Respect

by Jay Crownover

  I laced my fingers together and put them on the top of my head, reluctantly making my way around the car to the passenger side. When I climbed in, she was humming the same tune as her ringtone and grinned at me when I gave her a look.

  “It’s Taylor Swift.” She said it like I should know.

  The only reason I had any clue who Taylor Swift is was because of the girls who danced at the Empire where I often bounced. When there weren’t knees to break and heads to bash, they mentioned Karsen would make a killing if she started to strip because of her resemblance to the popstar. Of course, Karsen would become a stripper over Race’s dead body, but I’d still Googled the singer and was surprised that the girls were right. Karsen and the music mogul both had a look about them. An innocence, tempered with something sharper and more calculating. In Karsen’s case, all that softness covered up some edges that sliced right down to the bone.

  I settled into the seat and tried to find a comfortable spot to lean. When she was back in the protective hands of her sister and almost-brother-in-law, I was never going on a road trip again. Well, I may never breathe again once I was back on Race’s turf so that may not even be a concern.

  “You kind of look like her. The singer. I bet you hear that all the time.” I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it was going to be like rolling back into the Point with her by my side.

  I felt rather than saw her shrug. “Yeah. I’ve heard it a time or two. Usually from a drunk guy trying to hit on me. Ari and I went and saw her in concert a while back. I couple of little girls asked me for my autograph.”

  She giggled at the memory, and again I felt like a hopeless idiot for ever thinking our lives could align. In the Point, people thought she could make money from the way she looked, taking her clothes off and titillating men for a living. In the real world, little girls mistook her for their idol and asked her to sign something for them. I groaned and threw my forearm over my eyes to block out the sun and the headache I could feel forming.

  The truth was, no matter how much I changed, or how far I pushed myself to repent, I was never going to be good enough for her. There was no making amends for all the things I’d done to earn my place in the Point. I wanted respect and I got it. Only, I now realized I sought it out from the wrong people.

  Despite my whirling thoughts and churning gut, I managed to fall into a restless sleep. I woke twice, once when I hit my head on the passenger window when Karsen slammed on the brakes to avoid a car that careened into our lane, cutting her off. And once more when Karsen reached out her hand to play with my short hair when we got stuck in rush hour traffic. The feeling of her fingers scraping over my scalp electrified my entire body. I went instantly hard and found myself leaning into her touch, seeking more, letting the sensation of being soothed sink all the way into my bones. Apparently, this wolf was pretty fucking close to being domesticated and I couldn’t muster up the energy to care.

  When I woke up the final time, the sun was going down and I noticed we were pulled over on the shoulder of the road. I blinked a few times before the spinning red and blue lights pulled me totally awake and had me snapping upright with instant alertness.

  “What happened? Were you speeding?” I whipped my head around to look at a terrified Karsen who was watching the police car in the rearview mirror.

  She shook her head and looked at me with huge eyes. “I wasn’t doing anything. We crossed the state line, and the next thing I knew he was behind me. He followed us for a solid twenty minutes before turning on the siren and pulling me over. I don’t have my driver’s license, and the trunk has a goddamn arsenal loaded into it; why would I do anything to draw attention to us?” She sounded petulant and annoyed because obviously she was smarter than that. We both knew it.

  “We crossed the state line?” I shifted in my seat, eyes darting to the door on her side of the car where my gun was stashed. I was a felon. It was totally illegal for me to be in possession of any kind of firearm. If the cop searched the car and took me in, it was a one-way ticket back to prison for me. I had a truckload of fake identification for all different occasions, but if my fingerprints were run for any reason, any reason at all, I was toast. A cold sweat slipped from my hairline and started to roll down my spine. “I don’t like this.” We were too close to home for it all to fall apart now.

  With our breath held, we both watched as the cop got out of his cruiser and made his way up along the side of the car. He had mirrored shades on, even though the sun was going down, and he kept his hand on the butt of his gun as he approached Karsen’s side of the car. As subtly as she could, she slid one of her hands into mine and squeezed.

  “Good evening, Officer. How can I help you today?” Ever the chameleon, Karsen slipped into her perfectly innocent girl-next-door guise between one breath and the next.

  The cop tilted his sunglasses down and ran his gaze over both of us, pausing to look at our linked hands.

  “Do you have any idea why I pulled you over, young lady?” His voice was hard and gave nothing away.

  “Umm . . .” Karsen gave me a searching look and then offered up a helpless shrug. “I really don’t. I can’t think of a single reason why you would pull me over, Officer.”

  The cop hummed a little and braced a hand on top of the car. “Where are you headed?”

  I thought it was super weird he had yet to ask for identification from either of us and I didn’t like the way he was eyeballing me over the top of Karsen’s head. It was all I could do to breathe in and out and not start to hyperventilate. I could practically hear the cell doors slamming shut. The sound made my ears ring as my blood pressure shot through the roof.

  “Uh . . . We’re headed home. Down the coast to the Point. I doubt you’ve ever heard of it.” She flashed him a guileless smile that almost had me believing she was some kind of angel. “My sister is getting married soon and I’m in the wedding.”

  The cop nodded as if the information she was spewing was fascinating. He tapped his hand on the roof of the car and it took every single scintilla of willpower I possessed not to jump out of my damn skin.

  “I know the Point. Know it well. I owe a favor or two to a guy down there I bet we both know. Got in deep with the wrong people placing bets on the horses in Del Mar. Offered to help me out if I did him a favor down the road. He put a call in and asked me to keep an eye out for a young woman on her way home. Not sure I want to know how he’s been monitoring traffic cameras all up and down the coast, but he has been. He asked me to check on her if I happened to see her and he mentioned the man you were with might very well be keeping you with him by force. He gave me the go ahead to remove you from your companion’s company by any means necessary.” Karsen gasped and whipped her head around so fast I was stunned she didn’t give herself whiplash. “However, you don’t seem to be in any distress. Are you with this man against your will, young lady?”

  “No! Absolutely not. He’s the one who got me this far. I’m with him because I want to be.” Each word was more forceful than the one behind it.

  The cop tapped the hood of the car again and took a step back. “Figured there was more to the story than that blond pretty boy was giving me.” The police officer took his sunglasses off and pointed a finger at me. “If I search this vehicle am I going to find an unregistered weapon?”

  Nope. He was going to find about twelve. I slowly nodded and felt my palms beginning to sweat. If I were in the driver’s seat, I would have floored it and tried to outrun the man. I was practically gagging on the thought of getting locked up again.

  “I may have gotten a heads-up about that. If you want some unsolicited advice, ditch the weapons and get the girl home in one piece. The only reason I’m not taking you in is because Hartman took my ‘53 Hudson a few months ago and sold it off before I got a chance to buy it back. That car was my great granddaddy’s. That little punk acts like he’s untouchable, but he’s not. I hope you show him he isn’t God and isn’t above the consequences that come with pl
aying with other peoples’ lives.” He nodded again and looked at Karsen. “If you care about your traveling companion, you better step up and put your foot down, little girl. Your big brother isn’t playing fair, and the next cop who comes along might be more afraid of him than I am.”

  Before Karsen could snap that Race wasn’t officially related to her yet, the cop passed along one last warning look and headed back to his car. He wasn’t even back in the cruiser before I had the passenger door open and was falling to the ground on my hands and knees. Lunch came up in a rush as I gagged and choked. I could feel sweat dripping into my eyes, or maybe those were tears. Either way, my face was wet and I was shaking all over when I felt Karsen’s hand on the center of my back and her lips on the crown of my head.

  Pathetic. Weak. Powerless.

  I was back to being all the things I swore I would never allow myself to be again.

  “I can’t go back, Karsen. I can’t.” The cold cement. The restricted space and constant fight for survival. If I ended up back in prison I knew I wasn’t making it out alive this time.

  “Go back where? Booker, I’ve never seen you like this.” She sounded scared, but there was no way her fear could touch the terror screaming through me at the moment.

  “I can’t go back to jail. I won’t go back. I’ll die first.” I lifted my head to look at her, hoping she could see what I thought of having everything stripped away from me was doing to me. When you had a weakness, it could be used against you. She’d just witnessed it first-hand.

  Nothing would have made me hurt her. Nothing on Earth was worth losing her and letting her go. But I was powerless against the way the fear of getting locked up made me feel.

  “That’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.” She sounded fierce and so protective, I desperately wanted to believe her. She was a fighter, and the idea of her fighting for me did something to my insides that made my fear feel small and insignificant.

  I looked at her from under my lashes as I pulled myself together. “I’m not this guy anymore. The one who falls apart and lets himself get run over by someone smarter and more powerful. At least, I thought I wasn’t that guy anymore. Everything I’ve done in my life is to prove I’m not him.” I hated how she witnessed me at one of my lowest points in years. The last time I had been this low was when I let Roxy and her friend have their way with me the night she showed up in my apartment, all the while knowing the wheels I set in motion were going to spin us out and tear us apart.

  She kissed me on the top of my head and took a step back. Her eyes were alive with gold fire as she put her hands on her hips and told me, “You are the guy who has always walked through fire to get to me, Booker. Nothing that happened today changes that. We all have a breaking point; it’s what makes us human. Let’s get going. We need to find a safe place to ditch the guns and I think we should find a different car. If we get stopped again, I’m not letting them take you, so we’d better be safe rather than sorry.”

  She started ticking off a million things that needed to happen, and I knelt at her knees knowing I would follow her anywhere she wanted to lead me. I would battle every single dragon she asked me to slay. I wasn’t much of a white knight; my armor was beyond rusted and ruined. However, I knew there was no one who would give as much, or go to the lengths I would go, in order to keep her safe. She might be the princess of the Point, but she was the Queen, the undeniable ruler, of my crooked and shady heart.

  Karsen

  All the pieces of our broken past were starting to fall into place and I didn’t like the picture they were painting before me.

  Not. At. All.

  Booker’s insistence he would never hurt me if he had a choice in the matter.

  The years before that night where he had been willing to die for me, literally.

  Race’s adamant protests that Booker was not the man for me, combined with my sister’s constant pressure to leave the Point behind and seek a better life elsewhere.

  Booker’s unmasked fear at the thought of going back to prison.

  The irrefutable fact he did things for Race and Nassir that were decidedly against the law.

  The way he said Race’s name with bitter scorn and ugly resentment. And the way he flatly declared he didn’t work for Race anymore and never would again.

  All my sister had ever asked of Race was to keep me safe, to keep his life and the dangers that went with it away from me. He would move heaven and Earth to grant her any wish, and since she only had one, it wasn’t hard to imagine Race doing whatever it took to do what Brysen asked of him.

  I didn’t want to believe the man I loved like an older brother was capable of playing the man I loved with my whole heart like a puppet. It made my skin crawl and had acrid rage climbing furiously up the back of my throat to think about Race manipulating Booker. Everyone knew there was no way I was leaving the big, damaged man. I wasn’t willing to walk away from him. But then that night happened and I couldn’t put him in my rearview mirror fast enough. Booker breaking my heart into a million pieces gave Race and Brysen exactly what they wanted, all while making me believe it was my idea to go. I was hurt so badly and felt so lost and alone. I honestly believed leaving the Point was the only way I was going to survive.

  I was starting to think it was my family who betrayed me, not the man sitting silently beside me.

  “You’re pretty quiet over there. Is everything all right?” Booker’s question jolted me out of my thoughts. I let go of the breath I’d sucked in and forgot to release as my mind spun circles around all the truths I thought I knew. All the truths and possible betrayals that were teetering on the edge of my mind.

  “I was just thinking.” And those thoughts were really starting to piss me off.

  Booker looked at me, taking his eyes off the road briefly. He had taken back control of the car and was anxiously looking in the mirror every five minutes. We were supposed to meet Snowden Stark and his girlfriend in a tiny town a couple of hours up the coast from the city, and Booker was driving like a grandma to prevent getting pulled over again. There were too many weapons loaded into the car to dispose of discreetly, and I had a feeling Booker was going to hand me off to the quiet hacker as soon as we met up. He was growing tenser and more alert the closer we got to home. I could practically feel him vibrating with apprehension.

  “Thinking about what?” He was touching his face, fingers dancing over his scar and rubbing against his scruff. His actions showed me he was nervous as hell, and that pissed me off even more.

  The man followed me across the country after four years of radio silence just to apologize, to give me a chance to see the truth on my own. He stayed awake all night and watched over me. He was delivering me back to the very people playing Russian roulette with his life. He’d never done anything but protect and care for me. Even when he took me to bed, it was all about making memories and creating something beautiful to replace all the dirty flashbacks of him and those other girls that had polluted my mind for so long.

  I rubbed a finger between my eyebrows, trying to physically push back the headache I felt building. “I was thinking about the night I walked in on you with those girls.”

  He made a strangled sound low in his throat and started tapping his fingers on his thigh in a very agitated manner. “Why are you thinking about that? It was a long time ago.” Only it didn’t sound like it was as far in the past as he wanted it to be either.

  “That night changed everything for me, Booker. I was so sure you knew I was coming for you the minute I was old enough. I was convinced you were waiting for me the way I was waiting for you.” I found myself tapping my fingers in the same pattern Booker was using. “I’m not dumb, and I was nowhere near as naïve as you guys thought I was. I knew you weren't exactly living like a monk. I saw the way those strippers went out of their way to hit on you. But all those years you knew I was crushing on you, not once did you ever flaunt another girl in my face. It didn’t matter if I stopped by before school, or if
I popped in during the middle of the night. You were always alone, Booker. Always.”

  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and he wouldn’t hold my gaze. A muscle jumped in his cheek and I was pretty sure I saw the corner of his eye twitch. “I always liked you. You were a good kid. You treated me like the sun rose and set because I asked it to. No one ever acted like I was worth their time before you came along. You always treated me like any time we spent together mattered to you. I wasn’t going to taint it by letting you look at what my life was really like when we weren’t together. You know I’m not a nice man. That typically means nice girls want nothing to do with me.”

  I scoffed at him and lifted a challenging eyebrow. “Really?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Yes, really.”

  I snorted in a very unladylike fashion and lifted a hand so I could tick off on my fingers all the very nice girls I knew, who did indeed, love very bad men. “Bax is about a hundred times more grumpy and unapproachable than you are. Dovie loves him unconditionally and she is the nicest person on the whole planet. Definitely the nicest girl in the Point. Race is an asshole. He’s a manipulative, conniving bastard, but my sister would gladly die for him. Nassir is as cold as they come. Seriously, being in the same room as him terrifies me. Key isn’t just nice, she’s compassionate and totally understanding. Reeve isn’t exactly nice, or sweet, or very empathetic, but there isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for Titus and their baby.” I held up my hand pointing at my pinkie finger triumphantly. “I’ve never meet Noe. From what I’ve heard, she tends to stick to being invisible, which I guess I understand because who knows if half the shit she gets into with Stark is legal. But from what I’ve pieced together, she’s the only one who managed to get through all of Stark’s hardwiring. I doubt she’s a jerk, because only someone with infinite patience and persistence could commit to unraveling the mess that man was tangled in. In fact, I think every single not-nice man I know has a pretty decent woman by his side to dull some of those rough edges.” I huffed an exasperated breath. “Besides, the girl who wasn’t crawling all over your dick that night was very nice to me. Roxy, I think she said her name was. She felt sorry for me, and I think also for you.”