Chapter 29 Zander
Ispent last night with Jade in her room as she poured over books, trying to get caught up with the workload that her first week of school had given her.
Schoolwork isn’t something I usually enjoy, though I'm pretty good at it, but I’m quickly discovering there isn’t much I wouldn’t do if it meant doing it with Jade.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been so on top of my homework in my whole life.
Shit, the only reason I’m doing the whole college thing is because Froggie thought it would be a good idea to move up in Vengeance, we need to show that we can handle the city, which requires skills to bring to the table.
Rick has always had a knack for business.
His need to run, control, and understand things is a massive help with almost every part of what we do for Vengeance, not to mention his ability to command a room.
Spencer has his tech and hacking. He’s been playing with that shit for as long as I can remember. Honestly, I’m not sure he gets anything out of his classes anymore. He’s so fucking smart it’s sickening.
Yet, he still goes, so he must have a reason.
Then there’s me. I’ve always been good with my hands, and not just in the way the ladies like.
Picking locks, fixing cars, and even pickpocketing always came naturally to me.
Originally, I wasn’t sure I would find something I enjoy, but automotive seems to be doing it so far, and it helps me in the garage, so I can’t complain, though I do, anyway.
Not to mention, being on campus allows us to watch, and gathering information never hurts.
We overlook everything that hits the streets here, from drugs to guns; it runs through us.
We might not let them leak into the city streets, but we allow them, nonetheless.
We get to see whose connections reach where, while also having our hands in every bit of the wealthy lives around us. If something changes, we know it.
Froggie needs us to be there, and so we are.
I’ve spent most of my morning looking into Trent’s dad's bike, 'The Beast,' as he used to call it.
The Beast is a 1942 Crocker V-Twin Big Tank. By far the oldest and most badass bike I’ll ever get to work on.
Trent’s dad started my love for cars and bikes—anything with an engine, really.
He had been best friends with Rick’s dad since high school.
They both grew up right here in Oakbrook with the rest of our parents.
They went to college and joined the police force right after.
According to them, they both found love and settled down without even looking.
It was like shit from movies, nothing like my own parents or Spencer’s for that matter.
Then they started families, and boom, Trent and Rick were built-in best friends, and since we were like a package deal with Rick, all four of us were inseparable.
For a while, at least.
Trent’s dad always loved old cars. They had a five-car garage, but even with all that room, he always filled it full of parts and cars he was fixing up.
The summer after seventh grade, Rick and Trent tried out for the football team like their dads had.
Trent found he was great at it, and Rick discovered sportsmanship wasn’t his strong suit.
Later, he got into kickboxing and MMA, but he still finished that first season; his OCD wouldn't let him stop mid-season, no matter how much he disliked it. Coach was pissed when he didn’t play the following year; told him he was throwing away a possible career, but Rick didn't give a shit. Rick is good at damn near everything he does, and while he was great with football, nobody can make that guy do anything he doesn’t want to, trust me.
With them gone at practice and Spencer busy with his computer shit, I had a lot of time on my hands.
Which more often than not gets me in trouble even to this day; that summer wasn’t an exception.
Spencer tried to keep an eye on me, but I quickly found out how to give him the slip.
That was my specialty; after all, I'd been doing it with every nanny I had since I was seven.
One night, I found myself down with Jake and his dipshit friends at the old warehouse.
It was back when Sin still ran the city, well before we even thought of joining.
That night, I got my first real look at the underground.
We'd gone down there to buy weed. Jake wasn’t supplying back then, but he was always the guy with the connection because of who his daddy is.
I tagged along because I had nothing better to do.
Even if I didn’t like Jake, it was better than sitting around bored while I waited.
I watched two fights while he picked up, and by the time the second match was over, I was damn near drooling over the idea of being in the ring.
I've always had a violent streak, hell all of us did when tested, but I was much quicker to snap than Spence or Rick.
My mouth often got me in trouble, but knowing that I could back it up made it all the sweeter when people took in my lean form and smaller build and thought I'd make an easy target.
They always underestimated me.
Rick might be our trained fighter in the group, but he’s all brute strength and hard edges. Nobody would look at him and think they could bury him.
Spencer is a good fighter, too, but his skills are all about his speed and ability to read people. He’s quick, though, which you wouldn’t ever think possible with his size, but he doesn't enjoy fighting. He can hold his own well enough, but most of his skills are behind the scenes.
My lean form allowed me to be quick and agile, one of the reasons I’m good at recon has also made me lethal in a fight, but beyond that, I wasn’t afraid to fight dirty. It was something that people learned the hard way, and I was more than happy with that.
Before I could really think about it, I was in the ring with someone at least twice my age and size.
I don’t even remember the fight. It’s a blur of fists and blood.
I only recall Jake pulling me off the guy who lay unconscious beneath me while I continued to beat his face in.
The only reason I knew he was alive was the shallow dip of his chest as he exhaled.
Other than that, he could’ve passed for dead.
I was fourteen years old when I almost killed a man, and I’ll never forget it.
The rush I felt knowing his life was entirely in my hands, knowing I could’ve killed him if I wanted to.
The sticky warmth of his blood that covered my hands and the thick metallic smell it left in the air makes me giddy even just thinking about it now.
He had broken my nose, and I hadn’t even felt it. The sting of it should have been killer, but when I reached up to reset it, I couldn’t keep the manic grin off my face.
We made it two blocks before Trent’s dad rolled up, and Jake and his guys split like pussies. It was stupid to run with who our parents are. We hardly got in trouble, nothing more than a slap on the wrist because money can buy anything in this city—corruption at its finest.
Apparently, someone had called the cops on something in the area, and he had been the one to answer, putting me in his crossfire.
Lucky me.
I had never really done great with authority figures.
My parents were fucking wastes of space, but Trent’s and Rick’s parents had always accepted the fuck up I was, so I made sure not to lash out at them.
I got in the car and let him talk until he was done, without a word.
I got a half-hour lecture about the choices I had been making on the drive home.
He took me back to Rick’s house and didn’t say anything about it. I expected Clair to have a fit over how badly I could have been hurt the next morning, but when she saw my nose and split knuckles, it was clear he hadn’t snitched about what went down. It only made me like the guy more.
Clair fussed over me like the mother I always wanted.
She’d always been like that for all four of us.
When I first came around, it had been a lot to handle.
Her constant attention was almost overwhelming with how often my parents were gone or just didn't care. Nobody had ever cared so much about me.
After a while, I realized that's what parents were supposed to be like, and it only made me hate my own more, something I didn’t think possible.
Later that day, Trent’s dad dropped him off at Rick’s so Clair could take them to practice on her way to work.
I was looking for something to eat in the kitchen when Clair came in and told me he was waiting for me in the driveway.
I expected more shit about last night, but when I got to the car, he told me to get in and took me back to his house.
We spent the rest of the day working on his baby, the McLaren F1. A car that sits in our garage today, a gift from him when I turned eighteen, two years before he died.
I spent damn near every day for the rest of that summer in that garage.
Even when he was at work, I was welcome.
It became my escape, and I was surprised to find I was damn good at it.
He gave me an outlet, and without me even realizing it, it kept me out of trouble, well, mostly.
I still got in trouble in school, got into fights, and talked a lot of shit.
But that was the worst of it, until I ended up in a gang, of course, but he kept me off the streets before that.
He never said as much, but looking at it now, I think that was probably his goal.