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I do wonder what exactly he was working on that got under his skin like this, though.
I glance down at the tablet since he invited me over in the first place, but the screen has timed out and gone dark, so it tells me nothing.
Maybe Maddoc will, though.
“I thought gangs looked out for their own?” I ask.
“Only the ones who want to survive,” he says, his eyes going hard. He swivels partway around to glance at a map of the city on the wall behind him, a hard smile spreading across his face that reminds me just how ruthless this man has to be to lead the Reapers. “And without understanding loyalty, they won’t.”
“Is that how your gang has made it so long?” I ask when Maddoc stands up and goes to the map.
“Yes,” he answers shortly, running his hands over it. His touch is possessive, proprietary,intense, and for some reason, even though it’s the map that he’s touching and not me, my skin breaks out in goosebumps.
“I’ve seen maps of Halston before,” I murmur, daring to move closer, “but never quite like this. What does it all mean?”
My shoulder brushes against his bicep, but Maddoc doesn’t react. For a second, I think he won’t answer, or worse, that I’ve overstepped. Pissed him off by pushing for information when he’s made it clear he doesn’t want me poking into the Reapers’ business.
But after a moment, he taps the map over the area that we’re in right now. The whole thing is covered in hand-drawn lines and multi-colored shading that splits Halston up in ways I don’t understand despite having lived here all my life, and the Reaper house I’ve been staying in with them is right in the center of an irregular section of shading in the same pale gray as the lightest part of Maddoc’s eyes.
“This is Reaper territory,” he says, caressing it almost lovingly. Then he presses his lips together. “And these,” he grunts, stabbing his finger on a red X, then on several more X’s, “are places West Point has breached it. Tried to encroach on our turf. Hurt my people.”
“What’s this part?” I ask, touching a smaller chunk of two-toned shading that includes Club M.
“Those are allies,” he tells me, still staring at the map as he touches the shaded section, then trails his fingers over several others. “And enemies.”
I look up at him, my brows furrowing. “You make it sound like a war.”
His eyes turn flinty. “It is. It’s a war for every street. Every block. It’s how we survive. How we’ll dominate. It’s always been a fight and it always will be, Riley. If you don’t understand that, you’ll never make it in this world.”
I swallow, my eyes tracing all the familiar parts of this corner of our city but seeing them in a new light. It’s hard to comprehend how difficult it must be for the gangs to gain territory in a city so crowded with criminal activity and how ferociously they have to fight to hang onto it once they’ve claimed it.
“Don’t you ever want to do something else? Stop fighting a never ending battle just for more territory?” I ask, thinking of the expression on his face when he scrubbed his hand over it.
Exhausted. Burdened. Determined.
Maddoc huffs out a laugh, breaking the tension even though I’m sure he doesn’t think it’s funny. He takes my arm and steers me back to his desk. “It’s not always that simple. This is the life I was born into, but the battle isn’t just for territory.”
“Then what is it for?”
I want to bite my tongue as soon as the words are out. The last thing I want is for Maddoc to think I’m fishing, not after how suspicious he still is about why I’m here. But he surprises me again, answering instead of jumping down my throat in anger.
“I was born into this life, and it’s not something you can just walk away from. My father taught me everything he knew. I’m still here because I learned from his mistakes as well as his successes. And one of those lessons was that territory matters, but it’s not enough on its own.”
He’s talking about loyalty again. About people. About belonging to something and not being alone.
“Is your father a Reaper too?” I can’t help asking, despite the feeling that I’m walking on egg shells with this odd mood Maddoc seems to be in. I want to know more, though.
He shakes his head. “The Reapers didn’t exist back then. My father did a lot of illegal dealings, but he was disorganized about it. Sloppy and short-sighted. Eventually, he did form the beginnings of this gang, but he’s six feet under now because he couldn’t see the bigger picture.”
I study his face as he stares at the map. “And you can?”
“Yeah. I can.” Maddoc touches it again, tracing Reaper territory. “I’m the one who formed his loose connections into a true organization. I madeus into a real and cohesive crew, with stability and vision and fuckingambition.”
He says it fiercely, although I can still see that same exhaustion in his face that he tried to scrub away when I walked in. It’s clear to see that the mantle of being the leader weighs on him even though he wears it proudly.
“You’ll do what you have to, because they’re your family,” I whisper, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
It’s not like stripping was what I always wanted to do with my life. I had other aspirations once. I’ve long since accepted that they’ll never come to pass, and I’m okay with that. I do what I have to do too, and stripping is the best way for me to make the most money formyfamily. For Chloe.
