46. Dane
46
DANE
“Another dead end.” The muscles in my jaw work as I climb back into Marco’s car and slam the door shut. “The bastard’s not there.”
“Damn.” He shakes his head and releases a low whistle. “I thought this was it.”
“So did I.” I glance sideways at the run-down house across from us. It’s been two months since my garage was broken into. Two months since I rescued Reese from Wally and his friends.
Save for my Mustang, which I got back three weeks ago after the cops finally processed it, I’ve only found the Nova so far. Thanks to a tip from Shyla, I paid a visit to Wally’s friend ten days ago, retrieved my girl’s convertible, and left him with a busted face.
My two project cars are nowhere to be found. I’d write them off as losses if the fastback didn’t cost me an arm and a leg. I don’t know where Ol’ Reliable is, either, which is a damn pity given the amount of time I’ve spent on it. A small part of me looks forward to tweaking the cambers on a replacement so it can drift just as well, but still. I can’t seem to accept that it’s gone.
“You think Sergei skipped town?” Marco guesses. “Or do you think he’s lying low?”
“No idea.” Huffing out an irritable sigh, I retrieve my phone from my pocket. There are a few unread texts from my girl that I answer while Marco starts his vehicle. “Thanks for coming.”
He chuckles wryly. “Wasn’t gonna let you fight Sergei alone.”
“Don’t think I can handle him?”
“I know you can’t handle him,” he retorts with a smirk.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I deadpan. “At least I can handle Sal. Been preparing the last few weeks for his ass to crawl out of his grave and tear me a new one.”
“You think you could take him on?” His raspy laughter crinkles his dark eyes. “Get real, Kingsy.”
I shake my head in amusement, then curve my lips at the picture I receive of Reese and her sister struggling to eat takeout sushi with the cat all over them. “Remember when he made us eat your aunt’s cooking, so she wouldn’t be offended?”
His mouth twists into a grimace. “I’m trying to forget one of the worst moments of my life.”
I lean back and snicker, giving the passenger window a sidelong glance. “You ever wondered what happened to it?”
“To what? Her cooking?”
“To Sal’s shop,” I clarify. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Let’s go see what it’s been turned into.”
“I think it’s still a mechanic’s shop,” he says dryly, and I snort.
“You think your sneakers are still hanging on the power line?” I lift a brow. “Come on, Divenanzio. I’ll bet you five bucks they’re no longer there.”
“Prepare to lose five bucks,” he mutters, and I chuckle while he takes a left at the next intersection. “Your girl has made you soft, Kingsy. Never took you as the sentimental type.”
My grin widens as I peer out the window again. The city lights are starkly bright and neon against the dark, drizzling sky. Slick pavement and puddles reflect the blue under-glow kit of his vehicle. A sentimental streak flickers through my chest at all the familiar street signs we pass. “We used to race our cars here every night.”
“Dude, are you dying or something?” he teases. “This is unlike you.”
“After what happened to my girl?” I say with a shrug. “I’ve been more appreciative of everything I’ve got.”
Glancing sideways at me, he bobs his head before he turns right onto another familiar and empty street. This one’s always been a favorite of ours. Barely any red lights at this time of night. It’s where we learned how to drift.
Before I can brace myself, he floors it, and the seatbelt locks against my chest. My head thumps into the headrest. My phone drops from my grasp and clatters against the floor as the car fishtails across the wet pavement.
“Hey, slow down!” I shout and bend down to grab my cell as a bunch of crap from underneath my seat spills out from the sudden, sharp movement. “Don’t want to hydroplane into that gas station.”
“You’ve gone too soft.” He eases off the gas right before the car splashes into a puddle, and I snort as I shove all the tubs of beach wax, hair gel, and body spray back so I don’t step on them.
“Remember the crappy food we used to get there?” I snicker as my hand wraps tightly around another tube I come across while he abruptly swerves into the passing lane. Christ, I knew he treated the passenger side as an honorary junk drawer, but I didn’t think he’d be this sloppy. “When we’d sneak out after midnight to take your dad’s car for a joyride?”
He rasps out a chuckle. “I remember your ass puking in the bush.”
Aiming a wry half-smile in his direction, I tip my head at the street corner the moment the car comes to a stop. Neither of us speaks as we stare at the spot where Sal’s mechanic shop used to be.
It still looks the same for the most part. Just got a cosmetic change: a fresh coat of paint in what appears to be a different shade of blue and a new sign tacked at the top of the building.
“Will I be getting the five dollars in cash, Kingsy?”
“After you pull over.”
“Right now?” My gaze cuts to him as he raises a brow and fixes me with an incredulous stare.
“My girl loves photography,” I explain, and I don’t fight my grin when I nod toward the shop again. “She just texted me and asked if we could do one of those recreated photos for her.”
“What the fuck is a recreated photo?”
“We’ll find out after you pull over,” I say, and he shakes his head with a long-suffering groan.
“Man, you are fucking whipped for this girl.” Thankfully, he obliges. I’m already out of the vehicle before he kills the engine, taking in the surrounding scenery and breathing in the crisp night air.
Nostalgia slams into me like a freight train while I pore over every little detail. There have been plenty of good times here. Lots of good memories over the years.
My attention slides to the sign where Sal’s Mechanic used to be, replaced with some logo I don’t recognize. Our spray-painted initials on the brick wall nearby have been painted over. The eucalyptus tree still has the rusty basketball hoop attached to it, though.
“All right.” Marco rounds his car and treks over to me, snapping his fingers in my direction. “Let’s make your girl happy. Hand me your phone so we can get out of here.”
“You wanna bail already?”
“It’s raining,” he states the obvious.
“It’s barely a drizzle,” I respond as I pass him my cell. “Nothing we can’t handle.”
With a grin, I take a step back and watch him hold the device up to his face.
“What the fuck are we even recreating?” he mutters, preparing to take a shot. “The time you puked in that bush? Or the time you tried to chug three cans of energy drink in a minute?”
“I have an idea in mind.” My beam widens into something camera-ready and creases my eyes. “But I’ll need your help.”
“With what?” Cocking his head to the side, he gives me an inquisitive look, only to jerk back in surprise when he receives a fist to his jaw.
My phone clatters on the ground.
“What the fuck?” His brows barely knit together when my body slams into his and we go crashing into the concrete.
“Do you think I’m stupid, fucker?”
He sputters as his knee shoves against my thigh.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” I snarl while I smash the pink can of mace I grabbed earlier into his forehead. He bats it out of my hand, and the tube rolls out of my reach and into a nearby patch of weeds before I can cram it down his throat.
With a dark growl, he grapples me. I know his moves like he knows mine, that all strategies have been abandoned. We’re just swinging blindly and throwing as many jabs and right hooks as we can with no coordination whatsoever.
Honest to God, whatever we’re doing is just a step below wrestling.
“I know it was you! Not Sergei! You ! It was you who fucking betrayed me .”
“You’re picking”—he spits in my face—“some fucking bitch you don’t know over me?”
“Look me in the eye and tell me it wasn’t you who sent the goons after me!” I yank on the collar of his shirt and dig my fingertips into the base of his throat. “ Tell me it wasn’t you !”
With a hoarse wheeze, the flat of his hand smacks into my chest. I land another blow to his chin.
“Fuck you, asshole!” His other palm slaps the side of my face.
“Fuck me?” I slap him back. “No, fuck you?—”
“Go to fucking hell?—”
“ Tell me you’re not the reason why I almost fucking died in the alley that night !”
“I didn’t know they were gonna do that,” he rasps, then strikes me on the bridge of my nose. A sharp pain blossoms across my face as I return the favor, and he makes a gurgling sound. “I said you had my money?—”
“You fucked me over ’cause you got in way over your fucking head again?” I sneer. “You fucking serious? I would have bailed you out. You know that! I’d do anything for you ! I loved you like a brother?—”
“Always the fucking hero!” he snaps. “Always easy to play the fucking hero when you’ve never had to worry about anything. Your dad will bail you out. Your money will bail you out. Nothing bad will ever happen to you. Your silver spoon ass gets everything handed to you on a silver platter. Everything .”
My disbelief overtakes the anger simmering in me, and I stare down at him. “Is this over the fucking car?”
“That car should have been mine!” he hisses. “You’re not even part of the family?—”
“ Sal gave it to me. I didn’t ask him for it?—”
The air ceases in my windpipe when he socks me in the sternum. I sputter and deck him back twice as hard in the eye. His knee jolts up and hits me in the groin, and I double over. Blinding pain sharply spreads to my abdomen and shoots up to my chest, and my lungs forget how to breathe as my insides practically shrivel up. Just then, his fist pummels my jaw.
A sharp tang of copper floods my mouth while I roll out of the way before he can sneak another blow. With an agonizing breath, I push to my feet and almost stagger. My ribs ache in protest. My face stings like hell. My left eye is swelling shut on me. My gut still clenches and throbs from being kneed in the balls.
Cracking my knuckles, I spit out blood, then swivel toward him, and we stare each other down. Our fists are raised; our stances are squared and low. We’re primed and ready as we’ll ever be at this exact moment, but no one strikes first.
No one moves.
I can’t bear to look at him—can’t stomach it—much longer, but I stay stock-still as I take in the sight of him before me.
I see him, fourteen, grinning at me when he promised his uncle was not that much of a hardass.
I see him, sixteen, having my back and sneaking me out of my suffocating house after my father blew up on me again.
I see him, eighteen, telling me I was his brother while I picked his ass up after his old man knocked him around for the last fucking time.
I see him. Best friend. Brother. Backstabber. When I look at him, all I can sense is the blunt sting of his betrayal piercing me straight through the heart.
“You were a brother to me,” I seethe through my gritted teeth. “I would have done anything for you. You could have asked me for the car?—”
“I shouldn’t have to!” he sneers. “It should have been mine!”
A ragged breath escapes me, and for a while, I can’t think of what else to say. “What did you even do with it?”
He spits at the ground. “GC,” comes his response, his voice low and devoid of any traces of warmth. “He’d settle my debt for me if I gave him the Pontiac.”
Exhaling through the pain, I tear my gaze away and glance skyward. Everything fucking stings. “I would have helped you.”
He’s silent for a beat. “It was a lot of money.”
“I would have helped you,” I repeat, clenching my jaw as I consider my options. The pad of my thumb wipes away the trickle of blood at the corner of my mouth, and a harsh sound comes from the back of my throat. “You’re fucking dead to me. You got that? You’re fucking dead to me .”
Without waiting for his response, I snatch my phone from the ground and drag my aching, bruised body to the side of the building. The second I’m out of his eyeshot, I unceremoniously sink down against the wall and groan.
Pieces of fragmented glass from the shattered screen graze the flesh of my hands as I struggle to unlock the device.
Dane: come get me
Dane: and bring your first aid kit
“This is going to sting,” Reese murmurs, distraught. A whirlwind of emotions floods her wide brown eyes while she gently presses a wet cloth to my cheek.
“Think we’ve had this conversation before,” I mutter and allow my eyes to fall shut. I inhale the familiar scent of coconuts wafting off her frame as she draws nearer, and my heart thrums a staccato beat in my ears.
Her touch remains gentle. “What happened?”
“Nothing to worry about,” I say, because it’ll devastate my girl to know the truth. My best friend betrayed me, and I’ve known for months now. I’ve always known he was involved.
Except for Sergei and Reese, he’s the only other person who knows where my garage is.
Even if Wally discovered where it is, there’s no way he would have figured out I’ve got kill switches installed on every vehicle of mine, let alone know where each one’s located to take them all so easily within the hour I was gone.
None of the cars would start with the kill switches toggled on, even if hot wiring was attempted. I’ve always wired them in particular spots to keep them hidden, just as Sal had taught me. There’s no way anyone would have been able to make it out of my garage with my cars so quickly without knowing about the switches in the first place.
The padlock left intact clued me in, too. Now I know where the spare key went all those years ago. Now I truly regret not replacing the damn lock sooner.
Besides, Wally didn’t even know about my girl. No one from that part of my life knew about her. The only person who’s even aware of her is Marco.
Shyla asked around for me and found out it was all a ruse to keep me away from my garage. They took all of my cars in an attempt to throw me off. Wally wasn’t the mastermind behind this, either, which is as obvious as one plus one equals two.
I’ve spent the last two months waiting for Marco to let his guard down. Waited weeks for him to believe I wasn’t onto him. Watched him eagerly agree with me when I started floating the idea that Sergei—a fucking teddy bear who plays tea party with his grandkids and hates it when I show up for any exchange with a busted face—was behind it all. Besides Sal’s glowing recommendation when I first started getting into fixing project cars, there’s a reason why I only get my vehicles from Sergei.
Some part of me clung to the idea that Marco wasn’t involved. That maybe I was wrong. I wanted to believe someone else was behind it—someone else had to be behind it. But then I found the can of mace shoved under the seat, and there was no going back from there.
“I might have to move.” A sharp hiss tears loose from my lungs when the wet cloth prods an extremely tender spot near my temple.
“I think staying still is a better idea.” Her brows knit in concentration. “I don’t want to poke your eye out.”
My raspy chuckle gives way to a dry cough, and I glance over her shoulder. Her sister’s leaning against the convertible, watching us with this impassive expression. I don’t think I’ll be winning her over any time soon. Not for the next millennia, at least.
“Move from my apartment,” I clarify, returning my gaze to Reese.
“Oh?”
My shoulder hitches, and fuck . I grit my teeth to stave off the groan as a throbbing ache works through my joints. “Thinking of moving somewhere closer to Belford.”
“Why?” She leans in closer, her touch twice as gentle when she brushes my hair out of my eye. “You don’t even go to your classes half of the time.”
“Aw, baby, you’re too polite. Let’s be real here. It’s most of the time.” My chuckle lasts for a second before I groan. This time, from the sharp twinge in my ribs. “Might make the commute easier for us.”
“For us?” The cloth almost slips from her hand while she gawks at me. “You want us to move in together?”
“Does the cat love to claw up that miserable futon?” The throb in my jaw overtakes the amused grin on my face, and I grate out a harsh breath. “Baby, you’ve been staying over every night.”
“You don’t think it’s too soon?” she stammers.
“I think it’d be ridiculous to pay rent for an apartment you’re not using.”
Wearing a thoughtful frown, she squints her eyes at me, then gently pushes my hair out of my forehead. “I’ll move in with you if you tell me what happened.”
The few seconds that follow seem endlessly long. “I ran into one of the guys who grabbed you that night,” I say carefully, and her chest hitches.
“You did?”
“He better think twice before he tries to put his hands on you again or else.”
“No. No or else ,” she protests with pinched brows. “I don’t want you to get into fights for me. I hate seeing you hurt.”
“I promise to be very boring from here on out.” I muster the most solemn expression possible. “Swear on my life, my bike, and my… car. I’ll only listen to crappy music Blue Balls enjoys and talk about the weather with you.”
She gently pokes my nose. It stings like fucking hell despite how light her touch is, but I power through so she doesn’t freak out. “I’d rather you just stop getting into fights.”
“Because you need to trick your sister into believing I’m not dangerous?” Despite the painful stretch to my split lip, I grin.
“You know why,” she whispers, gently caressing the cut on my bottom lip.
I swallow hard as she holds my gaze, and warmth blooms anew in my chest. “Because you love me.”
“Yeah,” she whispers back. “Because I love you.”