Free Darkside Blues: SciFi Alien Romance (Dark Planet Warriors Book 4.5) by Anna Carven Page B

never told ya this, but when the Council of Families elevated Arik to the position of Second, I ain’t never approved of it. I only accepted the deal ‘coz in exchange, they allowed me to give ya the North Ward. There’s always a price to power, kid, but giving control of that territory to ya, an outsider, was one decision I never regretted.”
    Kai bowed his head. “You give me too much credit.”
    “Nah. I’ve watched the place transform under yer watch. Ya’ve cleaned the shabu   and all the cheap synthetic drugs from the streets and gotten rid of the low-grade dealers and pimps. Ya’ve built up the infrastructure. Ten years ago, a man couldn’t walk around the North Ward without worryin’ whether he was gonna get stabbed for his body parts.”
    The old man raised a skeletal hand and patted Kai on the shoulder. “Keep my daughter safe, and have yer people go to ground. The Council will call for ya tomorrow, and by that time, I’ll probably be dead.”
    Kai opened his mouth to protest, but the boss held up a hand. “Don’t worry about me, kid. Ya know very well this body’s been holdin’ up for far too long. And don’t ya tell Melia a thing. I don’t want her to remember me like this. Yer the only one who can protect her now.”
    To their left, they heard a splash. The bodyguard flipped a silver fish onto the cracked tiles at the water’s edge. It flailed helplessly, gasping for air.
    “They’re going to give me a big funeral, proper mob style. Ya have my permission not to attend. Start workin’ on those arrangements we talked about. I never wanted to see Darkside go this way, but it ain’t gonna be helped.”
    “Understood.” Kai bowed again. A heavy weight settled in his chest as he looked at the frail old man who had plucked him from poverty and invested in him. When he’d failed his MQ exam at the Federation Academy, Vadim had been there to take him in.
    The Federation hadn’t been able to get rid of him quickly enough.
    The Morality Quotient he’d been given had been the rarest one: X.
    Unsuitable for any type of employment.
    The Academy had high hopes for him after he’d become the first Unregistered to qualify for a scholarship and make it through to the examination stage.
    But then the MQ exam had brought him back down to Earth. Apparently, his particular combination of antisocial traits and intelligence was dangerous. Besides, he was just an Unregistered after all, not worthy to become a fully-fledged citizen of the Federation.
    He’d been perfect gangster material; perfect fodder for the old man’s recruitment drive.
    And now this old man was about to pass on into the next life.
    Kai didn’t know whether to feel sad, or relieved, or both.
    “Don’t look at me like that, son,” the Boss wheezed. “Ya know me well enough by now to know that death has been on my mind for a long time. I have regrets, but I’m not afraid.”
    A faint buzzing sound started up, coming from the Boss’s side. “Fuckin’ babysitters,” he growled. “They can’t let an old man have even a few minutes of peace. They’re gonna come looking for me now. Ya’d better go, Kainan.”
    “I can take you out of here,” Kai said grimly. “My people can protect you, Boss.”
    “What, and have Arik and the Families after both our heads? Make ya protect a dyin’ man? It’s pointless. I may be the official Boss of the Urubora clan, but I ain’t got no power anymore, son. They’ve systematically taken it from me over the past century. The only saving grace is that ya have the North Ward. That’s the best of the territories, Kai. Ya made it like that. And yer so close now. Now get outta my sight and don’t come back to the Tower again. Don’t ya dare show up at my funeral, boy. I forbid it. And don’t worry about the Families. As a parting gift to ya, I’ll handle them. I got a plan to deal with them.”
    Kai bowed. His relationship with the sometimes kind, sometimes cruel Vadim Araki had been a