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

by K. S. Thomas

  “I’m not telling you. Just pack a bag and be ready in twenty. I’m taking you to Pru’s tonight and you’re going to stay there for a while.”

  Her hands land up on her hips stubbornly. “No.”

  “Um, yeah.”

  If we’re going to have ourselves a pissing match over this, I’m intent on winning.

  “If it’s not safe for me to stay here, you shouldn’t be here either. Definitely not alone.”

  “She won’t be.” Lucas walks in out of nowhere, as usual. I really need to put a bell on him or something. “I’ll be here too. But your aunt is right. You need to get out of the house for a while.”

  Annoyingly, this does seem to appease her. “Fine. I’ll go pack.”

  “Are you serious? Because Lucas said so, you’ll go? What kind of sexist crap is that?”

  She turns back halfway down the hall. “It’s not a sexist thing. It’s the ‘he’s been trained to kill’ thing. If you’ve got a chick on standby with the same skill set, I’m cool with that too.”

  I shrug. “I have Sketch.”

  “Close, but no.” She grins and starts back toward her room. “The girl can throw a punch though; I’ll give you that. And I’ve seen her play softball, she’s pretty damn handy with a bat as well.”

  “Now you’re just being patronizing.”

  She responds by closing her door on me. Teenagers.

  Lucas

  I wait less than two seconds after Madi and my sisters take off in Hailey’s car to head back to my parents’ place before I round on Liv, demanding answers.

  “Start talking and don’t leave anything out. I mean it, Liv. You try any of that shielding me bullshit and I’ll know.”

  She does her best to appear affronted by the accusation, but succumbs to smirking sheepishly far too easily. One good thing at least: she’s finding her grounding slowly but surely again. Whatever Marcus dropped on her today is no longer too much for her to carry. I’d like to think I have something to do with that, but I’m not presumptuous enough to assume she’s let down her guard so far as to actually depend on me for something yet.

  “Marcus wants me to buy him out. Said Rediger is making it impossible for him to pay back his debt, and none of us can afford to keep that asshole around here any longer, so he wants out. He doesn’t care about getting half of what everything is worth. All he needs is what he owes Rediger. We give him the money, they both disappear and life goes back to normal.”

  Sounds too simple. There’s gotta be a catch.

  “Why? Why now? Why so easy.”

  She leans back against the kitchen counter, stretching her torso and lifting the hem of her shirt in the process. God, I’m ready for this shit to be over so I can take the time to fully appreciate how amazing she looks, just standing there and flashing me an inch of her perfect, painted skin. There are a million different thoughts I should be having right now, and none of them involves Marcus, but I can’t have any of them. Not yet. Not until this is settled.

  “Before I tell you, maybe you would like to have a seat? Take a deep breath? Have a cookie? Count to ten or something?”

  “Really? You think a light delivery will lessen the blow somehow?”

  “I have tequila if the cookie doesn’t do it for you.”

  “Liv.”

  “Rediger wants Madi. If he doesn’t get his cash, he plans on snatching her. Oh, and of course, he hates me and wants me dead.”

  She’s so flippant about the whole damn thing I don’t know whether to shake her or hold her tight. The tough girl routine is so fucking believable, sometimes I fall for it myself.

  “Well, if that’s all.” I rake my hands over my face and up through my hair, then I bring them back down the same way, as if it will help clear my thoughts somehow. It doesn’t. “How much?”

  “How much?”

  “How much money? How much time?” How much do I want to beat his fucking face in? How much do I wish I had orders to shoot to kill right now? The list goes on.

  “Hundred grand. Nine days.”

  Finally, something I can do. “Call your lawyer in the morning. Have him draw up the papers so Marcus can sign whatever he needs to and then he can get the hell out.”

  She scowls, and it’s the first serious expression I’ve seen from her since this conversation started. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Yes, it is.” I reach into my pocket and retrieve my phone.

  “No, it’s not. I don’t have that kind of money, Lucas. I have ideas on how to get it, but it’s going to take me a few days to sort it out.”

  I tap the screen and bring up my bank app. “It’s not going to take a few days. It’s going to take me walking into my bank and drawing out the cash to give to you. That’s it.”

  “What?”

  I turn the screen so she can see it. My savings. It’ll damn near clean me out, but it’ll cover what Marcus owes and that’s all that matters. “I’ve got the money, Liv. Make the arrangements.”

  Her eyes wide and her mouth open, she shakes her head. “No. I’m not taking your money.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “Lucas -” Her hand comes up to dismiss me, but she stops halfway and apparently decides it’s best to end the conversation altogether, because she abandons her post at the counter and starts to leave.

  I snag her wrist just in time and stop her, bringing her back around to face me.

  “How do I feel about you?”

  She scrunches her nose, confused by the change in topic. “I don’t know. What difference does it make? We’re not talking about us right now, we’re talking about Marcus.”

  “This is about us. It makes a big difference. And you do know.”

  Her gaze drops. Amazing. She finds me more terrifying than that guy who came at her last night trying to kill the kid at her feet.

  “I know you care about me, Lucas, and I think you know that I care about you as well, but that doesn’t make it okay for me to clean out your savings account. Especially not given what you did to earn that money. I don’t deserve it. Marcus and Rediger definitely don’t deserve it.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t diminish my fucking feelings like that. I don’t care about you. I love you. I’ve told you this. A lot. I’ve said it over and over again, and frankly, I think I’ve proved it by now. Whether you’re ready to say those words to me or not means nothing to me. I’m not sitting here like some insecure jackass waiting to hear confirmation that I’m not in this alone. I’m not. I know I’m not. You don’t need to say it for me to feel it. You love me. You love me so much you don’t even know what to do with it. So I’m going to tell you. You’re going to take my money, you’re going to give it to your brother, and he’s going to give it to his boss. They will both be good little criminals and go back to the seedy shitholes they crawled out from. And then, you and I? We’re going to be together. We’re going to be happy, and someday, when you’re all grown up and can handle it, we’re going to get married. And then, Liv, none of this will matter. There will be no question of what’s yours or what’s mine, because it will all be ours. So, if you could just look at the big picture for like two seconds, and see that what I’m saying is true, we could get on with getting to that happily ever after part of the story I know your sappy romantic insides secretly yearn for.”

  “Damn it,” she whispers, tears surfacing at the corners of her eyes. “That was good.”

  “You’ll call your lawyer?”

  She nods slowly. “I’ll call my lawyer.”

  Then I kiss her. Hard and long, until she forgets about her brother and the mess we’re in. Until she’s no longer scared. Until it’s just us and all the feelings she keeps unspoken are ringing through me loud and clear.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Heartbreaker

  “Why are we meeting here?” I haven’t been to the Eastside Bar in ages. Never have any need to haul my ass all the way out to Stanley. Half their staff comes to me and I’ve never had much use for
going out and getting hammered.

  “Because we won’t look shady doing our shady business here, that’s why.” Marcus slides into the booth across from me. Lucas is still standing. Sketch hasn’t even made it in the door. My eyes move from her on the sidewalk to Ali behind the bar.

  “You the only one here today?” I call out to her.

  She dumps a bucket of ice into her well. They’ve only been open a couple of minutes and probably weren’t expecting customers to be here so early. “Jimmy Sparkles is in the back changing out a keg. Why, you got a big party bus rolling up here I should know about?”

  “Not exactly.” I nod toward the door and she follows the gesture with her gaze, then grins.

  “Got it.” She laughs and drops the empty bucket on the floor along the wall as she makes her way to the door and swings it open. “You can come in, Sketch. She’s not here.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she grumbles, slinking in past Ali and hurrying over to our table. When she realizes the only open seat is next to my brother, she snorts in disgust and pulls up a chair instead.

  “I’m not even gonna ask,” Lucas mutters, stretching his arm out behind me and resting it on the back of the booth like he’s thirteen and making a lame attempt to put his arm around me. The reality isn’t that far off. He’s not a nervous teenager with hormones running amok, but a grown ass man with testosterone pumping through him on overload, increasing his desire to shield and protect me. And like that clumsy teenager, he has to be very careful not to get caught.

  “I brought papers and a cashier’s check,” I say, laying both out on the table for Marcus to see. “All you gotta do is sign the building back over to me and take the money.”

  “And then get the fuck up out of here,” Lucas adds, just in case that part wasn’t clear.

  Marcus smirks. “Relax, killer. We worked this out before you were even a part of the conversation. I know what role I have to play in this.” He scans the agreement my lawyer drew up. It’s not being documented as a sale. He’s merely relinquishing his rights to his portion of the inheritance. The payoff is completely under the table. It was the fastest, simplest way to handle the matter with the least amount of involvement from anyone else. No point in trying to do any of this by the book at this point anyway.

  “Do you need a pen?”

  My brother stops reading to lift his head in my direction. “No.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  “Sunday, actually.”

  Sketch stands from her chair so fast she nearly knocks it over. “I’m not sitting here until Sunday.”

  “Sit your ass back down,” I hiss at her. “And you,” I point at my brother, “try that again.”

  “I’ll take the papers, you hold onto the check until Sunday. We’ll exchange money at the warehouse, right where Rediger can see.”

  Lucas shifts himself into an upright position. I can feel his entire body tense up beside me.

  “There are so many fucking things wrong with that, I don’t even know where to start. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ll just throw one out there, why Sunday?”

  Marcus glares at him. I know it’s driving him nuts that I insisted on bringing Lucas along.

  “Because there’s a fight on Saturday. I only just found out about it. It’s a big deal. Rediger invited some major people. Higher ups found out how successful our little operation’s been, so he thought he’d invite them down to impress them. Show ‘em a good time. Maybe land himself a promotion, so to speak. There’s going to be so much fucking money walking in the doors, he’s not going to give two shits about the hundred grand I hand him. Even after his boss walks out with the big pot, Rediger’s share will be plenty big enough to keep him smiling. We gotta give him the fight. He gets his last big win. His bosses make bank, all the other players go home with lighter wallets, but happy to have spent the money on a quality weekend of booze, boobs and bloody fists. Then we shut it down. Everybody wins, including you.”

  I don’t feel good about this. It’s getting too big. Dealing with Marcus was stressful, but I could manage. Rediger made things scary in a way I could barely bring myself to think about, but again, I could still deal, could still wrap my mind around what needed to be done, could still see a way out. Now? I don’t know. Marcus’s world stands in its own realm. It exists independently from ours. Laws and rules never seem to apply to the people he’s talking about. They have enough money and power to create any outcome they desire, and none of them are looking to land in prison or wind up dead. If it turns into us against them, we’re not coming out on top.

  “Swear, Marcus. Swear to me that you still have control over this. That you can end it after the weekend.” This time I don’t let him turn away. I force him to hold eye contact until he says the words out loud.

  “It’s Madi, Liv,” he says in a hushed voice so low I wonder if anyone else at the table can even hear. “I know I’m never going to be more than the asshole sperm donor to her, and I don’t deserve to be, but she’s still my daughter. I would die before I let him touch even a hair on her head. I’ll end it. I swear.”

  I nod and tap Lucas on the side. I’m ready to get out of here. Seeing Marcus shred enough of his cold, black armor to actually reveal shards of his shattered soul is more than I can bear. Accepting him as the hard, heartless piece of shit he’s become is so much easier than remembering he’s really just broken beyond recognition.

  “Finally,” Sketch grumbles, getting to her feet as well. She’s the first one to the door, running out of the bar almost as fast as she used to run in. Funny how our stories change even when they continue to repeat themselves.

  “Now what?” Lucas asks, holding the door for me.

  “Now we wait until Sunday.” It’s only four more days. I can make it four more days.

  ***

  I was wrong. I barely made it one. One day since our sit down with Marcus and I’m climbing the walls. I can’t stand how this feels, can’t take waiting, the being in limbo. It’s worse than anything up until this point has felt. At least before I felt like things were moving. Maybe not with a clear destination in front of us, but moving nonetheless. Motion, action, always feels better.

  “That’s the last of the seven black cars to leave the parking lot,” Mouth observes. “What’s the deal with mobsters and their car buying preferences? They all color blind or something? I know black is all gangsta looking, sleek, dark and mysterious. But there’s gotta be perks to going with a nice blood red in their line of work.”

  “You’re gross,” Princess remarks quietly, never taking her eyes from the sketch pad in her lap. We haven’t had another human being in here in over three hours. Had to cancel our appointments for the evening when the parade of sedans started moving in. We should have just gone home, but none of us could seem to make it to the door. This is our place. Our home. Our sanctuary. And no matter what happens, we all have an innate need to protect it.

  “Meanwhile, Lucas may want to look into buying something a little more inconspicuous than his bright and shiny white truck, at least while he’s trying to blend in around here.” Sketch turns away from the window. “Did you know he was camped out across the street at the bakery with the shit coffee?”

  I drop the collection of dead pens and dried out markers I’ve been sorting out from my desk into the trash. If the criminals are calling it a night, I suppose we can too. “Yep. Been there all day. Memphis is with him too.”

  “I don’t know. Shiny white truck seems appropriate.” Mouth smirks. “You know, for a knight and all.”

  “If the next words to roll off of your unruly tongue depict me as some sort of weakened damsel in distress, I’m going to punch you.” Lucas makes a great hero, I’m just not generally in the business of needing one and I’m eager for this phase of our story to be over with.

  Mouth is about to entertain herself further by continuing this unpleasant harassment she’s settled into when a loud bang explodes in th
e silence.

  “What was that?” Princess’s eyes are wide and nowhere near the drawing she’s had her eyes glued to for the last thirty minutes.

  “A gunshot.” I don’t know how I know this. I’ve never heard a gun fired before, not in real life anyway. Or maybe I have and I blamed the noise on something else, something less frightening. So, who am I to say what it was or wasn’t, except the cold sweat running down my spine is telling me with an undeniable certainty there was a gun being fired in the building behind us. The building my brother is in.

  “Lucas and Memphis are still in the truck,” Sketch reports, still standing near the window. “They’re not running over here to save the day, Heartbreaker. Maybe you’re wrong.”

  Mouth is silent. For once.

  “I don’t suppose anyone is going to go and check to see what the sound was?” Princess squeaks from her chair, her knees pulled up to her chest.

  “I’ll go.” I’ll feel better once I know.

  “Are you insane? You can’t go out there.” Sketch abandons her post to cut me off on my way to the back door.

  “I thought you just decided no one was firing any weapons.”

  “Yeah, for the moment. There’s still the issue of drug lords and arms dealers now making a habit of coming and going outside that door. I’d just as soon you stay inside and we all remain in the unknown regarding the mysterious bang.”

  I move the arm she has spread out to block my way and keep walking.

  “I’m going to look. You really think they’re going to shoot me, out in the open, with x amount of witnesses, just because I stepped outside?”

  She nods, dead serious. “Yeah. Yeah, I really do. It’s pitch black out there now. Witnesses or not, they wouldn’t think twice about pulling the trigger.”

  She’s probably right, but I can’t add hiding to the endless waiting I’m already doing.

  “Then do me a solid and take care of Madi.”

  I push down on the handle and step out into the open before she can stop me.

  There’s no one out here. Not a soul in sight. Although, I suppose given the people I’m dealing with, soul may not be as clear a term as it ought to be. Not a person in sight is probably more accurate.