Watch Me Fall (Ross Siblings, #5)(83)
The people scattered about the living room—four guys and a couple of girls lounging on shabby, mismatched furniture—greeted Ghost but stared warily at Jared. One of them, a guy with lank blond hair and a goatee, jumped up and exchanged backslapping hugs with Ghost. This must be the one they called Swat. “Long time no see, man. Ol’ ball and chain keeping you down?”
Jared cocked an eyebrow and watched for Ghost’s reaction to that. Indeed, he seemed to bristle, his jaw pulling tight. “No. I’d just rather look at her than your ugly ass.”
“I hear ya, man, I hear ya!” Tipsy laughter permeated. Swat extended his hand to Jared. “You look familiar, guy, but I don’t think we’ve met.”
After a meaningful pause, Jared shook it. “I’m your neighbor.”
Swat’s bleary eyes widened slightly. “Oh shit, dude! Are we being too loud?”
“Usually, yeah.”
“I’m sorry about that, bro, you know how it is—”
“Cut the bullshit, Swat,” Ghost cut in. “Where’s Max?”
Swat swayed on his feet with the effort to extract the proper response to that question from his muddled brain. “Max? Ahh…haven’t seen him.”
“Don’t dick me around. He’s here. You can tell me where or I can find him myself, but you might not like my methods.”
“Hey, man, don’t come in here harshing—”
“Fuck out of my way.” Ghost shouldered him aside. Swat stumbled and almost fell. While ordinarily Jared wouldn’t dream of barging uninvited through someone’s house, he followed Ghost’s dark silhouette down a hallway with his heart racing in his ears, drowning out the sound of protests coming from the living room. Too late. Ghost threw a door open at the end of the hallway. While Jared couldn’t see inside the room from his angle, the way Ghost surged through the door told him they’d found their target.
Sprawled facedown and sideways across a narrow, bare mattress on the floor was a shirtless guy with longish black hair and a torso full of tattoos. “Max!” Ghost called, sliding a boot under the guy’s body and forcing him over on his back. The smell of alcohol and weed coming off him in waves could have given them a contact high. Ghost even coughed. “Jesus Christ.”
This was Max?
It was too dark to see very well, so Jared went to locate a light switch, for all the good it did. Only one light bulb worked in the ceiling fan kit, but it was enough.
“Oh, look at this gentleman.” Ghost snapped his fingers several times in Max’s face. “Hey. Hey!” When the snaps didn’t work, he slapped him lightly on both cheeks, then grabbed him by the chin so that he and Jared could plainly see his crooked, purple nose and black eyes. Yeah. He’d taken a hell of a shot. “Hey!” Max’s eyes opened groggily. “Who gave you that love tap, sweetie, huh? Fucking *.” Ghost grabbed the guy mostly by his hair and hauled him up off the mattress. Max slurred a protest, the first sound he’d uttered, his knees almost buckling under him, but he managed to use Ghost as leverage and shove himself to his feet.
“The f*ck you want?” he demanded, spit flying from his mouth with the f. He wiped an inked forearm across his mouth, glaring at Ghost with pupils blown so wide, they obliterated his irises. True to Starla’s description, he wasn’t a big guy. Less than six feet tall, no bulk. A wormy little shit. Smaller than Jared or not, though, whenever he thought of Max shoving Starla out of his car that night, thought of him putting his hands on her in any way whatsoever, he wanted to finish the job Brian had started and pummel his face to an unrecognizable pulp. He’d take great f*cking joy in it.
Starla had given this guy the time of day? This wasted piece of trash? She’d been knowingly coming to hang out here?
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one daydreaming of violence. His ally advanced on Max, and though from his angle Jared couldn’t see the expression on Ghost’s face, it must have been a horror to behold. Max backtracked immediately, stumbling over a table behind him and sending bottles rolling. He windmilled his arms trying to keep his balance, failed, and managed to catch himself on the table just before his ass met the floor.
“Dudes, what’s going on?” Swat had appeared in the door frame behind them.
“Get out of here,” Ghost said, his voice shaking with fury. “It doesn’t concern you.”
“It’s my house—”
“And when in the f*ck have you ever cared?” He cut his dark eyes to Jared. “Call them.” Jared reached into his back pocket for his phone, but that got both guys’ attentions. Max and Swat began babbling over each other.
“Who?”
“Call who, man? The f*cking cops? Don’t get the f*cking cops out here, man.”
“We’re only doing our civic duty. And I’m going to assume,” Ghost began slowly, dangerously, his piercing eyes leveled on Swat, “that you didn’t realize this is the piece of shit who tried to do Brian in when you started harboring him.”
“Wh…what?”
“Bullshit!” Max exploded, launching himself across the room at Ghost. While Ghost was obviously perfectly capable of taking care of himself, Jared caught Max and wrenched one arm up behind his back, taking great pleasure in slamming him into the wall—which obviously didn’t feel good on Max’s broken nose. The guy howled.