Chapter Two
Trent
“Holy—” I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror the following morning, wondering how I would explain the bruises to my boss.
Purple bloomed across my jaw like someone had taken a grape and smeared it into my skin.
The swelling had gone down enough that I no longer resembled a chipmunk hoarding acorns, but the coloring?
That was a whole new disaster. Yellow edged the outer ring, fading into a sickly green, then deepening to eggplant closer to my mouth.
My fingers tightened on the edge of the sink.
Part of me wanted to march into Mike’s room, yank the covers off, and scream until I lost my voice.
My brother had handed me over to a drug-dealing sociopath without a second thought.
If Mike had kept his mouth shut, I’d be looking at a perfectly unremarkable face right now. Maybe a zit but not this.
And for some reason, my mind decided this was the perfect time to replay the image of Preacher crouched in front of me, calloused fingers tipping my face like I was something worth handling with care.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up. If I’d had a therapist—which I didn’t, because therapy cost money I did not have—they’d have a field day. So, Trent, tell me about this outlaw biker you’re lusting after twelve hours after he watched you get punched into next week.
Now I had to figure out how to walk into work looking like this without Lamar calling an ambulance or, worse, the cops.
I yanked open the medicine cabinet and started rummaging through the shelves.
Maria kept half a department store’s worth of product crammed in there.
Concealer. Foundation. Some tiny sponge thingy that looked like a purple egg.
I had zero clue what most of the stuff was.
My fingers closed around a bottle of foundation. Something called “Warm Honey,” which sounded like a drag queen’s stage name.
Dabbing some onto my finger, I smeared it across the worst of the bruise.
The result was less “covered up” and more “clown who’d been mugged.”
Streaks of orange-tan sat on top of the purple like wet paint refusing to absorb.
I rubbed harder. The makeup smeared into my stubble and made the whole mess look textured, like a topographical map of pain.
“Christ on a cracker.”
I grabbed the purple egg, ran it under the faucet because I’d seen Maria do that once, and started dabbing. Marginally better. The bruise dulled from “fresh injury” to “week-old injury with glitter” because, apparently, the foundation had some kind of shimmer in it.
Wonderful. I’d be sparkling at the register like a vampire in a teenage movie.
Tilting my head under the bathroom light, I leaned closer to the mirror. From a distance, maybe nobody would notice. From a foot away, I looked like I’d lost a fight with a craft store.
I brushed my teeth, careful not to open my mouth too wide. Even that small movement sent a fresh spike up the side of my face. The painkillers I’d swallowed at three in the morning had worn off, and I wasn’t sure I trusted myself to take another without falling asleep while pouring hot coffee.
The linoleum was sticky against my bare feet because Mike believed mopping the kitchen floor was a hobby for other people. The coffee carafe held a swallow of something black and burned at the bottom. I considered it, decided I valued my stomach lining, and dumped it into the sink.
“You look like shit.”
Mike’s voice came from the doorway, and every muscle in my body locked up tight. I turned slowly, gripping the edge of the counter to keep my hands from doing something I’d regret, like wrapping around his throat.
He stood there in boxers and a stained tank top, hair sticking up at angles that defied physics, scratching his stomach like he hadn’t just thrown me to the wolves.
“Whose fault is that?” I asked, my voice flat.
He had the gall to look confused. “What?”
“Hammer.” I watched his face for the flicker of recognition, the dawning oh-shit moment.
It came. His eyes went wide for a fraction of a second before he schooled his face into something that resembled concern, but only if you squinted and ignored the panic underneath.
“He found you?” Mike asked like it was a surprise instead of inevitable. What did he think would happen?
“Found me, dragged me into an alley, put a gun in my face, and then took me on a fun-filled trip to Deluca’s.” I yanked open a cabinet, the door banging against the next one over. “Thanks for that, by the way. Real solid brotherly move.”
“Deluca’s?” His voice cracked on the second syllable. The blood drained from his face so fast I half expected him to keel over right there on the disgusting tile. “You went to Deluca’s? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“Am I—” The laugh that ripped out of me hurt my jaw. “Am I out of my mind? I had a gun pressed to my face, Mike. I said the first thing that came to me. That’s on you, not me.”
“Trent.” He stepped forward, and I stepped back, the counter biting into my spine. “Listen to me. You stay away from those people. The Howlers don’t—”
“Oh, now you’re worried about my safety?” I grabbed the bottle of generic ibuprofen from the cabinet and rattled it at him. “That’s rich. Real rich. Where was this concern when you were handing my name out like a business card?”
“I didn’t think he’d actually—”
“You didn’t think. Period.” I shook three pills into my palm and dry-swallowed them, the bitterness coating my tongue. “You never think. That’s the whole problem.”
He had the audacity to look hurt. “I was in a tight spot.”
“And your solution was to throw your kid brother into a tighter one.” I shouldered past him, ignoring the way his hand twitched like he was thinking about grabbing my arm. He thought better of it, probably noticing the bruises already ringing my bicep where Hammer’s fingers had branded me.
“Where are you going?”
“Work.”
“Trent—”
I slammed the bedroom door behind me hard enough to rattle the cheap hollow wood in its frame. My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against my thighs and breathed through my nose until the tremor settled into something I could ignore.
Once I was dressed, I grabbed my keys off the dresser and headed for the front door, ignoring Mike’s voice calling my name from the kitchen.
Whatever apology he was working up to, I didn’t want it.
I wanted my face back. I wanted to rewind seventy-two hours and have a brother who didn’t treat me like I was disposable.
The walk to Lamar’s Diner took fifteen minutes on a good day.
Today it took twenty-five, because every car that rumbled past sent my heart into my throat.
Every dark sedan was Hammer. Every motorcycle was Preacher.
By the time I pushed through the glass door, I was sweating through my T-shirt and seriously reconsidering my life choices.
Not that I’d had much choice in any of them lately.
“You’re late,” Lamar called from behind the counter without looking up. He was elbow-deep in a stack of receipts, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. “And tie your apron before—”
He glanced up. His mouth froze mid-sentence.
“Don’t,” I said quickly, ducking past him toward the back. “I tripped. Stairs.”
“Stairs.” He dragged the word out slow, like he was tasting it for honesty.
“Yep. Stairs. Hate ’em. Real menace to society.” I grabbed an apron off the hook and looped it over my head, keeping my bruise turned away from him. “You want me on tables or dishes?”
Lamar set the receipts down. I could feel him staring at the side of my face, and the silence stretched long enough that I finally caved and turned fully around.
He was a big man. Mid-fifties, salt-and-pepper beard, arms like he wrestled bears in his spare time. But his eyes were the kind that had seen too much, and right now, they were aimed at me with the precision of a sniper.
“Stairs,” he repeated.
“Stairs.”
“And the orange paint on your face?”
I touched my jaw self-consciously. “Foundation. It’s, uh, Maria’s.”
“Hmm-hmm.” He pulled the glasses off and folded them, setting them carefully aside like he was buying himself time to think. “Trent.”
“Lamar.”
“You in trouble?”
“No.” The word came out too fast. I cleared my throat. “I’m fine. Really. Just clumsy.”
He held my gaze for a long moment. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. But I want you to know that whatever kind of trouble you’re in, my door is open. My couch pulls out. My shotgun is loaded. You understand me?”
I nodded, because if I tried to speak, I was going to cry, and I’d cried enough in the last twenty-four hours to last me the rest of the year.
“Good.” He stood, patted my shoulder once, then jerked his chin toward the dining room.
“Tables. And drink some water. You look like you’re about to keel over.”
“Yes, sir.” Instead, I poured some coffee and took a sip then left the mug by the sink.
I didn’t exhale until I was out of the kitchen and behind the counter, pulling the order pad from my apron pocket with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.
The breakfast rush was already trickling in—Mr. Henderson at his usual booth, the two old ladies who split a single short stack and argued about syrup, a couple of guys in coveralls hunched over coffee.
Normal. Boring. Safe.
I clung to it like a life raft.
Halfway through pouring Mr. Henderson’s third refill, the bell over the door jingled, and I glanced up out of habit.
The coffee pot nearly slipped out of my hand.
Preacher stood just inside the doorway, blue bandana traded for a black one, those frozen-whiskey eyes already locked on me like he’d known exactly where I’d be. Crowbar followed him in, toothpick rolling between his teeth.
The diner went quiet. Not all at once. Just a slow ripple, conversations dying off table by table as people clocked who’d just entered.
Mr. Henderson cleared his throat. “Son, you’re overflowing my cup.”
“Sorry!” I yanked the pot back, dabbing at the saucer with a napkin that immediately turned brown. My pulse was hammering so hard I could feel it in the bruise.
Preacher’s mouth tilted up at one corner. Not a smile, exactly. More like an acknowledgment. He gestured to the empty booth in my section, the one farthest from the door, and slid in like he owned the place.
Maybe he did. I wasn’t ruling anything out anymore.
Lamar appeared at my elbow, his voice low. “Friends of yours?”
“No,” I whispered.
“They keep looking at you like the answer’s yes.”
I swallowed. “Lamar—”
“Go take their order, Trent.” His heavy hand settled briefly on my shoulder, grounding me. “And if anything goes sideways, you walk straight back to that kitchen. Understood?”
With a lump in my throat, I gave a single nod.
The walk to that booth was the longest fifteen feet of my life. By the time I got there, I’d convinced myself my legs were going to fold under me, that I was going to face-plant into Crowbar’s lap, that I was going to throw up my single sip of coffee all over Preacher’s boots.
None of that happened. What happened was worse.
Preacher looked up at me, his gaze slow-walking from the bruise on my jaw down to the apron strings knotted at my waist and back up again. Then he tipped his chin toward the empty seat across from him.
“Sit down, Trent.”
My name in his mouth did something to my insides I didn’t have time to examine.
“I’m—I’m working,” I managed, lifting the order pad like it was a shield.
“You’re on break.”
“I just got here.”
“You’re on break,” he repeated, and this time, it wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t mean, either. Just a fact, delivered in that same disarmingly calm voice from yesterday. The one that made my knees want to give for entirely different reasons than Hammer’s gun had.
Crowbar slid out of the booth without being asked, settling onto a stool at the counter with his back to us, like he was giving us privacy in the loosest possible definition of the word.
I sat. My legs basically made the decision without me.
Preacher’s eyes never left my face. Up close, in the diner’s fluorescent light, they were even worse than I remembered. Or better. I couldn’t tell which.
“You ice it?” he asked.
“What?”
He tapped his own jaw. “Your face.”
“Oh. Yeah. Some.” I’d held a bag of frozen peas to it for ten minutes before I got bored and gave up. Close enough to ice.
“Hmm.” He didn’t sound convinced. He folded his hands on the table, silver rings catching the light, and I realized I was staring at them and forced my eyes back up. “We need to talk.”
Four words. I’d never wanted to bolt out of a diner so badly in my entire life.
“About what?” I croaked.
His mouth did that almost-smile thing again.
“About your brother.”