I Unintentionally Became Her Kitten

Chapter 87: Luka

I hadn’t been to this part of the city with Alisha. We went past Sergei’s area and then past Andy’s. The area turned more neighborhoody, though still densely populated. Rather than city buildings, they were large old colonial-like houses packed together tightly.

The smattering of businesses all looked pretty locally owned, or like the buildings were designed to blend in. A Starmaids had a brown sign with gold letters instead of the usual bold green and white, and the local grocery store was designed very modernly with fancy pendant lights and well kept floral displays.

It sank in that this was a different kind of wealth than Alisha’s. The community here was well-off and probably paid large taxes to support fancier infrastructure and city ordinances.

But a wealthier community meant more money to spend on things like drugs and girls. I doubted there was as much pull for illicit weapons, but I never did know. Rich people were crazy.

Alisha continued to sip at her smoothie as we passed through. She was going slowly, her stomach probably still hurting. At least a smoothie would be gentle. About half of the fruit I saw get dumped in was banana and it was thinned out with apple juice, both of which weren’t particularly hard on the stomach.

We reentered a commercial area, full of law offices and dentists and small boutiques. The Escapade stopped outside an office labeled Ferrara Holdings. It was a very nicely maintained building but very plain and basic. The outside was brick, a sidewalk led from the parking lot to the door, and the grass and bushes were green and lively.

It was the kind of business I'd see and promptly forget existed.

Lili got our door this time, starting to take the initiative.

Alisha thanked her and stepped to the ground before I climbed out after her. Lili was a little less serious in her facial expression as I passed but the fact she was taking this seriously at all was a relief.

We approached the building, Matteo directed Lili to watch the lobby area as we passed through. Like all of the business fronts Id seen so far, this one was eerily empty. The front lobby had a security station like the others but it was vacant. Lili went there to sit behind the desk and woke the computer up. Alisha gave her an approving nod before moving on to go deeper in the building.

This office space wasn't as nice as the other. There were only three fairly small rooms off the hallway and one straight back to a conference room. Matteo headed into it and observed and examined anywhere that could hide a bomb or a person and finally gave us a nod. Alisha went and got settled in one of the chairs to wait for whoever we were meeting.

I sat next to her, trying to feel comfortable in the abnormal space. Matteo did a brief patrol through the other rooms, but returned shortly after to wait by the door.

Within a minute the front door opened again and Matteo watched as the man entered. He had no security of his own with him, unlike the people Alisha typically met in this kind of set up.

“Good afternoon, Luka,” Alisha greeted him.

He nodded. “Ms Takeno,” he acknowledged and pulled one of the chairs out to sit opposite her.

Alisha made sure she was comfortable, shifting her legs briefly and adjusting her hair before proceeding. “I understand you were close with Nico so I don’t imagine you’re happy to sit down with me but we do need to discuss your plans going forward,” she explained.

Luka hesitated to answer, probably processing how forward Alisha was with that statement. “You did what you had to,” he answered finally. “No one can blame you for trying to live.”

Alisha didn’t let her gaze stray from him as she waited. I shifted, uncomfortable and reminded myself to relax. The more relaxed I looked the more people would believe I wasn’t an outsider. People that were close with Nico would be looking for things like that.

“You want to know my plans?” Luka asked finally.

“Yes. I’m not as familiar with this part of the family’s goals and routines,” Alisha explained. “I’d rather make as few adjustments as possible but I know Nico was doing some things behind my back.”

Luka took a breath. “Right now, we’re working toward expanding our heroine and meth operations, since those drugs aren’t as popular but the cocaine and weed markets are currently flooded.”

“Mm, you’re pushing sales,” she followed.

“Well… pushing is a strong word. It’s merely suggesting a variety to our usual customers,” he explained.

Alisha continued to nod understandingly. “Of course you understand the rules around gaining new customers, even if Nico didn’t enforce them for you.”

“Y-yes,” Luka said, faltering a little bit, which told me far more than any other response he could’ve given her.

I didn’t know what rules Alisha had in place around this but I was sure they were purposeful.

“Good,” Alisha told him. Her hands folded together, even as she kept him locked in her gaze. “Now about the commissions Nico gave you, I saw in his paper work he was giving you two percent?”

Luka nodded. “Yes, he was quite generous.”

“Generous?” Alisha repeated.

“Don't most captains only make one percent commission?”

I blinked. Even I knew that wasn't the case and I really only heard things in passing here and there.

“The standard that I use,” Alisha started. “Is thirty percent of net profits. I expect captains to then choose how to divide that among their men.”

“What?” Luka asked.

Alisha stilled her facial expression. “Captains under my direct control make thirty percent commission off the net profits,” she repeated. “That means, for your cocaine sells, we sell at double the cost typically, so that would make a hundred dollars of cocaine sells for two hundred and there’d be a hundred dollars net profits. You, as the captain, would keep thirty dollars of that and the remaining seventy should have been passed up to Nico, who would then take his standard ten percent, and the remaining passed up to me to get recirculated in other business operations.”

“Wait–but that's— why would you have Nico make less than I?” Luka continued.

“Because his job isn't to increase sales. That's your job. He was supposed to be enforcing the rules and structure of this family, which I know he was not.” She took a deep breath. “And it sounds like he was skimming most of your cuts as well. An offense punishable by death in most families.”

Luka hesitated. “He kept telling us you were reducing all of the commissions and that he was giving up his to make sure ours stayed higher than it would've.”

“I'm not stupid enough to cut people's commissions,” Alisha told him harshly. “So get that idea out of your head. From here on, take your thirty percent and send the remaining seventy up to the business accounts. I'll see if I can pull Nico’s accounts to get some of that cash back that he took, but I doubt it. Any movement of his money will look suspicious in the long run, especially once his wife reports him missing.”

Luka put a hand to his forehead. “Right,” he agreed. “I— appreciate you telling me.”

“Well,” Alisha said. “I have some other meetings for today, but I’m giving you a warning. I’m going to be coming around in a couple days and I’ll be doing an audit and inspection of your operations. If I find anything out of line I won’t be merciful, is that perfectly clear?”

“Of course,” Luka agreed. He shuffled in his chair, and then ran a hand through his hair, effectively tossling it in a stressed way. “If… what you say is true… be careful, Ms. Takeno.”

“What do you mean?” Alisha asked.

He was quiet for a long moment. A clock on the wall ticked audibly as his thoughts processed.

Matteo started to stand upright to approach him and I saw the panic in his face.

“I-it wasn’t told to me,” Luka explained hastily. “Because they knew you’d be watching me, but there was discussion of getting rid of you despite Nico’s absence.”

Alisha didn’t flinch. “I’m not surprised,” she agreed.

Matteo still loomed, approaching Luka from behind.

I looked away, unsure if this was going to get messy, but I didn’t want to witness the way Luka squirmed anyway.

“I swear, I don’t know more. But if you really weren’t the one that was cutting commissions and the like then… they don’t know that. And even if you tell them…”

“They won’t believe me,” Alisha followed.

I stared at my hands on the table, trying to remember how to keep calm. I didn’t really understand why my subconscious was having such an extreme reaction to this situation, it wasn’t like I hadn’t seen far worse, and walked away able to contain the emotions. But my hands were trembling right then, and my heart beat was fast and shallow. There was imminent doom in my blood.

Alisha moved next to me, and Matteo’s looming shadow retreated back to his section of the wall. I braved looking up finding Luka still pale in the face and looking fearful.

“Don’t tell them I said anything,” he mumbled.

“Of course not,” Alisha agreed. She stood, and I followed though I was clumsy. My blood was still jittery even if nothing was going to happen.

We got out of the conference room and Lili got up from the security desk and came to follow.

“You’re driving,” Alisha told her before looking at Matteo. He nodded and pulled a phone free from his pocket to message people.

Lili didn’t say anything, but I could see the flicker of defiance in her eyes, even if she didn’t say anything.

I knew Alisha saw it too but she held her own tongue and instead went back to her own phone once we were in the Escapade again.

Maybe it was just me being paranoid but I sat properly in the seat and put the seatbelt on. This wasn’t our usual but Alisha had just received a death threat and I’d been forced to watch too many videos of people getting flung out of the windows of cars in accidents. It was the state government’s best scare tactic to get young driver’s ed students to take driving a vehicle seriously. It did kind of work.

Alisha saw me do this and after finishing one of her messages shifted around to put on her own seatbelt before giving me a gentle, reassuring pet.

“Don’t worry, Kitten,” she told me. “We’re on high alert. We’ll see anything coming.”

I nodded, but I couldn’t help but notice that Matteo was still buried in his phone messages and Lili was driving. She was at least focused on driving, but she also didn’t have the experience that Tye and Matteo did.

Alisha went back to her phone, focusing on messaging Tye, letting him know there was still turmoil in the old family ranks. I did my best to settle against the seat.

“There’s a massage setting if you want it,” Alisha informed me.

“Huh? There’s a what?” I managed. What kind of absurdity was her car’s price point?

But Alisha reached over to the center console and pointed out the touch settings for it. I just sighed and turned to stare out the window, rattled in a different kind of way.

AN: Congrats! You've read over 200,000 words of this book. (That's more than Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring). In celebration of getting this far, I'm working on making a new cover for the book but my artistic skills aren't great and I refuse to use a 100% AI generated image forever. (The one up there right now is, admittedly, AI generated.) But let me know if there's anything you want to see in the cover. I'm definitely adding Kitten to it but otherwise it'll probably have a similar vibe of the current one.