Page 53 of Hell's Kitten

“Really not a good time, Nim,” she snaps.

My heart sinks.

“Are they shutting you down, too?” I ask quietly.

There’s a pause. “Mother-fuckingfuckers!”she roars before taking an audible breath and regaining some composure. “We need to reach out to the others. I’ll call Candy. You got Ruben’s number?”

I grunt and end the call, not wanting to waste any time. It’s just turned seven, so I imagine neither the garage or the nail salon will be open. Like me, Donna lives above the pub. Our other friends might have nasty surprises waiting for them.

Or not. As it turns out, Durham didn’t want to wait.

“Yeah,” Ruben says in a horribly defeated voice. “They came banging on my door. Horowitz’s has been classified as a crimescene, and the FBI is tearing it apart right now. TheFBI,Nim. This started with reports of stolen cars and now they’re insinuating that I’ve got ties with themafia.”

I feel numb. How are we supposed to fight this when it’s gotten to that level? Durham must know some really powerful people.

It’s over. I look around as Humphrey shoves a manila envelope into my hands. I assume it has some kind of cease-and-desist order in it. I don’t care. All the red tape stretched over my beloved café and the distressed faces of my employees tell me everything I need to know.

The tabby kitten pokes his head out and looks at me, giving me a sad little meow. He’s got a dust bunny on him from his adventure on top of the fridge, so I carefully pluck it off him.

“Have a good day, Mr. Decker,” Mrs. Durham says with vicious satisfaction. As she strides out of the café, her heels clip-clop on the tiles. Mr. Humphrey and his suited goons follow after her. The bell tinkles sadly as I watch them leave. Then I’m aware of just how quiet and still my beloved Toe Beans is.

“Nim,” Leah says, taking a step forward.

“You should all go home,” I say, unable to look any of them in the eye. “I’ll be in touch about taking care of the cats, but I’ll handle it for today. I…I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t your fault,” Leah starts to say hotly, but I’m ashamed to say I just turn away and walk into the rec room.

I sit down on the floor in the middle, where I’m surrounded by carriers, each with a scared little face looking out at me. There’s a lump in my throat as I gently stroke the top of the tabby’s head with a single finger.

I don’t see any way back from this. Worse, I now have to go upstairs and wake Jessie so I can tell him what’s happened before he goes to class. I promised him I wouldn’t keep himin the dark anymore, and there’s no way I’m letting him down again.

Not in that way, at least.

If I can’t serve customers, how long can I feasibly hold on to Toe Beans? How fast will I have to close up shop? And after that, how long until I lose the apartment?

I know I need to face the music sooner rather than later. But just for now, I sit in the quiet with the cats I promised I would rehome and, in all likeliness, will now end up back at the shelter. I’ve let everybody down.

I knew I was a terrible Daddy.

CHAPTER 20

Jessie

Goingto school after knowing what had happened to Toe Beans was almost impossible, but Nim insisted. I was so grateful that he hadn’t shut me out from this devastating development that I trusted I could leave him, and we’d work on it when I got home after training later. But I won’t lie. His hollow expression scared the shit out of me.

I could barely concentrate on Professor Knight’s words, even though it was a really interesting philosophy class. But I was a love-sick kitten, and all I could think about was how I was going to try and save Nim. After all, he’d saved me. It was only fair.

What could I do, though? The mayor was obviously corrupt and had important people in his pocket. Nim was convinced that Sheriff Chancey was genuinely on our side, so if there was nothing she could do, then what hope did I have?

The DEA is investigating the pub. The FBI is at the garage. ICE is apparently rounding up all of the employees from the Butterflies salon for interrogation despite everyone being American citizens. Not to mention that O’Toole’s isn’t a brothel or drug den, and Horowitz’s isn’t illegally modifying stolen cars for the mafia.

Given that facts don’t seem to matter to Mayor Durham, everyone is still understandably nervous.

How am I supposed to concentrate on what some president did a hundred years ago or what the subtext of a poem really means? My education is something that I chose to invest in because I knew my mom was out of the woods. But it’s a luxury. It’s not real life. What matters ispeople,notgrades.

I’m not even excited to head to cheer practice, despite the fact that we’ve actually been getting better these past few training sessions. Cheerleading is my passion, but Tara and her cronies try so hard to suck the joy out of it some days I don’t even know why I bother.

As I head over to the gym, I think about how I should just give Alannah my spot and walk away. But I realize that’s my anxiety talking. We need to keep fighting until the day we’re both competing side by side.

---