Not even Sila had to ask if that was sarcasm to know it was.
Chapter 13:
“You invited himhere?” Madden let out a low whistle. “Ballsy move.”
Kelevra motioned toward the man on the stool next to him with his half-empty glass. “Kal suggested it.”
“That’s not at all what happened,” Baikal corrected, sipping his drink with a shake of his head. He was wearing those dark-framed glasses he was obsessed with, the Inspire 3.0, tech that one of his daddy’s many companies had created.
It operated a lot like Kel’s eye, so as much as he wanted to rag the guy for them, he understood the appeal. He’d lost his eye when he’d been a child and had gotten the implant shortly after. The tech in his face was as much a part of him as his actual working eye was at this point.
“I told you to find something that could be beneficial to him and offer it up as an apology,” Baikal reiterated. “I did not tell you to invite the object of your obsession to an underground fight club.”
“Apology for what?” Madden asked, out of the loop.
Kelevra didn’t want to tell him, and one quick warning look in Kal’s direction had the Brumal Prince shrugging in disinterest. They didn’t tread on one another’s toes, even when it came to the small stuff. That’s what made this work.
Knowing Baikal had an obsession of his own was what had drawn Kelevra to him after the incident with Rin in the locker room. He’d been fuming the entire drive over to the Void estate before he’d thought to call ahead and had been forced to change trajectory when he’d discovered Kal was here at Friction.
Baikal didn’t come here often, not as keen on bloodshed as Kelevra was, at least, not in the same sense. Kal wouldn’t hesitate to resort to it, as the prince of the Brumal mafia, violence was second nature to him, but he typically thought things through before acting on them.
Kelevra didn’t like to bother with thinking, he’d rather react. This wasn’t due to a lack of intelligence, but a lack of consequence. When you were an Imperial Prince with no real responsibility and an entire planet willing to cater to and kiss your ass, there weren’t really any repercussions.
Which was probably why he was so lost with how to approach Rin from here.
Baikal was better at playing people than Kel was. Manipulation had never been his style. People either gave him what he wanted or…they gave him what he wanted. But after what had happened in the shower, seeing Rin shut down so completely like that…Maybe learning how to handle people wouldn’t be such an epic waste of time after all. Not that he wasn’t loathe to admit he needed the other guy's help.
Because he was.
Kelevra scowled and downed the rest of his drink, slamming the glass onto the bar countertop with a little more force than necessary.
“Whatever,” Madden rolled his eyes and crossed the room toward the ring, never one to feel left out.
“Baby,” Kel grumbled under his breath, but Baikal caught it and chuckled.
They were standing at the long bar—a slab of shiny mahogany wood that was polished to such a fine finish Kel could—and had—stare at his reflection on it. Their personal bartender, a man who was loyal to both Brumal and the Imperial family, stood behind it polishing a glass, not paying either of them any mind. He never spoke to any of them, merely nodded his head in the affirmative or negative.
Probably because he didn’t have a tongue but…Now that he thought about it, Kelevra wasn’t exactly aware of why or when the guy had lost it.
Friction was a single-level building built on the property of Club Vigor, set off to the side, half hidden within a copse of dense trees. Initially built to house a private spaceship for the upper tier of the club, it’d been abandoned and later taken on by Kel. The building itself was privately owned, and invitation-only on a night-to-night basis. Only members of the Satellite—those within Baikal’s inner circle—and Kelevra’s Retinue had the code to the place. If cleaning personnel from the club wanted in to do their job, even they had to wait for someone with the code to let them in.
Even though it was on club grounds, there was a separate parking lot, located down a narrow windy backroad almost no one ever traveled on. That was where most of them parked when they came here to hang out and blow off steam. It was safe territory, a place where politics and corporate jargon played no part.
“Still mad?” Baikal had been nursing the same drink since Kelevra had gotten there, leading him to believe the man had other plans for the evening. He kept his eyes on two of the guys horsing around in the large ring across from them, though it was clear he was only mildly interested in their antics.
Kal was good at playing people.
But Kelevra wasn’t too keen on being played.
“I shouldn’t have asked you,” he grunted. “Won’t make that mistake again.”
The corner of Baikal’s mouth tipped up. “Are you upset that he kicked you, that you let him get the upper hand, or that you ruined a suit by rolling around on a grimy gym locker room floor?”
“It was one of my favorites,” Kel said, tapping the bar to get June, the bartender’s, attention. “I can’t believe I lost my senses that deeply that I ruined it.”
Kal quirked a brow.
“Fine, spur-of-the-moment sexcapades are my thing, it’s not that surprising. Still. His reaction…He was into it. He’s into me!” He snatched the drink and drained the glass a second time, immediately motioning for another.
