“I’m not like other girls,” I teased.
His brows rose in surprise.
“So that means that you know where you want to eat?” he asked.
With that comment, I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
I was back in thirty minutes. And when I got there, it was to find the shop closed, and Justice nowhere in sight.
Well, alrighty then.
That answered that.
The man wanted nothing to do with me.
Duly noted.Chapter 7
Dad, I’m so happy your pull-out game was weak.
-Coffee Cup
Justice
I should’ve waited.
I knew I should’ve waited.
But I didn’t want to drag her under the bus with me, so I wouldn’t be accepting her kind offer of a ride.
Hell, I’d wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms when witty comeback after witty comeback kept coming out of her mouth. But that was mostly the reason I left her alone.
I liked her.
A lot.
She was beautiful, kind, and funny.
Not many women would’ve come over here when they’d heard me coughing up a lung—hell, there’d been two prostitutes on the street corner right outside my shop that hadn’t said a word—but she had.
But, when I was sent home with a bitch ton of meds, a shot of steroids in the ass, and the instructions not to do anything strenuous over the next twenty-four hours, I hadn’t expected her to find trouble.
Trouble in the form of her talking shit to the two ladies that’d been on my corner when I’d left, but now were on the corner closest to the welding shop.
I looked cautiously at Royal, who was yelling and waving her arms at one of the prostitutes.
From what I could understand, one of the women had swindled her brother out of some money. Some money that she said she needed to help cover a doctor’s appointment. A doctor’s appointment that was just a front so she could walk into the vape shop two doors down and splurge on a new vape.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, parking my bike and getting off.
Once I had the large garage bay door open, I exited back outside only to come up short when I saw Marcus standing in the middle of my driveway staring at the scene across the street.
God. Dammit.
I knew I should’ve gone over there as soon as I’d gotten home.
Belly tightening in worry, I didn’t move a muscle as I waited for what was about to happen.
It didn’t take long.
“Kill her.”
I looked over at Marcus who’d shown up finally to get his car at the complete wrong time.
I was glad to know he hadn’t been waiting when I’d gotten there. He’d said he’d be a couple of hours, and I hadn’t wanted to wait.
I’d taken a chance that he’d be longer than he said he would—and he had.
Lucky for me. Unlucky for Royal.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked.
“I said, kill her.” He looked over at me, zero emotion in his eyes. “Have your fun with her, then kill her. You want in? That’s your way in. I want her dead body on my doorstep in an hour.”
Marcus walked to his car and drove off without paying me a dime.
The asshole.
I’d spent hours on his car, getting it running and making sure that it didn’t leak any more oil, and he’d just driven off with an asinine request that he just assumed I’d follow.
I gritted my teeth and walked up to the woman that had just ruined everything.
When I got my shop closed back up, and had my medicines tucked neatly into my saddlebags, I marched across the street and tried to ignore the way my chest felt tight as I moved.
I wasn’t sure if it was from my illness or fear.
Probably, it was okay to assume both.
When I arrived in the office, it was to find Stratton already laying into her.
“…fuckin’ crazy?” Stratton bellowed. “You can’t yell at his girls like that! You know how he is!”
Exactly.
Ex-fucking-actly.
Jesus Christ.
Did she not know anything?
How had she survived working on this street for so long? I’d asked around about her when I’d first gotten the job. She’d worked here for a while.
“That woman just took a hundred bucks of my brother’s and didn’t even pretend to use it for what she said she was going to use it for,” Royal argued. “That’s a bunch of bullshit.”
Stratton shoved his hand through his silvering hair.
“You’re on vacation for a week, starting now,” he said.
Royal opened her mouth to argue, but I got there first.
“You’re on a vacation for two,” I said. “And, if it’s my choice, you’ll never work on this street again.”
“Amen,” Stratton muttered.
Royal whirled around and stared at me in shock.
“Come for a ride with me,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”
Royal narrowed her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yes,” Stratton said. “You are. He’s going to kill you.”
Royal rolled her eyes. “He is not.”
He was, too.
“Please?” I asked.