He held my gaze steady as he brought the bottle to his own lips, his tongue chasing the vodka droplets from the rim in a way that was far too fucking sexual for my liking right now. Especially with Leon right there, watching our every move.
I had no clue what the two of them had discussed to form a cease-fire, but I doubted it was going to hold for long. Shit.
Swallowing hard, I turned my attention to the medical kit and pulled out the items I needed to properly clean and stitch the cut on Kai’s face. Focusing on his injury rather than the way he was looking at me helped clear my head a little.
When I’d peeled off his hopeless attempt at a patch up, I nudged him to take another mouthful of vodka before cleaning the cut quickly and thoroughly with disinfectant. Kai hissed between his teeth, and I caught Leon’s smirk as he moved his ladder to a closer light fixture.
“This might sting a bit,” I murmured, threading my needle and pinching the edges of his split brow together.
He groaned when the needle pierced his skin, but didn’t jerk away while I completed the two little stitches his cut needed. When I was done, I cleaned off the excess blood and stuck a dressing on.
“Done,” I announced. “What else?” I spotted a smear of dried blood on his throat and tugged the neck of his T-shirt down to inspect the cut across his collarbone.
“Just that one,” Kai said in a low voice. “The rest are just bruises, I think.”
I arched a brow, then indicated for him to take his T-shirt off. I may as well clean that cut while I had everything out. “Shit, Big Man,” I muttered when I saw the mottled purple bruising already coming up across his ribs. “You got your ass handed to you.”
He winced as I slapped a disinfectant wipe on his collarbone cut, and then he grabbed the bottle of vodka for another gulp. After he set it down, he rested his hands on my hips, pulling me closer as I swiped the dried blood off his throat. Did Leon have a knife on him? He must have, because he’d cut my panties off.
As though summoned by my thoughts, Leon slipped silently off his ladder and took a few steps closer to us. His eyes were locked on where Kai held my hips, and he’d produced a switchblade from somewhere.
He paused when he was just two feet behind Kai, his gaze flicking up to meet mine with a question shining from his eyes. Glaring back at him, I gave a sharp head shake making it perfectly clear that he was not permitted to stab Kai just for touching me.
Leon held my gaze a moment longer, like he was silently pleading with me to change my mind. But I hardened my glare, and he threw his hands up like I was being totally unreasonable.
“Did you get my note?” Kai asked, oblivious to the murderer at his back.
I refocused on him, studying his deep brown eyes. “The one you left on the pillow, after you left me passed out and exhausted following a marathon fuck session? That one?” My tone was edged with bitterness, because I was still pissed off at him for just disappearing in a puff of smoke.
Leon chuckled, going to the pantry and retrieving a bag of corn chips I had stashed there.
“You’re in no position to feel superior, Marx,” I snapped, shooting him an accusing glare. “At least Kai left a note.”
Leon popped the bag open and tossed a chip in his mouth. “Mmm, but I tortured a guy and cut all his fingers off for touching you. So a note sounds a bit fucking weak in comparison, doesn’t it?”
Kai’s lips parted and his grip on my hips tightened somewhat. It made me grin, because Leon wasn’t just crazy, he was crazy about me. The foreplay might be rough and bloody, but he’d never seriously hurt me. Of that, I was sure.
Not physically, anyway.
“I said I was coming back to you, Siren,” Kai defended himself, brushing off Leon’s unhinged comment. “You knew I meant it. I could never leave you for good. Never.” That last word was shot at Leon like a fucking dare, and I could practically feel the testosterone crackle through the air.
I placed my supplies back in the medical box, but I didn’t step away from Kai’s touch. It was grounding me and keeping my mind from turning into static electricity.
“Your note also said you were dealing with the hit on me,” I replied, stroking my fingers over his bruised ribs. “Which means you knew who was behind it.” I pressed my thumb a little harder than necessary against his ribs, and he hissed a sharp breath in.
Leon sauntered over to stand behind me, his hand stroking over one of my braids. “Well, well, well,” he murmured. “Big, bad Ares was behind the nuisance hit on you, beautiful. Surely that’s worth a little disembowelment?”
Kai tugged me closer to him, shooting a death glare over me to Leon. “Fuck you, psycho. I wasn’t behind the hit.” He refocused on me, tipping his head back to hold eye contact now that I was standing between his spread legs. “But yes, after you got that clue out of the last attacker, I knew who was responsible. I left to deal with it, and I did. The hit should be revoked.”
Leon wasn’t deterred by Kai pulling me closer. He just rested his chin on my shoulder, sneering at Kai as Leon’s arms circled my waist. “Who was it, Ares? Scorned ex-lover? One of your team?”
Pain flashed across Kai’s face, and I drew a quick breath. “It was Sam, wasn’t it?”
Kai held my gaze, unblinking, but there was a deep sadness in his gaze that made my heart hurt. “It’s been dealt with, Siren. Can we leave it at that?”
Against my nature, I bit back the need to demand more information. Instead, I gave a small nod.
“Seriously?” Leon muttered. “Leave it at that? Do you even understand how utterly insulting that hit was to someone as notorious as Danny DeLuna?”
A laugh bubbled up in me, and I wriggled out of both of their embraces before I did something dumb like try to initiate a three-way. I wasn’t that suicidal… yet.
“Okay, let’s…” I ran a hand over my face, trying to gather all my scattered thoughts. When I realized both Leon and Kai were just staring at me, waiting for me to finish my sentence, I groaned. Then grabbed the vodka and took a gulp. “Can I assume that you two won’t murder one another at least for a couple of hours?”
Kai scowled, shooting Leon a dark glare as he rubbed a hand over his bruised ribs. Leon didn’t even glance at Kai, just gave me a secretive smile. Shit. Why’d I have to get involved with such live wires?
“Right,” I muttered when I got no confirmation to that question. “Then let’s sort out our mutual interests, shall we?” I rounded the table and pulled out the chair opposite where Kai sat. A pointed look at Leon saw him reluctantly pulling out a chair of his own, right beside me. Then he rested a hand on my thigh and pulled his seat closer. Fucking caveman.
“Other than our interest in you, I hardly think I have anything in common with this slimy fuck,” Kai sneered, eyeing Leon with hatred. More hatred than I fully prepared myself for, given Kai already knew Leon and I had a… thing. This wasn’t new information for him to digest, and I hadn’t been cheating on him.
Leon’s hand crept higher on my thigh, and I was reminded why I’d opted for yoga pants over a skirt or dress. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he murmured, reaching for another corn chip. “We actually have a lot in common. After all, you’ve been trying to eradicate all remnants of Project Remus… I’ve been actually doing that. We’re technically working toward the same goal.”
“Um, what?” I exclaimed, looking between Kai and Leon in shock. Yet neither of them seemed surprised… which pissed me off. “Alright, clearly you’re both keeping secrets, and no one is going to start sharing until we iron out the elephant in the room.”
Kai quirked his unbroken eyebrow at me. “How do you iron an elephant, ātaahua?”
If looks could kill, he would be severely hurting right now. Worse than he already did. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re both totally out of line for that brawl in Meow Lounge. You knew about each other, and despite how you both seem to enjoy spouting off possessive statements in the heat of the moment, I don’t actually belong to either one of you. Nor did I promise either one of you exclusivity.”
Leon’s hand tensed on my leg, but he stayed quiet. I could only assume he was allowing Kai to take enough rope to hang himself, because no way was he taking this without argument.
Kai was, without question, a fucking hothead. His face twisted with fury and outrage, and his fist clenched where it rested on the table. “Out of line?” he roared. “I was out of line? I walked into that club and found you half-naked, tied up and exposed to hundreds of strangers with his cum all over you!”
I shrugged, desperately clinging to my cool. “So? No one forced me into that situation, and to be frank with you, Kai, I think I kind of enjoyed the audience. It was hot.”