I lifted an eyebrow. “Anytime, anyplace you want, pretty girl.”
She opened her mouth like she was going to say something else, I saw her struggle with words that wouldn’t come, and then she just shook her head and muttered so low I almost couldn’t hear it:
“Your job sucks, Race. What you do is not something I think I can be part of. You ruin lives.”
Now she was getting the picture. I didn’t say anything as she got into her car and drove away. When the gates closed behind her, it was like watching her get locked out of my world forever. I really never should have let her into the fortress in the first place. This world was bleak and gray. There was no place here for the summer sky.
I felt Bax walk up behind me and smelled the acrid waft of smoke that always clung to him.
“Problem?”
I looked over my shoulder at him and shrugged. “Her dad is in deep and she didn’t even know he liked to play cards. Unfortunately, he’s shit at it and is in for three hundred K at the very least.”
“Fuck that.”
“Yeah. She’s pissed probably more at him than at me, but I can’t give the Lexus back, and that hurt her.”
“If you give it back you would look like a pussy.”
I frowned at him. “I would look like paying up what you owe doesn’t matter, and that can’t happen.”
“What happened to you anyway? Nassir throw you in the Pit?”
The Pit was the bloodstained circle on the concrete floor where men tried to kill each other with bare hands and college kids danced to bad house music.
“Marcus Whaler didn’t want to pay what he owed. Instead of figuring his shit out, he paid some thug half of what his debt was to try and persuade me to let him off the hook.” I grunted. “It didn’t work, and now Marcus has two broken kneecaps.”
“What about the hired muscle?”
“If Marcus had more cash I would be dead. The guy didn’t have a weapon, wasn’t anything more than a gym rat looking for a thrill and a quick buck. After I put him on the ground, I told him to get in touch with Nassir. He’s perfect for the Pit on fight night, and when I started talking money, all he cared about was green, not finishing me off for Marcus.”
“You need to start taking a goddamn gun with you, Race. This shit is getting more and more dangerous.”
I couldn’t argue with him and it was starting to get old. I needed to put on some shoes and a shirt. Standing around half naked in the barren garage was doing nothing to help my injured body.
“Yeah, and I’m going to talk to Nassir about hiring some bagmen. The big-dollar stuff I still want to handle, but the little stuff—anything under ten K—we can have errand boys handle. I’m sick of getting used as a punching bag.”
We walked back into the garage. I rubbed my hands through my hair and winced as the motion pulled at my sore sides.
“You gonna be able to deal if that chick doesn’t come around?”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. I had never really been serious about a girl, but I liked Brysen, would keep her if I could, but my life wasn’t for everyone, and she had to want to be here in the trenches if things between us were ever going to be more than fun and sexual games.
“I don’t know. Maybe?” It was a question I didn’t have an answer for at the moment. “I can’t worry about her right now. The feds raided the Hartman castle today and took Dad away in cuffs. They froze all the accounts and Mom called freaking out.”
“Bullshit. You are not helping that asshole out.” His voice had dropped an octave and I could feel the anger and hate pouring off his big body. My dad had tried to have Dovie killed. It wasn’t something Bax was ever going to forget. If he ever got a chance, I knew, just knew he would put my father in the ground and not think twice about it because he loved my sister and that was the only thing that made sense to him.
“No. I hope he turns on Benny and the rest of the crew and they have their people shank him while he’s locked up. He’ll never make it to a trial date, he’s too soft.”
“What if the feds try and put him in witness protection like they did to that bitch who sold Dovie out?”
If they put him in witness protection—WITSEC—then I would track him down and let Bax have at him and there would be no guilt when I did it; at least that’s what I tried to convince myself I would do.
“If that happens I’ll find him and you can do what you need to do.”
His dark eyes took measure to see if what I was saying was true. I hated that it was there, the distrust he couldn’t shake. I didn’t regret the choices I had made that had sent him to prison, it had saved his life after all, gotten him free of Novak the only way possible. I did, however, hate that it had broken the ironclad bond we had always had.
“What I need to do won’t be pretty.”
“I know that. Speaking of doing things that aren’t pretty, you think you can take a few hours one day next week and swing by the university with me?”
One of his jet-black eyebrows winged up.
“For?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I think it’s time someone had a chat with the TA giving Brysen a hard time.”
He chuckled a little and walked to the Hemi. “She gonna appreciate you getting involved?”
“Probably not. But I’m going to do it anyway.”
He put a hand on the polished fender of the car and looked at me steadily.
“Do you think the reason you are so hooked into this girl is because she reminds you of what you lost? She’s all glossy and shiny, kind of like you used to be before I dragged you down into the gutter.”