Page 49 of Spring Break Fling

As the Uber pulled away, I turned in my seat to watch him. He stood there for a moment, his hands shoved in his pockets, before disappearing back into the shop.

My stomach churned. This wasn’t part of the plan. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Tonight was supposed to be about furthering my revenge plan. Instead, he showed me a softer side of him.

And that threw me. My emotions were a tangled mess. My mission had never seemed less clear. One thing was certain—I didn’t care about the plan anymore.

16

NIKKO

The house stood in the same sorry state I’d left it years ago: peeling paint, overgrown weeds clawing their way up the chain-link fence, and a front porch littered with crushed beer cans and cigarette butts. Just standing there made my skin crawl. The memories of growing up in this hellhole pressed down like a weight I hadn’t felt in years.

It would take five minutes to pick up but apparently that was too much to ask. I couldn’t imagine living in this squalor. It was fucking gross. Why didn’t the city condemn the place? Then again, looking around the neighborhood, I was guessing no one was going to call and complain.

Don’t throw stones when you live in glass houses.

I pounded on the door hard enough to rattle the broken blinds visible through the cracked window.

I could hear voices, but no one was coming to answer. I pounded again and took a step back from the door, my jaw clenched tight. If they didn’t open up in the next ten seconds, I was busting the damn thing down.

Just as I dropped my shoulder to ram it, the handle turned. The door creaked open an inch. One bloodshot eye peered out. Ralph, one of Zip’s longtime degenerate friends, squinted at me.

“Shit,” he muttered, barely able to string the curse together through his slurring. “Nikko. Man, you don’t wanna⁠—”

I didn’t let him finish. I shoved the door open, barreling past him into the reek of stale beer and regret.

“Zip!” I yelled, stepping over a pile of clothes—or possibly a passed-out human—on the floor. “Get your ass out here!”

“Brace yourself, Zip! The kid’s on a tear!” a hoarse voice hollered.

They had no idea just how pissed I was. The living room was a nightmare. The walls were yellowed with years of smoke, the furniture sagged like it was ready to give up entirely, and the carpet was… let’s just say it had seen some things no carpet should.

This was the kind of place cockroaches didn’t even want to fuck with. It was a toxic dump. How any human could live like this was beyond me.

I stepped into the living room just as Ralph slammed the door closed. Did I need to worry about my dad murdering me?

Yes. Actually, I did.

I looked around and spotted my old man, half drunk and horizontal in a rotting armchair that looked like it had been dragged out of a dumpster on its best day.

“Get up,” I growled.

“You don’t tell me what to do in my own house,” he said.

His stringy hair hung in greasy clumps. He was wearing a stained wife-beater doing nothing to hide the sag of his gut. He eyed me warily, already knowing why I was there.

“Get up,” I said again.

“How many times we gotta go through this, son?” He wheezed out a laugh that turned into a nasty cough. “It’s getting real old.”

“Don’t call me son,” I spat. “And you’re damn right this is old, Zip.” I grabbed the front of his grimy shirt and hauled him upright. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing breaking into my work and stealing from us?”

His bleary eyes struggled to focus on me. “Nikko, what the hell are you⁠—”

“You’re a piece of shit stealing from my people!” I shook him hard enough that his head lolled. “You need something? You come to me. You don’t go behind my back. You hear me?”

He blinked at me, his mouth working soundlessly like a fish gasping for air. Then, with all the grace of a drunken toddler, he tried to clock me.

I leaned back just in time, dropping his shirt. Without him holding me up, he lost his balance and landed flat on his ass.