Chapter 4
Four
Up your butt and around the corner.
—Dru to Romeo
Romeo
The woman definitely didn’t bench press small cars.
In fact, she was absolutely tiny.
And I’d seen her before.
She was the reason that I’d had Apollo look into Brawny.
I’d heard her and her sister talking as I’d walked in, contemplating whether to take a seat at the table or the bar.
I’d heard the two of them talking, and I’d heard the sister’s comment about the woman’s dog.
And I’d thought, what if that’d been me and my dog? How would I feel if someone had stolen him and given him away? Or dumped him?
That’d had me looking at Dog, whose real name was Brawny, differently.
What if he was someone’s pet?
I’d never thought that he would belong to the woman that I’d seen at Meridian, though.
“You know what kind of guy?” she asked.
“The kind of guy that can break into people’s computers and do whatever he wants with them.” I shrugged.
I wouldn’t give Apollo’s information to her or anything, but I knew that Apollo would be willing to help the moment he heard her story.
He’d like the update.
Plus, my sister would force his hand if he didn’t do it on his own. Dru was a bleeding heart.
“Listen, if your friend wants to hack her computer, I’m down,” she said. “Short of murder, I’m probably okay with just about anything at this point.”
Murder.
A flash of shame hit me.
I didn’t have the same moral boundary as she did.
When I’d caught my wife stealing all of my money with the man she was cheating on me with, I’d been much more cold and calculating.
I’d watched and waited, seeing what she’d do and where she would go with my money.
I’d had an eye on that money—she’d taken it all out in cash and stuffed it in our bedroom closet—and her for days.
When I’d caught her sleeping with the guy in our bed, talking about how she would live happily ever after with him and our baby safely ensconced somewhere where I could never find them… I’d snapped.
I’d beaten the guy a little bit too long, and the cops had come barreling into the room and put me in cuffs.
Though, I could see the absolute glee in their eyes as they handcuffed me.
I wasn’t the greatest person in the world.
In fact, I could arguably say that I wasn’t a good one.
I’d fought tooth and nail to get where I’d been before prison, protecting my family, and the streets that I called home.
I may not have done it in a law-abiding way, but I’d made our neighborhood safe from gangs and criminals the only way I knew how—with my fists.
The cops fucking hated it.
I blamed them, though. If they’d paid more attention to the suffering neighborhoods, then they would’ve seen what the gang violence was doing to our youth and elderly population.
I shouldn’t have had to pay anyone protection money.
So I decided that I wouldn’t.
And the cops had taken notice.
They couldn’t prove anything, but they sure as fuck could hold me on charges for attempted murder in a crime of passion. The man that I’d beaten was still living, though not in any meaningful way. In an “I’ll be in a coma for the rest of my life” kind of way.
“I’ll see if my buddy’s willing to help.”
I didn’t need to see anything. Apollo would be all over this.
He loved it.
The challenge of breaking into new places always seemed to excite him.
Plus, I liked the woman.
I also couldn’t fuckin’ stand the sister.
Every fuckin’ time I was there and she was, too, she made it a point to sneer at me in front of her mom, like I wasn’t worth the space. Then, the moment mommy dearest was gone, she was sidling up to me like I was her next snack.
I didn’t like people who went out of their way to make people feel small.
That was what I’d made my criminal career out of—making people feel like they had a right to take up space even if someone bigger and meaner than them told them they shouldn’t.
After busing our table, we both headed for the exit, and I dropped a five in the tip jar.
She smiled at me when I joined her at the door. “That was nice.”
“The old man is struggling,” I said. “Saw his wife at the grocery store last week, and she had to put a few items back because she couldn’t afford it. I didn’t like seeing that.”
Her shoulders slumped. “That’s awful.”
“Don’t feel too bad. I put a line of credit out at the grocery store for them,” I said as we walked to where our vehicles were parked side by side.
“They can get what they need from now on. The lady at the front, the one who owns Brooks, is going to find a miraculous coupon the next time that happens.”
“You’re a good man,” she said softly as she made it to her car.
Her words felt like a stab right to my heart.
If she only knew just what kind of man that I actually was…
She opened her door and said, “Get in, Brawny.”
Brawny jumped inside and turned around to seat himself against the passenger side door like he did in my truck. His tongue lolled out, and he looked at us both happily.
A pang of sadness hit me that I was about to go home to an empty house again.
That really fuckin’ sucked.
But, I’d do just about anything, even be lonely as hell, to see that huge damn smile on her face like the one I gave her when Brawny jumped out of my truck and made a beeline for her.
“Thank you again.” She twisted so that she could put herself between the dog and the open door. “I can never repay you.”
“You don’t have to,” I said as I headed around the front of my truck. “Just make sure that bitch doesn’t get ahold of him again.”
“Oh, I don’t ever plan on letting her close to me again,” she promised.
I got in the truck, but made sure to say through the open window, “I don’t either.”
The ride home took me twenty minutes through mountain passes. By the time I arrived, there was very little light left, but I still had plenty of chores to do.
The farm that Apollo had purchased for me had a semi-working horse ranch involved with the property.
Over the years, they’d sold off more and more horses until only four remained.
Those four had come with the property, and I hadn’t had the heart to get rid of them, even though I’d known nothing about horses in general.
When I got to the barn, I immediately went to the first stall and looked over.
“Hey there, Shadow.”
Shadow, the white—though the vet informed me he was gray, even though he fuckin’ looked white—horse came up to the stall and stuck his head over the stall door. He looked down, likely looking for his friend, and didn’t spot him.
He looked at me accusingly.
“Sorry, buddy,” I said as I scratched him between his eyes. “It wasn’t my decision. He had to go back to his mama.”
The horse gave me the side-eye.
“I can make it up to you with a clean stall and a carrot, though,” I said as I caught my gloves and the shovel that were right next to his stall.
He nudged me as if to say he wanted the carrot now, but I waited until I was completely done with his stall—he waited outside in the barn right under the heater until I was done. Only when I’d gotten the wheelbarrow out of his stall did he go back inside and stare at me impatiently.
“Give me a minute, damn,” I said as I walked to the fridge and came back with the biggest carrot in the bag.
He took it in one swift move, crunching on it twice before he swallowed it down.
I smiled as I closed the stall door and moved to Bennie’s stall next.
Bennie was a Palomino, according to the vet. Or, more specifically, a quarter horse that was palomino in color.
I didn’t know what he was, only that he looked tan and had a white tail.
“You’re next, buddy,” I said to him.
He didn’t look for Brawny like Shadow did, but he did nudge me and ask for lots of pets.
I gave him those pets and got to work on his stall while he waited patiently.
When I was done, he got an apple because he preferred them over the carrots.
Sinta, the black horse, stared as if she wanted to murder me the moment I got close to her.
According to the vet, she was a Friesian.
In my opinion, she was a fuckin’ bitch.
She was by far the meanest horse here, and I wasn’t sure why I kept her around.
However, I’d kept her anyway, even though she only let me close enough to her to brush her down if I stood with my arm completely extended and not a single inch closer.
She trotted out of her stall as the princess she felt she was and walked to the fridge.
I didn’t make her wait.
I gave her the apple.
Then I locked myself in her stall so she wouldn’t come up and bite me on the ass like I’d had the bad luck learning was a quirk of hers.
She charged back inside like a bat out of hell the moment I opened the door, and I slipped outside and locked her in.
My baby, however, was Bobber.
She was a brown quarter horse with white between her eyes, one white sock on her left leg, and the best personality I’d ever experienced in a horse.
I liked her a lot, and that was why I saved her for last.
Because I liked to spend a lot of time with her.
She nuzzled my face when I opened her door, and I took the time to love on her the way that I should.
She chewed lazily on the feed while I finished cleaning out her stall.
Then stayed with me, trailing after me like a large dog, while I got them all hay and feed.
When everything was ready for them for the night, I put her up with a carrot and closed the barn down.
The wind hit me like a slap in the face as I headed out of the barn.
I shoved my hand in my pocket and pulled out my phone, placing the call to my sister instead of Apollo.
“Hey there,” Dru answered on the second ring. “How’d it go?”
I told her all about the woman.
“You thought she would be large and in charge?” She giggled.
“She operates heavy machinery. I don’t know why I expected her to be like that, but I did. But she’s tiny. Delicate. She has some meat to her, but her height is severely lacking.”
Dru giggled again. “I’m glad that it went okay. Was she happy to have the dog back?”
I told her everything that happened, ending with what Mable had told me when I’d asked about how the dog went missing in the first place.
“What a bitch!” Dru snarled. “Babe, you’re definitely doing something about this.”
Apollo grunted in the background. “Already on it.”
We spent the next ten minutes talking while I headed inside and got everything closed down for the night.
I had an early morning, and I should’ve been in bed an hour ago.
However, I couldn’t regret the time I’d spent with the tiny little backhoe operator.
It just sucked that I’d probably never see her again.