The Way We Are

by Shandi Boyes

  Panic bubbles in my veins when Tobias nods an inconspicuous greeting to Regina before he continues his conversation with the three men surrounding him. His companions are none the wiser to the familiar gleam his eyes got when he raked them over Regina’s frozen form. I know the gleam all too well, as it's the exact one my eyes get every time Savannah is in my presence.

  Tobias and Regina know each other—very well.

  Fuck.

  My eyes stop bouncing between Regina and Tobias when Savannah asks, “Is that Regina? She looks exactly as you described.”

  I nod, too riddled with worry to form a better response.

  The color drains from Savannah’s cheeks. “Why is she here?”

  I shrug my shoulders, still void of words.

  “If she is here working, we’re in trouble, Ryan. Big, big trouble.” Savannah barely whispers her last two sentences.

  When Regina darts down a corridor where the locker rooms are, I shift my eyes back to Savannah. “Should I go talk to her?”

  Now it’s Savannah’s turn to act mute. After chewing on her bottom lip so harshly little red lines rush to the surface, she mutters, “Do you think it will help?”

  “It couldn’t make matters any worse. Could it?”

  “I guess not?” Savannah replies, her tone not filling me with confidence. “Maybe pretend you’re considering her offer while you suss out why she’s here.”

  I groan. Ever since Savannah found the recruitment card Regina handed me last week, she’s been dropping hints about me joining the force. Some of her points are valid, but considering there's no way I can amass over two hundred thousand dollars legally in under a week, seeking employment at an agency determined to take down criminals seems a little foolish.

  Pretending I can’t feel my heart racing a million miles an hour, I mumble, “I’ll go talk to her, see if I can figure anything out.”

  Stealing her chance to reply, I press a kiss to the edge of Savannah’s mouth before hotfooting it after Regina. With the crowd the heaviest it has been all night, it takes me zipping past thousands of suit-clad men to reach the hallway Regina entered nearly five minutes ago.

  The panic slicking my skin with sweat grows when I bypass Isaac on my travels. He's so immersed in his thoughts, he doesn’t notice my presence when he strides by me. His focus remains on one thing and one thing only, the pretty brunette he is clutching for dear life as if he's afraid she’ll run from him if given the chance. Although I’ve never met anyone in his inner circle, I assume this is the girlfriend Cormack teased him about a handful of times last month. She’s pretty, but she’s got nothing on Savannah’s sultry looks.

  I wait for Isaac to merge into the heavy crowd before pressing on toward Regina. I find her in an old, desolate-looking locker room approximately five minutes later. She's once again speaking into the cuff of her sleeve.

  “Whoa, Jesus. It’s me,” I stammer out when she suddenly spins on her heels to point her black government-issued revolver at my chest.

  “Ryan, for...fudge...sake.” Her face relays her wish to replace her polite word with a less appropriate one.

  She holsters her weapon before raising her wrist to her mouth. “Stand down. I repeat, stand down. He's one of us.” Her nearly black eyes lock with mine. “Do you have any idea how close you were to being shot? Don’t ever follow someone when they are undercover. Ever.”

  My brain has barely registered the enormity of her warning when she clutches my elbow and drags me into the hallway. For her tiny height, her strength surprises me. “This is the last time I’m giving you an out, Ryan. Leave this warehouse now. Drive far far away and never look back.”

  I yank out of her grasp just before we reach the main arena. “I can’t—”

  “Then you're going to be arrested,” Regina interrupts, her tone the same one Tobias used on me earlier: the straight-up honest one.

  “So you're working?” I don’t know why I’m asking that question when the answer is as obvious as the sun shining in the sky.

  Regina spreads her hands across her cocked hip. “Does this look like my idea of a fun night?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know what tickles your fancy. I’m assuming from Tobias’s reaction, you like tall, balding Russian men.”

  Regina’s glare lodges a brick in my throat.

  “Sorry,” I mumble, recognizing that insulting her choice in men isn’t doing me any favors. “I’m swimming way out of my fucking depth here.”

  When Regina arches her dark brow even higher, I stumble out, “On this side of the fence?”

  Noticing her glare is weakening, I resort to begging, “Please, Regina, I am begging you. Do not raid this event tonight.”

  She ignores my plea with an immature roll of her eyes, assuming greed is fueling my plea.

  “I swear to god, this isn’t about money.”

  When she attempts to skirt past me, I seize her wrist, stopping her endeavor. The deep rumble rolling up her chest warns I’m seconds away from getting arrested, but being locked in a four by four concrete cell is the least of my worries right now. If I can’t get Regina on my side, I’m not just sentencing my brother to years of misery; I’m also issuing Savannah a possible death sentence. I’m not going to let that happen. I’d rather go to the depths of hell than see Savannah hurt again.

  “I have information you’ll never get from any man in this room. Stuff that will take down the main players your department are after.”

  Although my confession slows Regina’s steps, it doesn’t completely stop them.

  “I have a ledger where the financial records go back over five years. There are names, bank account numbers, and transactions well into the high millions. Over twenty men in this room alone are mentioned in the ledger. Col Petretti, Vladimir Popov, and Henry Gottle to name a few.”

  That stops Regina’s strides.

  “How do you know those names?” she asks, her tone unlike any I’ve heard. It's half-impressed, half-furious.

  “They’re in the ledger I have.”

  The veins in Regina’s neck thrums as she asks, “Do you have this ledger with you?”

  Air whizzes out of her nostrils when I shake my head. “But I can give it to you tomorrow,” I promise.

  She crosses her arms in front of her chest before locking her eyes with mine. Her stare leaves no misgiving on what she's doing. She is gauging the truth of my reply.

  “Please, Regina. I’ll tell you everything I know tomorrow.”

  “Everything?” Regina asks, seeking clarification.

  Hello nerves, please meet tension.

  “Yes,” I agree, ignoring the worry bombarding me.

  “I mean everything, Ryan—your father, your fighting career. The pretty blonde the FBI photographed you with the past week.”

  I take a step back, not anticipating her last sentence. “The FBI has me under surveillance?” Once again, I don’t know why I’m asking a question.

  “Had,” Regina corrects. “They stopped when I told them you were one of us.” She takes a step closer to me, adding to the tension stealing the oxygen from the air with every second that passes. “You are one of us. Aren’t you, Ryan?”

  I nod, not trusting the gleam in her eyes that warns me she will slice off my nuts and hand them to me on a silver platter if I don’t answer the way she wants.

  She smiles a grin that makes me more nervous than calm. “Good. I’m glad to hear that. I’ll tell Beno to keep an eye out for your application.”

  I lose the chance to ask who Beno is when she pivots on her heels and starts to leave. “One night, Ryan. If you fail to arrive at my office tomorrow morning, I will arrest you,” she warns.

  She doesn’t face me while issuing her threat. She doesn’t need to. The caution in her tone is potent enough her honest eyes don’t need to fortify it.

  I wait for her frame to disappear into a sea of men before joining Savannah at the side of the ring. Isaac is already in the middle of the ring. I don’t know wh
at has caused his face to age ten years in twenty minutes, but if it's the same ruckus that has forced the crowd to swell toward the boxing ring, I’m confident it's something compelling.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Savannah, taking the seat next to her.

  Bile scorches my throat when she locks her glistening eyes with mine. “It’s her brother. Her boyfriend’s fighting her brother.” Her chin quivers when she nudges her head to the brunette being held back from the ring by the same goon who held a gun to Isaac’s temple months ago. She's the same brunette I saw Isaac walking down the corridor with earlier.

  Oh shit.

  The scene unfolds in sickening detail when I follow the direction of Isaac’s slit gaze. He isn’t just glaring at some random unknown low enough in the mob rankings his son’s beating will go unnoticed. He is glaring at Col Petretti.

  Fuck.

  34

  Ryan

  “Throw in the towel,” Isaac pleads, glaring at Col. “He’s your fucking son.”

  Col shakes his head, denying Isaac’s request with an arrogant edge. His glare reflects one of a monster, equally evil and without fear. All he has to do is dip his chin a mere millimeter and his son’s life will be spared. But he refuses to end the fight, because for some fucked up reason, gaining the respect of his associates is worth more than his son’s life.

  Unlike Savannah, my eyes haven’t left the ring the past twenty minutes. Every hit, punch and kick Isaac inflicts to Cj’s body is met with an equal amount of devastation and admiration. I need him to win this fight, but I hate seeing him in this predicament.

  Even knowing he doesn’t have a choice, his girlfriend hasn’t stopped screaming at him the past twenty minutes. Her pleas didn’t waver when a man thrust a gun into her ribs. No matter what he does, Isaac will leave this warehouse as a loser. He has the match in the bag, but his relationship is more destroyed than Cj’s badly bruised body.

  “Is it over yet?” Savannah asks, her low tone revealing she's on the verge of crying.

  I tug her tightly to my body, hoping the frantic beat of my heart will drown out Isaac’s girlfriend’s pleas for him to stop. It's pointless when Ophelia’s cries grow more frantic from spotting Isaac mouthing an apology to her brother. She knows what's about to happen. We all do.

  Savannah grips my body so hard, her nails pierce my skin when a bloodcurdling scream booms around the room. Isaac just completed a round-house kick to Cj’s temple, ending his fight with the violence nearly every man in this room craves—every man but me.

  My heart wallops my ribcage when Cj’s eyes roll into the back of his head mere seconds before he plummets to the ground. The thud of his unconscious frame hitting the mat is drowned out by the roar of the spectators celebrating Isaac’s triumph with dollar signs flashing in their eyes.

  When the bookies discovered Isaac’s true identity, his odds dramatically dropped. They failed to see the determination of the man behind the mask. A handful hoped the odds would sway in their favor. I knew without a doubt they would.

  How?

  Because I would have reached the same conclusion Isaac did. If it came between choosing Savannah or a member of our families, I would always pick Savannah.

  That's what Isaac did. He chose Ophelia before anyone else. He chose right.

  Our drive back to Ravenshoe is quiet. I have over a quarter of a million dollars sitting in the glove compartment of my truck, yet excitement is barely registering on my radar. Isaac saved my ass tonight, but instead of thanking him for the third time, I’m going to throw him to the wolves.

  My guilt wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t watched Ophelia slap his face again, and again, and again tonight. She didn’t want to hear reason, she just wanted someone to blame. Since Isaac was the safest option to project her anger on, she chose him.

  She chose wrong.

  My eyes stray from the nearly pitch black sky when Savannah suggests, “Let me give the ledger to Regina tomorrow.”

  When I shake my head, she speaks faster, wanting to express herself before losing the chance. “She wants information, Ryan. I can give her the information she needs without naming Isaac. I don’t know him. He isn’t mentioned in the ledger, and before tonight, I’ve never seen him fight. I wouldn’t be lying when I fail to mention him.”

  “I don’t want you involved in this...” My words shift to an angry roar when Savannah yanks on my steering wheel, making my truck dangerous careen toward the roadside. “Fuckin’ hell, Savannah. Didn’t you learn the first time what happens when you do that?”

  The anger in my voice shocks me. I’ve never spoken to her in such a disgusting manner.

  “Clearly not,” Savannah replies, her tone surprisingly firm for the pain clouding her alluring eyes. “But I’m not the only one acting thick in the skull. I’m already in this, Ryan. I’m in so deep I’m afraid I’m going to drown us both.” Her hot breaths add to the heat in the cabin when she pants through the tears threatening to spill down her face.

  “This is why I didn’t tell you what was happening. I didn’t want you involved like this. My dad’s desperation to keep his family in the lifestyle he wanted for them made him seek immoral ways to earn an income. My mom stole Col’s money because her greed was more important than her family. I fudged the records to hide her theft, then I agreed to Axel’s terms when I was caught red-handed. You didn’t do any of this, Ryan. It was all me and my family.”

  The tears she's struggling to hold fall down her cheeks when I seize her wrists and drag her across the cracked vinyl to sit straddling my lap.

  Her tears flow more steadily when I say, “You are my family, Savannah. Anything that happens to you, happens to me. That’s the way it works. What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine. That doesn’t just include the good things but the bad as well.”

  I sweep my index finger across her cheeks, catching her tears. “You can come with me tomorrow when I meet with Regina, but you're staying in the car,” I say, reciting the terms we discussed earlier tonight when I gave her a play-by-play of my exchange with Regina.

  Although wary of what her reaction would be to my ousting her father’s shady business dealings, the first promise Savannah and I made last week was that we were not going to have any more lies between us. I plan to keep my promise.

  “Ryan...”

  “No, Savannah,” I reply, the strain in my voice revealing my constraint.

  I hate saying no to her, but this is one time I am sticking to my guns. If Savannah speaks to Regina, she risks arrest. I’m not going to let that happen. She was backed into a wall when she made the decision she did; she's not a criminal.

  When I say that exact thing to Regina the following morning, her interests pique. “She? How do you know the person who doctored this ledger is a she?”

  I swallow a lump in my throat. “I’m just assuming. The handwriting looks elegant, feminine, doesn’t it?”

  “Hmm,” Regina half-agrees, half-murmurs. “Where did you stumble onto this ledger again?”

  “I found it in the locker rooms after one of my fights. When I saw the name scribbled on the front, I stole it. Figured I might be able to use it as leeway to increase the purse of a future fight.” I cough to clear the nerves from my throat before continuing, “I lost the opportunity to test my theory after an incident with my taillight.”

  Regina keeps her eyes fixated on the open ledger in her hand, hoping her downcast head will hide her smirk. It doesn’t.

  “How did you become aware of the oversight in accounting?” Regina asks a short time later. “It isn’t obvious unless you're looking closely, and even then, the person who hid it did a remarkable job.”

  She balances on the edge of her chair to extend the ledger to me. It's open to the exact spot Savannah adjusted to hide her mother’s theft.

  “I know numbers.” Since my reply is honest, my voice represents it that way.

  Regina doesn’t attempt to hide her smile this time around. I would like to say it
's an impressed smile. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

  “You know numbers?”

  “Uh huh,” I reply, not trusting my voice to hide my ten trillionth lie for today.

  A loud clap bellows around Regina’s office when she snaps the ledger shut before slumping into her chair. “Alright. I’ve listened to your bullshit for long enough. Here is how it’s going down from here on out.” She points to a mirror on her right. “Savannah is standing behind that glass. She called me last night and told me a story that pretty much matches the story you just shared. Except she replaced your anonymous names with ones I know very well.”

  I act impassive, failing to fall into the trap she's setting out for me.

  “She also told me she tried to convince you to let her come and see me today, but since you want to protect her from prosecution, you denied her request.”

  Even with my knee bobbing up and down under the table, I keep my game face on. A stranger could sense my protectiveness of Savannah, so I’m not surprised Regina has intuited it.

  “And even though you tell her she will never love you as much as you love her, she does. That’s why she's here today.”

  Now I’m getting worried. I’m not panicked Savannah has gone behind my back—when Savannah makes a promise, she does everything in her power to keep her word. I’m terrified we have a surveillance team watching us. Otherwise, how would they know what I say to Savannah?

  “Nothing? You don’t have anything you want to say to me?” Regina asks, her anger picking up steam right alongside my crazy heart rate.

  “I’m trying to help you, Ryan,” she informs me when I shake my head. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

  When I remain quiet, she shifts her eyes to the window she gestured to earlier. With a jerk of a chin, the mirror fades away. Slosh races to the base of my throat when I spot a Savannah. She's standing behind the mirrored wall just like Regina said she was, her face as white as mine.

  “Why is she here? You said you’d keep her out of harm’s way,” I snarl, my eyes rocketing to Regina.