Start a War (Saint View Psychos #1)(24)

Nash didn’t touch his mug. His hands remained flat on the tabletop. “So, you want to tell me what the hell happened last night?”

I lifted one shoulder. “There’s not much to say, other than what I told you at the bar. Someone broke into my fiancé’s house and informed me, rather impolitely and abruptly, that since I now owned Psychos, I also owned its drug debt. Twenty thousand for last month and another twenty thousand for this month.”

Nash’s mouth flattened out into a thin line, but that was his only reaction. “Okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”

No way was that a satisfactory response. “Excuse me if I don’t just take your word for it when some drug lord plans to take the payment out on me if I don’t cough up the money.”

His gaze narrowed. “I’m not gonna fucking let that happen, Bliss.”

I instinctively knew he was telling the truth. But it wasn’t enough. “I still need to know.”

He finally nodded. “Fine. Technically, it’s not Psychos that has the debt. The bar runs at a tidy, legal profit. Everything is above board. We pay our employees above minimum wage and we pay taxes. Everything is on the up and up.”

Dread gathered in the pit of my stomach. “Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”

Nash took a sip of his steaming coffee and winced. “Fuck, that’s still really hot.” He set it back down. His gaze raised to meet mine.

I didn’t turn away. I needed to know everything he knew so I knew what on earth I was going to do next. “Nash, please, just tell me.”

“I don’t want to upset you again.”

I hated that he thought me weak. I knew I’d done nothing to make him think otherwise, what with all the tears and falling apart in his arms the other night, but I hated it anyway. I didn’t want to be like that.

Not with him.

I was already powerless in my father’s house, and in Caleb’s. Bethany-Melissa was weak-willed.

But once upon a time, Bliss had been a fighter.

When Nash called me that, it made me want to be stronger. “Tell me everything. I mean it. Every single little thing about Psychos and my brother. Stop sugarcoating it. I want to know it all.”

He groaned, sipping his coffee again. “There’s a reason Axel pushed you away the last few years. This shit isn’t for a girl like you.”

There it was again. Him thinking I wasn’t strong enough. I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest. “Respectfully, Nash, you don’t know what sort of girl I am. You haven’t known me for a very long time.”

“Axel didn’t want you involved in any of this.”

I lost my patience. “Well, maybe he should have thought of that before he went and got himself killed, leaving a bar and illegal debts and God only knows what else to me!”

Nash raised an amused eyebrow, his mouth curving into a half-smile. “Well, shit. There’s some spitfire hood rat still left beneath that uptown exterior, huh?”

I tried not to let on that the outburst had actually caused me physical pain and I was once again battling back tears. My heart ached over the fact my brother hadn’t wanted me involved. “How come he didn’t just leave the bar to you if he didn’t want me around? Rebel already calls you Boss Man.”

“I manage the place. But Axel didn’t have a will, so the lawyer said his property gets split between his next of kin. You know your mother isn’t gonna step up and claim anything legally. She can’t. She’s had warrants out for her arrest for years. And even if she did come forward, do you really see her coming in every day and working behind the bar? That just leaves you. I won’t be surprised when your mom comes out of the woodwork, looking to take her cut once you sell the place, of course, but she can’t do that legally without getting herself thrown in jail for a lifetime of selling sex.”

I blew out a slow breath. “I didn’t know any of that. About my mom and the warrants, I mean.”

“How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”

I had no idea. “A decade maybe? Not since the last time she came to my school, looking for money. The headmaster called the cops, but she took off before they got there. Not before calling me a bitch in front of all my school friends because I had nothing to give her. It was the most mortifying day of my life.”

The whispers and gossip after her appearance had been rife, as had the bullying. I suspected my father had found her and paid her off or threatened her with worse if she ever showed up again, because she hadn’t. She’d slipped right out of my life as easily as when my father had paid her to take full custody of me in the first place.

But it was why I’d never told Caleb about Axel or my mother or the way I’d grown up. People with money didn’t easily accept those who grew up without it. Even my father never talked about them, so neither did I. Bliss and everything she’d known was buried the day I’d become Bethany-Melissa.

Nash tapped his fingers, studying me. There was no sign of sympathy on his face.

I bristled. “What?”

“No, nothing.”

“Say it. You clearly want to say something.”

“Is that ‘poor little rich girl’ story seriously the worst thing that happened to you?” He held up a hand before I could answer. “Forget it. Sorry. I’m glad it is. It was what Axel and I wanted for you. It was why we fought so hard to get you out in the first place.”