She held up her good hand and curled her injured arm protectively across her chest. “Try not to jostle my left side. The shoulder feels better now that it’s back in the socket, but it still hurts like a mother when I move it even a little bit.”
She curled her fingers around the back of my neck when I lowered myself so I could slide an arm under her bent knees and one around her back. I tried to pick her up as gently and as carefully as possible, but the movement still made her jolt and whimper in pain. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead against my throat. I’d never had anyone to take care of before, never had to stop and put anyone else before myself. I had to say, the way satisfaction filled me up and burned through my blood felt almost as heady and potent as the rush I got from my white-knuckled and bloody climb to power in the Point. Normally a naked woman inspired lust and longing; this one had protective and possessive instincts rising up that I’d never felt before.
Almost as if she could read my mind, she asked against my skin, “What did you do before you became an executive lumberjack? How exactly did you make the shithole you call home a bad and dangerous place?”
She needed the words to distract from the obvious pain she was in. I juggled my hold on her soft skin as I opened the squeaking door to the bathroom. Calling it that was a bit of an exaggeration. The thing looked more like what you would find in a campground out in the woods. There was a teeny-tiny shower stall with a rusted showerhead and old camo shower curtain. The showerhead was about two inches lower than where I needed it to be in order to stand up straight while I was in there, so I was getting used to a back ache if I wanted clean hair. The sink was metal and set in an off-balance cabinet that leaned dramatically to the left. I stopped resting my toothbrush on the edge of it after the third time I found it on the floor. The toilet was standard, and probably the only part of the setup that wouldn’t make her cringe.
It took some work to get her down and steady on her feet. She was still clutching my shoulders for balance when I answered her question as honestly as I could. “I was a handyman of sorts. I fixed things for the man in charge, no matter what it took, no matter the cost. If he had a problem, fixing that problem started and stopped with me.”
She lifted her eyes to mine, white lines of agony stark around the corners. “You were a lackey?” I snorted out a startled laugh and grasped her arm as she worked out how to lower herself down onto the porcelain throne. Once she was situated, she waved me off. “I’ve got it from here, tough guy.”
I gave her a nod and slipped out the door, leaving it slightly cracked so that I could get to her quickly if she passed back out or needed anything.
“I was a lackey. The top lackey, and at the time, I thought it was the shit and that I was the shit. It’s funny how quickly your perception changes when your surroundings do. The guy I worked for was bad news, the worst kind of criminal. He had zero morals, zero boundaries, and no scruples. Men, women, children…they were all game to terrorize and manipulate. He had those of us that worked for him brainwashed. He handed us all the money, women, power we could ask for and told us his way was the only way to build the city up. It wasn’t until he was gone and we were left with the mess he made that any of us realized we were the ones responsible for tearing the city apart. We were what was wrong with the place.”
She let out a little gasp but it didn’t sound like one caused by pain, so I stood still outside the door as she asked, “What happened to him? The guy you worked for, is he the one that tried to kill you when your perspective changed?”
I let out a sharp laugh and shook my head. “No, he’s dead. He tried to set his own kid up, tried to blackmail him into working for him. When his plan didn’t work, he snatched the kid’s girlfriend and tried to use her for leverage. As it turned out, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree and his kid had no qualms about taking him out. His son is not someone you fuck with and my old boss should have known that.” I’d known Bax was bad news and told Novak over and over again he was playing with fire. Shane Baxter was a problem that refused to be solved and Novak paid the ultimate price for not paying attention when I told him that.
I was actually the one that took Bax’s girl. I was also the one that smashed her brother’s kneecaps in with a tire iron while trying to find her; like I said, anything to try and fix the problem. I reached up to touch the scar at my neck and again wondered if it was one of the soldiers from the cartel I turned on, or one of the henchmen from the human trafficking ring I sold out, or one of the minions that worked for the arms dealer that I burned that had ordered the hit on me while I was locked up. Realistically, I knew it was just as likely that Bax had called in a favor from the days he was locked up for boosting cars. Even though I’d never had one of my own, I knew all the way down to my bones you did not mess with a dangerous man’s woman. Not without serious consequences.