Bad Wolf(27)

My blood goes cold. "My mom? What do you know about her?"

"Sorry, was that a secret? You once said she'd had a couple of bad days, and I figured she's sick."

"No, it's okay. You're right, she's sick." Shit, I was probably drunk off my ass. I normally don't talk about Mrs. Lowe, or my past, or about me, period. "It doesn't matter. Can you cover for me tonight, or not?"

"Last time, Jarett. I mean it." She tsks, and I realize that her crush on me is fading.

Good for her. I'm not worth her time.

What's there to like, anyway? I'm a fuck-up. Been screwing up my life, and the lives of others, ever since the day I was born.

"What's the fucking hold-up now?" Mav yells from behind me, and I almost drop the goddamn phone. "Ready to get to work, or do you maybe need more time with your girlfriend?"

"Not my girlfriend," I mutter.

"Know what, Jarett? You're on your own, and by the way, screw you," Suzie hisses into the phone, and the call disconnects.

"Fuck," I whisper. "Just …  fuck."

Angel smirks at me. "Trouble in paradise?"

"No fucking trouble at all." I stare at my phone for a long sec, trying to figure out how I managed to fuck this one up, then give up and drop it in my back pocket. "Let's go."

"Well, if you're sure," Mav drawls, voice dripping acid, and turns to go, gesturing at the others who're standing about, smoking. "Shall we?"                       
       
           



       

Sebastian flicks his cigarette away and glares at me as he straightens from his slouch against a car's hood. "You're a pain in the ass," he mutters, loud enough for me to hear.

I ignore the motherfucker. After he pulled that knife on me and stole my money, what little patience I had with him is all gone. And I'm not even gonna point out we didn't stop here for me, but to wait for Mav's go ahead.

Fuck you, Seb.

Though considering I'm only here to make sure he makes it through tonight's gig alive, isn't that a fucking contradiction? Hilarious.

Yeah, Jarett, real funny the mess you put yourself into. Save your adopted brother's skin, and rob a store. Bag of laughs.

My heart slams against my ribs as I fall into step behind the group, the Glock heavy at the back of my jeans, a sheathed knife chafing against the inside of my jacket pocket. Pulling out my pack of smokes, I light up, trying to steady my shaking hands.

Not my first rodeo, but we've been doing this more and more lately, and it's fucking with my mind. I'm not a thief. I may have no morals left, but I want to think I still have some basic honesty in me, instilled by Connor, the only father figure I can remember-adopted, but who gives a shit about that, right? About blood ties and family trees. After years drifting inside the system, Connor took me in, and taught me things. How to use a gun and a knife, how to cook basic stuff, how to survive alone.

How to be a better person. A better man.

But above all, he gave me two tenets to live by: family is everything, and nobody is above the law.

So how the hell do I reconcile these two things?

Another doubt nags at me as I trudge after the gang who has fallen quiet as we wind through narrow streets. I draw smoke into my lungs, thinking.

Like, did Connor know what he was talking about? What did he base his slogans on? I have been wondering about that since his death. He had no family to speak of, and the law he upheld let him down.

I guess the law is above everyone, but can't keep everyone alive. So if the law is weak …  how do you survive by being lawful? By following the weaker side, how do you survive? Connor taught me survival. He taught me to protect my family at all cost.

So what would he say knowing I'm protecting my family at the cost of the law and other people?

Shit. I run a hand through my hair and do my best to release the tension gathering in my shoulders, at the base of my skull, a vise of pain pressing around my head.

"Okay, here we are," Angel says. "Take your positions. Jarett, Shem outside. The rest of you are coming in with me."

"Pussy," one of Mav's latest recruits, Declan, spits at me as he walks by me to join Mav. "Keeping your ass safe and cozy, huh?"

"Fuck you." My fists clench, itching to knock that sneer off his ugly face.

"What did you say?" Ugly Declan turns back toward me. I'm giving him what he wants, but I'm still pissed, and confused, which makes it worse. "I'm gonna rearrange your face."

"Not now, assholes," Angel snaps, and hauls Declan away from me, after shooting me a death glare. "Come on, Dec."

"What about a getaway car?" Jorge asks.

"Don't worry your pretty head about that," Angel snarks. "It's already in place."

I throw the butt of my cigarette down and step on it, then shove my hands into my pockets and glance around as the others gather around Mav and Angel for instructions.

That's when it strikes me that I know where we are, and fuck, we're not far from the bar and the campus. I really hope no students are around, that I won't see anyone I know from the bar, and yeah …  that Gigi isn't going home at this time.

Come to think of it, that's about the time I saw her head to the bus stop from the university last time.

Fuck. I can't be that unlucky, can I? Angel will go ballistic if he sees her around here. Around me.

If he sees anyone nearby during the heist.

Not that I give a shit about her. The fact I scrubbed the apartment clean in case she comes over again, that I put up a poster of a group on my bedroom wall and made the bed has nothing to do with her.

Right …

Pulling another smoke from the pack, I put it between my lips and light it up. Shem is staring at me, so I offer him one, and he takes it.

"How come you're not going in with them?" I ask, eyeing him over the smoke drifting up in the cold air.

Going in means taking a cut. I'm here pretty much for free, paid peanuts whenever Angel and Mav are in the mood to pay me. I don't expect the sky to rain dollars cuz I'm in the gang, like Seb does.

He's such an idiot, and I ask myself for the thousandth fucking time why I'm here, doing this to myself, for a rash promise I made to a woman who doesn't even remember me.                       
       
           



       

Yeah. Fucking great.

"Angel doesn't trust me not to fuck it up," he says with a shrug. "Not after I got into that fight last time. Need to win back his trust, he says, and shit like that."

I shrug, too, unsure what to say. I settle for a "Yeah," and hide behind my cigarette smoke.

Trying to ignore the fact that, behind me, the gang is breaking into an electronics store to rob it, smashing through the glass cases and breaking the plastic locks attached to the tablets and phones to carry them away.

That I'm an accomplice to a crime, in full conscience of the fact, for reasons that don't count as excuses at all. Protecting my family? Yeah, right. As if that makes a difference to the store owners. To the goddamn law.

A crash comes from behind my back, and I jerk, the cigarette falling from my fingers. Then an alarm goes off, and it's on.

Waiting for the gang-for my brother, dammit-to come out of the store, I put a hand to the small of my back, wrapping my hand around the gun handle. If anyone comes this way …

What, I'll shoot them? The fuck. Gritting my teeth, I keep watch, as I'm supposed to do, and take my hand away from the gun.

When I think to check, I find Shem gone. Probably ran away the moment the alarm went off. The wailing siren is still going, in fact, and no sight of the gang.

Where the hell are they? My skin is crawling. I see someone walking by in the distance, and my fingers twitch.

Go away, whoever you are. Run away, while there's still time.

They told me Mav once shot a guy who witnessed one of the gang's robberies, to keep his mouth shut. Maria told me, a gang recruit, before she fled across the country and was never seen or heard from again. She said nobody in the gang would ever tell the cops, and she didn't know the victim's name.

Who knows if it was even true? Could be fucking hearsay.

Or not.

My leg muscles burn to get running. My stomach roils with unease. The alarm is still blaring right in my ears, deafening. I turn again toward the store.

They burst out of the smashed façade, hauling duffel bags heavy with loot, and it all seems eerily quiet, the sounds muffled by the siren.

Holy shit.

I glance between them and the street, my heart hammering.

"Where's Shem?" Angel asks.

"Fuck knows," I snap, freaked out by the noise and the increasing probability of the cops descending on us. "Let's go."

"We're going, but what about that guy? Goddammit, J, you had one job."

"Not to let you get caught," I snarl, turning to see a guy crossing the street, engrossed in texting on his phone. "He's nobody. Hasn't even seen us."

"So you say." Angel nods at Dec and another guy, Jorge. "Get him."

Fuck.

"No, Jesus, don't!" I find myself running after Angel's thugs, shouting at the guy to go. "Go away!" I shout at him. "Run!"