And now you’re out, he said, as if all that time were an inconvenience I’d put him through personally. As if I’d chosen it.
There is no way in hell I’m going back to prison.
Which means I need to play it smart. Stay the fuck away from Griff’s side of town. The noodle place on Carver Street where I first ran into him is off the fucking table. Anywhere within five blocks of that side of town is somewhere I don’t go until I knowmore about who is owed what and how serious they are about collecting it.
The smart play is to order food for delivery. But I don’t have a card. That’s a problem for tomorrow. I need cash.
I look toward the back wall.
The money would still be there. Rainer wouldn’t have touched it. He wouldn’t go looking, and even if he found it, he’d leave it alone, the way he leaves everything alone that isn’t his. I move to the bed and climb onto my knees on the mattress.
The lamp beside the bed throws a yellow pool of light across the shelf I built when I was eighteen, using timber offcuts I found stacked behind the workshop under a tarp. It’s nothing fancy. Nothing pretty. Just a square box I hung on the wall, made of wood and brackets, rough along one edge where I ran out of patience—a recurring theme when I was eighteen and everything felt like it needed to be done yesterday.
I remember Skylar looking at it. Arms folded across her chest, head tilted at that angle she used when deciding whether something deserved her full commentary.
“You built that?”
I leaned against the doorframe with my arms crossed, cocky as hell, because I’d built a shelf that hadn’t collapsed immediately, and considered that an achievement worth acknowledging. “Try not to swoon.”
She walked over to take a look at it. “It’s crooked.”
“It has character.”
“It has a structural identity crisis. Shame. You’d think hands that know their way around an engine could handle a straight line.”
I looked at her. “You jealous, Sky, that my hands were somewhere else.”
Fuck, I was a cocky bastard back then, but Skylar had a gift for taking a man’s ego apart by snapping it over her knee, and handing it back with a smile.
“Jealous?” she said, eyes cutting to mine. “Of a shelf you built with the same confidence you fuck with? No, Rivera. I’m impressed. It takes real talent to screw something that hard and still leave it unsatisfied.”
I told her she was welcome to admire my craftsmanship any time she felt the urge.
She looked at me, then smiled. “Rivera, if I ever feel the urge to admire something that thinks it’s bigger than it is, I’ll start with your ego and work my way down.”
She turned around and put her hair tie on the shelf without another word. Left it there like she hadn’t just spent three minutes critiquing it. Two days later, a pair of earrings appeared. Small gold hoops she swore weren’t hers, even though they sat in the same spot for three weeks.
The shelf never collapsed though.
I run my fingers along the underside until I find the lip of timber nailed in from below. The raised edge blends into the rough work, hidden in plain sight. A mistake if you don’t know where to press. A door if you do.
I press the right spot and the small panel drops on its hinge.
The tin is still there, old and faded.
I found it in Rainer’s skip years ago and kept it because it had a lid that sealed tightly and a shape no one would look twice at. Perfect for dirty money.
I pull it out and sit on the edge of the bed with it.
For seven fucking years this box remained here untouched.
I work the lid loose with my thumbs and set it beside me. The money sits inside, a neat roll held together with a rubber band, exactly as I left it. Tucked tight. Organized. The only part of my teenage life with any sense of order.
Every note earnt in places I don’t let myself think about for too long. The stink of blood, sweat, cheap beer, and men with good shoes who paid to watch poor boys hurt each other for sport.
I was eighteen, angry, and stupid enough to think I could use a dirty world without letting it leave fingerprints on her.
I pull out what I need for tonight.
