam and shouted, “Fuck you, boomer!”

Liam shook his head as he heard the boy’s shoes slapping on the bricks. He relaxed a little, but then he heard a forlorn meow from under the dumpster, so he kneeled on the dirty bricks to look, and the cat came out, instantly rubbing against his knees in a show of…gratitude?

“Hi,” Liam said through the stones in his throat.

It was a Siamese, young, maybe six months old. His little face turned up to Liam, and he meowed again.

The way Liam’s tears fell, the way he was smiling, it made no sense to him. The cat…he’d always wanted a cat. Or a dog. Any pet, but his parents constantly said no, that they had enough mouths to feed. It didn’t stop them from popping out kids, but a cat would have eaten them out of house and home.

“You…you don’t have a home either, do you? You don’t have a family either?”

The cat moved onto his lap and crawled up to rub his head against Liam’s chin.

Liam stood with the animal in his arms, and tears continued to fall. “I don’t even know if Murphy allows cats, but I have some leverage. Let’s go home.”

The cat was purring wildly, curled up in his arms like he’d been born there. Liam walked out of that alley, ready to take on the world, defend the cat with his life, if necessary. The cat…a damn cat, had suddenly made everything so clear.

He got back to the pub and walked right through the front door. Murphy and Haze were behind the bar and there were only two patrons sitting on the stools in front of them.

Murphy’s eyes went right to the cat, and he opened his mouth to ask or state something, but Liam beat him to it. “He’s minenow. I’ll ask around about the owners, in case he’s lost, but he’s skinny and probably got dumped off somewhere, so I’m keeping him. We have some things to discuss, so would you and the others meet me in the basement in an hour? In themeeting room,” he said and stared right into Murphy’s eyes.

Murphy didn’t blink, but his eyes widened as he heard Haze whisper, “Oh shit.”

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