Nine: A pINK Novel (A pINK Series Book 1)

by K. S. Thomas

  “How much and how long?” That’s all I really need to know now.

  “A hundred grand.” He releases me and takes a step back. “And nine days.”

  “Why nine?” Leave it to Sketch to be hung up on the details.

  “It was ten when he issued the ultimatum last night.”

  Nine days. A hundred thousand dollars in nine days. Even if I could get a loan, I’d never get the cash in time to hand it over.

  Marcus turns and starts toward the back door. He stops briefly with his fingers wrapped around the handle. “They’re watching your every move, Liv. You do anything stupid, and he kills us both. And then Madi has no one left to protect her.”

  I can hear Sketch take in a sharp breath. She’d die protecting Madi. I know that, and now we both know it could actually come to that.

  Lucas

  I walk seven blocks before I realize I’ve got a case of the Forest Gumps and am likely to just keep going indefinitely if I don’t find some other way to diffuse the rage ripping at my insides. Liv called, crying and terrified. She wouldn’t say why, but we all know why. Walking at a near run, pounding the pavement in anger with every step, I turn down the next street coming up. I don’t know anyone on this end of town anymore. Everyone I went to school with grew up and moved away, and unlike me, they weren’t stupid enough to come back.

  I can’t go home. No way in hell can my parents see me like this, and Liv insisted repeatedly that I stay away from the shop today. Under no circumstances am I to come anywhere near there. A really shitty fucking thing to have to agree to when the woman you love is falling apart and every instinct you have is screaming at you to go to her, but I promised I wouldn’t. So I won’t. But I can’t keep walking either. Definitely not down this road anyway. There’s an old beer pub a mile down. What I’ll do if I get there, I don’t know. Given my current frame of mind I’ll likely be in a bar brawl before I have a chance to order a beer. Maybe walking out of the house without a plan wasn’t such a stellar idea after all.

  I stop. I hear sirens running somewhere nearby and it takes all I’ve got not to turn left at the next intersection and race to the shop to check on her. I know she’s safe. The shop is east of here. The sirens are running west. She’s safe. I’m losing my fucking mind, but she’s safe.

  I need to get off the street, and there’s only one way I can think to do that without getting into the trouble.

  “Memphis,” I bark into my phone, with no regard to what time it is or what he might be doing right now. It’s too late in the day for him to still be sleeping, but it’s entirely possible Juli and him are in the middle of something they’d prefer I didn’t interrupt.

  “Honeymoon ended already, huh?”

  “I don’t have time for your bullshit. I’m stuck over on Elm and I need a ride.”

  “I’ll be there in ten.” He hangs up. I knew he’d come, no questions asked. That’s the kind of person he is. Always has been. I think that’s why it killed him so much when Riot disappeared. He couldn’t ever wrap his brain around not being able to save her.

  It’s a struggle I’m starting to understand on a whole new level. And I hate it. I’m not losing Liv. I’m not going to stand by and let Marcus come in and destroy her. Or worse.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Heartbreaker

  “Madi’s aunt. She’s loaded, right? She’s gotta give you the money,” Princess reasons. It sounds logical, but it’s not. I’ve already been down this train of thought. So has Sketch. We both wound up in the same place.

  “She won’t. She hates Marcus because she thinks he’s the reason her sister is dead, so there’s no way she’s doing anything to bail him out. Ever. Not even to save Madi, because she’s all black and white. All right and wrong. No in-between. Marcus is a criminal. He belongs in jail. Period. This business with Rediger will be no different. He threatens Madi, she calls the cops. That’s the only way she knows to proceed. So, not only is asking her for the money not an option, but she can never, ever find out about any of this.”

  Princess frowns. Even Mouth seems a little on edge. Cherry’s not here. Sketch and I sent her home the second she walked in, just like we discussed. She put up a hell of a fight, so much so, she damn near had me convinced she could stay. I’m glad I didn’t give in. Seeing how rattled these two are, Cherry would not have fared well when confronted with the whole ugly truth of things. It’s better she’s not involved. It’d be better if no one else was, but the women sitting around while we powwow over this mess I’m in would never leave my side even if I told them to. They’re my warriors. My fierce goddesses. The women who don’t just show up on good days. These women show up to fight. They stay until death. They don’t know quit. They don’t do scared. They’re all in, all the time.

  “I have some money saved,” Mouth offers. “It’s not much, but maybe if we all start pooling together what we have, we’ll get closer to a number that doesn’t seem so fucking impossible.”

  “She’s right,” Sketch agrees. “I’ll put the Jeep up for sale. Thing should go fast and it’ll bring in at least thirty grand, maybe more if I get enough people interested fast enough.”

  “No way!” I stand up so fast I accidentally kick over the box of disposable razors next to my desk. “First of all, the only person here cleaning out their savings is me. Second, no one is selling anything – least of all those things you love and have spent the last five years dumping all your time and money into. That Jeep is pretty much your favorite thing in the whole world. You’re not selling it, and definitely not for thirty grand when it’s worth way more.”

  “So, let me see if I can get more. Nine days isn’t a lot of time, but you never know.” She acts like half of my argument never came out of my mouth.

  “I just said no.”

  “You said I couldn’t sell it for thirty grand. Everything else you said was bullshit. It’s a car. I like it, and, yeah, doing all the custom work on it was a fun hobby, but when it comes to my favorite things in life, Madi rates a hell of a lot higher than a fucking pile of metal with wheels.”

  She’s downplaying this whole thing. Of course Madi means more, but that doesn’t make it okay for her to sell her most prized possessions.

  “She’s right,” Princess chimes in. “I’ve got some old jewelry I can pawn.”

  “And I’ve got some first editions on my bookshelf that are worth a pretty penny,” Mouth adds, the excitement growing rapidly as they convince themselves there’s light at the end of this tunnel.

  “Stop it! All of you!” I throw my hands up at all three of them. “This is crazy. Sketch is not selling her Jeep. Princess is not pawning her old wedding ring – that shit’s got so much bad karma attached to it, trying to get it out of the case would be like opening Pandora’s box and we sure as hell don’t need that – and you,” I point at Mouth, “are not selling the books your grandmother left you.” Then I collapse back into my chair, completely in awe of my friends – my family – and the lengths they will go to for me.

  “You have thirty seconds to pitch us a better idea,” Mouth counters. “If you don’t convince me that you have this shit under control, we’re going with our own plan.”

  “Madi has a trust.” She can’t access it until she turns twenty-five. But I can.

  “Heartbreaker.” Sketch shakes her head slowly, conveying her thoughts in their entirety through one simple motion.

  “I can start a new one for her,” I reason. “Besides, a trust won’t mean much if we don’t get Rediger out of here as fast as humanly possible.”

  “What if...” Princess starts, but her question fizzles out before she can formulate the rest of the words.

  “What if, what?” If we’re brainstorming here, I’m open to hearing every thought, no matter how meaningless it may seem inside someone’s head. Sometimes the ideas that sound ridiculous wind up being brilliant.

  “It’s just,” she twists her fingers uncomfortably, stalling, “is there any chance at all that M
arcus is scamming you? Using Madi as a way to con a hundred grand out of you?”

  Ordinarily, that’d be my first conclusion.

  “No, this is legit. I know my brother. Professional liar or not, I know he was for real.”

  Sketch scrunches her nose and screws up her mouth as she shifts from one foot to the other like the stench of this topic is getting to her. “She’s right. He’s legit. Maybe for the first time in his life, but it’s real. He wants out, and not for the money. He just wants out, period.”

  Silence falls around us as we all take a moment to let it sink in.

  We have options. They all suck, but at least they exist. Or, at least, they feel like they do. That’s something I can work with. Something I can hold onto, at least until the end of the day. Right now, we have a business to run.

  Lucas

  “You have absolutely no idea what’s going on?” Memphis asks for the one hundredth time.

  “No. No fucking idea,” I snap. Like this isn’t making me crazy enough as it is! He’s supposed to be talking me down, not firing me up.

  “Sorry.” I think he just noticed. “But you gotta understand, that’s my family, too. I know you’re the boyfriend and all, but I’ve been through shit with them, shit no one else can understand. It binds you together. It matters. They matter.”

  Juli winces audibly. It’s the first sound she’s made since I got here an hour ago.

  Memphis pretends he doesn’t hear her. He probably didn’t mean to say all of that in front of her.

  “Look, as soon as I know, I will tell you. In the meantime, I need you to channel the dude who climbs onto bulls like you’re five and about to go on a pony ride at the fair, k? No more tripping out. Just, cool, calm and totally rational behavior even in the face of an undeniably irrational situation. That’s your specialty. That’s what I come here for.”

  “You’re saying riding bulls is undeniably irrational?”

  “Everyone says that.”

  He laughs. “This from the man who stopped a handful of shrapnel with his backside.”

  “Hey, we all have our things.” I shrug, doing my best to let him distract me. Or, at the very least, act as if it’s possible.

  “Come on,” he gestures for me to follow him and we leave the living room, and Juli, behind.

  “Where are we going?” The hallway leads straight to his bedroom, so the better question might have been, why are we going there. Or what will be doing once we arrive. But I’m not exactly thinking clearly here, so stupid questions are permitted and should therefore slide without being pointed out.

  “Gotta show you something.”

  “Okay.” I follow along until we reach his closet. He disappears inside while I wait next to the dresser. I’m not into small spaces.

  He comes back out holding one set of boxing gloves in his hand and another under his arm. “Here. Try these on.”

  I take them, an idea of where this is headed forming rapidly at the forefront of my mind. “Are we gonna fight?”

  He grins. I’ve seen that grin. It’s not the kind that makes you want to laugh. It’s the kind that makes you glad you’re not on his bad side.

  “Why not?” He slides his hand into a glove, pulling it tight. “You said the fights are fixed, right? Said these asshats are making money left and right letting people place bets on all the wrong contenders. Well, what if we fucked with their system a little?”

  I stare down at my gloves then back up at him. “Could get us killed.”

  He shrugs. “So could riding bulls and taking bullets.”

  “As long as we’re clear on that.” I can feel my mouth twitch at its corners, itching to pull up. Liv will hate it, but it’s the best fucking idea I’ve heard all day.

  Chapter Twenty

  Heartbreaker

  “I know it’s short notice, Pru. I wouldn’t ask if I could help it.” I shake my head at my own reflection in the hall mirror. I’ve been on the phone with her for ten minutes, having a conversation that should have been over in three. It’s not that fucking complicated. “Look, if it’s a problem, I’ll ask one of the girls from dance if she can crash there tonight.”

  Silence. And yet, I’m pretty sure I can hear her stewing. Then, she practically spits her words into the receiver and confirms it.

  “You have a lot of nerve; you know that? Asking me to keep Madi here so you can have a night to yourself with my son. Maybe I can’t stop you from seeing him, but I sure as hell don’t need to help you pursue this sordid affair.”

  I close my eyes and count to ten. I didn’t know she knew. I can’t tell her that. I also can’t have this conversation right now.

  “I don’t blame you for feeling that way, Pru. For the record, I would never ask you to babysit so I can have a date night with your son. A, I’m not an asshole and B, Madi’s well informed when it comes to the birds and the bees, so I have no reason to hide my relationships from her. I actually did have something come up at the shop that’s got me completely swamped, and I’d feel better knowing she wasn’t sitting here alone. But you don’t need to believe me, or help me. It’s fine. I’ll figure it out.”

  “Wait.”

  I do, thinking she’ll say something else. When she doesn’t, I prod her, “For what?”

  “Something is going on. Something you’re not telling me.” I can hear the clicking of her heels over the tile. She’s on the move. Judging by the lowered tone of her voice, she’s headed somewhere more private.

  “I think that part has already been established, Pru.”

  “No. I don’t mean you and Lucas, although I would have expected better from you.” She scoffs. “Oh, who the hell am I kidding, this is exactly the sort of thing I would have expected! I should have known. My son’s been infatuated with you since before he hit puberty, and what boy wouldn’t have been. The way you walk around...” Her voice tails off. For a brief moment I think maybe she’s distracted herself from her original mission to press the issue of my supposed secret. It’s not all that supposed. I have one, but I’m not telling it. “You’re right. That’s not it.”

  “Why the sudden change of heart?” Ideally I’d get off the phone right now, but I can’t afford to have Pru’s mind wander off unsupervised. If she’s really set on finding out what’s going on, she’ll figure it out. That’s just how she is.

  “Because, distasteful as I may find the idea, you’re clearly not hiding your relationship with Lucas. If you were just fooling around with him, there’s no way in hell you’d let anyone hear about it, ever. You’d keep that private, behind closed doors, but you’re not. You’re talking about it. So it’s real, and I’ll have to deal with that at some point down the road. For now, I have more important things to worry about, like Marcus, and how long he’s been in town for.”

  Damn it. “How did you know?”

  “You underestimate me, as usual. We may not see eye to eye on most everything, but you can’t possibly believe that I still don’t know you after all this time. You don’t lie, Olivia. You don’t keep secrets, unless it’s about your brother.” She practically whispers the last part. At least we’re both on the same page where he’s concerned. The less people who know, the better.

  “I’m dealing with it, Pru.”

  “You always say that, Liv. I know he’s your brother, but you can’t keep protecting him. He’s dangerous.”

  “I know that. I’m not protecting him, I swear. I’m trying to protect myself and Madi. He’s here for his share of my father’s estate. There was nothing I could do to him without hurting myself in the process until now. He’s leaving. Just a few more days and he’ll be gone again, for good this time.”

  She’s quiet for a long while, but I don’t dare say anything to interrupt her thoughts. It’s a lot to digest. We’ll all be better off if she takes the time to sort through it now.

  “Make sure Madi packs a big bag,” she says quietly, emotions running high in her voice, “I want her here until he’s gone.”


  “Thank you.” My heart swells. After all the crap my family has put her through, she still never fails to put Madi above it all.

  “We need to work on our trust issues, Liv. We’re never gonna make it for the long haul if we don’t start having a little more faith in each other.”

  “Madi’s seventeen. You’re nearly rid of me.”

  She sighs. “I’ve seen the look on my son’s face when he talks about you. I’ll never be rid of you, Liv.”

  Speechless, I hold the phone to my ear long after she’s hung up again. It’s not until after I hear the front door and Madi’s voice, that I snap out of it and remember what needs to be done and how I’m the one who needs to do it.

  “Why do you look like that?” she asks, her brow arched, an expression of mingled curiosity and pity dancing in her face. She’s perfected that expression over the last three years. I’m hoping she grows out of it soon.

  “You’re one to talk. You’re soaked in sweat and your hair is matted to half of your face,” I point out.

  She drops her bag onto the nearest chair. “I just spent three hours dancing my ass off. I look appropriate for my circumstances. Plus, I wasn’t attacking your general appearance. You look fine. I was talking about your pale splotchy complexion and the overall ‘I’ve seen a ghost’ demeanor you’re rocking over there.”

  “Oh.” My skin’s been doing that off and on all day. I’ve got a rash over my ribcage too, but she can’t see that, thank God. “I think I’m coming down with something. You should probably pack up some things and stay at the McNealys’ until I’m over it. No need for you to get sick too.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Look at you, swearing like a big girl now.”

  “Don’t screw with me, Aunt Liv. What’s really going on? Is it Marcus?”

  I need to lie more often. I suck at it, and apparently my motivations are beyond transparent.