Dare To Run (The Sons of Steel Row #1)(4)

“You’ve got to stop treating him like a kid. He’s twenty-four now.” Chris looked at me, studying me too close. Chris was the only one who caught glimpses of the real me. “He’s not the little boy you need to protect anymore. He can take care of himself. A little too well, maybe.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Nothing, man. Nothing at all.” He shuffled his feet and stared at the guys as they did a final check of the shipping container. “I heard you almost got taken down inside. What happened?”

I shrugged. “Someone jumped me from behind on the way out of lunch. I fought him off long enough to keep my life, but I didn’t get a clear look at his face before the guards dragged him away. A buddy on the inside said he looked like a new guy but couldn’t point him out. It all happened too fast.”

“You almost died.”

Laughing, I scratched my head. “Yeah, well, I didn’t, did I? Good thing I’m out, safe and sound, now,” I drawled.

Chris rocked back on his heels. “You suspect something, don’t you?”

“Don’t you?” I looked at Chris. “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. I see it in your eyes. You know something’s up.”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. But a smart man never talks.” Chris dropped his hands at his sides and whistled through his teeth. As he walked away, he said over his shoulder, “Not in this world.”

“Not even for his blood brother?”

Chris paused, his broad shoulders tight. “Not even then.”

“Glad to see you haven’t forgotten me, brother,” I said, pressing my fingers over the old scar in my palm. One of the two Chris and I had made all those years ago on the railroad tracks behind my home. Ma had been pissed at me for deliberately cutting myself. If it’d gotten infected, it would have meant medical bills we couldn’t afford. I’d gone to bed without dinner that night. “Have a good night.”

Chris spun on his heel and came back, his cheeks red and rage in his eyes. “You know nothing. Nothing. You weren’t here, *. You were gone, and the whole thing went to shit. You left me to fend for myself in the damn Sons of Steel Row all by myself.”

I cocked a brow. “Excuse me for getting arrested.”

“Ha-ha, so funny, f*ckwad.” Chris clenched his fists. “You want me to tell you what I think? You want it that bad?”

I forced myself to shrug. “If you feel so inclined, sure.”

“I think someone is putting all his players into motion, and it all started the second we got word that you got parole.” Chris looked me up and down, his nostrils flaring. “And I suggest, brother, that you watch your back.”

I held my hands out at my sides, forcing a carefree grin . . . even though I felt like anything but. “I always do. It would take a ghost to sneak up on me.”

Chris shook his head. “Don’t be so damn cocky. It just might be your downfall.”

“Or it just might be my protection.”

“Whatever, man,” Chris said, locking eyes with me. “Whatever.”

As he walked away, I dropped the grin and fisted my hands. “Thanks.”

Chris didn’t say anything. Just walked up to the newly loaded truck, the men in either the cab or their own vehicles. He tapped the back of the truck to signify that all was well, and the truck took off. Chris followed behind it in his car, the others falling in line behind him. He’d make sure everything got to the warehouse, unpacked, and inventoried. I stared at the convoy as it disappeared from sight, then turned around and left, making sure to keep my steps light and unhurried. As I walked away, I buried my hands in my jeans pockets and whistled “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

No matter what I did, I couldn’t show my certainty that Chris was right. I’d been thinking the same thing, so hearing it straight from the mouth of the only man I trusted in this world? Yeah, that pretty much answered my unasked questions. It seemed clear as day that this was an inside job, and that meant . . .

Someone in Steel Row wanted me dead.





CHAPTER 2





HEIDI




This whole city was going to hell, and it was determined to take me with it. I’d grown up here and all, so this really wasn’t new information, but standing behind the bar, watching a bunch of gangbangers argue over who got to hit up the convenience store down the road first, only drove that point home.

Sometimes I could ignore the degradation and overall shittiness and just feed off the energy of Steel Row. Accept the slums of Boston for what they were. This was my life, and I was okay with that, but on nights like this one? It sucked.

Shaking my hips to the beat of the music pounding through the sound system, I attempted to ignore the pestering voice in the back of my head that screamed for me to strive for better.

There was no better. This was it. All she wrote. Cue the pig at the end of the Looney Tunes strip to pop up and say, “That’s all, folks.”

I’d always hated that little pig.

But really, I couldn’t complain. I had a better deal than others. I’d run far away from home and had been living on the streets of Steel Row before I’d been taken in by an old man who became more of a parent to me than my parents ever had been. And when Frankie died? he’d left me the Patriot, his bar, my bar. I loved this shitty little bar more than I’d ever loved any person.