14. Jax
14
JAX
V incent’s house was a small suburban affair pretty much the opposite of anything about his sister. The white painted cottage with its neat blue shutters and mown grass lacked everything. Like reality. Life.
Bees.
I hadn't seen Waverly since she walked away from me in the courtyard after I painted her and kissed her in front of everyone, but she was never far from the edges of my mind. Crush’s giant friend, his goalie on the Rippton Hails ice hockey team, Cooper Urchin I recognized now the shitty moonshine had worn off, scanned me with a shit-eating grin.
He’d been there when the baby doc had finished sticthing me up, pumped me full of drugs I didn’t agree to that knocked me into a haze I fucking hated when O needed all hands on deck for my girl and then lied through his fucking teeth and proclaimed me to be fine .
The tang of old blood was still etched beneath my tongue, but that could've been from the twins’ beating. Who the fuck knew.
I flipped my phone over in my pocket and burrowed into my borrowed hoodie that fell over me like an oversized piece a kid stole from his dad’s closet. Only my dad never owned a hoodie, and I never once tried to borrow his clothes or be like him.
Plucking at the too-long sleeves reminded me of Waverly stuck in my leather jacket. Fuck, I missed that damn jacket, itchiness and all. I laid off once Crush planted an elbow into my ribs. Mind, I was too so to care otherwise. Maybe he had the same memories as me.
Cooper leaned back against Crush’s sports coupe as I played with my phone and ran over my strategy in my head. Not that I had much of one. Walk up to the door, introduce myself and try not to sucker punch the fucker of a shitty brother in the face.
Hell, he was ex-military in the least. The dude was going to have at least a head of height and a hundred and fifty pounds of muscle on me. Two hundred bucks said he’d beat me to a pulp faster than the twins, and that was before the Allstars contingent of this shit-show joyride placed their own bets.
He probably had special ops training, too.
Suddenly all those evenings working out in the gym with Crush didn’t mean so much at all.
A large hand I knew well gripped my shoulder too tight, hard fingers digging into bruised skin beneath the borrowed hoodie that offered sweet fuck all protection.
I didn't let the wince show because I needed that pain to function right now. Because it curtailed the brewing panic that I wouldn't be enough to save her despite the effort we put in driving hours halfway across the state to be here and confront her family without asking permission.
It’s what we did best.
“You're not alone, man. We've got this.”
He propelled me to the front door, standing on the shallow step behind me. Maybe that was his style of leadership. I had no idea. But it felt more like I was being shoved off the pirate gang plank to my death rather than into a place where I'd be able to solve the world's problems.
Or at least Waverly’s problem’s.
Just one. The brother who seemed to owe the twins enough to threaten her within an inch of her sanity and to beat me into a bruised up meat sack.
Yeah. I’d settle for that.
I raised my fist and banged my knuckles on the fly screen door hard enough to burst stitches. Crush muttered something that sounded like a curse and a prayer melded into one whipped out a packet of freaking Band-Aids, managing to patch up me before the door opened.
An older, male version of Waverly, slightly shorter than me, unwashed with a few day’s scruff on his chin and stinking of beer peered out at me.
I blinked back.
“Not what I expected,” I muttered. And clamped my mouth shut.
Jesus. The girl was contagious. For the first time in hours, a slight smile lifted the corners of my lips at the thought of her.
The deep, tanned lines around the man’s eyes crinkled further. “What was that?” the kid barked.
I realized that, despite the scruff and lines and scars on his hands and face, he could only be a year or two older than me. Watching him closely, I tilted my head to one side. Something in my shoulder screamed at the action.
Pain, my friend. Welcome to the party.
“You’re Waverly Alloway’s brother?”
“What’s she done?” His pinked eyes swept over me. She better not be pregnant.”
A rude noise rumbled deep in my chest. Crush maintained his hard grip on my shoulder. “I’m Napoleon Lancaster, president of the Kingsman frat house at Rippton university and your sister’s… friend.” His face never changed in my periphery as he stepped up beside me. “May we come in?”
Now there’s some serious breeding shit.
My father clearly missed a few steps in my upbringing. Clearly, the last year befriending Crush hadn’t rubbed off on me like my father hoped. Or maybe I just rejected the concept.
“Sure.” Vincent Alloway looked away from Crush before he kicked the screen door open on its rusty hinges.
Neat and tidy on the outside, rotten on the inside.
I knew what we would find beyond that door before we stepped inside. Paint peeled off the walls. Marks scuffed every vacant surface, and there weren’t a lot of those. Beer bottles lined every table at hip height, and the floors could’ve used a damn good clean. Hell, I was an artist and I didn't pick up after myself but this – I was messy, this was unhygienic.
Standards, man.
“Glad she doesn't live with him,” I muttered behind my hand.
Crush nodded, his mouth set in a hard line as he glanced back to Cooper who remained behind. The goalie didn't move from his place as sentinel at the sports car, and nobody in their right mind would dare to confront the tank of a man based on his girth alone.
We followed Vincent through a labyrinth of dingy hallways that opened into a dimly lit living area and looked to be in the same condition as the rest of the small cottage.
He sank onto the couch amid stained cushions, scattering magazines and newspapers that stank of wet dog despite that I hadn't seen one. Still not acknowledging we stood in his living space, crowding it, he popped open a fresh beer that magically materialized his hand.
Not offering us one, he looked up, a degree of calculation in his features that hadn't been there before. “What do you want?”
Crush held out his phone open to a picture of the twins. “What do you owe them?”
Vincent took one look at the photo and shrugged, his face open, and shook his head. “Never seen him.” He frowned and seemed to realize there were two different people in the picture. “Either of them,” he amended, half emptying his beer.
“Kid should be a pleb at the frat with those skills,” I muttered, watching him for signs of mistruth and finding none.
Growing up with my father, I knew bullshit when I saw it.
“Not likely,” Crush said out of the side of his mouth.
“Was that it? Just, ‘ do I know them’ ?” Vincent parroted, misquoting Crush.
My brow creased. How this waste of a human was related to Waverly, I had no idea. “And yet they say you owe them money.”
“Not to them, I don’t.” He laughed, a harsh, unholy sound.
The sort I knew and had been waiting for.
Crush stiffened at my side. “So who do you owe, Vincent,” he asked softly, the presidential facade slipping fast.
Pity Waverly’s brother was too drunk before noon to recognize it.
The asshole laughed again. Some kingpin druggy on the coast. California’s greatest. Home sweet home, eh? That’s what they told me when I came back. Bunch of bullshit,” he muttered into his empty beer. Then his mood shifted and he grinned at me like he just solved all the world’s problems. “But we’re here, right? We survived?” He looked up at me hopefully.
My jaw locked. I glanced at Crush, well out of my depth.
He shook his head lightly, and crouched before Vincent, his face free of doubts. But I still had a big one, and it started with the sloppy asshole of a brother who sat right in front of me.
“When was the last time you spoke to Waverly?” he asked gently.
I could have told him that was a mistake.
“She’s too good to talk to me.”
I glared at him. “So she doesn’t call, then?”
Go on, ass wipe. Call her a liar. Cause I bet everything I own she’s called you this year a dozen times. Did you pick up or were you passed out.
“Nah, she doesn’t.”
“Gee, I wonder why,” I said through clenched teeth.
Crush shot me a look. “This kingpin who you owe money to. Vincent.” He snapped his fingers as the kid’s eyes shuttered for a long second. “How much do you owe him?”
Vincent yawned and scratched the scruff of his neck, seemingly unconcerned. “I don’t really know. Maybe two hundred grand?”
My eyebrows raised. Even to me, that was a sizable sum. “For drugs?”
Vincent’s fleshy lips split into a wide grin. “And a few other things. Had a little party time when I got back from the desert. You know they don't pay real well in the military when someone shoots you. Drugs… People getting shot over and over and over and then it hits you. Nothing here is real. They want you to come home and pretend nothing happened. But it did, man. And there’s people who didn’t come home, and…And then you go back to work. But it’s not real. Not the same. Can’t sit there day after fuckin’ day staring at a screen…”
He trailed off, jaw clenching, his fists mirroring the motion.
“All right.” I tapped Crush’s shoulder. We wouldn’t achieve more here than upsetting an already broken man. I knew what I had to do.
Vincent stilled for the first time since we entered the house. “Yeah. It is.”
I cleared my throat. We were losing him. “You are this man. Unfortunately he seems intent on taking his debt out somehow on Waverly.” I held Vincent’s reddening eyes, determined to make him see the damage he’d done, if only for a brief period.
“Shit.” Fluid filled his eyes.
That was it.
I ground my teeth. Again. At this rate I’d have none left. “I'll cover the cost of your debt. Two hundred thousand, is that right?” I clarified, giving him a chance to up the value, just in case. I didn’t want to go into an enemy I didn’t know yet blindsided.
He got shifty. The empty beer bottle tapped a staccato beat on his knee “Yeah, about that. But it doesn’t matter.”
I lifted the front of the hoodie. I had no shirt beneath and ripping it up displayed the blue and black bruises formed beneath. “Last night I took a beating meant for her because of you. So yeah, I'll pay the fucking debt because I don't want this happening to your sister.” The harsh words tore at my throat but I didn’t care.
A growl built in my throat as I dropped the material. Crush’s hand found my chest. He increased the pressure when I didn't back up straight away and I glanced down to find myself towering over Vincent, the ex-military man I'd been so afraid of earlier cowering in what smelled like a puddle of stale piss.
“Shit.” His breath came shorter this time. “Shit, shit, shit.”
He grabbed for another beer and I lashed out, tossing it across the floorboards where it drained onto a matted rug. His eyes narrowed, focusing as I took Crush’s place and crouched in front of him, though my expression was far from kind or gentle. “You wanna tell me what else you promised this man?”
Vincent pursed his lips and said nothing.
“Come on, man. You’re scaring him.” Crush gave my shoulder a not so gentle shake.
Any other time I might have listened to him, but I saw what my friend missed.
The guilt that flickered through Vincent’s eyes. Brief but it was there.
I closed my eyes and blew out my cheeks. “He fucking sold Waverly two hundred grand. That's why you’re drunk off your ass?” I backed up, my incredulity mirrored in Crush’s face.
Vincent sagged back into the couch. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Fucking coward.” I took a step forward my fist tightening enough to burst another stitch.
I doubted Crush had a big enough supply of Band-Aids for what would come next.
His words, however, stopped the thrashing I nearly threw down. “What's the kingpin's name?”
Vincent shook his head, muttering under his breath.
“What was that?” I snapped. “Speak up, you drunk bastard.”
Never mind the fact I couldn’t identify who I drove to his place with thanks to mafia boy’s moonshine.
Vincent smirked at me. “The biggest asshole on the West Coast.”
My stomach sank before he said another word.
“Fabius Palmer.”
I didn’t need to look sideways to see Crush’s reaction. I knew it would be the same as mine as the floor line shifted beneath my feet.
My father.
Vincent sold his sister and his debt to my fucking father.
And I had no idea how to save her from him.