A dozen guys stood on the blacktop between the buildings, most of them smoking or shooting the shit. One ran a dark cloth over his Glock, as though he expected to see his reflection in the damn thing. But he shoved his weapon into the waistband of his jeans when he saw Brick coming.
The crowd parted as he made his way to his second-hand half-ton Chevy pick-up truck.
The reason you build a hard-core reputation is for moments like this. Where everyone’s eyes turn away as you walk past. Where no one dares lift a hand against you because they know you would cut it off.
Even the scariest fuckers kept their distance. Because he was the thing that went bump in the night.
He held his stony expression as he cranked the engine and drove to his apartment. He rarely had to fake the Boogeyman routine these days…except when it involved kids. This life had scooped out whatever humanity he’d been born with a long time ago.
Still, he sighed when he made it inside his apartment and locked the door. His little one-bedroom wasn’t much bigger than Pete’s place, but it was clean. And it was his.
Nothing about the apartment made it special. A drab, grey paint shadowed the walls, barely a shade darker than the low-grade, bristly carpet. Threadbare fabric covered the couch cushions—green—or it had been, before age leeched all the color away years ago. The sofa could seat two, but he wasn’t even sure why he had it. He always sat in the recliner when he was home, and he didn’t invite company. Home was the only place he could relax his guard, or at least stop looking over his shoulder.
No photos. No decorations. Nothing anyone could use to get to know him or use against him. He didn’t even own a TV. The only nods to the life he once had hid beneath the false bottom of a drawer in his nightstand. Even if someone ever found the broken toy race car, they wouldn’t know why it mattered to him—he wasn’t sure himself. The picture of him with his grandmother couldn’t cause trouble, either. Sucre worked tirelessly, exploiting that weakness for all it was worth. But he kept them hidden. The last tiny vestiges of his humanity.
Bone tired, he shuffled to the bathroom to wash his hands and face. As he dried his skin with a hand towel, frayed and ragged from years of use, he avoided the mirror over the sink.
He didn’t need his reflection to tell him what an ugly bastard he was. A face only a mother could love.
Too bad his mother was dead. His father too. Sucre had seen to it. And now he worked for the son-of-a-bitch loan shark and drug dealer who ran Atlanta’s underbelly. He was the number one enforcer in a stable of muscle growing larger and more brutal every day.
He used to dream of getting out, but he didn’t dream anymore. All dreaming ever did was leave you hurt and disappointed. He bashed heads, he earned his money, and he squirreled it away so one day he’d have enough to move his grandmother far out of Sucre’s reach. Then, his very last known weakness would be off the table, and God have mercy on any man who tried to control him again.
Because Brick would have none.
***
Liv
Liv shivered against the chill seeping into her bones as she surveyed the packed interior of the plane. About two dozen people lined the edges, their gear strapped on, ready as they’d ever be to jump into the great beyond.
The guy across from her, a ginger, probably in his thirties, gripped his crossed arms so tightly, he had to be hurting himself. She wasn’t sure if seeing her own fear reflected in another person’s face made things better or worse. The guy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and the decidedly undignified squeak he made answered her question.
It was worse. Definitely worse.
Unsticking her dry tongue from the roof of her mouth, she forced a deep breath and pushed her gaze away from Mr. Squeaky. The expression on the forty-something African American woman beside him told a very different story. Her brown eyes gleamed with anticipation, but otherwise, her face looked as serene as a summer’s day. Then she winked.
“You look like you’re about to puke, kiddo.” Carol nudged her with her foot. “You’ve got to stop thinking so hard. You’re borrowing trouble. Live in the moment.”
Sage advice from a woman who knew better than most how to live for the now. Carol was her best friend, her rock. And the reason she stood ten thousand feet off the ground, strapped to a stranger, and putting her life in his hands. Liv only knew two things about her jump-partner: his name was Louie, and he said he’d been jumping out of planes almost every day for the past eight years. Either Louie was completely certifiable or proof skydiving wasn’t as suicidal as her hindbrain insisted.
Or maybe it was a bit of both.
Louie’s barrel chest rumbled behind her with a whoop she felt more than heard as the door opened. He’d warned her before they took off how loud it would be, but the words couldn’t have prepared her. The wind roared like the gates of hell had opened wide.
Still, Carol’s smile never wavered.
Not even as she and her partner moved toward the exit. Not even as she stepped out into the nothing and disappeared from sight.
Carol could do anything.
She’d survived breast cancer, not once, but twice. Her wisdom, her laughter, and her generosity of spirit kept Liv sane through her own battle with the Big-C. Through every chemo session. Through every moment of pain, of nausea, of despair, Carol was there, showing her it wasn’t enough just to survive. They both deserved to live.
This jump celebrated their victory. The golden ticket. Remission.
No more days and nights kneeling in front of the toilet, heaving, even when she had nothing left to throw up. No more losing the thick blonde hair that reminded her of her mom. And no more weakness.
Liv was strong now, or at least getting there, and she was done playing it safe. What good had it ever done her? Every choice she’d ever made for her life, she’d based on what she thought she was supposed to do, and when the possibility of death came calling, she had virtually nothing to show for it. Her boyfriend dumped her, she had no friends to turn to, and she’d never really done anything.
If she wanted a different kind of future, she had to leave the mistakes of her past behind. So what if she didn’t know how? Fear had no place in this new reality. And if she couldn’t trust herself to make the kind of choices to change her life, at least now she had a friend who could push her in the right direction.
Carol’s face flashed before her eyes as Louie prodded her toward the open door.
Live for the moment.
The sky in front of her beckoned clear and blue and stretched out into forever.
She took a deep breath, stepped out of the plane, and flew.
Chapter 2
Brick
The lukewarm spray of the shower did shit to ease the tightness in Brick’s shoulders, but it served well enough to help the soap erase the grime of the city from his skin. He washed his body in quick, efficient movements, then used the bar of Dial to lather the top of his head. He kept his dark hair too short to bother with shampoo. Hair long enough for someone to grab created a liability.
His internal clock warned him to move faster. Xander expected the crew at the site by six-thirty, and the foreman was one of the few people in this world he didn’t want to disappoint. They weren’t tight or anything, but the man gave him a chance to be something other than a thug every day.
It felt good to build something rather than destroy it.
He threw on clothes, then made a final check of his tiny apartment. Windows, secure. Hidden weapons, in place. Money? Nestled safely in the fat, hollow legs of his coffee table.
No one he knew would have the balls to break into his home, but he didn’t take any chances. Only a few more thousand dollars and he’d finally have enough to get out of Sucre’s trap.
He pulled up to the site next to a Cooper Construction pickup with minutes to spare. Their latest gig had them building a three-bedroom house in the suburbs.
It was the closest he would ever get to a place like this, but it
didn’t matter. One day, a family would live here. Kids would make happy memories and shit, and he’d have something to do with it. It was good work. Clean work. And on this job, he could pretend to be a regular guy instead of the bone-crusher who made crackheads like Pete piss their pants. No one seemed scared of him here. A welcome change from the other side of his life.
“Brick.”
Xander's assistant, Robby, wasn't even cautious around him. On the street, a skinny guy like him would be running away from Brick, not toward him. The kid looked downright happy to see him when he stepped up with his clipboard in his hand.
“Did you hear? The house we wrapped up in Dunwoody last month is going to be a model home. I knew the place looked amazing. You guys did some great work. I was just telling Xander—”
Robby prattled on, barely taking a breath. How he’d become the assistant’s favorite person to gossip with, he’d never fucking know.
“—you know what I mean?”
He really didn’t, but he nodded anyway. “Who am I working with today, kid?”
Robby startled a little at his voice before glancing down at his clipboard. “You're with Kane and Will.”
He checked over his shoulder and saw both the guys in question already headed his way. When he looked back, the tips of Robby's ears and his cheeks were turning pink. He followed the assistant’s gaze to Matt and Cyrus, the last two members of the five-man crew, strapping on their hardhats and tool belts near the curb.
Robby averted his eyes back to the papers on his clipboard. “I'm, uh, going to go give Xander a call and let him know you guys are getting underway.” The kid almost tripped over his feet, scrambling to get away.
Weird.
Brick tilted his head at the men on his team, and they followed him toward the area where they'd be working. Kane was the closest thing he had to a friend on the crew. Hell, anywhere, come to think of it. They were both big men used to others giving them a wide berth. The dude might have been part of a local biker gang, but he had never asked. The same way Kane never asked him about what he did for Sucre. Both predators respected each other’s strength without feeling the need to make a challenge.
Will, well, he would fit right in with those All-American football types the girls loved. He’d only joined the crew recently, but he seemed all right for someone who looked like he hung out at the mall. He got the job done; nothing else mattered.
They worked in a steady rhythm, assembling the floor frame quickly. Kane and Will didn’t waste time running their mouths. They had all the horizontal supports in by lunchtime. The two other men on the crew hefted over the lumber.
A breeze ruffled the plans Robby had left rolled up on the ground, but it didn’t give any relief from the midday heat and humidity. Even though it wasn’t quite summertime yet, the Georgia sun could already fry an egg on the sidewalk.
His phone pinged, and as he swiped into the text, a photo of his grandma filled the screen. She slept in her bed at the nursing home, her thin frame draped with a white sheet.
He fought the urge to growl against the near-daily reminder of Sucre’s hold over him.
At least she’s safe.
Forcing a measured breath, he returned the phone to his back pocket. Less than a minute later, Robby called everyone outside for pizza.
The guys trudged toward the food, their shoulders hunched from bending over for the last five hours. A couple of them walked on the plywood stretched between the slab and the side of the street, but most tromped through the overturned dirt where crews had laid the sewer lines a few days ago.
One by one, each man grabbed a couple of slices before fanning out for a few minutes’ R&R. As Brick chomped down on a slice of pepperoni, an unfamiliar car pulled up to the curb.
He watched intently as a petite woman climbed out of the driver’s seat, then he sucked in a breath. Pretty girls were a dime a dozen, but there was something special about this one. He tried to drink in everything about her at once, from her fair skin, to the freckles on the bridge of her nose, to the golden hair draped over her shoulders. Her light eyes sparkled, and a smile lit her face. With her pristine white sundress and strappy sandals, she looked like a goddamned angel, as out of place at the dirty work site as he would be sitting in a church.
Somebody on the crew was a lucky bastard.
The girl made her way straight to Will. She kissed his cheek before handing him the giant cookie cake she’d carried over from the car.
“Happy birthday, big brother.” She grinned.
His breath sped up when he realized this wasn’t Will’s girl. Maybe he should’ve known better, but it’s not as though he was tight enough with anyone here to recognize their families.
He moved closer to them without meaning to. Now only six feet away, he could tell her eyes were more blue than green; her teeth were straight and shiny, and he could pick up the faint scent of vanilla over the sawdust in the air.
Will shook his head as he admired the cake. “You didn’t have to do this, Liv. Aren’t you supposed to be at work? Who’s watching your class?”
She laughed, a light, tinkling sound, like the princess in a cartoon he saw when he was a kid. “My students are at lunch. Don’t worry. I’m not here to cramp your style.” She pinched his cheek. “Well, I don’t mind cramping it a little. But mostly, I wanted to invite your buddies out here to come have a drink Friday night to help celebrate your birthday.”
Her gaze passed over the guys in the crew. “Y’all hear?” As if they all hadn’t been staring at her since she’d stepped out of her car. “Friday night. Seven o’clock at Moe’s. First round is on me. If you need some extra motivation, I might be able to dig up some adorable photos of Baby Will in the bathtub.”
Kane chuckled. “Make it a picture of you in the bathtub and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Brick elbowed the smart-ass in the stomach.
“Shut the fuck up, man.” Will growled. “You’re talking shit about my sister.”
The woman didn’t seem upset, though. She wasn’t even looking at Kane.
Her gaze locked squarely on him, and he stood frozen under the weight of those baby blues. He didn’t even breathe.
But for a second, neither did she.
At least, that’s what his overactive imagination said.
He dragged in a breath of air, and in a flash, the spell was broken.
She gave him her back as she kissed Will’s scruffy cheek again. “Oh, hush. Don’t get mad at your friend. He probably hasn’t seen a naked woman in years.” Grinning, she winked at Kane, who had the decency to take his lumps in silence. “Friday at seven. Don’t be late.”
With one last wave, Will’s sister made her way to her little Toyota. Though he had no idea why, he couldn’t resist watching her every move, until she disappeared.
Friday night.
For the first time in God knows how long, he had something to look forward to.
***
Liv
Liv slipped back into her classroom moments before the bell rang, and kids poured in behind her. Desks were packed closely together in the small room. The school had been around since the 1950s, and the evidence surrounded her, from the green linoleum floor to the metal doors and the sagging ceiling. The window unit air conditioner hummed loudly as it struggled to cool the stifling space.
Most of her students made it clear they considered her English class a necessary evil they had to endure to graduate, but a special few—like the one approaching her now—showed they appreciated the power of language and the nuances of the written word.
Devon flashed her a toothy smile as he took his seat in the second row, next to his best friend, Justin. “Nice hair, Miss T.”
She ran her palm over the new extensions, the weight unfamiliar after so long without it. Dipping her head, she acknowledged the compliment.
“Are we gonna watch the movie today or what?”
She didn’t recognize the voice from the back of the room, but she kn
ew what he was asking about. They’d been reading The Outsiders and waiting impatiently for the day they could watch the movie as a reward for getting through the book.
“Tomorrow,” she promised, sparking an equal number of cheers and groans. “We have one more day of discussion first. We’ve all finished the reading, right?” She glanced around the room. “Who can tell me what Johnny tried to say in his last message to Ponyboy?”
After a few seconds, Devon spoke. She had to strain to make out his soft words. “He wants him to stay innocent. Something better than the guys in his hood. He wanted him to have a future.”
She nodded and was about to turn away when he added, “But the poem says it’s impossible. None of us can stay untouched by the world. It’s a fantasy.” He shrugged and stared down at the open notebook on his desk.
“Even if no one can stay innocent entirely, it doesn’t mean we don’t try to rise above.” She resisted the urge to put her hand on his shoulder and kept walking the aisles between the desks. “What do you guys think?”
A handful of kids jumped in with an answer, but the more his classmates debated each other, the deeper Devon sank in his chair. Inexplicably, his normally smiling face grew stonier with every passing minute.
His quiet words had raised the hair on her arms, but once the bell rang, he scooted out of the classroom too quickly for her to ask him about it. He couldn’t avoid her forever, though. She’d follow up the first chance she got.
The rest of the day passed in a blur, and she ended the night alone in her cozy one-bedroom apartment. Curled up on her overstuffed blue sofa, papers covering the coffee table, she sipped a glass of wine and tried to focus on the pages in front of her. For some reason, she couldn’t shake Devon’s words or his withdrawal from the class discussion.
She tried distracting herself with plans for Will’s birthday party. His first since he’d gotten out of prison, she’d been planning the celebration for weeks.
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