Fallen Duet: Brody & Lola: Free Fall & Down Fall (Easton Family Duet Boxsets Book 1)

by Abigail Davies

  I started to shake my head but stopped. I had to be on my feet for the next twelve hours, so getting a ride to the station would have been nice. But what would Hut say?

  I gritted my teeth. Fuck what Hut said. He didn’t get to dictate anything when it came to my life and the way I was living it.

  “I don’t bite,” Brody said, his gravelly voice inviting. He held his hands up in the air and grinned. “Promise.”

  “Okay.” I rolled my eyes at myself. “But only because my sneakers are already falling apart.” I pulled open the door and pushed inside. The fresh car smell told me that he kept it clean in here, unlike the SUV Hut and his crew had. That car was disgusting. Food wrappers and used baggies were only two of many things that lived inside it.

  Brody didn’t comment. Instead, he pushed his head forward to check his side mirror and pulled back out onto the road. “Where you heading?”

  “Train station.” I shuffled on the seat and clipped my belt in, wondering if I’d made the right choice by getting into this car. Brody was the newest member of the crew, he didn’t know the unspoken rules, but most of all, I didn’t know who he was. At least with the other guys I knew what to expect, but Brody was an enigma that I wanted to solve.

  He took a right turn, heading the same way I would have walked to the station, and I stared at each of his movements. His large hand gripped the top of the steering wheel, his thumb tapping on it to match the beat of the song that played quietly over the sound system. I followed the path up his arm and over the sleeve of his T-shirt, fascinated by each pulse his muscles took with every one of his movements.

  “How’s your neck?”

  My eyes widened, and my hand fluttered to the scarf covering the bruise. “It’s…fine.”

  Brody pulled to a stop outside the station, making me ten minutes early for my train. “No, it’s not.”

  “Excuse me?” I raised my brows and spun to face him fully, not liking his tone one bit.

  His dark-brown eyes met mine, and he tilted his head to the side, almost as if he was inviting me to repeat what I said. “You don’t have to lie to me, Lola.”

  I scoffed. “You don’t know me, Brody, so how about you not ask me questions.”

  He frowned. “Ask you questions?”

  “Yeah.” I grabbed my purse off the floor and placed my palm on the door handle. “Like, how I am.”

  He stared at me, and for some reason, I allowed him. I stayed in place as his mind seemed to be working something over, and when his eyes widened just a tad, his lips flattened into a straight line.

  “You don’t get asked that often, do you?”

  “What?” I murmured, afraid to talk too loud.

  “How you are.” He extended his finger on his steering wheel, pointing at me. “When was the last time someone asked you that?”

  I gritted my teeth and inhaled a deep breath as I pushed the door open. “When was the last time someone told you to go fuck yourself?” I slammed the door behind me and dipped so I could see into the car.

  Brody shrugged, but his lips couldn’t contain his grin. “It’s been a while actually.” He looked up at the ceiling of his car. “At least four days.”

  I couldn’t help it. A chuckle escaped, and the tension that had been holding my body hostage since last night started to evaporate.

  The engine vibrated, and he winked. “Have a good day, Lola.” I stared at the car as it pulled out onto the road.

  I felt like I’d just been owned by words alone.

  Chapter Four

  BRODY

  “You’re in here with us today,” Hut said from the passenger seat of his SUV.

  The darkened sky was deceiving, giving a pretense of cover that wasn’t there. Some people felt safer in the dark, but it was an illusion. A trick the brain played on you.

  Just like the darkened windows to his SUV. They may have been blacked out, but that didn’t mean Hut and his crew were unreachable. Bullets could cut through the glass and metal like a spoon in butter. Something my car wouldn’t allow. But I couldn’t really tell him that, could I?

  I tilted my head in acknowledgment and pushed into the back, slipping in beside Quinn and Jace. The two of them were skinny, strips of wind, and it was a good job because I took up at least one and a half of the back seats.

  I hadn’t sat in the back since I was a kid, and one thing was for sure, I didn’t like it one bit. But I had to play the part, a part I knew way too well.

  Ford revved the engine and pulled out into the road, nearly slamming into an oncoming car. Did this guy even own a license? It was on the tip of my tongue to ask Hut where we were going, but I kept silent. Silence could say more than a hundred words.

  Silence was an amazing thing. Some people cherished it, and some people hated it. Hut was of the latter. He loved to hear his own voice, and when there was even a small section of silence, he filled it with unnecessary babble. And that was what would get him into trouble. He’d be his own downfall—it was only a matter of time.

  Ford took turn upon turn, probably trying to confuse me as to where we were going, but he was an amateur compared to me. I’d run his game when I was in high school, and I’d been on a crew much similar to this, which made it almost laughable.

  He drove around in several circles, circles which meant nothing to me. I’d have still known where we were even if I didn’t have a tracker inside my watch. Finally, Ford turned the engine off, and we all filed out of the car and onto the gravel. A small warehouse sat to the right with a one-story house in front of us, an old man sat on its porch with a rifle resting lazily on his lap. I tried to take a look around without seeming too obvious, but I could feel several sets of eyes burning over my skin.

  “Welcome to where all the magic happens!” Hut held his arms open wide and spun around in a circle, acting like he was the star of the show and the outside light his own personal spotlight. “Come, lemme show you.” He waved his arm, signaling for me to follow, and like the dutiful soldier I was pretending to be, I stepped after him, leaving Jace and Quinn behind. Ford took up my rear, and it was becoming painfully clear that he was Hut’s second-in-command.

  Through all of the surveillance, we couldn’t work out the ranking of his crew, but being with them for just over a month now let me see what others couldn’t. I didn’t even think Hut’s contacts knew who was second-in-command, but it was clear as day inside the crew.

  Hut reached down and flicked the numbers on a lock, entering it and immediately scrambling them once it clicked open. Didn’t he realize bolt cutters would work just as well? The roller shutter clanged as Ford pulled it up, and the darkened space lit up like the Fourth of July. The brashness caught me off guard for a second, and then I got my bearings.

  Holy shit.

  “It’s amazing, huh?” Hut’s voice was full of wonderment like he’d just been given the key to the universe.

  It was a shit ton of cocaine piled high. A mountain of snow, just not the kind you could ski on. “Wow,” was all I managed to get out. My shock wasn’t fake. I was one step closer to bringing him down.

  “Come on, have a taste.” Hut didn’t wait for me to answer as he stepped inside. He pulled a pen knife out of his pocket, pierced one of the bricks, and brought it back out. The stark whiteness shone on the metal like a diamond enclosed in white gold. I could see the appeal of the stuff—both the money and the high—but I’d never slip into that life again.

  He held it out, waiting with his gaze focused on me. Maybe this was a test because if I were someone looking to take him down, I’d never snort a line and run the powder over my gums. Little did he know I’d do anything to get this scumbag off the streets.

  I took the handle of the knife from him, bought it to my right nostril, and inhaled a quick, deep breath. It burned, making me shake my head, but the effects were almost instantaneous. The euphoria blasted through me like a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds on a rainy day. My muscles relaxed in a way only cocaine could
make them, and the sigh that left my mouth physically told me how much I enjoyed it. It was in the back of my mind that I’d had to do this to prove some kind of unspoken loyalty, and even though my brain was telling me it was wrong and that I shouldn’t enjoy the effects of it, I couldn’t stop it.

  Hut’s lips lifted into a smirk as he took the knife off me and dipped it back into the block. He took twice as much as I did and snorted it without a second thought, closing his eyes and basking in what I was feeling right now.

  I had to pay attention to what was going on around me, but the next thirty minutes went by in a flash, and as soon as I felt my high starting to wane, Hut did too. Unlike him, though, I didn’t snort a second lot. He was chasing the high, but I knew better than most that nothing compared to that feeling of euphoria the first time you snorted.

  “Let’s go check on the old man,” Hut announced, practically skipping past me and out of the warehouse.

  My body sagged, the aftereffects running through my bloodstream, begging me for more of the high I’d experienced. I wouldn’t give in though—it’d be fully gone within an hour or two.

  Ford closed the warehouse up, his jaw locked as he did. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said he didn’t like what he was doing. But that couldn’t be right, not with him being Hut’s second-in-command. I made a mental note to watch him more and mention it to the team as I followed after Hut. The gravel crunched underneath my boots, blasting through my ears and making my senses go haywire.

  “Brody, this is Old Man Jack.” Hut halted on the small wooden porch and waved his arm between Jack and me. “Jack, this is Brody—newest member of the crew.”

  The old man stared at me, his bristly gray beard mixing in with his long hair. “Brody.” He nodded.

  “Quinn and Jace are gonna stay here for the rest of the night. We’ve got a buyer coming to test the product.” Hut leaned against one of the wooden beams that held the porch on the front of the house. “Stay where you are, and if there’s any trouble—”

  “This ain’t my first rodeo, Hut.” The old man raised his brow, daring Hut to say something else.

  Hut lifted his hands in the air and cackled a laugh as he stumbled back. “Okay, okay. I was just sayin'.” The old man stayed silent, leaving space for Hut to keep on talking. Like I said, Hut hated the silence. “This deal is gonna be huge,” Hut said, but he wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. We were all gathered around now, waiting to be told what to do next. “Don’t fuck it up.” His demeanor changed in the blink of an eye, and I was starting to understand just how dangerous his mood swings were. I faintly wondered if he’d been like this before or whether it was because of the continued cocaine use.

  Hut stared at the old man, then moved his gaze to Jace and Quinn. “You hear me?”

  “Got it, Hut,” Jace said, with Quinn repeating it after him. The old man did nothing but grip his rifle and move it closer to him. If it was that important, then why wasn’t Hut staying here? But then I understood. He didn’t want to be the face everyone saw, because then he’d be liable.

  “Let’s go.” Hut spun around, headed to the car, and jumped in without another word.

  I turned to face Ford, who was watching me intently. He tilted his head toward the car, and I moved as I mentally listed off the things I needed to look into. It was becoming apparent that this was more complicated than I originally thought.

  LOLA

  I wiped the table clean and gathered the empty plates to take them back to the kitchen, all the while wincing at the burning of my feet. I’d worked two doubles in a row this weekend. Now it was Monday, and I’d already attended two college classes and was four hours into my six-hour shift. I was dead on my feet—literally.

  But at least I could afford a new pair of sneakers now. Go me!

  Being busy had a way of making the days go both slower and faster. My shifts would fly by, being occupied by the customers and the routine in the diner, but my journey home each day would drag, like the universe knew I didn’t want to go back there, so it slowed that time down on purpose.

  Lately, though, I wasn’t worried about what was greeting me when I got home because all I wanted was to sleep the night away before I started the next day. Being busy meant I didn’t have time to think about what was to come, it also helped that Hut hadn’t been at the house when I got home Saturday and Sunday night.

  My feet screamed with each step I took toward the kitchen, and when I finally got to the sink and placed the plates inside, I sighed.

  “You good there, Lola-Girl?” Sal asked from where he was putting more fries in the fryer. The bruising on my neck was fading, but I kept it covered with my latest fashion accessory—my headscarf. I was sure Sal knew I was trying to hide something, but he didn’t say anything. He took one look at it on Saturday morning, raised his brow, and walked away. He was aware of who I was and that I was from Cresthill, so no doubt knew what had happened.

  “Yeah.” I leaned my ass against the counter, taking some of the pressure off. “Just tired is all.”

  “Hmmm.” He pushed the basket into the oil, causing it to fizz from the impact of potatoes, and wiped his palm on a hand towel hanging from his waist. “You eaten yet?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled and pushed off the counter. “I ate before my shift started.” It wasn’t a lie. I had eaten, just not enough to sustain me the rest of the shift.

  “Why don’t you go take your break? Jan can cover your section for ten.”

  When Sal told you to rest, you did just that. I spun around and headed back out front to tell Jan I was heading for a break.

  “Ah, there she is!” Jan waved her arm toward me. “Lola? This lady wants to talk to you about your sign.”

  I frowned. My sign had sat on the counter and the front window of the diner for three days now, but I’d almost forgotten about it. I swung my gaze to the woman who stood on the other side of the counter, her light-blond hair hanging straight to the middle of her back. Her lips were pulled up into a small smile, and her blue eyes shone brightly.

  “Hi,” I croaked out as I stepped forward. “I’m Lola.” I extended my hand to her, and she placed her soft one inside mine. I wished I had hands that soft, but with the amount of water that was passed over them working in the diner, it was almost impossible.

  “Nice to meet you, Lola. I’m Moira.” She let my hand go and let out a stuttering breath. “I’m really hoping you can help me.”

  “I—”

  “Sal said that you’d be able to.”

  “Sal said?”

  “You better be taking your break, Lola-Girl!” Sal called from the kitchen. I turned to face the pass, but he had his back to me. The guy knew everything that happened in his diner without even looking.

  “I’m just about to take my break, maybe we could sit?” I asked Moira.

  “Oh, yes. That’d be great.”

  I moved out from behind the counter and slipped into the first open booth, smiling up at Jan as she poured us both coffee in the cups laid out on the table. Moira sat opposite me, wringing her hands on the plastic tabletop. She cleared her throat several times and stared out of the window.

  “My son will kill me for saying this but…” She turned to face me and wrapped her hands around the cup. “He’s failing his classes.”

  I nodded, not knowing what to say so lifted my cup to my lips and took a sip of the black coffee. “Which classes?”

  “Mainly English, but he’s falling behind in math too.” She bit down on her bottom lip. “Can you help him? Sal said you do tutoring and that you’re reliable. I need someone who will help him without it feeling like…” She trailed off, but I understood what she was saying. If there was any kind of person who refused help, it was a teenage boy.

  “I get what you’re saying.” I took another sip of my coffee and placed the half-empty cup on the table. “I can help.”

  Her shoulders sagged, and her eyes closed. “Thank god.” She chuckled. “I was so nervous to co
me and talk to you.”

  I smiled wide. “I get it. Teenagers can be a nightmare.”

  “They can, especially boys.” She leaned forward. “I was thinking maybe one session a week?”

  “That could work. I could do sixty minutes of English and then thirty minutes of math.” I mentally tried to remember my schedule, but my brain was so tired I could barely remember my name. “I’ll need to check my schedule with Sal, but I’ll do it here at the diner.”

  Moira nodded and placed her purse on the table, digging into it. “I’ll give you my number.” She pulled out a scrap of paper and a pen, scribbling digits onto it. “If you call and let me know when you can do it, I can work on Cade on my end.”

  “Cade?” I asked, taking the paper from her.

  “Oh.” She chuckled again, the high pitch making me wince. “That’s my son.”

  “Gotcha.” I looked down at the paper, folded it in half, and pushed it into the front pocket of my apron. “I’ll contact you with time and dates, and we can go from there.” I stood at the same time Sal came into the main section.

  “Moira?” He halted, his head rearing back. “What are you doing here?”

  Moira stood, shouldering her purse as she did. “I came to talk to Lola about the tutoring you mentioned to me.” She stepped toward him and placed a kiss on his cheek. “You should come over for dinner this week. We haven’t seen you in what feels like forever.”

  Redness spread on Sal’s cheeks and Moira stepped back, staring at him and waiting for an answer. I bit down on my bottom lip to stop the laugh that wanted to escape. I’d never seen Sal like this before, and I was going to relish in every single second of it.

  “You know how busy I get.” He cleared his throat and flicked his gaze from me to Moira. “How’s the big guy?”

  Moira heaved a sigh. “You know how he gets. He’s swamped at work, so I hardly get to see him at the moment.”