by K. S. Thomas
“I can’t.”
“This is getting out of control, Liv. You can’t keep protecting your brother at the expense of your own safety.”
I slam on the brakes, so exasperated by his statement I nearly just ran a red light.
“That’s not what I’m doing. I would have happily called the cops on Marcus’s ass the day he opened up shop in that old warehouse, but I couldn’t. I still can’t.”
“Why not?” His frustration is turning to anger and I’m doing my best not to take it personally. I know it’s not directed at me.
“Don’t you get it? I own that building too. If I call the cops on his illegal business, I go down as well.”
He shakes his head, unwilling to see it. “You don’t know that. You can’t be held responsible –“
“Yes, I can! He has me on tape. Every time I’ve marched over there to have it out with him, it was recorded. The place has more security cameras than a fucking casino. It would take nothing – NOTHING – for Marcus to drag me down with him. Even if by some miracle he didn’t, I would still lose everything. That’s not some amateur criminal Marcus has partnered with. He’s a professional. Major organized crime. The cops bust a place like that, this whole corner lot turns into a crime scene, my shop included. It would take weeks, maybe months before we could get back to business, and by then, I wouldn’t have shit left to do business with.”
“So, what’s the plan? Just sit back and wait for things to escalate?”
“No!” We’re shouting at each other. I hate this. “The exact opposite. Watch and step in when necessary to keep things from escalating!”
He laughs, but it’s harsh and almost hurtful. “You mean like tonight?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, like tonight. They would have killed that kid if we hadn’t stopped them.”
He slams his fist so hard into my dash, I’m shocked the airbag doesn’t deploy. “You’re not getting it, Liv. You stopped them from killing the kid, but now they want to kill you! That’s what Marcus told me before we left. That’s what he said. He said not to let you out of my fucking sight, because you’re on the hit list. One wrong move - you give them even the slightest motivation - and you’re done. Dead. Gone. Call me crazy or selfish or whatever, but hearing that the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with is about to not have one just doesn’t fucking jive with me, Liv.”
I’m basically parked at the stop sign leading down to my street. I’ve been sitting here for several minutes, so it can’t be counted as driving anymore, which is probably good. I’m not sure I should be driving. That last bit pretty much knocked the wind out of me along with everything else that enables me to think and act and function period.
Finally, I can formulate words. Slowly. And quietly. “Marcus won’t let them kill me.”
“Bullshit.”
“He’s my brother, Lucas. He may be capable of heinous things, but I’m still his family.”
He shakes his head, bitterly. “You’re putting too much faith in him. Besides, what makes you think he even has the power to stop them?”
I lift my gaze from where it’s been locked on the steering wheel to meet his. “Because we walked away tonight.” I take a deep, long breath. “And now you need to walk away again.”
“What?” This time his anger is definitely directed at me, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing is going to hurt me worse than what I’m about to do anyway.
“Marcus won’t let them kill me. But he won’t stop them from killing you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Good. Do it. Take care of yourself. But do it really fucking far away from me.” I’ll beg if I have to. I’ll be mean. Cold. I don’t care. Whatever it takes to make him walk, I’ll do it.
“Are you fucking insane? I’m not walking away.”
“Lucas.”
“No. Don’t.” He holds his hand up to try and thwart my arguments, but it’s not enough to stop me from making them.
“Think of your mother. What do you think she went through the last seven years while you were out there, fighting wars and risking your life and all while so far out of reach she couldn’t see you or get to you if anything happened? And now, after finally having you home and knowing that you’re safe, you think it’s okay to put her through that again? It’s not.”
“My mother would never have to know.”
“Yeah. Unless something happens. Think I want to make that fucking call?! Think I want to tell her that my family has cost her more than her sister? That my bastard brother took her son as well?”
“And what about me? Huh? Who the hell is going to call me when it’s you? And what am I going to do when I do find out? How am I going to live with myself then?”
“I don’t care how you live with it, as long as you live.”
“You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to cut me loose and act like it’s some selfless, heroic thing you’re doing. It’s not. It’s selfish.”
I can’t even follow his line of thinking anymore. “How is it selfish that I want you to live?”
“Because you don’t fucking get it. You die, I die. And it won’t matter if I’m still breathing or not. Because I love you. Because I’ve loved you for longer than I can remember. Because I’ve spent every day from the moment I met you waiting for the moment that you would love me back. That’s when I would finally be alive. Until then, I was just in limbo. Stuck. Incapable of feeling anything for anyone else because everything I felt for you was consuming me, engulfing me, trapping me, with no hope of ever reaching you, until now. I know what it’s like to release those feelings now. I know how the sensation of being loved by you in return soars through my body and brings me to life like nothing else ever has, ever could.”
I swallow – Again – but the lump in my throat won’t budge. Won’t dissolve. Won’t allow me to say what I need to say. And I need to say it.
“No, you don’t,” I whisper. “You couldn’t.”
“Excuse me?” His lids drop low, slanting his eyes at me suspiciously. He knows. He’s warning me not to say it.
“I don’t love you, Lucas.”
“You really expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t. Maybe I wanted to...but I don’t.”
He nods, biting his lip and staring down at his hands, folded in his lap in a way that seems ironically casual. After a moment, he simply opens the door, about to step out of the car, right here in the intersection. I close my eyes, anticipating the slam of it shutting on me, but instead it’s the quiet calm of his deep voice that shatters me from the inside out.
“Heartbreaker. I get it now.”
Then the door closes softly. And it’s my heart that breaks.
My chest tightens and I feel like I can barely breathe, but I can’t worry about air right now. I’m too busy dealing with tears. Tears I don’t deserve to cry. The mounting pressure and painful sting should serve me right for what I’ve done, but I can’t fight them.
I squeeze my eyes shut tightly in one last effort, then open them and breath and tears both escape me in one long, ragged whoosh. When the blur clears, I’m stunned by what I find.
What I feel.
Him.
His arms, reaching out to wrap me up in them. And his voice, rumbling softly in my ear, his breath caressing my hot skin.
“You didn’t really think I would fall for that. Did you?”
Lucas
She almost did it. Almost made me believe out was the only way. For that split second when I opened the door, I thought I was doing it. Thought I was walking away. Then, I felt it. The wall. Some invisible force, stronger than anything I’ve ever felt, keeping me from breaking away from her. I couldn’t do it. I never wanted to do it. But damn it all, if now it hasn’t become completely impossible.
I hold her, right here in the street, across the middle console of her car. I hold her, and she cries, but it’s different from the last time I held her. She was grieving then. This is painful too, bu
t mingled in with the ache and guilt and fear is something else. Relief. She’s relieved I’m still here, and it calms the beast still raging inside me.
Marcus brought us here. Marcus is the reason everything good in her world is on the verge of collapsing. Why she felt losing me was inevitable, and giving me up the only viable option.
“I want to go home,” she whispers into the crook of my neck where her face is nestled.
“I’ll take you.” Reluctantly, I release her and get out to walk around the car to the driver’s side while she climbs over the console into the passenger seat. It takes less than a minute’s drive before we’re inside her garage, then walking into the house where the illusion of our safe sanctuary deceives us into believing the world will be a better place again after a good night’s sleep. We both know it won’t be, but there’s nothing we can do about it tonight, so we believe the lie. Because the truth can make us self-destruct, and no fucking way am I making it that easy for Marcus.
Chapter Eighteen
Heartbreaker
“We have to start closing early on fight nights,” I announce before Sketch even makes it inside.
“I figured as much.” She nods grimly, tossing her bag behind the front desk. “We should take Cherry off the schedule while we’re at it. Mouth and Princess can hold their own if need be, but having Cherry wandering around in this mess makes me think of Bambi and the hunters. It’s not good.”
“God, I could do without your visuals every once in a while,” I groan, as a weird image of cartooned Cherry with big innocent eyes being chased by hunters flashes in my mind. “Also, I agree. Same thing was keeping me awake last night. Not the Bambi scene, but the gist of the feeling was the same.”
She pulls the calendar toward her at the desk. “Might lose her. I don’t imagine she can afford to take unlimited amounts of unpaid vacation.”
“I can pay her some. Base salary. At least a week.” I sigh. I’m wiped out. No sleep will do that. “Maybe it’ll be over by then.”
Sketch scowls. “You need to stop thinking of life as a glass half full and consider going with a mug half empty. You know if you were staring at half a cup of coffee you wouldn’t feel optimistic about squat. You’d be cursing everyone and plowing down anyone in the way of you and the coffee pot. That’s the sort of attitude we need right now. Not some flimsy, half-baked idea that this little illegal fight club pickle we’ve got ourselves in will just magically disappear in the next seven days.”
“She’s right.” The sound of my brother’s voice stops my heart for a split second. As does the sight of him.
“How the hell did you get in here?” The alarm was still set when we got here, and we would have heard him come in since.
“That’s really not the issue right now. We have more important things to talk about.” He takes several steps in our direction until he’s within a couple of feet from the both of us.
“More important things than how you’re breaking into my shop? I don’t know, Marcus, that’s pretty fucking important to me. Especially when I think about who else could have access to it through you.” The skin on my chest feels like it’s on fire. Apparently the rash I used to have to work myself into is now instantaneous.
“I agree.” He nods. I didn’t see that coming. “That’s why you need to buy me out.”
Definitely didn’t see that one either.
“Excuse me?”
“Buy me out of the will. You pay me, I pay Rediger. We both disappear and your life goes back to normal.” He’s calm. Matter of fact. Acting as if this was always part of the plan.
“Great idea. I like it. Really. There’s just one small problem. I don’t have that kind of money.” Sure, business is great and overhead is cheap, since the building is paid for, but Madi goes to private school, and when she’s not there racking up tuition bills, or hanging with her super rich cousins and doing all their super expensive things including their summer hobbies of soft ball and paddle boarding, she’s at the dance studio, a cute idea when she was five and looked adorable in a tutu, but a spendy one now that I’m shelling out cash for shoes and tights and costumes every time I turn around. I’m not complaining. I love that she dances. But kids aren’t cheap to begin with, and Madi’s a top shelf kid. Point being, money comes in, but it finds speedy ways back out again.
“Find it. Get a loan. Sell the house. Ask Pru, I don’t give a fuck how you come up with it, but come up with it. The faster the better.”
“Why?” Sketch takes a step into the circle. I’m glad she’s here. I can count on her to think clearly when I’m not. “Why do you suddenly want out? I thought you were running a very lucrative business back there. There’s the obvious legality issue, but I can’t imagine that’s suddenly a problem for you, and even if it were, you’d be willing to overlook it for the kind of cash you’re pulling in. Cash that would add up to a hell of lot more over the next year than selling out now would.”
“Yeah. What gives?” I squint suspiciously and place both hands on my waist, doing my best to portray the keen sort of person who would have had the sense to pick up on all those details on her own. I’m not. Hadn’t thought of any of them. Sketch did though. Interestingly enough, her stance looks nothing like mine, and her eyes aren’t narrowed, they’re slightly buggish.
“I owe Rediger money.” His jaw clenches visibly. I don’t know what he hates more: the situation he’s apparently found himself in or having to tell us about it. “I was running a pretty good operation out in Vegas up until a year ago. Money was pouring in. All the higher ups were taking turns patting me on the back and making promises of bigger assignments and my own big fortune heading my way. Then, they screwed me. Bigtime. Shit fell apart and I was handpicked to fall down with it. Then, along comes Rediger. Says he sees potential in me and he’s willing to help me out of this jam with the big bosses.”
I snort involuntarily and he shoots me a dirty look.
“I’m sorry, but you really thought of Rediger as some good Samaritan, your personal guarding angel, swooping in to save the day? Give me a break.”
“I didn’t have a fucking choice, Liv. It was either him or hell. Prison or the afterlife. Things weren’t looking so hot for me.”
“I’m thinking you mean they were looking scorchingly hot,” Sketch remarks, equally put off by his decision to invite this Rediger into his life and ultimately, ours.
“Fine, you’re right. I deserve to go to hell. I took the coward’s way out and I bargained with the devil trying to stay alive. Now it’s going to cost me more than I bargained for.” He drops his chin toward his chest, his hands hanging listless at his side. He looks defeated. In all my life, I’ve only ever seen my brother this distraught one other time: when Madi’s mother died. He stood in our father’s kitchen, wrecked, and for one brief second my heart ached for him. The next day he was a completely different person again. I always assumed that night had been part of his game, that he’d been playing our father. Faking his grief for some ulterior motive that only suited his own needs. Now, I’m not so sure. He seems genuine. Whatever else I feel for my brother, fear is the most overwhelming part of it all.
“What does he want?” I whisper. It’s me. I know it. I’ve seen the way he leers at me. Heard the things he says.
“Madi.”
“No.” My knees feel weak. My heart feels frail as if it could stop beating at any given moment, and the air I need to keep breathing escapes me.
“What do you mean, he wants Madi?” Sketch demands, a predatory glare in her wild eyes. She doesn’t take kindly to threats, least of all those directed at the girls in our midst.
“He said I’m taking too long to pay back my loan. He’s been gradually cutting back my percentage of the profits for weeks, claiming it’s the only way to offset the mounting piles of interest I owe. Now, all this trouble with you two and Lucas...he feels that taking Madi off your hands for a while will help you focus on what’s important again while Madi...works off the money I owe
.”
I’m going to be sick. “Does he know? Does he know she’s your daughter?”
“Of course he knows!” The outburst is loud and frightening, his voice wrought with emotions I thought he was incapable of experiencing.
Something shifts inside my head. Maybe it breaks, I don’t know. I just know that I need to do something. Anything. Now.
I start to move toward the desk, and I nearly trip getting there. Then I fumble for the phone before staring at the numbers blankly. I don’t know anyone’s number. Nothing is memorized, or maybe it was and whatever broke inside me at the thought of that beast wanting my Madi completely erased everything there ever was inside my head.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sketch is beside me, her hand on mine, gently pushing it down to replace the receiver.
“I need to call Lucas.” I didn’t even know that’s what I was doing until she asked and I said it out loud, “but I don’t know his number.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s in your cell.” She’s speaking slowly as she walks me backwards a few steps, putting distance between me and the phone.
“Oh. Right.” Broken. My brain is definitely broken. My thoughts aren’t thinking.
“You can’t tell him about this, Liv,” Marcus snarls at me. The guy I’ve known most of my life is back. The cold one. The one who has no heart.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I shriek. “You don’t get to decide anything anymore! Your decisions suck, Marcus. Your decisions created this... this horrible... disgusting... despicable... unbearable...” I can’t find the word I want. Nothing that comes to mind feels even remotely suitable. They’re all too small. They don’t mean what I need them to mean.
Marcus comes at me with force, his hands gripping both my arms and holding me in place as he begins to hammer me with more information. Information I don’t know how to compute anymore.
“Listen to me. Nothing is happening right this second. Madi is safe for now, but it’s not going to stay that way if you keep getting in his face. And it’s definitely not going to stay that way if I don’t come up with the rest of the money I owe him. So, rather than lose your shit and go crying to your boyfriend, take a deep breath, get ahold of yourself and start thinking about how you’re going to help me get it.”
