I Unintentionally Became Her Kitten

Chapter 85: Between the Lines

Alisha got back with Matteo who had his arms crossed as Lili got up from the dining table (she had stopped watching TV about an hour before).

They left together, leaving Alisha looking as exhausted as any of her days typically left her. 

I gave her a hug.

“I made salad,” I told her.

She nodded. “Thank you, Kitten.” She gave my hair an appreciative stroke before breaking us apart to go upstairs and put down her stuff. I brought the salads to the table as she did so and then a few cookies on a plate and sat down to wait for her.

She gave me another pet as she passed and sat next to me.

“How was your day, Kitten?” she asked.

“It was good,” I said and started mixing salad dressing onto the leafy greens. “How about you?”

“Not as bad as it could've been.” She pulled her salad closer and started to get some of the leaves on her fork. “Was Lili okay?”

I hesitated to answer, which probably told her enough. “She was fine. She is… less experienced,” I explained.

“She’s pretty young,” Alisha agreed. “I don't really like that she was pulled directly into enforcement but Tye and Matteo both thought she was a good fit.”

I nodded. “Does she enjoy it?” I asked.

Alisha shook her head. “Enforcement is pretty boring most of the time. And when it's not boring, it's brutal.”

“I see. Then why…?”

“There’s only so many options for people like us. Going into enforcement meant she could skip the bullshit of being an associate. Matteo was already training her for self defense reasons anyway.”

“An associate?” I asked.

“The lowest rank. The majority of people are associates. They report to soldiers and soldiers report to the captains.”

“I… see. So there’s three ranks?”

“Uhm… six, in a technical sense. There’s also unassociated people, and then there’s people like me, and the underboss and advisor.”

I nodded, still following. “So since I’m associated, I don’t count as an unassociate, but I don’t really fit in anywhere else.”

“Yes, though anyone with any braincells will stay away.” She pushed her lettuce leaves around some more before taking another bite.

I ate some more as well, having a rush of blue cheese and walnuts take over my mouth for a long moment. “What is on your task list tomorrow?” I asked.

“Tomorrow will be a bit lighter than today. I need to sit down with Jess to go over the contents of that phone, and there’s a couple of Nico’s captains I still need to drop in on.” She thought for a time. “But I think that's it for what has to be done. Everything else is flexible. Is there something you wanted?”

I shook my head. “I could go with you though. Oh but we do need more coffee. I didn't know what brand you get, so we're still quite low.”

She glanced down at the bowl of salad, a sudden look of surprise on her face. “You went to the store,” she grasped. She reached over and put her hand on top of my head before giving my hair a ruffle.

My eyes closed instinctively and I leaned into it. “We needed food,” I explained. “It was the least I could do.”

“How about tomorrow, after I’m done with my stuff for the day, we can go and pick out some cookbooks or something for you. You must be getting tired of salad everynight.”

I shook my head. “I have the internet,” I explained. “You must have more than enough to do.”

She nodded, a bit solemnly. “I was hoping you’d give me an excuse,” she said. “I can easily fill a week with the fall out of the Nico issue.” She sighed. “He really did a number on the unity of this family. Maybe that’s my fault, though. I knew better than to trust him but I put off taking care of that issue until the last possible moment.” Her gaze started to gloss over as she thought about things again.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “We can only do so much. And I know finding replacement people is hard.”

“Mm. Speaking of which, even if you come with me tomorrow, I’ll have Lili accompany us as well.”

“Oh, really?” I asked. I was hoping to avoid spending more time around her than necessary.

‘I need to cram as much experience into her as I can before she ends up in a crap situation and doesn’t know what to do.”

I felt my head tilt quizzically. “You’re worried about her safety?” I asked. Watching over me felt like a relatively low-risk job.

“Of course I am.” Alisha leaned her face against a hand, only half-heartedly eating. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt. But she’s so young, I even offered to let her go but she turned that down and instead asked to get put into enforcement, which is the most brutal job group. It’s absurd that anybody would want that.”

“She seems a bit aloof,” I said.

There was another pause. Alisha stirred her salad a bit. “She will learn one day what she signed up for. I just hope it doesn’t break her.”

We finished eating salads, and even a couple cookies, Alisha breaking one apart curiously. 

“Don’t tell me you haven’t had chocolate chip cookies before,” I said, disbelieving the skepticism on her face.

She flustered. “N-not homemade ones,” she defended.

I knew her though, if no one had given her a homemade chocolate chip cookie, then more than likely she had never bothered to buy one at a store. This poor woman had missed out on so much of the standard American childhood.

Lili and Matteo showed up together. Matteo was in the usual casual-professional black pants and nice shirt, while Lili had taken on green cargo shorts and a spaghetti strap top that made me question if she was testing Alisha’s boundaries. But Alisha didn’t say anything about it until Lili turned her back and the holster was clearly visible there, at which point she frowned.

“Liliana,” she said, perhaps a bit too sternly to start out with. “Do you need cash to buy some proper clothing?”

“Hauh?” Lili asked.

“You don’t have a shirt or jacket to put over your piece?”Alisha clarified.

Lili looked behind her at the holster. “Isn’t it better to show that I’m armed?” she asked defensively.

“No,” was Alisha’s short answer.

Matteo disappeared into the garage for a long moment as the two of them stared down.

“What if a cop sees you like that? Some of them won’t hesitate to shoot you, and the fact that’s visible gives them reasonable cause to.”

Lili went quiet. “You’re only saying that because I’m not white,” she mumbled.

Alisha’s lips thinned as she grimaced before saying. “I’m saying that because I don’t need to lose people over dumb mistakes.”

Matteo got back then, with what was obviously Lili’s sweatshirt in hand and plopped it down into his sister’s arms with a stern look.

Lili sighed and rolled her eyes at him and proceeded to tie it around her waist, hiding the holster and its deadly weapon.

It was then Alisha looked over at me and ran her hand down my back, gently brushing against my own sidearm. I suppressed the urge to squirm as she did so, understanding she didn’t want to bring attention to the fact I had it but also wanting to know that I did.

Matteo brought the car around as Lili stood by the door with us, and then she started to get in the front, though Matteo cleared his throat at her and opened the back door, courteously for Alisha.

Lili frowned but took over this duty, holding the door as Alisha and I climbed in and then slamming it shut before taking her place in the passenger seat.

I understood now why Alisha wanted her to be part of this trip. Matteo knew her quirks and had so far been gently shepherding her into acceptable behaviour.

Still she zoned out, staring out the side window as Matteo drove, until he gave her a nudge and mumbled something lowly, at which point she took to watching out the front windshield. I settled against Alisha, sitting more or less in the middle of the seat. I didn’t want to be as close as we usually were, I sensed Lili keeping an eye on us judgementally and it was making me selfconscious. Alisha was on her phone as usual and I decided to scroll on mine, letting myself relax a bit. It wasn’t often Alisha had two guards with her and while Lili was a bit subpar, I felt quite safe. It helped to know Alisha was more than capable of handling herself. She had training, I gathered, and was willing and capable of using it.

The Escapade drove to the Laundromat building and Alisha was let out by Matteo, who made a point of making Lili watch him do so. It was a bit strange since Matteo and Tye hadn't always gotten the door for her, but if this was training then they probably wanted Lili to see things done properly.

I climbed out after Alisha and followed her into the building. She had me walk just a pace behind as we passed by the front lobby.

“Wait here,” she told Lili and Matteo at the elevator. They both stopped obediently.

Once we were behind closed doors, Alisha put a few fingers to her furrowed brow and tried to rub the crease out. “Why is this the constant struggle,” she grumbled.

I rubbed her back in the moment or so of time we had, then the doors opened to Jess’s lair.

The smell of coffee and instant noodles hit me almost immediately. She stirred in her blankets at the sounds of the elevator and turned her very tired eyes to Alisha.

“Hello, Jess,” Alisha greeted, folding her arms.

Jess nodded. “Hi, Alisha,” she said. She pulled a coffee mug into her blankets with her to drink from. I could only assume it was coffee.

Alisha gave me a quick gesture to follow and approached Jess’s area by the computer screen and cleared off a couple chairs for us. I accepted one and sat down, feeling a little unsure if I should look into Jess’s face or not. She looked like she hadn’t slept for days and up close, she reeked purely of coffee.

“I really would prefer it if you didn’t live up here,” Alisha told her. “There are better places.”

Jess shrugged and turned to the keyboard that woke up her computer, pulling up a plain text screen. “This is fine,” she said quietly.

“I can find you an apartment,” Alisha told her.

“It’s fine,” Jess repeated.

Alisha sighed. “Alright. Tell me what you found.”

I leaned closer to Alisha a bit as Jess started to explain in great detail the contents of Nico’s phone. I understood why she had Matteo and Lili wait downstairs. A lot of it was sensitive information, the kind of stuff that was a liability to the family’s stability. More than once my blood curdled or a nauseous wave passed over me. Children were involved, fortunately not for sexual stuff, but definitely getting groomed to enter the family’s ranks as soon as they were old enough to be tried as adults. I had a feeling that was so they were more indoctrinated, less able to escape.

It also helped things click into place. Lili thought I was here for the ‘fun and games’ or whatever stereotypical image she thought I had in my mind. That had never been the case, but I also didn’t know how far people went in this line of work. Alisha restrained herself and disliked involving unassociated people. She said it was for liability reasons but seeing how Nico and his captains talked about ‘unconnected’ people made it very clear this was her opinion, and not necessarily the standard one. Nico had murdered people because they were mild inconveniences and he didn’t like them. That included discussions of brutal killing riddled with slang terms and blatant discrimination. It only lowered my opinion of the man even more. 

Alisha also looked over his message history with her mom and that made my blood run even colder. There was sexual discussion there, but even worse was what wasn’t sexual. 

Make sure shes mad about it, Nico told Angela. And then drive a wedge between her and the slut. (I could only assume he was referencing me.)

She’ll hate me, Angela told him.

She’ll forgive you. She’s your daughter and she still loves you.

But its cruel.

If we want to get her out of the family business, shes going to suffer. When she has to go into hiding because of the revolt, you can offer her a place to stay. It’ll be a nice neat little ending, everyone will be happy. There was no way he actually believed Alisha would be allowed to simply live separate from the business. It made my stomach sick.

I worry about her safety. And even if shes safe I want her to be able to be happy, away from all of the family business. If she spends the rest of her life hiding, will it really be living?

It’ll be better than her current situation and I’ll make sure shes protected. 

The were more conversations like that, where it was blatantly obvious from an outside view, and with the benefit of knowing how Nico treated Alisha, that he was taking advantage of Angela’s desperation to reconnect with Alisha and Alisha’s restraint about killing her.

Alisha stayed very still after Jess showed her this. When she asked her questions, they were all exactly normal: unstressed and unbothered. But even when Alisha wasn’t particularly annoyed at someone like Nico, she usually sounded a bit on edge, so hearing her be so calm was… unnatural.

Jess explained each conversation indifferently, like it was purely an analysis of numbers in a math textbook while Alisha listened. When Jess finished, going through a few fragmented images that had been deleted, Alisha sighed and leaned back.

Jess slowly got up and loaded her coffee maker before brewing another pot.

“Thank you Jess,” Alisha said finally as things finished processing for her. Then she stood. I followed, careful not to knock any of the clutter around. “Please get some rest… and maybe take a break from the stimulants.”

Jess nodded. “I’ll reduce my coffee intake.”

“Reduce your dextroamphetamine intake,” Alisha told her.

I knew dextroamphetamine was a prescription drug, but it was also abused a lot too. If that was what Jess kept taking then it would explain the lack of sleep under the woman’s eyes.

“I’ll… work on it,” Jess agreed.

With a final nod, Alisha departed and we went back to the elevator. I got one final look of Jess pouring herself a cup of coffee and staring blankly at the text on the screen before the doors closed us in.

Alisha leaned against the wall, the strain showing in her eyes finally and reached over to rest my hand on her shoulder, but she stayed very still as the doors opened again. I fretted, but found the other side to be a vacant floor, not the lobby. She stumbled out when she finally moved and I followed, confused and concerned. She got to the bathroom door and opened it, not bothering with the light before collapsing in front of the toilet and promptly heaving.

A few attempts later, she vomited.