Enforce(44)

“I’ll take a cab.”

Mo faked a horrified look. “A cab?”

Tex burst out laughing. “Do those still exist?”

“So…” Chase asked, thrusting his hands in his pockets. “What will it be, Nixon?”

All eyes fell to me.

Because that’s what I did.

I made decisions. And I’d been the one who’d told everyone we couldn’t go out — we had to hunker down on campus. I eyed Trace briefly before answering. “I guess we’re all going shopping.” It was the least I could do.

“But—” Monroe started, but I glared, telling her with my eyes to stop.

“We’ll take security.” I shrugged it off like it wasn’t a big deal to go marching out into the wild while Alfero men were on the hunt.

“But last time—”

“I said…” I hated being challenged. “…we’ll take security.”

There hadn’t been a last time; we all knew that. Well, not Trace. It was just Mo’s way of trying to argue the point.

She was afraid.

And I hated that I’d caused the fear, but she was my sister and I would protect her at all costs. We could take security, and if we stayed close enough to campus, it would be fine. Besides, who would kill a newly minted mob boss in cold blood?

The answer?

Frank Alfero, that’s who.

I just had to be smarter than the old man or die.

The things I would do for a girl I hardly knew — a girl I wanted to know a hell of a lot more.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The explosion



Phoenix

THE LAST TIME I’D brought my father crap news he’d pulled a gun on me. This time I was more prepared. Nixon said he wasn’t cooperating, and I was going to force him.

I knocked on the door to his office. Nothing.

I knocked again.

Finally, he jerked the door open. “What the hell do you want?”

“And hello to you too.” I pushed and tried to get in, but he held it firm.

“I’m busy.”

“The hell you are.” I pushed harder, he stumbled back, and that was when I saw how busy he really was.

With two girls.

Two of the ones I’d broken in the week before.

I almost vomited right there. What type of person kept underage girls in his office, the office of a university, then screwed them during coffee break? And what type of person did it make me, that I’d been first, my own father second.

Shit, I hated myself.

I hated him.

I hated everything.

Hands shaking, I reached for the cigarette pack on his desk, I hadn’t ever been much of a smoker, but I needed something to do and puking was out of the question, along with shooting him between the eyes.

“Should you be playing with the merchandise?” I asked.

“Deal fell through.” He shrugged. “Thought it a waste to let them go.”

A waste?

“What do you mean the deal fell through?”

“Guy backed out,” my dad sneered. “We didn’t get the money, and it’s your fault. He said they were too pure, so clearly you didn’t do a good-enough job making them dirty for him. Which reminds me, Nixon owes me money.”

“Nixon owes you shit. You talk, he pays, that’s the deal.”

“Yeah, well, what if I’m done talking?”

“Then he shoots you.”

My dad rolled his eyes and barked out a laugh. “Can’t kill a boss without signing your own death sentence.”

I hated that he was right.

“Wanna join?” My father’s eyes were challenging me to say no. “I have two… only used one. The other’s still good.”

He pulled out a knife and ran it down the first girl’s cheek. She was brunette, maybe seventeen, high as an effing kite, and apparently, under the impression the knife was a lollipop, she opened her mouth. He touched the blade to her lips.

“Stop,” I growled.

“What?” My father shrugged. “She won’t feel a thing.” Glaring at me, he shoved the knife past her lips. Blood spurted from her mouth, and I lost my shit.

I lunged at him, slamming him against the wall. His punch collided with the left side of my body — a kidney blow, nice. I kneed him in the balls just as he landed another deadly blow to my ribs.

When he fell to the floor, I looked at the mess around me — the mess I’d helped create. It was only natural I cleaned it up.

The girl was sobbing as blood continued to come out of her mouth.

And I was numb.

Completely numb.

Because, in that moment, I couldn’t see her as a person anymore, only an object. If I had seen her as a person, I would have had an honest-to-God mental breakdown. I threw a towel in her face and dropped a few hundreds onto the floor then sauntered out of the room, head high.