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“So do I, Danny.” I push back from the table, my heart in my throat.
“Wait. Wait! Alright, do you want to know the truth?”
“That you have a gambling addiction? I could have guessed.”
“No. The real reason why my name got dragged into debt in the first place,” he says. “I never wanted to tell you. I knew you’d be pissed. I tried so fucking long to handle it on my own, but I can’t anymore. I’m tired, Evie. I need your help.”
I take a step toward the exit. “Danny, I’mtiredof hearing your excuses—”
“It’s Mom, Eves. This isherdebt I’m trying to clean up.”
Just like that, I sit back down. “Explain,” I demand.
Rather than meet his gaze, I turn my attention anywhere else. This part of the city is practically vacant this time of day, and only a few cars dot this lonely stretch of road.
“I guess she’s gambling again, but she’s been using my name to square her debt. I tried to keep you out of it—I fucking tried. But I can’t handle this alone.”
“Danny…” I fixate on one black vehicle in particular while I gather the courage to deliver what my father—when he was alive—deemed as “tough love.” “I’m sorry, but this isn’t my fight. I can’t always clean up her messes. Yours either!”
“I know,” I hear him say, but he might as well be miles away. Bitter nostalgia snaps me back to the past, when Danny would handle Mom’s binges with a stone-faced clarity that no child should ever have to put on. “But I don’t have a choice. I’m tired of dealing with this alone.”
I’m still watching the car that’s been idling across the street for the past few minutes—a black Mercedes. On second thought, a model that expensive seems out of place in this part of town. Not to mention, the sleek paint job seems eerily familiar. It looks just like…
“Damn it,” Danny hisses. When I turn back to him, he’s already standing, motioning for me to do the same. “We gotta go.”
I copy him, my heart racing. Dear god. We definitely do need to leave because, for some reason, Graeme Bellamy’s car is here. Though, I’m not sure why that would send my brother scurrying. Before I can question, he snatches my wrist, pulling me out of the booth entirely.
After eyeing the front door, he hisses in alarm. “Shit, do you have a back entrance?” he shouts at the waitress.
Wide-eyed, she points to a narrow hallway that he practically shoves me down. Within seconds, we’re stumbling into an alleyway reeking of garbage, and my brother looks pale enough to have seen a ghost.
“Danny?” I try to tug my hand out of his grasp to no avail. He’s not even looking at me, scanning our surroundings instead. “What’s going on?”
“They tracked me. Fuck! We have to go. Now—”
“Who tracked you?” For a split second, I entertain a scenario equally as amusing as it is horrifying—that Graeme Bellamy somehow doubles as a criminal loan shark in his spare time. Then I spot the three shady men storming down the opposite end of the alley, and it all clicks.
Big, burly, and covered in tattoos, they look like men one would not want to owe fifty-thousand dollars to.
“Shit,” I croak as Danny shifts to stand in front of me.
“We should split up,” he says over his shoulder. “I’ll head them off and—”
“What’s the rush, Daniel?” One of the men moves to block the mouth of the alley. Menacingly he cracks his knuckles, and I vaguely recognize him as the same asshole who tried to pin me down in my apartment building. He smiles when he sees me, revealing a blackened front tooth.
“Look,” Danny says. “I can get you your money, but I need more time—”
“That’s what you said before you ran, you little punk. Hiding behind this broad’s skirt won’t help you this time.”
“No one’s hiding behind me,” I snap, stepping forward. Admittedly, there isn’t much I can do against three most-likely-armed men, but I scour them all and form a plan of action anyway. Maybe I can kick the one in the middle between the legs and make a break for it with Danny. Then I can kickhimfor dragging me into this mess.
“Back off, Evie,” Danny warns near my ear. “Just let me handle it. Remember how you used to help me take down those bullies who’d bother you on the playground?”
I do—and the memory stings, a brutal reminder of how close we used to be. Back then, he was the one always savingme.
“Let’s do that now,” he adds, nudging me forward. “Three… Two… One!” He lunges for the largest of the three men while I take advantage of the shock to dart between them. Back in our playground days, I would run to get an adult at this point. This time, I fumble through the pockets of my borrowed coat for my cell phone, aiming to call 911. I’m so intent on my escape that I nearly run into an unfortunate bystander walking by.
“Sorry!” I try to push past him, turning back to see Danny.
