by Rhys Ford
And God did he drown.
He didn’t need to feel like he’d missed knowing the most important person he ever should’ve held in his heart. Miki couldn’t hold back any of the raging sensations of loss and regret pouring from where he’d walled them up years before. The little boy he’d been remained in the dark, shivering as a cold blanket wrapped around him from years of neglect, woven by every intrusive touch on his body. Long nights of physical hunger and emotional thirst slammed back into him, and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t stop the seething memories from engulfing him.
There’d been nights when he no longer felt his own body, cast out of his flesh because of what was being done to him, and he’d run toward dreams he knew were made of nothing but wishes and tinsel. In his young mind, there’d been a family who’d somehow lost him and mourned the absence of their son in their lives. He’d never been able to see the faces of the man and woman he’d created from the shadows, but now he knew how they looked, knew their smiles, and the dramatic scenes of their reconciliation would never come true because she was gone.
And the other face was of someone who’d never known he existed.
He missed a woman he never knew—would never know—and to hear that she’d loved him from the lips of someone who’d known her intimately finally broke Miki’s heart.
Gulping for air, he tried to keep Stewart back with a shove, but the man came at him in a rush. Panicked, he swung, connecting with a hard thump, but his mind was too scattered to follow up with another hit. Something crunched under his fist, then he heard Stewart swear. Chest heaving, Miki reached for the chair, but Stewart’s fingers were around his wrist before he could pick it up.
“Stop. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Stewart gasped, holding his nose. There were speckles of blood down the front of his shirt, the blue darkening as the fabric soaked in the tiny drops. “Jesus, you’ve got an unreal left hook.”
“I can’t take this. It’s too fucking much right now and I fucking hate that you know her—knew her—and I don’t get to.” Miki was so damned tired of crying—nearly as much as he hated trying not to—so he gave in, letting his tears go. They ran unchecked as he struggled to suck in a breath to calm his shattered nerves, but nothing seemed to help. “What the hell did you want from me? Because I don’t know what to do with you. I kind of want to go out of the door and just leave you here, but if I do, I’m never going to know about her, and I want to. But that gives you power over me, and I’ll be fucking damned if I get played. So what the fuck do you want?”
Stewart’s hands settled on Miki’s shoulders, their bodies close enough to feel each other’s warmth, but Stewart didn’t pull him in for a hug. Instead he squeezed lightly and murmured, “I came here today because I needed to see my son. If it makes you feel any better, you scare the fuck out of me. I don’t know what I want. I never imagined I’d have a kid, and here you are, pretty and broken and loved by what looks like a large Irish rugby team.
“I don’t know if you’ll ever let me into your life, and I don’t know if you’ll ever like me, much less love me,” he continued, his expression as leery as Miki felt. “I want to get to know you, and more importantly, I want to get to love you. Because I’m your dad, and just like your mom, I never would have thrown you away, and I will fucking die rather than let Wong have you.”
IT WAS interesting to sit at a table in their lieutenant’s office with an order of Mexican food with a man who’d just brought Miki to tears and not punch his face in. Judging by the speckles of blood on Stewart’s shirt and his swollen nose, it looked like Miki’d beat Kane to it. Kel didn’t seem to have an issue with Stewart, but Kane was definitely conflicted. He’d gotten a quick kiss and a fierce hug from a rattled Miki, then a mumbled insistence about getting to his therapist on time. A second later, Miki and Damien were both ghosts, leaving nothing behind but the impression that they’d been there and a shell-shocked Stewart standing in their wake. Kel, a bottomless pit, suggested they hit up a taco shop a few yards away from the station to discuss the case over nachos, and Stewart threw in a mumbled agreement, providing the shop delivered tequila.
They didn’t have the tequila, but the shop more than made up for it by packing at least a pound of meat on Kane’s carne asada fries. Stewart eyed Kane’s lunch, then dug a chip through the toppings of his nachos, ignoring Kel’s rambling dialogue about salsas and a preference for the shop’s green tomatillo sauce over his mother’s.
“Do the two of you want me to give you some space to talk? Because if you guys want to brawl it out, I suggest you take it down to the gym. Can’t see Casey being happy about his office getting fucked-up.” Kel stopped rifling through the take-out bag and met Kane’s glare with an exaggerated mockery of a grimace. “We need to talk about Zhou. We all agreed that Stewart and Miki need to meet, so we got that out of the way, but there’s business to be done and none of us have time for a pissing match. Or did someone find Wong while we were all waiting for the family reunion to be over?”
“Is your partner always this much of an asshole?” Stewart asked softly. “Or is he playing the bad cop so you look good?”
“We like to switch things up.” Kane pushed the Styrofoam container away from the edge of the table, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t think in this case anyone is going to be the good cop. Whatever you said to Miki back there screwed with his head a little bit, so I’m kind of on the fence about you, Stewart.”
The office was large enough for Casey to have a meeting table set up in one corner, and the lieutenant had suggested they discuss the case behind closed doors. He’d agreed to it solely so he didn’t have to deal with his siblings and father hovering nearby, but having Miki’s father only a few feet away meant the man was within strangling distance. Stymied by Miki’s hasty exit, Kane wondered if he would be throttling Stewart before the end of the day.
“I don’t know Micah—Miki—well enough to tell you how he’s doing right now, but mostly I think he’s dealing with losing his mom. Shit, I thought I had dealt with losing her years ago, but seeing him brought everything back.” Stewart bit off his words, throwing them out at Kane like they were poker chips and he needed to lay them down before a roulette wheel was spun. He had a frenetic energy to him, a wound-up-tight vibe Kane knew all too well. If it was Miki, he would know what to do, but Stewart was a whole different kettle of fish. The man stood, pacing off a few feet. Turning back around, he said, “I fucked up his life. And I pretty much got her killed. I don’t expect I’ll be invited to the Christmas dinner anytime soon, but I really wanted—want—to know my son. I woke up this morning knowing I wasn’t going to be able to apologize for what happened, but I sure as hell didn’t think I’d break him.”
“He was broken the moment Hall picked him up and threw him into the system,” Kane growled. “I’m not going to tell you what was done to him because those are his secrets, his pain. I can tell you there’s room in his life for another father, but you’re going to have to earn it.”
“Shit, with Miki you have to earn every single fucking inch.” Kel snorted. “I like him, but he’s hard, and knowing everything that I do about him, I don’t blame him. Still, every fucking inch.”
“And he’s worth it.” Kane rocked back in his chair, lifting its front legs off the floor as he watched Stewart make a circuit around the room. “He and my da are close. I wouldn’t have expected it because Miki doesn’t have much space in his life for cops and authority—despite loving me—and my family bleeds blue. But there is something about their relationship that humbles me, because it’s not like the one I have with my da. Miki is his son, so he knows what it’s like to have a father, but that father is Donal. You’re going to have to show him that there’s other ways of being a dad, because you’re not the man my father is and you never will be. That’s nothing against you but everything for him, and that’s how Miki sees him.”
“So it doesn’t sound like I’ve got much of a chance,” Stewart sneered. “Why the h
ell should I bother, then?”
“How’s that saying go?” Kel chuckled. “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree? Looks like Miki just rolled off the branch and laid there.”
“Aye, they’re very disagreeable,” Kane muttered, rolling his eyes. “What I’m saying is you have to tell him what you’re about and show him that you’ll be there if he needs you. And right now, the best thing you can do is help us get Wong and Zhou off the streets, because Miki isn’t safe until we do. Just go slowly with him, and if he tells you to back off, step away. Give him some room, because he needs it and we’ve just gotten him to the point where he tells us.”
“What did he do before? Knife you?” Stewart stopped his pacing. “Because the bastard punched me in the nose. I didn’t even see it coming. It was that fast.”
“You should be glad he didn’t pick up the chair and hit you with it,” Kel added. “That’s a thing with him. Don’t get into a fight with Miki and expect to come out with all of your teeth. He’ll grab whatever is nearby and fuck you up. Most guys get into a fight to prove their point. Miki gets into a fight to kill you.”
“Lovely. My son is a rabid ferret,” the former agent growled. “Well, lucky for me, ferrets are legal in this city. They are, aren’t they?”
“They are. So how about if we table our boxing match until later and get down to work?” Kane gestured at the chair next to him. “If you’re smart, get my da on your side. It’ll go a long way in smoothing out your relationship. I’d say try to sweet-talk my mom into helping you, but she’s a harder nut to crack than Miki.”
Kane didn’t think he was ever going to get used to seeing Miki’s expressions on another man’s face. Stewart sat down and picked at the nachos in front of him. He looked weary, his shoulders slumped forward, and the silver shot through his hair gleamed under the fluorescent lights. He was a handsome man in a lot of ways, someone Kane might have given a second look to a few years ago, but now he only saw a package of trouble landing on his front porch.
Stewart began to talk. “Wong was big on family, probably still is. His sister ran a lot of things, but her ex-husband was a piece of shit. We got her to flip because she’d wanted the ex killed, but Wong refused because the guy was running a lot of books for him and doing a good job.
“He didn’t hurt her, but he was definitely holding her back, because while he was good at numbers, he wasn’t really good at being faithful. Danny didn’t see that as a problem, but Susan did. About a few years into Danny’s prison term, Susan’s ex-husband ended up dead and she got sole custody. She keeps saying the reason she dropped out of protection was because of her kid, but truth is, she probably missed the power. Susan likes being rich, and from what I hear, her kid is more like her than her ex. Have you guys talked to her son?”
“We’ve got Chang down at Gang Task Force trying to get us a meeting, but the guy is slippery and we can’t nail him down. We did a meet and greet with Susan Wong-Lee before she headed to China, but the biggest thing she dropped on us was your name.” Kel resumed eating, passing Kane a napkin as he dug into his fries. “We got Zhou from Hall.”
“What we have on Zhou is a bit spotty. A lot from the days when you were on that case, but not much afterwards.” Kane reached for the pile of folders he’d brought in with him. Finding the one on Zhou, he opened it up, careful not to drip food on the pages. “Don’t have good photos and nobody by that name appears to have a driver’s license in the database, so we don’t have anything to go on there. Who else would he have gone to after Wong went in?”
Stewart rattled off a few names, but Kel shook his head when he heard them and said, “All of those guys are dead or incarcerated. We were hoping for a hit with Adam Lee’s known associates, but it doesn’t seem like he picked up any of his uncle’s lackeys.”
“What we’re going to need you to do is look through the current photos that we have of Wong’s people and tell us who you think can give us a lead.” Kane slid over a pack of mug shots. “Chang’s been great for active players, but we’re looking at people we may be able to dig into because they don’t want Wong in their lives. And since Hall took himself off the playing board, you’re all I’ve got now. Find me somebody so I don’t have to keep Miki in a box anymore.”
“SO I guess you were pissed off at him?” Damien stretched out as much as he could in the back of the black sedan, slinging his long legs over Miki’s thighs. “Enough that you needed to see your therapist?”
“Shut up. You know I had an appointment with her this morning and it just lined up with meeting him,” Miki replied with a scowl, giving his brother a fierce look. “Are you mocking the whole therapy thing?”
“Sinjun, I am for anything that makes you feel better inside.” He smiled, warm and affectionate. It was comforting to have Damien’s weight on his legs and the touch of his fingers on Miki’s arm to leech away the bristling aggravation he’d nursed since they left the police station together. “I thought I would ask you about it now because you didn’t seem much like talking on the way over to Penny’s office.”
Miki glanced up at the back of Dan’s head, conscious of how much the security guard could overhear between them. He must’ve felt Miki’s eyes on him because the man looked up into the rearview mirror, then smirked. Reaching out, he touched a button on the sedan’s cockpit-like dashboard and a smoked window rose from a crevice in the front bench seat’s hard plastic backing. Miki mouthed sorry but didn’t know if Dan could see it through the tinted glass.
“Never thought I would see the day when you cared about how somebody else felt… that didn’t come out how I meant it to,” Damien objected when Miki balled up his fist. “Don’t be a pain in the ass. I know you’re not going to hit me.”
“I hit him.” Miki’s confession pulled out a small laugh from Damien. “It’s not funny. I’ve got anger issues, remember? That’s the whole point of going to see her.”
“Did you hit him because you were angry?” he asked, not bothering to hide his mirth. “Or because you got scared? Because from what you told me, he came around the table and tried to put his hands on you. I know and love you, Sinjun, but you’re not someone who welcomes the random cuddle and hug.”
“People should warn you or at least warn me,” Miki grumbled under his breath. “You just don’t go around grabbing people. So I punched him. Like I meant to. It just happened.”
“Well, at least you didn’t hit him with a chair.”
“I think I was going to, but it was too heavy. Cops should really rethink their furniture. You could kill somebody with those things if you really wanted to.”
“Pretty sure anyone else sitting in that room with an intent to kill,” Damien reminded him, “usually are wearing handcuffs and there’s cops with guns right next to them.”
Miki leaned against Damien, needing to touch something—someone—warm and solid in his life. He’d wanted to throw himself at Kane when he left the interview room, but it would’ve looked weak. And he wasn’t ready to be that vulnerable in front of his father. He got a quick one-armed hug from Donal, and then he’d given them a flurry of excuses, reminding everyone of his therapist appointment.
Penny had been shocked to see him two hours early, but she’d taken him in and he’d stalked into her counseling room, grateful she’d been willing to see him during the time she’d set aside for paperwork. He’d poured his heart and soul out to her, unable to sit down, and the room seemed too small—too hemmed in—for him to work off the anxiety crinkling beneath his skin. An hour and a half later, she finally got a word in edgewise, or at least it took him that long to hear her. What she asked him struck Miki hard, and he reeled back, wishing he had an answer for the question she threw at him.
He still didn’t have an answer, but Damien’s presence made it easier to think.
“Penny asked me if I was mad that he was alive,” Miki whispered. “Or if I wished he was dead because it would be easier to deal with him that way. Because of all the people who hurt me, t
he only one left alive to ask for my forgiveness is someone who never meant to hurt me. So she thinks I’m—I could be—pouring all of the shitty things I feel inside of me about Vega, Shing, and even that asshole Hall into how I feel about my real father.”
“It’s not a bad way to look at things,” Damien agreed. “Especially since you know your mom pretty much loved the hell out of you. Seems like the only one you have left to be mad at is him, especially since you’re no longer pissed off at Brigid.”
“I was never pissed off at Brigid,” Miki corrected.
“I think—and this is coming from knowing you for years—a lot of how you felt about Brigid had to do with how you felt about your mom before she became real to you and you found out about how she was.” Damien’s voice dropped, a gentle, soothing tone softening his words. “Up until a few weeks ago, your mother was somebody you avoided talking about, hell, even thinking about, because there was always a part of you wondering if she wanted you. So you took that and put it on Brigid, even though you knew she wanted to love you as much as she loves Forest and any of her other boys. So that leaves your dad, someone safe for you to be angry at.”
Miki wanted to tell Damien to fuck off, but the words lodged in his throat, unable to crawl past the bitterness he had nursed inside of him. He’d hated the idea of his mother for so long, to be faced with the truth of who she was knocked the wind out of him, and then Stewart stepped into the place Miki’d made for her years before. He wanted to deny the anger burning in his chest, and Miki opened his mouth, ready to argue, ready to find some way out of where Penny’s words put him, but as he was about to speak, Dan’s voice boomed through the speakers built into the sedan’s sound system.
“Get down!” Dan’s voice was sharp, harsh with panic and worry.
Then Miki’s world turned over.
Again.