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This ran deeper and deeper.
Whip was the enigmatic leader of the Death Division. He was a master tactician and a ruthless brute — he was kind of like a biker boogeyman. Stories of his violence and cruelty were common. People said he was a Nazi, that he was a giant, that he had an iron fist — literally. Most of that was probably bullshit, except for the Nazi stuff. The Death Division dabbled in white supremacy and racism, which was another reason that Wolf hated them so much.
When he heard stories about Whip, he always thought of his father, arms full of swastika tattoos and Third Reich imagery, poised to hurt his mom, poised to hurt him.
Marcus continued. ‘From what I hear, Whip is hanging on to power by a thread. If we can destroy this lab and bring him to justice, it might just be the end of the road for the DD.’
Crank shot out of his seat. ‘So, when do we hit them?’
‘When the time is right,’ Marcus said, warning caution with his hands. ‘This will take planning and training. We can’t afford any mistakes. There won’t be another chance like this. Not for a long time.’
Wolf knew that he had to be in the team that took down that drugs lab. No doubt Baron and Rainer would want to be involved, too. Maybe Crank was up to it as well? He hated the Death Division with a passion.
‘Plus,’ Marcus said, ‘in an ideal world, we’d have a bar to go back to afterward.’ That was clearly a pointed comment at Wolf.
He’d been toying with the idea of going back to the bar a little early, but now that his Prez had all but ordered him to, he felt even more justified.
That’s it. He’d go to the Den, pour himself a whiskey, and clear out some crap.
*
‘I know it’s inappropriate, Kandi. I’m so sorry to have to ask you this.’ Sophia wrung her hands together so hard that her knuckles whitened. ‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency.’
Scraps and Studs was the most amazing haberdashery in the whole of the city, and lucky for Sophia, it was just a couple blocks away from her home.
Ex-home, Sophia. You need to face facts.
For the first time ever, Sophia wasn’t here to pick out matching fabric for some vintage teddy bear, or to try to select glass eyes that went perfectly with the new color scheme of a towel-finished rabbit stuffie.
Nope. Today, she was here to do the one thing she hated more than just about anything. She was here to beg.
Kandi smiled. ‘Sugar, you don’t need to apologize. I know about your situation.’ Kandi Stanton was the kind of person who was so damn cool you always felt as though you were waiting for her to be mean or mock you. But the thing is, she never had, not once. Her almond eyes smiled behind dreadlocks woven with colored beads and strands of intricately placed thread. Her skin was the color of caramel, and she wore simple, natural fabrics: hemp, cotton, linen. She was like a walking advertisement for her store, an advertisement that worked incredibly well.
‘It’s just, the man who owns the place I’ve been…’
Don’t say squatting, don’t say squatting.
‘Living,’ she finally managed, ‘has come back and decided that he wants to… up the rent.’ She was such a terrible liar. It felt impossible to her to say something that wasn’t true without inadvertently flaring her nostrils and reddening her cheeks.
‘Right,’ Kandi said. ‘Rents have been going nuts recently.’ As she talked, she skillfully cut fabric by hand using nothing but a pair of oversized tailor’s scissors. ‘I can barely afford my studio apartment. Plus, the landlord of this place says he’s gonna charge me extra for Tiddles.’
Seemingly on cue, Kandi’s cat, Tiddles — a gorgeous ginger Tom — strutted out from a dark, fabric-hung corner of the tiny store. Sophia had always thought Tiddles was magic. Apparently, he’d just showed up one day a few months after Kandi had opened here and refused to leave ever since.
Sophia gave Tiddles a little stroke under his chin. She’d love to own a cat — or at least, she’d love to beownedby a cat.
‘You can’t get rid of Tiddles,’ Sophia said.
‘Absolutely not,’ Kandi said, looking mortified. ‘This place would fall apart without that cat. Plus, he does all of my accounts. Anyway, look, you can stay here as long as you need. No questions asked. The amount of business you’ve given me over the years, you’ve more than earned it. I’ll make you up a bed in the office.’
The relief was wonderful. A warm wave of safety washed over her.
Sophia had thought about applying for social housing a lot. She couldprobablyafford to rent somewhere on the money she made from her business. The only problem was, she’d have to use her real name. Her real social security number. Set up bank accounts. And she knew, for a fact, that her father had access to all of that information. There was no way she was going to let herself be controlled by that man ever again.
Or any man, for that matter.
‘Now,’ Kandi said, ‘do you want to dig through a new batch of natural-colored velboa I just got in?’
Sophia’s eyes lit up.
