Crave Me (The Good Ol' Boys #4)(60)
I didn’t falter. If I did, I would lose him.
“He’s not using me. He works. Every single place we have been to these last three months he has worked his ass off. He doesn’t let me pay for anything. Trust me, I have offered. He won’t let me.”
“That explains the shitty places you’ve been staying at. How’s it feel to live on the other side? Everything you thought it would be? I’ve given you the best and this is how you repay me?”
“Then give him a job.”
“Excuse me?”
“He protects me, he looks out for me, and he’s keeping me safe. It’s not any different than what Esteban used to do. He keeps me calm when I meet the associates, knowing that at any point and time shit could go south. He’s there to watch my back. You want me to worry about my safety?” I asked.
“So what you’re saying is that you want me to pay for you to f*ck the hired help again? What does that offer me?”
“Another strong person to add to your business. Your growing empire, as you call it. He’s good, Uncle. He doesn’t talk when I take him on runs. He just stands in the background and makes his presence known with his I’ll-f*ck-you-up-if-you-touch-her demeanor. He doesn’t take shit from anyone. He’s f*cking fearless, exactly what you thrive on.”
Silence.
“I’ll bat for him, okay? He f*cks up. Shit goes bad. It falls on me. Now those are words you understand.”
“If I go down, peladita. You go down with me. Now those are words you understand,” he repeated back to me, knowing he meant it.
I took a deep breath, thinking I’d lost.
“I’ll play it your way for a while. I’m sending a man over. His name is Pablo. He will give your new bodyguard everything he needs. Including a business credit card that I will pay him on weekly. If you sleep in one more piece of shit motel, Austin will deal with me. Not you. Are we clear?”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “Crystal.”
“Now that it’s two of you traveling together, it will be easier for me to have everything ready when you get to the hotels. I see you’ve already been using my contacts for his fake passports behind my back. That ends now.”
By easy, he meant easy to control, him, me, us. The situation. I didn’t care as long as it kept Austin with me.
“Thank you, Uncle. I promise you—”
“Briggs, don’t make promises that you have no f*cking control over. Especially when it comes to that puta called love,” he stated, “bitch” with a bitter tone I’d never heard before.
“Thank you anyway.”
He hung up without saying a word. And I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to forget about the car accident that almost killed Austin.
<>Austin<>
Everything happened so f*cking fast.
Overnight my life changed in the blink of an eye.
Physically…
Emotionally…
Mentally…
All because of the girl covered in tattoos with purple hair.
It had been five months since I’d left with her, leaving behind the shitty life I had become accustomed to. We had traveled to so many different places after Colombia. Seen so many different things. The sky was the limit. It was a reoccurring joke between us, every new place we went we had new passports, all new identities. Sometimes we would pretend to be newlyweds, madly in love with each other.
That was my favorite.
We played the roll too well. Almost forgetting it was a ploy. I didn’t f*cking care, it always gave me an excuse to touch Briggs inappropriately in public. It changed everywhere we went and it was f*cking hilarious coming up with new ideas with her. Never a dull moment. Not once.
But one thing was for sure.
One thing never changed…
We were friends.
Getting to know her was like waking up from a dream, like I had been sleeping my entire life. Just waiting for the moment she would come into my world and make me start living.
Which was the only way I could explain it and even that didn’t do it justice.
I knew I sounded like a goddamn *, but nothing compared to seeing the world through Briggs’ eyes. I realized pretty quickly that I hadn’t even started really traveling till she was by my side. It was supposed to be for business but we were having the time of our lives, partying, getting high, and meeting new people everywhere we went. She still didn’t get high off her own stash so she would buy from the suppliers before it officially became hers.
To see the world like that was surreal and it was all made possible because of her. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t all fun and games. For the first three months, I worked my f*cking ass off trying to make money anyway I could to support us. It was pretty easy since technically I was just a tourist passing through. Business owners loved that, being able to pay me under the table for a few days’ work.
If I wasn’t keeping Briggs safe with the shit she had to do, I was working on my own. There was no way in f*cking hell that I was going to be dependent on her and I never wanted her to think I was using her for money.
She always told me she knew that wasn’t my motive for traveling with her, but she also didn’t want me to leave her side. She missed me too much when I was gone even if it was only for a few hours in the day.