I felt my back teeth grind together. “He tried to have Dovie killed.”
Titus leaned back in the booth and nodded. “I know, but the justice system is more interested in cutting off the stream of guns, drugs, and sex that Novak handled than they are anything else. They want his network connections and suppliers, and the way they get them is to offer deals to people like your dad and Benny to entice them to talk.”
I groaned out loud. “Setting my dad up with a new life is bad enough, but if Bax finds out Benny is getting a deal, he’s going to lose his mind.”
His mouth turned down and a harsh look crossed his face. “I know. That’s why I haven’t told him anything yet. The feds think your mom knows more than she’s saying. They’ve pulled her in twice for questioning.”
“I don’t think she knew. I think she just followed him blindly.”
Titus just stared at me. Fuck me. It was bad enough to think that my dad was capable of killing his own flesh and blood; if my mom had known and just sat idly by . . . my family was such a goddamn mess.
“Either way, my dad doesn’t just get to walk away with no consequences.”
“He does if he cuts a deal.”
I just lifted an eyebrow. “The feds can put him in the system, Titus, but I’ll find him.”
He swore under his breath at me. “Like I said, don’t tell me that shit, especially since I know anything you cook up will involve my boneheaded brother.”
With that I changed the subject, because like I told Brysen the night before, I was tired of the wrong always winning, and my dad was definitely wrong.
“So my girl’s stalker has upped the game. Instead of just trying to physically hurt her, he’s been messing with her life from the inside out. He almost managed to screw with her entire semester, which would’ve screwed with her graduating.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Your girl?”
“Yep, mine.” And she was. She was the perfect bridge between who I was and who I had to be in order to survive, and there was no way I was letting her go when she made getting back to myself so easy and so pleasurable.
“Are you sure she doesn’t have some kind of pissed-off ex or maybe an old friend she screwed over? When a stalker makes the effort to take an object of their obsession’s life apart like that, it’s usually because they are trying to isolate the victim, forcing them to be the only person that the victim can then turn to for support.”
“She swears up one side and down the other that there isn’t anyone from her past that would be this interested in ruining her life.”
He rubbed his thumb along the curve of his jaw and I could practically see his cop wheels turning in his head.
“Whoever it is has a lot of anger built up toward her, whoever is after her clearly sees her as a target, as some kind of important figure in their life. What about the rest of her family? Could the stalker be trying to get to her in order to punish them?”
I blinked once, then twice, and felt dread settle heavy and hard in my abdomen. “Her dad owes me over three hundred grand and her mom is an emotional and drunken mess. There’s all kinds of room in there for someone to be good and pissed at them and taking it out on Brysen.”
He nodded, looking grim.
“Will she let you dig into her family’s dirty laundry to figure it out?”
“She already knows about her dad and the money. She said her mom is looking at getting help. I guess she caused a really bad accident a year ago that killed some guy.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, we both stopped and awareness dawned. I swore and Titus leaned forward in the booth.
“Were there survivors?”
“Yeah. Brysen said the dad was the only one killed.”
“A grieving family is as good a place to start as anywhere. Let me pull the accident report and I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“I appreciate it, Titus.”
“In return, you will pass along any info you get on the mystery man with the accent.”
“If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
We both went to slide out of the booth when he stopped me with a heavy hand on one of my shoulders.
“This business with your dad—I would let it go, Race. The worst punishment a guy like him can experience is living in Iowa somewhere, living a middle-class life on an allowance the government gives him. He’ll be no one and have nothing, and that is far worse than death for a man like him.”
I was going to respond that only death was appropriate for a man who was so ready to murder his own child simply to avoid uncomfortable questions, when the front doors to the diner slammed open and a uniformed officer came running inside.
“Who owns the red Mustang?”
I exchanged a look with Titus and got to my feet.
“The ’66 is mine.”
“I already called the fire department, but you might want to get out here. The whole goddamn thing was in flames when I pulled into the parking lot.”
I used every bad word I could think of as I raced out of the diner with Titus hot on my heels. Sure enough, there was a crowd gathered around my car as yellow-and-orange flames danced over the cherry-red paint. The smell of gasoline and smoke was almost suffocating as a couple of uniformed officers tried to move everyone back from the blaze.
“Race.”
I looked at Titus out of the corner of my eye.
“Don’t say it, Titus. I fucking love that car.”
He ignored me as sirens wailed in the background.
“When you have so many enemies that you can’t even tell what direction to look in order to watch your back . . .” He paused to make sure I understood what he was saying. “That’s a really dangerous place to be.”
I grimaced as the fire got so hot, the front windshield shattered and collapsed inward. The car was going to be a total loss and it broke a little piece of my heart. It was the first car I ever bought for myself without my dad’s money. It had been in rough shape until Bax worked his magic on it. It was the one thing that was mine, had been mine from the get-go, and now it was just a blackened, smoking pile of scorched metal and melted rubber. It made my heart hurt and my blood thick with rage.
“Is this the mysterious man with the accent, or about your girl?”
I had no idea, and it didn’t matter either way. Whoever was behind it was going to pay. I didn’t say anything, just locked my jaw as the fire truck wheeled into the lot and added high-pressured water to the mess that was once my beautiful ride. The crowd dissipated and left me and Titus standing there in the parking lot. He clapped a hand on my shoulder and gave me a little shake.
“The station has cameras. I’ll see if we can pull a visual or a license plate. Let me take you back to the garage.”
I blew out a breath, low and shallow, and ran my hands over my face. “All right.”
I still had to go see my techie friend about Brysen’s computer, but I couldn’t do it without wheels. Good thing there was a surplus of them around the garage.
I climbed into Titus’s boring cop sedan and closed my eyes and rubbed my temples as hard as I could. Losing the Mustang brought back all those thoughts and fears I had about losing things that mattered to me running in furious circles around in my head. I was all caught up in a girl who had a psycho after her, my sister was in love with the most dangerous person in the Point, and my business partner would kill me just as soon as look at me. All of it made my skin feel too tight for my body and had a buzzing nervousness popping and snapping right under the surface of my control. My fate was going to be whatever the Point decided for me, but if anything happened to Dovie, to Brysen, or even to my seemingly invincible best friend, it would break me, and I knew it.
When we got to the garage it was late afternoon and most of Bax’s crew was headed out, but his Hemi was still in the lot. I didn’t want to try and explain why I was riding with Titus and not in my own car, but Bax was already walking toward us smoking a cigarette and talking on the p
hone. He gave the nondescript sedan a dirty look and then glanced between me and his brother.
“How are you going to outrun anyone in this piece of shit?”
He kicked the fender and then had to duck as Titus swung at his head.
“You wouldn’t be talking so much trash if you saw what was under the hood. It’s a cop car, dummy, it’s supposed to blend in.”
Bax snorted and flicked his cigarette onto the ground.
“Where’s the Stang?”
I shoved my hands through my hair and tugged on the pale strands in frustration.
“Melted into the parking lot of the diner across the street from the cop shop.”
His dark eyes nearly bugged out of his head and he just gaped at me. I sighed and told him curtly, “Titus is gonna see if they caught whoever torched it on tape, but I don’t know if it’s about me or it’s the whack job that’s after Bry.”
He lifted an eyebrow at me. “If it weren’t for bad luck . . .”
“I wouldn’t have no luck at all. Tell me about it. I need to snag a car for the rest of the night. I have some stuff I need to do.”
He rubbed the edge of his chin with his thumb in a move that was eerily similar to Titus and told me in a flat tone, “Why don’t you ask your lady to sell you the BMW she asked me to find a buyer for today?”
My spine snapped straight and I felt my teeth grind together. “What?” There was no missing the surprise and irritation lacing the single word.
He smirked at me and told Titus to pop open the hood of the sedan.
“She said she needs to sell it so she can get an apartment for her and her sister due to the fact her dad is a worthless fuck and whatnot. I told her she needed to talk to you about that stuff, because the only place she can find with what she would make on selling the BMW would be crap.”
“She’s not moving into the slums with her sister.” Hell no she wasn’t.
“I told her that was what you were going to say. I think she’s pretty badass for just trying to figure out a crap situation and being willing to sacrifice. She looks a little too fancy to be the type to get her hands dirty. Glad I was wrong about that if she’s going to be in this with you. Blood is hard to wash off. It stains.”
“Jesus, Bax.” Titus growled the words.
Bax just lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “It’s the truth.”
“Hanging out with the two of you isn’t any good for my blood pressure or my career.” Titus’s voice indicated he wasn’t joking.
I narrowed my eyes at my friend. “Is that what you tell Dovie? The blood is hard to wash off?”
His dark gaze was like looking into a bottomless pit. There was no end and there was no light.
“Your sister knows all about how hard it is to get blood off, Race. She sees it every time she gets dressed and covers up that scar Novak left on her chest. She sees it every time I come home from somewhere I shouldn’t have been and she doesn’t want to ask me where I was at because she knows the answer will scare her. Blood is just part of living this life, and Brysen needs to know that if she’s here to stay.”
I didn’t know if she was here to stay but I had no trouble admitting to myself that I wanted her to be. I knew coming home to her after all the ugly stuff that surrounded me all day long was one surefire way to keep my head in the game. Having something to lose like her love . . . it was a huge motivation to make sure I kept the parts of me that were still just Race intact. With her I didn’t have to be Race the bookie, Race the loan shark, Race the enforcer, I just got to be a regular guy concerned about making a regular girl happy.
“Shouldn’t the goal be to keep the blood away from the people you care about?”
I didn’t think he heard me at first because his head was buried inside the engine compartment of the sedan. When he leaned back, he was grinning at his brother.
“That’s a V-10. Who dropped that in there and did the work to make this junker able to handle all the torque it puts out?”
A shadow crossed over Titus’s face. “Gus.”
Bax’s dark eyes went even darker.
Gus was the man who had been a father figure to Bax. He had owned the garage and given me a place to hide out when I came back to exact my revenge on Novak. He had also run Novak’s chop shop for him, so when the now-deceased gangster had found out about the crafty mechanic’s betrayal, he had had Gus murdered. Right in front of me. While Benny and the rest of his boys had beaten me, broke my leg, smashed my head over and over again into the concrete until I couldn’t see through the blood in my eyes or the blackness flooding my mind, I had somehow still managed to make out one of Novak’s goons pointing a shotgun at Gus and blowing a hole right through the middle of him.
Bax made a noise low in his throat and ran a hand over his face. He closed the hood to the sedan and dug out a smoke. He pointed it at me.
“That’s exactly why it’s better to get the ones you care about used to the blood, Race. Even if they know about it, about how this place works, bad things will happen no matter who the gatekeeper happens to be.”
This conversation was depressing and I was already bummed out because of my car. I walked away after telling Bax he better not even think about helping Brysen get rid of her car as the brothers started talking about engines and horsepower like death and blood weren’t major topics of interest to either of them. I mean, I knew logically that dealing with things like the loss of someone you admired and respected, and losing them well before their time, was just a brutal part of the reality of living in this place, but not even taking a minute to acknowledge how much that sucked was hard for me to get my head around.
Maybe it was because I had actually watched Gus die, maybe it was because I still had a bunch of guilt swirling around that the only reason Novak had set his sights on the mechanic was because of me, but thinking about him and the reasons why the garage was now Bax’s made me depressed and brought up a bunch of bitter memories lingering behind everything else I was dealing with.
I snagged a set of keys out of Bax’s office and decided on a brand-new Chevy Stingray that belonged to a dermatologist who had foolishly borrowed money from me to pay his student loans. Considering I charged a thirty-five-percent interest rate on money I loaned out, I had no idea what he was thinking, but the car was sweet and looked all kinds of sexy and fast. If the skin doctor didn’t come up with the cash he owed, maybe I would just keep it. I didn’t have the heart to try and rebuild another classic. It hurt too much to watch it burn.
I grabbed Brysen’s dead laptop and called my buddy Stark to tell him I was on the way. Stark was the ultimate computer nerd. I don’t think he had seen the light of day in over five years, considering he was always glued to this game or that, but he could find anything I had missed in her computer, so I was willing to brave his Cheetos and Mtn Dew–filled domain for some answers. Stark was actually the only person from the Hill I still stayed in contact with. He was also an erstwhile rich kid who had been tossed aside by his well-to-do parents. Granted, Stark’s disownment followed on the heels of him getting declared a threat to national security after a raid from Homeland Security that had been all the talk in the upper elite for months. Turns out hacking into a secure NSA database to see what the government was actually monitoring wasn’t an awesome idea.
Fortunately for Stark, he was a veritable genius and had managed to find a software development company that paid him bucketloads of cash just to have access to his superbrain. He made almost as much money as I did just by answering e-mails when the company sent them.
I pulled up in front of a perfectly respectable town house that was located just at the base of the Hill. When Stark answered the door, I had to admit he didn’t look like any computer hacker or gamer guy I had ever seen before. He was shorter than me by a few inches, had dark hair that tended to lean toward a reddish tint, and he wore black, Buddy Holly–style glasses over a sharp gray gaze. All of that was pretty normal and basic; what wasn’t was the fact that the
guy was jacked. I mean ripped like an action-hero movie star and big enough that he could probably hold his own in the Pit against any of Nassir’s juiced up brawlers. The other thing that would never have people pegging him as an über-nerd was the fact that he was covered in ink.
Colorful tattoos started at his collarbone and wound and twisted all the way down his massive arms and across the backs of his hands. I didn’t get the theme behind all of the designs and characters, but it was all very bright and detailed and totally belied the fact that Stark was a mellow, mild-mannered guy who played around on the Internet for a living. He really looked like as much of a thug and a criminal as Bax did.
“Hey, man. Thanks for taking a look at this for me.”
I handed the laptop off and followed him into the darkened town house. There were electronics and wires, as well as monitors and a variety of TVs everywhere. It resembled what I figured a command center of a spaceship had to look like. I accepted the beer he offered and took a seat in a giant leather recliner that was placed in front of a TV that was the size of a movie-theater screen.
Stark sat on the couch and started poking at keys on the computer.
“What exactly am I looking for in here if the hard drive is shot?”
I shrugged. “Anything that doesn’t belong there. My girl has a stalker, and whoever is fixated on her is messing with her life. They made a fake e-mail, a fake Facebook, and even a fake phone number, all pretending to be her. Whoever it is has managed to get pretty deep inside her life already.”
He looked at me over the top of the computer. “You got a girl?”
“Why does everybody keep saying that?”
He snickered at me. “I’ve known you a long time, Race. I remember the way you ran through girls before you fell in with Bax and started screwing around with cars instead of cheerleaders.”
I slumped in the recliner and scowled. “I guess when I found out I had a little sister and that she had been living in squalor, was fighting to survive every single day, it made me have a new insight into the chicks I was wasting time on.”