Flawed Justice

by Tibby Armstrong

  “Hey.”

  Matt opened his good eye and saw the clear thread looping past. Curtis stood above him at the head of the couch.

  “Yeah?” Matt croaked.

  “For what it’s worth, you did good. Better than many.”

  Matt laughed, but it cost him and he winced.

  Doc glared. “Hold still.”

  “Sorry.” Swallowing an odd bout of hysteria, Matt kept one jaundiced eye on the so-called physician.

  The guy was in his mid-thirties maybe judging by the amount of salt and pepper sprinkled throughout his short, dark hair. Icy blue eyes remained steadfastly on his task, lending support to the idea Doc just might hold a medical license. In the minus column, tats crawled up the man’s neck, barbed wire that appeared to slice into flesh on one side, a snake in greens and golds slithering up the other. Matt seriously hoped the man wore turtlenecks if he had a private practice, because no one was going to submit to a prostate exam from a guy who looked like that.

  Doc held out a hand and Reed gave him a pair of surgical scissors. Metal flashed and the thread was cut. A pen light clicked on. Matt winced, but Doc’s fingers were there to hold his eyes open, one at a time, against the blinding intrusion. His stomach flopped dangerously.

  Matt jerked to the side, out of Doc’s grasp. “Why don’t you just punch me in the face again?”

  The light clicked off. Doc gave him a look that said he’d seriously thought about it, before straightening and stuffing his tools of torture back into a black medical satchel.

  “He’ll live.” Doc made the pronouncement to Curtis, who still stood near Matt’s head.

  “You going downstairs?” Curtis asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell Law for me he didn’t kill him?”

  Doc stopped, framed in the doorway, to snap off his neoprene gloves. “He already left. Said something about movers coming for his stuff tomorrow.”

  Reed approached again with the bag of peas and Matt took it with a grateful look, but the bartender didn’t meet his gaze. “Law’s moving in?”

  Curtis shrugged.

  Matt pressed the peas to his face and only half listened to the rest of the conversation about how everyone had expected it to take longer before Lawson moved into the loft apartment occupying the same floor as the one Matt had been sharing with Curtis for the past two days. Up until now, he hadn’t seen Lawson around much. When he’d showed up today at the bar, Matt had stared, like he always seemed to when the man made an appearance. Which Curtis, of course, had noticed, and casually brought up one of the other ways Matt could pay his debt.

  “I’m glad he’ll be around more often.” Reed worried his bottom lip, then shook his head. “He’s been brooding too long.”

  “Don’t let him hear you speculating about him like that.”

  Doc’s admonishment was nearly lost in the buzz that had overtaken Matt’s already hazy brain. He was going to have to see Lawson downstairs, probably tomorrow. And every day after that. Relive the humiliation of that fight over and over again.

  “Hey. Let’s get you home.”

  At first, Matt thought he imagined Curtis’s comment. He let the peas slide off his face and focused muzzily on the man he was coming to think of as his jailer. The guy held a set of car keys in one hand. Reed was sitting in a chair in the corner, tying on a pair of red Keds that reminded Matt of blood.

  “What?”

  “I said…” Curtis bent down to put one arm under Matt’s shoulders and hauled him upward with a gentleness that Matt wouldn’t have credited a few hours ago. “Let’s get you home.”

  If lying down had been painful, sitting up was a new kind of hell. Matt breathed through the pain. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had the shit kicked out of him before, except in those other instances there had been someone actually refereeing, and any schoolyard brawls he’d had were won handily after he’d started training.

  “C’mon.” Curtis held out his clothes, and Matt stood to dress.

  They made it down the back stairs without seeing anyone. After that, the first few minutes in the car were the worst. Reed gave Matt the passenger seat and took the back. Matt reclined his seat at Curtis’s insistence. If he’d had his eyes open at all he’d have been able to verify his suspicions, but he could almost swear Curtis didn’t go above thirty-five all the way to West Anniston Falls.

  “Take a right here.” Reed gave the direction and Matt felt the familiar thump as the pavement changed.

  Two minutes later, they pulled up in front of the one-story bungalow Matt had rented. The house had only two bedrooms, but that suited Matt’s budget just fine. Besides, a smaller place meant he could afford to live in a vaguely nice part of town.

  Curtis jammed the gear shift into neutral and put on the parking brake. “Looks like your friends are here.”

  Matt opened his eyes and blinked. There was a souped-up car in his driveway. Not his. Definitely not Garet’s.

  Oh, shit.

  Curtis reached across him and popped open the door. An implicit invitation for Matt to exit the vehicle.

  “I—” Matt glanced to the house and back to Curtis. “I’m sorry about everything with Garet. I haven’t been around as much as I should and…”

  Brown eyes narrowed. “Don’t ask me to let you out of our arrangement, because I won’t.”

  Matt blew out a breath, realizing that was precisely what he had been about to ask.

  “Take a few days,” Curtis nodded toward the house. “Clean out the trash. Heal. Then come back. Same hours, same shitty pay.”

  Which was to say, zero point zero dollars an hour.

  “I have a job to go to. I can’t be your beck and call boy.”

  It was one thing to clean up a bar and a few thousand dollars of damage. Ten thousand though? That was Matt’s own personal Everest. There was no way he’d ever have that kind of cash.

  “Not my fault.” Curtis looped his arm around the back of Matt’s headrest and faced him fully. “I was willing to let you work it off. You challenged Law and lost. I couldn’t forgive the new debt if I wanted to—rules are rules.”

  “You were the one who suggested I—”

  “Uh-uh.” Curtis wagged a finger at him. “I told you that there was a way to pay back your debt if you really needed to get back to your job. I didn’t tell you to do it.”

  Reed made a strangled sound in the backseat. Curtis reached back and whacked him lightly upside the head without turning around.

  “How do I know you didn’t just dangle that option in front of me to get more free slave labor?” Matt shot back.

  Curtis grinned slowly. Infuriatingly. “If you were my slave? You’d know it.”

  Reed barked a laugh, visibly killing Curtis’s humor. “Remember that twink we had who thought he wanted to be a service sub? Followed you around with a shoe shine brush until Noah—”

  “Zip it.” Curtis shot Reed a look that had the guy settling back into the seat.

  “Go.” Curtis inclined his head toward the house, meeting Matt’s gaze. “We’ll see you Tuesday, bright and early.”

  Matt shoved out of the car with a frustrated growl. He’d think of something between now and Tuesday, because he couldn’t lose his job. Curtis was being unreasonable and they all knew it.

  His walkway wasn’t long, but it seemed to take forever to make his way up the pavement. He sensed Curtis’s eyes on him the whole way. Knowing that he and Reed were watching him made him see the yard and house in a way he hadn’t before. Peeling paint and a lopsided railing that he should have called the landlord to tend to a long time ago. Grass gone brown from lack of water and a flower bed overgrown with weeds. For sure the neighbors were going to bitch. It wasn’t all Matt’s fault though. The spring had been a dry one, and there was still no promise of rain in the cloudless twilight sky. Even the air smelled dusty.

  After stumbling up the three chipped concrete steps, Matt dug his keys out of his pocket. He paused at the sound of voices.


  “And I told you, you owe us for being a chicken shit.” One of The Ravagers members was near the door, his voice loud and clear.

  “How do you call getting my ass arrested protecting you for something I was smart enough not to do ‘chicken shit’?”

  Matt frowned and cocked his head. That was Garet.

  “I don’t give a flying fuck if you had wasted ten of those fags, you didn’t take part, which means you didn’t complete your initiation. Which means you’re gonna do it again.”

  Oh, hell no.

  Key shoved into the lock, Matt winced as his bruised shoulder met the door that always seemed to stick. His entry brought the three gang members around. One held a knife, but the other two appeared to be unarmed. His vision went fuzzy and he swayed on his feet.

  “Shit bro, what the hell happened to your face?”

  Matt ignored Garet’s stunned question. At least everyone’s focus was on him and not his brother. If Garet was smart, he’d use the initiative to bash the nearest guy over the head with something heavy as soon as things got heated.

  Speaking of which…

  Matt swept the unwelcome guests with his glare. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

  A moment of silence erupted into hoots of laughter, followed by, “Or what? You gonna bleed on us?”

  One of the thugs, an oily haired teen who might have been handsome if he had chosen to bathe once in a while, cracked his knuckles. “Zeke, you and Ike take him and I’ll remind Garet here why you don’t pussy out on your brothers.”

  “You’re not his fucking brother.” Matt stepped into the room, intent on reaching Garet and getting him to safety.

  Except, the guy with the knife got to Matt first.

  The blade flashed. He brought up his forearm in a defensive maneuver, but a blur of motion knocked the knife from the ringleader’s hand and it clatter across the floor. It took him a moment to realize it hadn’t been his own block. Rather, as he slumped against the wall, the same two men who had made his life a living hell over the past forty-eight hours did the one thing Matt never would have expected.

  They came to his rescue.

  The three lowlifes scrambled over themselves out the door. Squealing tires and parting shouts of, “Gonna fuck you up motherfuckers!” followed.

  “I swear.” Garet backpedaled until his ass landed in an armchair that leaked its orange stuffing in bright globs onto the floor. “I didn’t. I wasn’t.”

  Reed, who helped Matt to the sofa, shook his head. “I can’t believe you let them in after what we talked about.”

  “But I didn’t.” Garet practically whined. “They were here when I got home from school. They broke in through the kitchen window.”

  Reed and Curtis exchanged a look and Curtis went toward the back of the house, presumably to check the window. He returned grim faced. “Looks like their love for redecorating includes residential properties.”

  “Fuck.” Could this day get any worse?

  Curtis swung around, taking in the room. “You can’t stay here.”

  Matt laughed. “I’m afraid my summer home in the Hamptons is being renovated.”

  “Shut up, smartass.” Curtis returned to stand in front of him. “You’re coming back with us.”

  “No way.” This again? He was starting to think of The Asylum as Hotel California. “I’m not leaving Garet alone so they can come back and crack his skull open.”

  Or worse.

  Matt sat forward, elbows on his knees, and held his aching head in his hands. “Especially not when I heard what you were saying to them, G. What the hell? Why did you take the fall for their shit when you didn’t even take part?”

  “Look.” Curtis’s black boots appeared in Matt’s view. “They’re going to come back with reinforcements. We leave now. And you’re coming with us. Garet too.”

  Matt lifted his head, bitter laughter sparking on his tongue. “Why? So The Law can take a piece out of him too?”

  A dangerous look darkened Curtis’s brown eyes until they appeared almost black. “Don’t you fucking dare go there.”

  Picturing the state of The Asylum when he’d arrived there two days ago, Matt understood Curtis’s anger. Even if Garet hadn’t been directly involved, he had gotten himself in with the people who had vandalized the property, and Curtis was offering to take them both in. Matt might not like having lost to Lawson but nobody had forced him to fight.

  “You’re right.” Matt swallowed the bitter pill. “Thank you, but we can’t accept your charity.”

  Curtis cocked his head. “You forgetting something?”

  Matt’s good eye narrowed. “No. I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Good, because as far as I’m concerned, The Asylum still owns your ass.”

  “The Asylum?” Matt challenged. “I don’t see anyone else following me around, playing lord and master.”

  In truth, though, it wasn’t Curtis’s face that Matt pictured anymore when he thought of the brick warehouse on the wrong side of...well, the wrong side of everything.

  “Reed” Curtis spun to take in the bartender who had dropped onto the arm of Garet’s chair. “Go pack this idiot some clothes before I blacken his other eye. Then take them to the car while I board up the kitchen window.”

  Too tired to care that Curtis bossed him around in his own home, Matt heaved a sigh and didn’t argue when Reed went to do Curtis’s bidding. Ten minutes later, he and Garet sat in the car, Matt in the passenger seat and Garet in back with Reed. When Curtis came out carrying a blue garment bag, Matt knew he’d been right not to trust the man not to rifle through his things.

  Curtis slid into the car and flopped the bag onto Matt’s lap. “I listened to your voice messages. You’re going to need those.”

  “Huh?”

  With Curtis, life had become one WTF moment after another.

  “Your boss fired you.”

  Matt’s stomach bottomed out.

  “I’m hiring you, as of now.” Curtis keyed the ignition, right shoulder hunching as he started the car. “And those are your new uniforms.”

  His emotional and physical tailspin amplified as Curtis spun the car out of the driveway. “My new…uniforms?”

  Fingering the zipper on the bag, he realized it contained his senior prom tuxedo and his karate gi.

  What the fuck, indeed.

  Chapter Six

  The moving truck pulled away from the curb with the driver giving Lawson a wave through the open window before turning the corner and rumbling out of sight. Sweat had the white tank top Lawson was wearing clinging to his chest, but he was satisfied with how efficiently the move had been carried out.

  He wouldn’t have paid to have professionals come in, pack up everything, and haul it to his new loft, but the owner of the moving company owed him. Dave Bristow had been a regular at the club since its inception and was one of their better fighters. Good enough that Law had accepted his challenge.

  And he liked Dave well enough to make a covert arrangement for the man to pay him off in installments when Dave confessed he hadn’t told his wife, Becky, who he was fighting and how much the loss had cost. The woman was accepting of her husband’s ‘unsavory hobby’, didn’t even mind that the bisexual man was still friends with some of his past lovers.

  Adding a ten-thousand-dollar debt to their already struggling business wouldn’t have been taken so well.

  Not that Dave could hide scheduling a 5:00 a.m. move on a Sunday morning, but Becky knew Lawson had set them up a few big contracts with businesses moving into the city. She likely believed Dave was returning the favor.

  Either way, it was just after ten and the job was done. He walked into the bar, inhaling the rich scent of fresh coffee, nodding a greeting to Ezran as the boy scrambled off the bar top where he’d been sitting. He wasn’t permitted to hang around the bar on nights it was open for regular patrons, but every morning he was down here, making coffee and giving the place a thorough cleaning, which earned him money for…w
hatever it was teenagers enjoyed.

  Pulling out a stool, Lawson sat and studied the young man for a moment. Ezran didn’t drink or do drugs—they’d be having words if Lawson ever caught wind that he was doing either—but he had no idea what the boy’s interests were. He made sure the kid was well-fed, safe, and kept his grades up.

  Noah would expect more for his ward, but Lawson hadn’t the first clue how to deal with children. Not that Ezran was a child, exactly. Close enough that he usually figured the less involved he was in the kid’s life, the less damage he could do. His own father had taught him that the hard way.

  Looking nervous under Lawson’s scrutiny, Ezran tugged at the grease-stained, gray Marvel T-shirt he was wearing, stuffed his hands in the pockets of his torn-up jeans—Lawson was going to have to send someone to get the kid some new clothes—and cleared his throat. “Uh…do you want some coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” Lawson frowned as Ezran scurried around behind the bar like a frightened mouse, grabbing a mug and filling it with coffee, almost spilling it on himself as he set it in on the bar. “Are you in some kind of trouble or does my very presence make you nervous?”

  Ezran wrinkled his nose. “No?”

  “Convincing.” Lawson sighed and took a long sip of coffee. He had a feeling he was going to need it. “You clearly have something on your mind. Spit it out.”

  Swallowing hard, Ezran nodded. “I… I wanted to ask you something. I asked Curtis, but he said it was up to you.”

  Brow raised, Lawson set down his mug. Had Curtis decided Lawson should be more involved in the boy’s upbringing or was this his backhanded way of forcing him to be the bad guy?

  He had a feeling it was the latter.

  Inhaling slowly, Lawson motioned Ezran over, doing his best to relax his features so the kid would stop looking like he was about to be interrogated by the goddamn cops. “You can ask me anything, Ezran. I’m not around as much as I should be, but that will change.”