Page 75 of Always Salty

Only, when I finally got the cat free of my back, I turned to see that the cat wasn’t alone.

The cat distribution system had finally found me, and with it came four kittens in varying shades of brown, white and orange. All with collars, indicating that they were someone’s pet.

Though, I felt like it was more likely that someone was selling them, based on how fuckin’ cute and fluffy they were.

“These are ragdoll kittens.” Nastya’s eyes went wide. “You realize these are like two grand a pop, right?”

“Four,” Milena said. “Look.”

I didn’t bother to look, because I didn’t care.

But Keely took the phone from Milena’s hand and started to read.

“Plano woman begging for the return of her kittens. According to the KRMW News reporter that met with both the wife and the husband, after an argument about the smell of ammonia from the amount of cats in the house, the husband, Jack Leo, decided to take the cats and give them to good homes instead of selling any more of her ‘puppy mill’ kittens. Jack Leo, a local window business owner of Bright Windows, says that he and his wife are getting a divorce. According to Leo, Natasha Leo, his wife, has been breeding cats since they met. But it’s gotten out of hand to the point where she has hundreds of cats inside and out, and it’s ruining his life. He sold off over a hundred cats and kittens in the past month while Natasha Leo was visiting Russia to acquire more cats to breed.” Keely looked over at the cats in question. “Doesn’t look like he found them a good home. Sounds like he might’ve dumped them. Do you think there could be more?”

“Maybe he found a home for all of them but the ones that I found,” I shrugged. “I can go back and look in a few more days.”

“Not now?” Shasha joked.

He’d seen the news.

He knew what I did.

He also knew why it was a little too hot right now to go back and search for any other kittens.

“We can all go,” Maven said. “Say we were driving by and saw a couple of cats if anyone asks questions.”

Maven didn’t outright know that I’d done anything tonight, but if she had a working brain—which she did—she’d know I’d done something.

But before I could say anything more, Keely sucked in a breath.

“Holy shit.”

“What?” I asked, startled with how hard my heart jumped inside of my chest at her gasp of outrage.

“Look at this!” she cried as she started a video back up. “This is the congresswoman that was killed tonight. Look what they found locked up in her bedroom!”

Shasha’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the video.

“Screen share that with the television,” I suggested.

She did, and we all watched as a little boy was carted out of the building wrapped up in a cozy looking blanket.

The video buffered right at a specific moment in time, and my being froze inside.

“Um,” I said carefully. “That looks like…”

“Apollo.” She inhaled swiftly, her head whipping around as she stared at Cutter. “That looks like Apollo.”

A look of complete horror crossed over Cutter’s face.

Then, “It fits.”

The raspy “it fits” had my heart literally jolting inside of my chest again.

“What’s going on?” Shasha asked.

“Two years ago, Apollo’s son, Tavi, otherwise known as Octavius Abram Reins, went missing. Apollo’s wife at the time took off and went back to her home country. Or so she said. He’s spent the last two years looking for them and found nothing.”

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