Better When He's Bad (Welcome to the Point #1)(45)

“That’s not smart, Bax.”

“It doesn’t need to be. I’m tired of him playing puppet master for the entire Point. Someone needs to take him down, and I don’t have anything to lose.”

He sighed and closed his eyes so he could rub them.

“You have a brother by blood and another by choice who would be turned inside out without you. And your mom. Jesus, Bax, what do you think burying you would do to her? She would follow you into the ground.”

I finished the smoke and put it out on the heel of my boot. I was going to tell him it wasn’t my job to worry about any of that when he went on.

“And Race, he has that little sister he’s all tied up in now. What about her? You’re gonna bring the house down around a bunch of innocent people, Bax? Not even you are that careless.”

I frowned at him and shoved my hands in the pockets of my hoodie.

“What do you know about Dovie?”

“Race was frantic about her. Seems like his pops let it slip he had a little accident and the mom wouldn’t keep her mouth shut about it. The rich bastard wanted to make the whole mess disappear; typical Hill attitude. Race went crazy. I had never seen the boy like that.”

“After I got locked up, right?”

Gus looked at me and stacked his hands on his potbelly.

“A few weeks before. He was all about getting the girl, making sure she was safe. He was talking like you. Novak would pay, he was tired of Novak pulling strings, then things went south and he disappeared. I don’t know why he brought the girl back here, put her not only in his old man’s face but in Novak’s as well, but he must have had a plan.”

I couldn’t believe Race knew about Dovie before I went to jail. He had never said anything, never mentioned he was in trouble. It didn’t add up and I didn’t like the way everything was circling back to the redhead.

“Right before he disappeared, Race was flashing a picture around, asking a bunch of questions about some rich guy. You know anything about it?”

“Yeah. It’s his old man.”

I blinked stupidly and rocked back on my heels. “What?”

Gus kicked his feet off the desk and lumbered to his feet. “Race figured that the only person his old man would’ve asked to handle the dirty work was Novak. He was trying to put the two of them together the second he got back into town.”

“What exactly are we talking about when we say ‘dirty work,’ Gus?”

“You know Novak, Bax. What do you think?”

I swore and followed Gus back into the garage, where welders and air hoses made it impossible to talk. If Race thought his dad had asked Novak to kill Dovie, that made things even worse and more complicated than I thought. What in the hell kind of tangled mess had Race wandered into?

We stopped by a pile of rust that would be one badass ride with a little work. There was nothing like old muscle. I put a foot up on the bumper.

“She’s a sweet girl.”

Gus looked at me out of the corner of his eye and leaned on the fender. “The sister? How do you know?”

I just lifted an eyebrow, which made him shake his head. “Race is going to kill you. He loves that girl something fierce.”

“Well, he’s doing a shit job keeping her safe. Benny and his goons are all over her, and I’m the one running interference.”

“You run interference with what’s in your pants?”

“I told you she was sweet, and apparently she played a bigger part in Race going to ground than I thought. I need to figure this shit out. It looks like I might have to take a trip up to the Hill.”

“Be careful. Those people would like nothing more than to put you back behind bars. You took a lot of their really nice stuff.”

We shared a laugh that had very little humor in it. I pushed off the bumper and pulled my hood up over my face.

“I’ll help you get the monsters running, but that’s it. I don’t want anything to do with Novak’s business.”

“I don’t want you anywhere near Novak, Bax. Jail won’t be his answer to dealing with you this time around. Don’t be stupid, son.”

We shook hands and I tried to draw a picture in my head of all the info Gus had just given me. Race knew about Dovie. His dad wanted her dead. Old Man Hartman had asked Novak to kill her. Dovie was still around, Race had helped kidnap the old man the night I got arrested, and somehow that was all tied into him coming back to town and subsequently disappearing. He had to have dirt on Novak; something nasty if he felt safe enough coming back to the Point for a whole year before my release. I was starting to think he had purposely waited until I was out, until I was free to make his move, even if I didn’t know what that move was. One thing was clear—I was a pawn in all of it. I had given up five years of my life for someone else’s goal and that just pissed me off. I didn’t like to be used by anyone, ever.

I was running it over and over again while I drove to the school to get Dovie. She told me just to wait for her in front of the main doors and she would be out at ten sharp. Only she was already waiting for me when I got there, and my blood heated up when she yanked open the door on the opposite side of the car and slammed it shut with way more force than necessary. Her pretty mouth was screwed up in a pout and there was a flush under the freckles on her cheeks. She was upset about something and all I wanted to do was get her naked and play connect the dots.