Four Seconds to Lose (Ten Tiny Breaths #3)(2)

I toss my water bottle to the ground and charge forward.

It’s over so fast, no one watching seems to know what the hell happened. Silence fills the vast parking lot as everyone waits for Jones to get up. Everyone except me. I know he’s not getting up for a while. I felt the bones crack as his head snapped to the side with the venomous blows that I delivered in quick succession.

He still hasn’t moved as my peeling tires screech up the underground ramp.

“Stay here,” I bark at Nate as I pull my GTO to a stop in the middle of the street. I’m not sure how I didn’t crash, given that one eye is swollen shut. I jump out, running past the crowd of curious onlookers, toward the throng of emergency vehicles and police officers, lights flashing, cops running with radios in their hands. They couldn’t have beaten us by more than ten minutes.

It takes four police officers, a gun aimed at my forehead, and a set of handcuffs to stop me. They won’t let me go in. They won’t answer the one damn question I ask over and over again. Is Lizzy okay? Instead, they hammer me with an onslaught of words that don’t register, that I don’t care to acknowledge.

“What happened to you, son?”

“Who did this to you, son?”

“You need medical attention.”

“How do you know the occupants of this home?”

“Where have you been since midnight until your arrival here?”

Despite my warning, Nate ventures out of my car and somehow slips through the police tape. Like a silent shadow, he waits with me as a young paramedic tapes the gash above my eyebrow and informs me that I have three broken ribs.

I barely hear her as I watch a parade march in and out of my parents’ front door.

As I watch the coroner show up.

The beginning of dawn lights the sky when one . . . two . . . three gurneys finally roll out.

All topped with black bags.

“I’m sorry for your loss, son,” a stocky police officer with a gruff voice offers. I didn’t catch his name. I don’t care about his name. “Things like this shouldn’t happen.”

He’s right. They shouldn’t. Lizzy shouldn’t have been there in the first place. If I hadn’t given up on her, if I hadn’t kicked her out of my apartment, she wouldn’t have.

I could have saved her.

But now I’m too late.

Present Day

“What do you mean you can’t deliver until after the weekend?” Despite every effort to keep my cool, my tone is biting.

“Sir, I’m sorry. As I’ve already explained, we’re experiencing labor shortages. We’re working as fast as we can to cover orders. We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” the customer service rep recites evenly, sounding like she has said it a hundred times today. Because I’m sure she has.

Pinching the bridge of my nose to dull the sudden headache forming, I fight the urge to slam the receiver against the desk. This conversation is a complete waste of time. It’s the same one I’ve had every day for two weeks. “Tell your management that ‘inconvenient’ isn’t the right word.” I hang up before she has a chance to spew the prewritten response for that.

With a groan, I lean back in my leather chair and fold my arms behind my head. I survey the walls of my office—lined floor-to-ceiling with shelves, doubling as supply room overflow. Five weeks of abnormally busy nights at Penny’s coupled with sporadic beer deliveries means I’m out of our top brands for the coming weekend. That means I’ll have to spend yet another Saturday night explaining to customers why being out of Heineken doesn’t entitle them to a free lap dance.

I hate this business, some days.

Lately, I hate this business all days.

Cracking open a fresh bottle of high-end Rémy Martin, I pour the deep golden liquid into my tumbler. It’s my vice—a glass before the club opens to take the edge off and one to close the place down. Unfortunately, the edge doesn’t come off so easily anymore and I find myself topping up the glass a lot. It’s a good thing our hours are limited or I’d have a drinking problem. At two hundred bucks a bottle, I’d also have a money problem.

My office door cracks open just as the comforting burn slides down my throat.

“Cain?” Nate’s deep voice rumbles a second before his six-foot-six, 280-pound frame eases through the doorway. I’m still in awe of how that twiggy little kid turned into the giant now standing before me, almost overnight, too. It shouldn’t surprise me, though, given that I was the one footing the steep grocery bill through his teenage growth spurts. “Just got a text from Cherry. She’s sick.”

“She texted you?”

He nods slowly, his dark eyes never leaving mine.

“That’s the third time she’s called in sick in two weeks.”

“Yup,” he agrees, and I know his thoughts are on the same wavelength as mine. No one knows me better than Nate. In fact, no one really knows me but Nate.

Cherry has worked for me for three and a half years. She has the immune system of a shark. The last time she started missing shifts because she was “sick,” we found her battered and strung out on blow, thanks to her douchebag boyfriend.

“Do you think he’s back?”

I shove my fingers through my hair, gritting my teeth with rising frustration. “He’d be the world’s biggest moron if he is, after what happened the last time.” Nate put him in the hospital with a broken femur and two dislocated shoulders as a warning. I have to think that was an effective deterrent.