Page 100 of Pucked Around and Found Out

But there is something else here tonight and I am running out of room to pretend I can't feel it.

“He was the second,” she says it quietly, watching my face. “He's been running the cartel since he was seventeen. He knows everything… every account, every name, every piece of leverage Steven ever collected.” She doesn't look away from me. “He's going to give us all of it.”

That word.

Us.

She keeps saying it like she's earned the right to it. Like it belongs to her by some logic I've never agreed to and can't seem to argue against. Like it's already true and she's just waiting for me to stop pretending ignorance.

I look at her for a long moment.

The parking lot is quiet. The building looms behind her, all dead stone and iron, the building her own father signed the paperwork to put her in.

She walked back into it tonight.

She walked in and she came out.

Still standing. Still here. Still looking at me like I'm worth the effort of being looked at.

My throat does something I won't acknowledge.

“Forty eight hours,” I say. My voice comes out level, which is a small miracle. “He gives you everything. All of it. Nothing held back.” I hold her gaze. “Then I come for what I'm owed. And you don't stand in the way of that.”

She holds the stare for three, four, five seconds.

Then she nods. Once. Small. Certain. The nod of a woman who has heard every layer of what was just said and is accepting all of it with her eyes fully open.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

“Release my men,” I force out. “If they’re injured, Johnson will put a bullet in each of those cunts' heads as payback.”

I look at her for one second longer than I should.

Then I turn away.

I walk.

I don't look back.

I don't count this time.

I just walk, the sound of gravel under my boots, the cold air, the distant road and everything that belongs to this night fills the space where the counting usually goes.

And underneath all of it, small, persistent and impossible to bury —

Us.

I sit here in the basement in front of Caspian. He’s leaning against the opposite wall in the exact same position as I am, knee bent with one leg straight out, one arm resting on top and a blank look on his face.

I shouldn’t be here. This motherfucker betrayed me, yet here I fucking sit.

Staring at the bastard who became something to me after I lost everything. Doc patched him up. He has a broken leg, fractured ribs and some other shit but the point is, he’ll fucking live. He knows the punishment he got was just, he should have gotten a lot fucking worse.

“Masen is with her.”

He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand me. “Why?” His voice is gravely and tinged with pain. I should feel some form of guilt, but I don’t.

“She says he was Steven’s second.” I watch him, cataloging every movement for any signs that he knew the truth about Masen, but the shock on his face is real. Either that or he’s an Oscar winning actor and I missed the fucking memo on that.