Misfit(248)
One reason he was fucking enjoying Brooks’ terror so much and didn’t feel an ounce of fucking pity was because of the bitch he’d married.
“What’s the verdict, Brooks?” Val asked. “You walking away with your dick intact?”
“Or do I get to bring you to the meatshack?” Johnnie finished, almost salivating at the prospect.
Sniffling, Brooks drew in a ragged breath. “I th-think the deal I made s-solves the pr-problem.”
“You think?” Mort echoed.
“No! I-I mean I know it’s solved,” Brooks stammered.
“Ex-fuckin-plain.”
“The police officers on your case wanted to see you in jail, so I couldn’t bribe them. I’d be at risk of going to jail myself.”
Johnnie rapped his hand against Brooks’ jaw. “That fucking matters how?”
“Yeah, get to the motherfuckin’ point,” Christopher snapped, irritated they had to draw information from the assfuck.
“I br-bribed…I p-paid off a f-few p-people w-with the m-money you gave me. Someone in the records department. The j-judge who set your bond. W-witnesses at the hospital. If they t-turn—”
“We fuck them up,” Christopher said.
“N-no. Your f-files have been d-deleted from the system. L-like you never existed. C-Cash, too.”
Christopher stared at Brooks. “This ain’t comin’ back to haunt my ass?”
“N-no.”
“Know what, Brooks?”
He shook so bad, he looked a minute from fucking fainting. “N-n-n-n-o.”
“I’ma believe your ass and let you live. You better hope this the last of the shit cuz if it ain’t I’ma let Johnnie torture you worse than he did Kyler, then I’ma shoot the fuck outta you. Under-fuckin-stand?”
Brooks nodded with force.
“Put this motherfucker on a airplane and send him to his fuckin’ bitch,” Christopher ordered. “Any bribe money you got left, turn it the fuck in.”
“Outlaw…h-hear me out. My p-partners are scrambling to f-find another building. We had fire and w-water damage. We lost everything. Can you help them get back on their feet? They had n-nothing to do with what I d-decided. C-Cash could’ve found a way to disable the sprinklers on my floor and allowed the fire to spread throughout my offices.”
“Ain’t cuz of your firm, fuckhead. It was cuz of the other tenants on the other floors. Ain’t makin’ innocent civilians suffer cuz the firm in my back pocket fucked over me.”
“M-my p-partners didn’t know.”
“Get the fuck outta my face, motherfucker, and be happy I let you fuckin’ live.”
In celebration of Outlaw and Cash getting out of their problems, the main room was filled to capacity with brothers for a toast, after a special church session to make the announcement. With Potter behind the bar, two Probates were setting out the food Meggie had cooked earlier. She’d left several aluminum pans warming in the oven. Cash couldn’t wait to get a plate. He was fucking starving. The meeting hadn’t lasted long, but he hadn’t eaten today.
As he joined their group, Johnnie’s phone rang—Kendall, based on the ringtone.
Outlaw recognized it, too. The glare he offered Johnnie made all of them shut the fuck up. Afraid to mumble a word, Cash nodded to Potter, who handed him a beer a moment later.
Johnnie disconnected the call and stared, his face ashen.
Outlaw frowned. “Kendall found out you sent Brooks away?”
No answer.
“You okay, John Boy?” Mort asked.
Clutching his phone, Johnnie didn’t answer.
Concern dropped into Outlaw’s face. “Yo, Johnnie, what the fuck wrong?”
Elbows on the bar top, he allowed his phone to clatter to the wood. “Kendall,” he said. “She lost the baby. My second son.”
“Aww fuck, Johnnie. I’m sorry,” Mort said. “Red okay?”
“She’s devastated. Crying. I…” Bowing his head, Johnnie covered his face. “She doesn’t want a doctor. She said it’s too late. With all the bleeding she did, the baby’s gone.”
Cash recalled Kendall’s request for abortion pills. All the stress she’d endured made it highly possible, she had miscarried. Cash doubted it, though.
“This is my fault,” Johnnie said woodenly. “She asked me to stay with her or to leave the kids with her. I was so fucking angry with her for starting bullshit again. Now, she sounds…”
Mort clapped Johnnie on the back. “Red being upset understandable, brother.”
“She wasn’t thinking about the baby when she was getting into her bullshit,” Val snapped.