Hold (Gentry Boys, #5)(62)

“Hey there,” said a voice and I looked up to see a thickset middle-aged man closing the door of a tow truck. I hadn’t heard it drive up so either I was too lost in my thoughts or he’d just been sitting there, watching the approach of the weather and maybe counting the lightning bolts. It didn’t take me long to place him.

“Carson,” I said, extending my hand to the owner of Carson’s Garage. He’d been an Emblem fixture since I could remember and more recently a friend of Deck’s. I hadn’t been surprised to hear that he’d hired one of the young Gentry brothers to work in his garage. It had probably been a favor to Deck.

He crushed a cigarette under his boot and squinted at the medical building. “Heard that the kid might be here and wanted to check on him.”

“He’s here. Cracked his knuckles on a metal post so he’s getting put back together.”

“Gonna be tough to get pasted back into one piece after a night like this.”

“That’s the truth.”

Carson eyed me. “I guess it’s been one blow after another for you guys.” He coughed and cleared his throat, shifting around awkwardly. “Heard about Maggie of course.”

I was silent, remembering a room that held a body that was once a woman. As soon as I’d set foot in that morgue I knew that moment would be another one destined to plague my dreams.

“Your dad and I were pals in high school,” he continued. “Bet you didn’t know that.”

I didn’t.

Carson sighed. “He wasn’t always a rat bastard.” He held up a hand. “Not excusing him by any means. He could be a pain in the ass with an occasional hair trigger temper but he was a fun guy to have around. Girls loved him.” Carson frowned, gazing out toward the approaching storm. “I never guessed he’d turn into the mess that he is.”

I wasn’t concerned about Benton. I didn’t want to hear about him. It was on the tip of my tongue to excuse myself and leave Benji Carson to his musings of yesteryear when he piped up again.

“He ain’t even worked since Christ knows when. Only way he’s able to scrape by at all is because of all the cheddar he extorts from Deck.”

He had said it so matter-of-factly I figured I must have heard him wrong. I almost let it just go by. But something bugged me. It had bugged me for a while. Benton had to know we were all living less than an hour’s reach from here. He would have had no qualms about trying force the three of us to cough up some cash if he thought we had any and he would have used threats and even Maggie as the means. But we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him in years.

Why?

In the back of my mind I knew there had to be a reason.

And Benjamin Carson had just unwittingly coughed it up.

I crossed my arms. “Just how long has that f*cker been weaseling cash out of my cousin?”

Carson flinched. He pursed his lips together and ran a hand over the back of his neck, stalling. He must have realized he’d said too much and after all, if any Gentry had his loyalty it was Deck.

“Long enough,” he said carefully, shooting me a sidelong glance. “Deck gives him just enough to keep him out of your face. The rub is that he would only keep the flow moving if Benton stayed away from you guys.”

I nodded slowly. “I see.”

And I did. I must have been willfully blind not to understand it before. Between the time Deck got out of the Marines and the time he hooked up with Jenny, he’d been living in an old trailer that had once belonged to his father. He kept it parked not fifty yards from Benton’s front door and even though the three of us had nagged him to get the hell out of Emblem he had stubbornly stayed put for a long time. It wasn’t a money issue. Deck had all kinds of schemes and business going on that kept the green stuff rolling in.

All at once I had a flashback to being a kid, an ancient time when Deck, five years older than us, had seemed valiantly enormous. He could mouth off to Benton outrageously. Benton didn’t dare belt him for it or else he faced the wrath of his older brother, our Uncle Chrome. Deck stood in front of us whenever he could and spoke for us when we were too frightened. He was our hero then. And even though he went about it quietly, he was still trying to be our hero now. I felt a surge of love for my tough, enigmatic cousin. And then I felt a stab of rage for my father.

I stared at the keys in my hand. From here I could see into the lobby. The blonde woman I’d passed on the way out was saying something to Creed. Chase must still be in the back with Conway. My brothers would never let me go confront Benton and if I insisted they would follow. Creed was the quickest to get riled up and it was unlikely he’d keep his fists to himself if he was able to get a crack at Benton. Chase used to feel the strongest emotional attachment to our mother and this day had already been painful enough for him.

“You all right, Cord?”

“Fine. Look, I don’t mean to cut this short but I’ve got to run a quick errand.”

Carson looked unconvinced, probably figuring correctly that whatever errand I was tackling in the midst of all this chaos wasn’t harmless. But he just shrugged. “All right. You take care.”

I didn’t answer him. It wasn’t his fault, but I was burning up.

My lowlife piece of shit father had fouled up everything he touched and goddammit he was done taking things from the people I loved. It would never end and it had to end. I had to end it.