“We’re going to play a game. It’s called This Little Piggy. You remember playing it as a kid?” Kieran asked.
He felt a rise of disgust when he heard the first whimper. He hated weak men that were all bluster. “Okay, this is how it goes.” Kieran began to run his fingers across each one of the man’s fingers. He landed on the man’s pinky. “This little piggy went to market…” Then with a cruel twist, he broke it.
Gavin screamed again. “Stop! I told you I don’t have it.”
“That’s too bad.” He continued to the next finger. “This little piggy stayed home.” Then he twisted and broke that finger too. Now Gavin’s sobs were coming on full force.
“Are you sure there aren’t any secret bank accounts you’re not telling me about?” Kieran asked. “Lot easier for both of us if you just fess up now.”
“No, I don’t have his money,” Gavin blubbered with tears running down his face.
This time, Kieran did not give him any warning. He broke the middle finger and then added the next one in line. “This little piggy had roast beef.”
Gavin squealed like a pig on the way to slaughter. “I don’t have money! Please! Have mercy!”
He pushed on the back of Gavin’s head, ignoring his plea. “You like roast beef, Gavin? I don’t care for it myself, but a lot of people in my family say it’s awesome. “
“No, no, please don’t!”
His sobs were getting on Kieran’s nerves. He decided this wasn’t any fun now, not that it was really fun to begin with. He was ready to go home, and he knew that he just had to finish making his point.
“You sure you can’t pay it back?”
“I swear! I swear!”
“I’m not quite so sure. I have a feeling you’re lying. You see, Mr. Miles had this forensic accountant on his payroll. You wouldn’t believe what the guy can do. He’s a small, squirrelly guy like you, but he can dig up a person’s financial record like nobody’s business. This accountant told Mr. Miles that you had an offshore account in Switzerland. Total sum, one point five mil. You kept it hidden from the IRS and your business partner—even your own wife. You’ve been embezzling money from your own company to defraud the tax man for years, so you can report loss of profit. Am I getting warm here?”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kieran sighed. “I hate it when people act dumb.” He broke another finger.
Gavin screamed pitifully.
“Let’s try again, shall we? Do you have the money to pay Mr. Miles?”
This time, Gavin nodded, sobbing. Kieran’s sharp sense of smell caught of a whiff of the man he worked on pissing himself. Kieran let out a disgusted sound.
“What? I didn’t hear what you said,” said Kieran.
“I’ve got the money, I’ve got the money! Please don’t hurt me. Please…”
“That’s better. That would make Mr. Miles happy—and if Mr. Miles is happy, I’m happy. Are we on the same page here?”
“Yes. Yes! Let me go, please.”
Kieran pushed Gavin down to the ground and stared down at him as the man clutched his mangled hand against his chest.
Gavin looked up at him with fear-filled eyes. “Can I go now?” He practically choked on the words.
“For now,” Kieran said. “The debt needs to be paid by Friday. If it isn’t paid in full by then, you can damn well count on another visit from me, and next time I won’t play nice. The last little piggy hasn’t gone wee, wee, wee all the way home. My next visit will most certainly make that happen. We don’t want that little piggy to get lonely, do we?”
“No, no.” Gavin recoiled at his veiled threat. “I’ll pay. I promise.”
“Good, good. I’m happy to hear that. I sincerely hope I don’t have to visit you again after this.” Kieran turned on his heel and walked away. He had made his point, and over the span of his career as a hired muscle, there had only been a few instances where he had to make a repeat visit.
He got in his car and looked in the rearview mirror. Gavin had managed to get up and was leaning against the wall of the building. He would no doubt be there for a while. Kieran didn’t care. At this point, he pushed all thoughts of Gavin away. He had something else to concern himself with.
He pulled up outside his apartment building and felt remorse at the fact that he’d been gone for almost three hours. He’d been hoping to make it a quick visit with Gavin, and it had turned into something far longer. Fionn had been sleeping when he left, and hopefully, the kid would still be conked out. He unlocked the door to his apartment and entered. He knew right away that something was amiss. His sharp hearing should’ve immediately picked up the sound of Fionn’s gentle breathing, but the apartment was still. He quickly raced to Fionn’s room, flipped on the light switch and saw his suspicion confirmed. The small toddler’s bed was empty, and the window across the room was wide open.
“Damn it,” Kieran said as he ran a hand through his hair. He lifted his nose in the air and sniffed. This was one of the benefits, of course, of being a shifter. He would have to track Fionn down and hopefully, he would find him in one piece. He followed the boy’s scent outside and into the courtyard. Across the courtyard, it ended right next to a glass door. It belonged to the apartment two doors down from him. Kieran was well familiar with this particular glass door, and its owner. There was a woman that he had noticed several days earlier coming and going from the apartment. He didn’t know her name, but her dark hair, green eyes, and luscious curves had been hard to miss.
It seemed as if Fionn’s scent went right inside. Kieran was going to have to make a neighborly introduction, it seemed, to get his nephew back. Perhaps the situation wasn’t going to turn out so bad after all.
*
It took Millie over an hour to get the boy to trust her enough that she could touch him. Every time she went to get close to him, he would let out a small growl that she thought was adorable. Eventually, she just sat down on the floor and watched him finish his meal. She turned on the TV behind her in the living room and saw him looking at it curiously. She wanted him to trust her, but she knew that she just needed to give him time.
While he watched with a transfixed expression to the images on the screen behind her, she noted again the small tufts of hair around his ears. What she noticed in particular was it appeared that the boy was malnourished and not well-taken care of. She could see dirt around the edges of his mouth where he probably wiped it several times after being in the dirt. He was dressed in only a diaper, and she wondered if he was cold. She knew that shifters normally ran hotter than normal humans—it was part of her nursing training—but it had been particularly cool outside.
The diaper he wore sagged in the back, which indicated that it needed to be changed. She could see smudges of dirt around other parts of his body as well. She felt the welling of anger inside. Whoever was supposed to be looking after him clearly wasn’t doing a good job.
Millie had always found herself to be the maternal type. When she was younger, she had loved to babysit. She made enough money to help with college by babysitting for the families in the neighborhood during her teen years. Even through her first year of college, she worked as a nanny during the summer. Children usually flocked to her. That annoyed her slightly but she understood that this child was having a hard time warming up to her. She wasn’t sure where he’d come from, and it made her just want to gather him up in her arms to tell him everything would be okay. Of course, there was no way she could guarantee that.
It had only been an hour at that point, but she already felt very protective of the boy. She could see that now that he had eaten and seemed to be full, and his eyes were starting to grow heavy. The innocent bond of trust growing between them seemed to be intact. Slowly, she moved closer to him, and he didn’t move away. Eventually, she was sitting right next to him as he watched the TV. She felt a small burst of glee when his head leaned against her arm, and she put her arm around him. He relaxed into her, and s
he felt herself relax as well.
They sat like this for another ten minutes. She allowed him to get used to the way that she felt and her touch and scent. She knew this was important. Eventually, she reached over and was able to lift him up into her lap. This close, she could smell the filth and stench of the dirty diaper, but she wrinkled her nose and let him sigh as he relaxed into her chest. Giving it another couple of minutes for him to be comfortable, she started to move slowly to her feet lifting him with her. This time, the boy just craned against her. He seemed to be enjoying the closeness.
Millie carefully stepped out of the room, anxious that the boy was going to be upset about leaving the TV. But he seemed content as she looked down at him. He stared up at her was sleepy eyes, and she gave him a soothing smile. “We’re going to get you cleaned up. Then, we’ll figure out who you belong to.”
She knew the boy was too young to understand what she was saying, but she hoped that it was being said in a tone that let him know that she was going to take care of him. She took him into the bathroom and kept him close to her as she ran hot water into the tub. She took off the dirty diaper gingerly and threw it in a sealed plastic bag. The boy seemed to be all boneless limbs now—totally relaxed.
As she lowered him into the warm water of the tub, she heard a small sigh of delight. Gently holding him still, she used water and a washcloth to wipe all of the dirt away from his body. The water in the tub seemed to turn dark with the dirt in no time. She knew that she only had a couple more minutes before the boy was asleep entirely. “Look at you, sleepyhead. I haven’t finish bathing you and you’re ready to take a nap. Tummy full, warm water—comfy, aren’t you?”
“Mama.”
Millie choked, almost cried in an instant. Did he mistake her as his mother? Dear God. What kind of mother neglected her young son like this?
“No, I’m not your mommy, sorry. My name’s Millie. Can you say Millie?”
“Mama.”
She smiled. “Where’s your mommy sweetheart?”
The boy pointed at her and said, “Mama.”
“I’m okay with that ‘cause you’re too adorable. How about a shower now? The water is filthy.”
“Mama, mama.” The boy waved his arms, splashing the water.
“Yes, yes. Playing in the water is fun, isn’t it?” Millie drained the tub. She grabbed the showerhead and slowly rinsed him with clean water. She shampooed and lathered him with soap one more time before rinsing him thoroughly.
The boy expressed his fondness of water by plopping around, his cute little tail whipping back and forth. Millie wondered if tigers liked to play with water in nature.
After she was done, Millie wrapped him in a towel and set him gently on the floor as she dug in the cabinet underneath her vanity. She gave a small whoop of delight when she found a couple of stray diapers in the back from one of her many nanny jobs. It was one of those things that she just always kept on hand at the time, and she was grateful that she hadn’t cleaned out this particular bag. She dried him and laid him gently on his back before putting the new diaper on him. By the time she was done, his eyes were heavy, and she knew that sleep was just a wink away.
“Come on, sweetie. You’re tired, aren’t you?” She carried him across the hallway and into her bedroom. Then she settled him onto her bed and lay down next to him. The boy was asleep within half a second, it seemed. He was completely relaxed and in this moment, Millie felt relaxed too. She had done what she could for him. She lay there and listened to his breathing for several long moments. She wondered what she was going to do now. It wasn’t as if she could keep him, and she assumed someone would eventually miss him. There was only one thing she was thinking she could do, which was to call Child Protective Services. That would serve whoever was supposed to be watching him right, but it also potentially exposed the boy to a bad legal situation.
Millie felt her eyelids growing heavy, but they snapped open wide when she heard the sound of banging on her door. She immediately jumped up, fearful that the sound would wake the boy, but he only muttered and snuggled in his sleep deeper under the covers. It was obvious he was exhausted.
Millie quickly made her way to the front door and pulled it open intending to run off whoever was on the other side. She drew herself straight up when she realized it was an irritated looking, yet vaguely familiar man.
“Can I help you?”
He pushed past her into her apartment like he owned the place.
“Excuse me?” She grabbed his arm. “Hey. I don’t know who you are, but you can’t just come barging in here like that!”
“The hell I can’t. You’ve got my kid in here,” the man barked.
Kid. So the boy was his kid. That was why he was familiar. He was her new neighbor from a couple of doors down. She had meant to bring him some baked goods to welcome him, but the guy didn’t seem friendly at all. He had an aura that said loud and clear, “leave me alone or I’ll bite your head off.” She had even seen him across the parking lot earlier that morning. As she suspected, he was the responsible party for the boy sleeping in her room.
She grabbed his arm again, well aware that it was like grabbing a piece of metal. The man was built like a truck. If the boy was his kid that meant he was a weretiger too. “He’s sleeping right now. You don’t want to disturb him quite yet because I’ve got a couple of words for you.”
The man stopped and stared down at her. She knew she should have felt intimidated, but the rise of anger in her chest about how he had been treating the boy circumvented that.
“You have words to share with me?” The man sounded incredulous. “You’re the one that has my son in your apartment without my permission. Lady, you’re lucky I didn’t call the cops for kidnapping.”
Millie felt her face flush. How dare he! “You were going to call the cops on me? That little boy in there is malnourished and clearly is not being well taken care of. Where have you been for the last two hours? Why haven’t you come looking for him before now?”
She saw the flicker of something in the man’s eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was guilt or something else. “I had to go out. I wasn’t gone that long.”
“Not that long? You’ve been gone for at least two hours, minimum. That’s when your son came and stole food off of my grill.”
“I fed him before I left,” the man said defensively.
“Clearly not enough. He was starving. He ate two whole steaks and the hot dogs that I made as well. Also, he was filthy. I gave him a bath, and the water turned black. You’re lucky that I haven’t called Child Protective Services on you.”
It seemed it was the man’s turn to be outraged. “Child Protective Services? For what? He was playing in the dirt right before I left. I knew I needed to give him a bath when I got home. I hadn’t had time yet.”
Millie had to admit that the courtyard of their apartment building wasn’t exactly known for its green space. It was more brown grass and dirt than anything else. She had seen several children around the complex play in a pseudo-sandbox that was really just a mound of dirt.
Still, she felt like she was right in the situation. She lifted her chin. “You can’t leave a child that young alone. They have to be watched.”
“Look, I just moved here, and I don’t have the resources yet to find a babysitter. Plus, shifter children mature differently than human children. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” the man asked in an irritated tone.
Millie felt a flicker of chagrin. Her exposure to shifters was minimal even though they were in great abundance in Grand Junction. But she had had some training on them through her nursing program.
“Maybe not a lot, but more than other people. Still, you have to keep an eye on him. He wandered over here, and he could have pulled the grill down on himself. He could’ve burned his hands or worse. You can’t leave him alone at this age, shifter or not. You’re an irresponsible father.”
The man went silent for a long moment, staring down at
her as if he couldn’t decide what to do with her. Millie felt like a tiger had seized her, as if she’d be a good meal.
Millie’s knees weakened quite suddenly. Her heart went pitter-patter. This isn’t fair. Why do assholes have to be the gorgeous ones? Mr. Mysterious had the face of an angel, but that beauty had been chiseled down by years of hard living—a life that left its mark deep in the lines of his forehead and the darkness around his eyes. He had a straight nose—statuesque, beautiful. His cheekbones were amazing. Enviably high like male models that graced fashion magazines. Perhaps it was his mouth that drew her to him. He had sensual lips that quirked into a perpetual smirk—a cynical smile, not that he wore one at the moment. Everything about him was perfect, not to mention his tall, fit physique.
“Look, lady. I’d like to just…get my son and go home. It’s been a long day,” he said.
Millie knew that the man was right, and reluctantly admitted it to herself. It wasn’t as if she could call Child Protective Services when he offered such logical explanations. And really, she didn’t completely know how to take care of shifter children.
“Fine.” She motioned him back to her bedroom and pointed at her bed. She realized with a flush that it was the first time a man had been in her bedroom in well over a year. She was glad it was dark in the hallway so he couldn’t fully see her face. Especially when she was having a variety of unclean thoughts about him. Her imagination had gone completely haywire, especially when he bent down to rouse his son.
Great God, he had a perfect ass beneath that denim fabric. His legs were long and sturdy. Her eyes drifted up to his waist—lean and tapered. His shoulders were broad and powerful. If this man looked so damn sexy in his clothes, without them he’d be breathtaking. She fantasized about him stretched on her bed—naked, of course—posing in a titillating manner with a long-stemmed rose between his teeth.
Okay, that might be a little ridiculous, but he’d still be sexy anyway. He’d be hot dressed in tattered rags. Ah, what would it feel like to lay underneath him as he grabbed your shoulders and thrust—
Lone Tiger And Cub: BBW Weretiger Shapeshifter Paranormal Romance Page 2