Bound to the Mob Alpha's Baby novel · Chapter 30 of 32

Chapter 30: The Bite

Vin moved in that night.

It took him one trip across Milwaukee Avenue.

One duffel bag. His long black coat. A toothbrush in a plastic cup.

And the rocking chair, which he carried over his head through the snow with one rocker still missing.

"Not the bad chairs," Aoife said from the top of the stairs.

"Not the bad chairs," he said.

"I'm serious, Coat. I've seen them. One of them is a crime."

"That one's going to the Table. Nobody will dare to say anything."

He unpacked in ten minutes.

At the bottom of the duffel, wrapped in a handkerchief, was a key.

A plain brass key, badly cut, the edges still rough.

Mickey picked it up.

"That's the one you cut in November," he said. "It doesn't open anything."

"I know."

"Why'd you keep it?"

Vin took it back from him and put it on the dresser, by Mickey's picks.

"It was the first thing you let me make in your shop."

Mickey had to go stand in the bathroom for a minute.

That night they lay in Mickey's narrow bed under the patchwork quilt, Vin's chest against Mickey's back, Vin's hand on his stomach.

The baby kicked Vin's palm.

Vin went so still Mickey thought he'd stopped breathing.

"He does that," Mickey said.

"He's strong."

"He's a locksmith. He's trying to get out."

Vin's laugh moved against Mickey's hair.

Mickey turned over to face him, which took a while now.

"I want to ask you something," he said. "And I want you to not answer until I'm done."

"Okay."

Mickey let it go.

"I want the bite," he said.

Vin's eyes went gold in the dark.

"Not the roof. Not a moon, not a mask, not a mark I thought was a bruise."

"I want to pick the night, out loud, days ahead. Sober. So nobody ever says it was the Binding or the baby or the moon."

"I'm done now."

Vin was quiet for a while.

"Pick the night," he said.

"Saturday after next. The last night of winter."

"Saturday after next."

"And until then, nothing past this."

"Nothing past this," Vin said.

Then he kissed Mickey, slow, and made it very hard to keep his word.

They kept it for nine nights.

It was the hardest work Mickey had ever done, and he'd read a vault by ear.

Every night Vin kissed him like he was learning a lock, one pin at a time.

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