The bathroom was gross, so I took care of business as fast as I could and scrubbed my hands like I was getting ready for surgery. I was slicking on a layer of lip gloss and trying to ascertain just how drunk I was by touching the tip of my nose with my index finger, when the door to the small room rattled. I jumped away from the mirror, and hollered that I would be out in a minute, but that didn’t deter whoever was trying to get in. Had I been sober, I probably would have been way more freaked out. As it was, when the shabby knob finally gave up the fight and the figure crowded into the room with me, it was all I could do to muster up some startled surprise.
I most definitely hadn’t been expecting the lurking stranger that I had seen around my neighborhood, the man who I was sure had tried to manhandle Cora, to appear in this gross bathroom and be instantly up in my face. He grabbed my shoulders and shoved me against the sink. Now that only a fraction of space separated us, I no longer had a hard time placing him.
“Silas.”
I said it like people said the word cancer, which is really what he was. Silas Anderson was all the bad things to all the bad people, and if he was who my brother was running from, then whatever Asa had told me was only half the story. The reason I hadn’t recognized him earlier was that life clearly had not been kind to him since I left Woodward. He was a year older than Asa but looked like he was fifty. His skin was gross and taunt, his eyes wild and sunken, and his once decent hair hung stringy and oily around an ugly face. It was hard to believe that at one point, this guy had been considered a catch. It was equally hard to believe that at one point, I hadn’t considered sleeping with him to be all that bad of a chore, if it kept him off my brother’s back. Now, the idea made my stomach lurch and my head spin.
“Where’s the book, Ayd? I know Asa is here. I knew that pussy couldn’t resist running to you to fix his shit, like always. I need that book back now.”
I tried to shake him off, but the space was too small and he was fueled by desperation and panic.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My teeth clicked together hard when he started to shake me.
“I don’t know what your idiot brother told you, but this isn’t small-time stuff he stumbled into. If he doesn’t give the book back, these people won’t just kill him, they’ll take out their anger on your ma and then they’ll come after you.”
I got a hand on his chest and shoved him back enough so that I could wiggle toward the door.
“What are you talking about? Asa told me he owes someone twenty grand for something he took.”
Silas barked a laugh that made my skin crawl. “No way. That moron jacked the little black book from one of the local MCs. It has the totals due and money owed from anyone and everyone over most of the fucking south. I don’t know what he thought he was going to do with it, but now he has everyone and their goddamn mother on his ass to get it back. You know he’ll sell you out faster than a greased pig to get out of this mess, Ayd. Just tell me where it is.”
“Did you try to break into my house?”
He looked around the room and his eyes were buggy and wild. “Little bitch almost Tasered me in the nuts.”
“You’re lucky she didn’t shoot you. She’s from Brooklyn, and she doesn’t mess around.”
“Stop avoiding the question. I know he’s here. I followed you around for days waiting for him to ask you to make it all better. Just like he always did.”
I tried not to convulse in disgust when his eyes raked over me from head to toe.
“I don’t do that for him anymore, any of it. This is his mess to clean up.” I made sure my point was clear. “I don’t know where he is and I don’t know anything about a book.”
Silas swore and I jumped when his meaty fist smashed into the dingy mirror over the sink, shattering it into a shower of glass bits.
“This isn’t a game, Ayd. This is a bunch of pissed-off bikers who run drugs and guns, and they have no problem putting your entire family in the ground in the backwoods if it suits them. Asa screwed the pooch and I’m just trying to minimize the damage.”
“By following me? By scaring the crap out of my roommate and trying to break into my house? This isn’t Woodward. None of that is going to fly here.”
I pulled the door open and glared at him over my shoulder. “I’ll talk to Asa. If I can get him to hand that book over, you better make sure nothing happens to my mama. But chances are he already did something stupid with it and he lied about needing the twenty grand so he could disappear. This is Asa, you know what he’s capable of.”
Silas’s gummy eyes skirted over me from the top of my head to the worn toes of my boots. “So do you, Ayd, and if you think for one hot second that piece of shit would be above selling your fine ass to an MC, if it meant keeping his own skin safe, than you’re dead wrong and that fancy college didn’t teach you shit.”
I walked out the door shaking from the inside out. I had tried so hard to keep the past from interfering with my new life, tried so hard to forget about the things I’d done and the way I had lived, but it seemed like fate was bound and determined to keep right on cramming it down my throat. At that moment, I could say in all honesty that I hated my brother, hated everything he represented, and yet I was still going to have to try to figure out a way to keep him breathing. It grated that I couldn’t just let him hang from the noose of his own stupidity and greed.
When I got back to the table, I wasn’t at all surprised to see that we had visitors. Shaw was sitting on Rule’s lap while he finished her beer, and Jet had taken up post in the seat I had recently vacated. They were all laughing at something Cora was saying, and I felt my heart sink. This was the family I had always wanted. These were the people who I could count on, who would love me through the good and the bad and not ask a thing of me in return, and all I had done was fool them into thinking I was worth more than I actually ever was.