Tobias
“Igotta tell you, I don’t see why you like to work from home.” My lip curls as I stare at Titus through the screen of my laptop. “It’s boring as shit.”
“That’s because you can’t do your job from home, so you’ve just been sitting around for the last three weeks, being a pain in everyone’s ass.” Titus holds a baby in one arm—I can’t tell which one—bouncing a little as he pats their tiny back. “If you want, you can come over here and change diapers.”
“How in the hell do you think I’m going to get there?” Getting around isn’t easy right now. That’s why I’m stuck here at home. “You want me to just wheel myself across the grass?”
I hate being in a wheelchair. It’s keeping me on the first floor. Transferring to the toilet is a fucking ordeal. I can’t drive. I can’t walk. I can’t cook or clean or do any of the shit I need to do. It’s putting everything on Brooke, and I hate it.
Trevor’s face pops up on the screen, shifting Titus into a smaller window. He smirks. “Just like old times, huh?”
We did our group meetings over Zoom for years. Titus didn’t leave his house, so it was our only option. Since he’sbeen coming into the office once a week, we’ve been able to sit face-to-face in a conference room and hash out any issues that are happening or make decisions on plans in the pipeline. Today is mostly going to be hashing out issues, because we’ve got a fuck ton.
Tucker and Walker pop up at the same time, filling out my screen and completing the roster.
“Look at the bum.” Tucker gives me a grin. “You tired of sitting around yet?”
“I was tired of sitting around before I even left the hospital.” It was worse there because I constantly had a nurse on my ass, giving me shit anytime I tried to push things a tiny bit beyond where they were supposed to go.
I get why, but damn. Sometimes a man just wants to shit without a stranger standing outside the partially open door.
Being home is better, but it still sucks. I’ve got hours each day when Brooke is gone. And while I know she’s safe—Trevor picks her up every morning and brings her home every night—I don’t like being away from her for so long.
That’s why I’m pushing myself hard to get back on my feet, making the most of every appointment with the physical therapist who comes to torment me. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to level up to crutches so I can get back to my life.
Which I’m thankful as hell to still have.
“I know Pierce is ready for you to get up and moving.” Titus smirks. “He’s making a list of everything he wants as soon as you’re back in the game.”
“Great.” Sounds like I won’t be easing back into shit. “Speaking of Pierce, has he found the connection between the guy who hit me and Matt yet?”
The police went back and looked at the traffic camerasrecording the intersection where the crash happened. Apparently, the sedan hadn’t simply run the red light. It had circled the block three times before my truck showed up. Then accelerated—dodging one stopped car to reach me—T-boning my truck with a direct hit. If I’d been in a normal vehicle, the strike would have been fatal. Definitely for me, potentially for Walker as well.
But he didn’t seem to know we weren’t in a normal vehicle, and it ended badly for him.
“You mean outside of him being behind the wheel of Matt’s rental car?” Titus shakes his head. “Not yet, but he’s still digging.”
It turns out I wasn’t as delirious as I thought when I believed I saw Matt behind the wheel of the car that hit me. The guy looked a hell of a lot like him—right down to the expensive suit. But at the time of the accident, the real Matt was passed out in his hotel room. Sleeping off the effects of whatever concoction he consumed after calling Brooke to dish out threats he was too big of a pussy to follow through on himself.
And as soon as I have proof he was behind the accident, I’m going to ruin his life.
I’m sure my mother will be more than happy to help me.
“I need him to dig faster.” I scrub one hand over my face, rubbing at my tired eyes. Sleeping on the recliner is killing me, making me even grumpier than the ceaseless itching of my scars. “I want that bastard in prison.”
Technically, I want him in a hole. But I’m not quite up to committing a murder right now.
Maybe in a few weeks.
“I’ve been looking around myself.” Titus shakes his head. “As soon as the police ID’d him, I scoured his digital footprintand came up with nothing that made me think he even knew Matt, let alone would commit a murder for him.”
“There’s gotta be something. Who else would it have been?” My social life for the past decade has been virtually nonexistent. All I do is work and come home. The chances I made the kind of enemies who would want me dead are slim to none.
And the guy was in Matt’s rental car. Why the fuck would he have been in Matt’s rental car if Matt wasn’t involved?
Unfortunately, nobody else has a clue who else could have been behind it either.
Instead of banging our heads against a wall we can’t move, we spend the rest of the meeting going over shit wecando something about. It feels good to be able to work at least in some capacity, so my spirits are up a little by the end of the meeting. And I’m more determined than ever to earn the all-clear to go back into the office.
