Better when He's Bold (Welcome to the Point #2)(26)
Really, one of the reasons I was living so sparsely, so unfettered, was because I knew what it was like to lose everything. I had had all the opulence, all the material things that any one person could want in order to live a materialistic and wasteful life. Losing that hadn’t hurt nearly as much as realizing that the family, the illusion that provided it all, was just made of smoke and mirrors. My dad was an attempted murderer and his hands were just as filthy as my own. My mom . . . well, I didn’t know how complacent she was about everything, and I made a conscious effort not to really find out. I still had one parent I could stand to be in the same room with, not that my father allowed it. Ever since he had disowned me, my contact with either one of them had been limited to a few one-word text messages.
When you didn’t have much, losing it didn’t seem that bad.
I got dressed for the day, shoved a stale bagel in my face for some energy, and made my way down to the garage floor. I wanted to swing by Nassir’s and see what his take on the bodies was. If we had a common enemy, we needed to put our heads together and figure out who it might be. Plus it was fight night this weekend and I wanted to know what the odds on his fighters were. Nassir never did anything as simple as let two equally matched men go at each other; he always had a trick up his sleeve to make things more interesting, and now that we were in business together, I had to know just what those tricks were so I could make sure the lines and the odds on each fighter paid out to the highest potential.
Bax was talking to one of the legitimate mechanics that he had working for him. The actual garage operation since he took over had become a viable moneymaking venture. No one knew old muscle cars like Bax, and the product he was cranking out was unparalleled in quality. He didn’t need to be helping me out on the side like he was, but I was grateful he did.
He tilted his chin at me and his dark eyes flashed. “You see Titus?”
“Yeah, and now I’m going to go and talk to Nassir.”
“You don’t think he coulda put a bullet in the guy who roughed up Honor?”
“I know he could have put a bullet in him, only I was there and the guy was alive when I left. Nassir wouldn’t kill a guy and just toss him out the back door. He’s f*cked, but not that f*cked. And the kid . . .” I shook my head sadly. “That was unnecessary. He was just a dumb jock who lost a bet; there is no reason he should be in an alley with his neck broken.”
“Whoever is behind it means business, and I think this is probably just the start of it.”
“I know.”
“You going to be able to handle it?”
“Everyone keeps asking me that. I’m not sure what other options I have. I let go and someone else takes over the city, runs it right back to where Novak had it. Not to mention, if I do that, I prove to everyone that I really am nothing more than a bored rich kid playing at being a criminal. My ego alone won’t stand for that.”
He chuckled.
“I saw the BMW on the video from last night. You and the icy blonde, huh?”
I lifted an eyebrow and knocked him on the edge of the shoulder with my fist.
“If it was me and the blonde, I would be in a far better mood than I am now and I wouldn’t have let Titus stick around for nearly as long as he did. She’s got some trouble brewing, and I just want to help her out. Did Dovie ever mention if she noticed anyone giving Brysen a hard time?”
He lifted an eyebrow at me and rubbed his thumb along the edge of his jaw. The star that was tattooed by his eye crinkled a little as he squinted in thought.
“I don’t think so, but I don’t listen to all the girly crap. I think she lives with her folks or something, though. Kinda hard to have a man if you can’t give him anything to look forward to coming home to.”
I agreed, but after that phone call last night, I was starting to think her reasons for living at home were as complex and as deep as my reasons for wanting to keep my finger firmly on the pulse of the Point.
“True. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m going to find out. Maybe mention to my sister that her friend has an unwanted admirer and let her know to keep her eyes open when they are together.”
The corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes went a scary, flat black. “Dovie gets hurt because someone has it in for her little friend and I will destroy anyone and anything involved.”
Good. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.
“None of us live in a bubble, my friend. We all gotta look out for one another because no one else gives a shit if we make it out alive.”
He grunted in agreement and turned back to the Jaguar he was in the middle of pulling the engine out of. Bax was always a man of few words.
I went to the Mustang and cruised through the city until I got to the old dog-food factory that was Nassir’s main base of operations. It was the big club, the big draw for kids from all over the city. It was hidden, hard to find, impossible to get into if you didn’t know someone, and totally different on the outside than it was on the inside. In the harsh light of day it looked like any dilapidated building that had been foreclosed on. But at night, when the sun went down and the miscreants came out to play, it was a hive of activity and on trend with any fancy nightclub in any major metropolitan city in the world.
Some nights it was a rave. Some nights it was a disco. Some nights it was a dirty, brutal fight club. Some nights it was den of sex and debauchery. Whatever the masses wanted, whatever the people clamored for, Nassir gave it to them—and then some. He really was a brilliant businessman on top of being a stone-cold killer and a soulless monster.