“My old man used this place to stash his mistresses. The property owner is shady as hell, so when all that stuff with Brysen’s stalker came to a head, I had him transfer the deed over to her name so she had a safe place to go. I like it out here. It’s quiet, and when Booker got out of the hospital after he was shot, I moved him into the building to keep an eye on things when I’m working. I like that the girls have someone they can run to if I’m not around. Plus I upgraded the security system so that it’s harder to get into the place than it is to get on Bax’s good side. No one gets in or out without me or Booker knowing it. There are cameras everywhere.”
Noah Booker was an ex-con and an all-around badass. He was a lot like my brother in both of those aspects. Booker was smart enough to know that Race was the one that was going to be running things in the dark and in the back rooms and alleyways now that Novak was gone, so he had gotten in on the ground floor. He had offered himself up as a bullet catcher when Race’s girl found herself caught in the sights of a deadly stalker. Booker had almost died trying to keep Brysen and her sister safe, so it didn’t surprise me at all that Race had promptly put the man at his right hand and was relying on him for protection not only for himself but for his girls as well.
I rubbed a thumb across my scruffy jaw as the wheels in my head started turning. I lifted an eyebrow at Race and asked, “Is there any open space in the complex?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and his green eyes narrowed at me.
“Why? What’s wrong with your place?”
I had a small Craftsman-style house that wasn’t exactly out of the Point but it was far enough at the edge of the city that when I did sleep I did so without worrying too much about my windows getting shot out or my front door getting kicked in. It was just a place to store my stuff and crash when I got a few minutes. It absolutely wasn’t secure enough to take Reeve, with all the people that currently wanted a piece of her. She would be too isolated and alone if I left her there while I continued to hunt down Roark.
“Nothing is wrong with my place, but I’m in the middle of a situation and I need someplace safe to hang out for a few weeks.”
“That situation involves a certain dark haired beauty that’s back in town?”
Goddamn, was he too smart for his own good. Well, my good, really.
“Yeah, it does, and I don’t want to hear anything about it. The guy that torched your car, the guy that worked over Roxie, the guy that tortured the poor girl and left her here on this dock like she was trash, is not only after the Point but he’s after Reeve with a vengeance. She gave me his name and she’s willing to be the bait we use to draw him out, so I need to do what I can to keep her safe. Help me out, Race.”
I could see him calculating the pros and cons of what I was asking him to do for me. Race didn’t do anything without weighing all of his options. He knew I was asking him to bring a verified security threat under his protected roof. He understood I was asking him to do something that Bax was going to be totally against. He grasped that I was desperate enough to plead with him to offer shelter to a woman that had not only offered his sister up as a sacrificial lamb but whose actions had led directly to him being beaten within an inch of his life. I was asking him for so much more than he had ever asked me for, and he knew it. And because he was fucking brilliant, he knew that if he agreed it would mean I would owe him huge down the line. Get-out-of-jail-free huge.
I lived my life between very clear black and white lines but lately all the edges had blurred into so many shades of gray it was hard to see through the fog anymore. I believed in right and wrong, in good and bad. I was willing to die for those convictions, but I also wanted the good guys to win occasionally. Lately, it seemed like the way to do that was to play by the bad guys’ rules. It made everything inside of me snap and thrash around in anger but I didn’t have a choice and I could see Race knew that as well.
“Give me a week. There isn’t availability right now, but I’ll arrange some things and find you a spot.”
I sighed and let my head fall forward so that I was looking at my boots and the worn wood of the dock between them.
“Do I even want to ask how you’re going to arrange a vacancy on such short notice?”
He chuckled and it made the hairs on my arms raise up. I remembered him when he was just a lost rich kid boosting cars with Bax. He wasn’t lost anymore, and the man he had become was not one to be underestimated.
“Probably not, but you’ll both be safe within those walls and I’ll even let you borrow Booker. He can keep an eye on your little rat when you’re off trying to save the world.”
I snapped my head up to glare at him, but he had already turned away and was headed back toward the fancy-looking condominium complex.
“I would think you would be a little more sympathetic to someone doing whatever they have to in order to survive, Hartman.”
I saw his shoulders shrug and he didn’t turn around as he hollered at me, “You should remember that no good deed goes unpunished, Titus. She says she’s here to help you now, but she told Dovie the same thing right before she set her up. I want the guy that is messing with my life and with my family, and if you think she’s the way we get to him, then I want her as close as possible.”
I didn’t have any way to contradict him because that was the same logic I was using, so I just grunted at his back as he walked away.
Chapter 5