CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The light bulb of cash
Nixon
"Glad to see you're buying enough food so you don't starve in between classes." I smirked. It irritated me that Trace didn't want to eat with us anymore — that she was so offended by my presence that she'd rather eat fake meat.
I'd never been that guy.
The one girls ran from.
Well, actually, that wasn't entirely true. But still… I hated that she didn't want anything to do with me almost as much as the fact that she seemed to be scared shitless to be in my presence. Not that I was doing anything to alleviate that phobia.
"It's your fault I have to buy food," she said through clenched teeth, tossing packages onto the conveyer belt like she wanted them to explode and get all over me.
"What do you mean?" I licked my lips and gave the cashier a polite smile.
"My keycard, you asshole!" Trace threw her hands into the air, and a bag of corn went flying by my head, nearly taking me out. Was it wrong to want to hide my gun and any sharp object from her?
I rolled my eyes at her dramatic outburst. "Stop being difficult. You have two keycards." The one I'd given her the first day of school, and then one that Mo had begged me for a few days back.
"Huh?" She squinted her eyes. "Are you high?" A bag of potato chips went sailing past my ear, grazing it with a crunching sound. "Phoenix stole my card the night you made him set me up! The same night you were off-campus doing who knows what! I only have the red card that you gave me the other day!"
I swayed on my feet. It was rare to take me by surprise — but suddenly I was sick.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"In the hall!" She continued tossing food onto the belt, not caring that I was ready to strangle Phoenix. "You said it was the best you could do and—"
Her lips were moving. In theory I knew she was talking, but it was falling on deaf ears, because nothing was adding up. At all. I never let anything get by me. Set her up? Was she talking about Tim? How the hell was it my problem that she got drunk and—
Damn it!
They wouldn't.
Would they?
Behind my back?
The more she explained the sicker I felt. "Bastard. I'll deal with it. Do you still need all this food then? If you're going to be eating with us now?"
"Yes." Her eyes darted to the floor.
I knew that look.
I wore that look as a kid, when my dad tortured me, when he tortured Mo. It was fear.
And I'd been the one to cause it.
Had she been starving this whole time?
"That will be one hundred dollars and seventy-two cents." The checker interrupted my thoughts.
Trace slowly pulled out a wad of dollar bills that would probably take an eternity to count out. Why didn't she just use a credit card? Were they that backwoods? They didn't even have credit cards?
The bills fell to the floor.
Trace reached for them and then paused.
"Something wrong?" The line was building up behind us, and I wasn't in the mood to be gawked at. People knew who I was, or at least they assumed. It's not like I wasn't ever in the news. Or gossiped about.
I owned this city.
They knew me.
They all freaking knew me.
"Uh, no, yeah, umm…" Trace slapped the wad of cash into my hand. Confused, I looked down.
"Shit," I hissed then tried to hide my trembling hands as I stuffed the thousand-dollar bills into my pocket.
I swiped my card, typed in my key, then pulled out my phone and dialed Tony.
He wasn't pleased I'd just used my bankcard at a store so close to the school. I wasn't supposed to be out and about. I was supposed to be doing my job. "How easy would it be to track you right now, Nixon? Do you want to die?"
Hell, sometimes he acted like my father. I called him a dip-shit and hung up. I probably could have handled it better, but my nerves were shot.
I signaled for my men to follow us out, giving us security just in case some brilliant hacker was lying in wait to shoot me in the head, or worse, shoot Trace.
They helped us to the car and then went back into the store to clear the area and destroy any evidence on camera.
"Um, are we safe here?" Trace asked, making sure her door was locked.
Monroe had already gotten back in. "Of course, why wouldn't we be?"
"Oh you know…" Trace gulped. "…because of that." She pointed to a few men as they tucked guns into their jackets and walked into the store.
"Are we witnessing a murder?"
I almost laughed. Almost. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw everyone shift uncomfortably.
"You guys need to go. We have some more shopping to do and it—"
"Yeah." Mo glared into the rearview mirror. "I can imagine how it's going to be." With a huff, she and Tex exited the car. "See ya later, Trace!"
The doors slammed. I pulled out the money and examined it. The money, the necklace, no credit card — it was too much. All of it.
"Ha ha, you can't catch me!" She ran around the corner and squealed with laughter.
"Stupid girls! You can't even run fast!" I chased after her and tackled her against the carpeted floor.
"Hey! Stop!" She started punching me in the chest. "I'm a girl, so you can't punch me!"
"I'll punch you if I want to punch you!" I fired back.
A tear made its way down the side of her face.
Uh-oh. Ma was going to kill me. "Hey, no, don't cry. Please don't cry. I'm sorry."
She sniffled. "You mean it?"
I hated tears.
"Yeah." I nodded.
The hair on the left side of her face fell back, revealing a small scar underneath her ear. It looked kind of like a heart. I smiled, liking the idea that I was the only one that would be close enough to see it. For now.
Slowly, I looked over at Trace.
She was buckling her seatbelt and then pulled her hair over her right shoulder, revealing her bare neck and the skin just below her ear.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to cry or scream.
Her.
I pounded the steering wheel with my hand and swore. "It's going to be a long afternoon."
"Why?"
"Because we are freaking living our own Romeo and Juliet." Because I used to be in love with her. Because when my dad put me in the box — I'd dreamt of her, and only her. Of her smile, of that little heart-shaped scar, and of the life I could have had, if she wouldn't have died, right along with her parents.
I'd blamed myself for her death, her disappearance.
And now, God had given her back to me, only to take her away again. Angels didn't date demons.
I was fallen.
And she was still in heaven where she belonged. I swore I'd keep it that way — this time I wouldn't fail. This time. I would save her. Even if it meant dying to do it.
"Alright, new bag, right?"
"Yeah, oh, and I need to pay you for the groceries too. I feel so stupid. I had no idea I had big bills, or that they even existed, or that Grandpa…" Her voice trailed off as her eyebrows knit together in confusion.
I didn't want to be the bearer of badness, but her grandpa just so happened to be using money that was most likely marked by the feds. Ass.
"Those bills went out of circulation in the fifties. You know that, right?" I asked, prodding a bit to see if she knew any information. I was an expert at reading people, but her expression was blank like a canvas.
She shrugged and reached for the radio control. "Sorry, I'll figure out a way to cash them out so I can pay you."
"You don't understand." I laughed to keep from yelling. "I would never accept your money. Ever."
"What? Why?"
"It's no good to me!" I snapped. "Just drop it." Damn blood money is what it was! I would never take from an Alfero; just thinking about it had me pissed off all over again. Frank was going to be livid. If there was one thing I knew, he was going to fi
nd me — and soon.
But maybe I could find him first, twist the tale, make it so that I was not the object of disdain. He was.
When we pulled up to a stop sign, I sent a quick emergency text to Chase; we needed to meet as soon as possible.
Because shit was about to get real — fast.
Trace was quiet the rest of the way to the mall, and all I could think of was how I was going to tell this innocent girl that the life she'd always known was one giant lie.
Violence? Blood? Organized crime? That was her heritage.
She was the one, the girl with the scar, the girl I dreamed about. I was sitting a few inches from her and the pathetic part? I wasn't the hero. In my dreams, I'd always rescued her, I'd found her parents' murderer, and I'd redeemed my soul.
The minute I saw that necklace, hope had died in my chest.
This wasn't the stuff of dreams. It was the stuff of nightmares.