She hissed out a breath between her teeth and stomped away from me to her car.
I looked at her and frowned and told her flatly, “This business isn’t exactly one where you make friends, Brysen. I don’t ask for full names and stats. I just take the money, and when they don’t have the money to pay me back, I take something else.” Maybe she didn’t need to know the rest, but we were this far into it, so I let her know: “The Lexus doesn’t even start to cover the amount your dad is in for, Bry.”
Something crossed her pretty face and her eyes gleamed at me with something sad and furious. “If you had known he was my dad, would it have made any difference?”
If she didn’t matter to me I would’ve just lied to her.
“No. I still would’ve let him sit at the table, still would’ve taken the Lexus for the debt. It’s what I do.”
She shook her head and told me in a frigid tone, “Fuck you.”
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.