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“Shit,” I growl when I’m done poking around.
“How bad is it?”
I sit down on the edge of the curb just in front of the car. “I’m shocked it’s lasted this long with that amount of damage to the radiator.” Josh sits down next to me. “Does your dad drive you around in this thing?”
Josh nods. “Sometimes. And Auntie Em, too, if Dad doesn’t already have the car.”
I shake my head. “From now on,noneof you are getting in this car. Not until I fix it.”
“You’re gonna fix it?” I grind my teeth and nod. Josh sidles closer to me. “But Auntie Em has the new company car.”
“Yes, but I’m guessing your dad uses this one. He’s probably going to keep using it until it combusts in the middle of the road.” Josh flinches at the image. “So I’m going to fix it up so that that doesn’t happen.”
The guy may be an asshole. But he’s an asshole with three young kids. Threegreatkids. Despite his flaws, they don’t deserve to lose their father after everything they’ve already been through. And as much as I would like Ben to disappear off the face of the earth, I’m not gonna be responsible, directly or indirectly, for taking away the only parent that Josh, Reagan, and Caroline have left.
Josh’s gaze veers over to me. “You’re a good guy, aren’t you?”
Fuck me.
“No one’s ever accused me of that before.”
The kid actually cracks a smile. “I know you’re the one that paid for my basketball fees this season.”
I’m not about to deny it. If the boy is smart enough to have figured it out, then he deserves the truth.
“That doesn’t make me a good guy.”
He frowns. “What does it make you, then?”
“It makes me the kind of man who refuses to let the people in his life suffer.”
Josh’s gaze rises to the window of his apartment. I think I have a pretty good idea what he’s thinking. Compared to Ben, I probably look like a goddamn saint.
I can’t help but laugh at the irony of that. The cold-hearted, violent, soullesspakhanof a deadly Bratva is more of a role model to this eight-year-old than his own drunkard father.
Who would’ve thought I’d be anyone’s hero?
“Ruslan, can I ask you something?”
The tremble in his voice should serve as a warning, but I ignore it and nod. “Go ahead.”
“Will you come to my basketball game next week? It’s the first game of the season.”
I stare down at his earnest little face with warning bells tolling in the back of my head. I should grab his shoulders and shake some sense into him.I’m not a hero, boy. I don’t deserve your admiration or your awe. Don’t make me into something I’m not.
But instead of saying any of that—instead of turning him down like I should—I end up nodding. I end up telling him I’ll be happy to be there.
The craziest part is…
I mean it.
38
EMMA
“Delivery for Carson.”
I blink at the sullen delivery boy in the Uber Eats vest. “I didn’t order anything.”
