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I couldn’t believe he’d threatened his own grandmother. Shit annoyed the fuck out of me and Tynan. So when he didn’t show Tynan made it a personal mission to track him down for Lucky, the bondsman we got most of our work from. He felt bad for making the deal, only finding out about the personal threats after he’d paid to get TekNine out. Lucky didn’t want TekNine’s grandmother to lose her house.
“Just him?”
“A woman, Cheryl, and her kid. A little boy like five, maybe six.”
“His kid?” I scowled, hating the idea of a mother placing her child in danger by associating with a felon.
“No, not his.” Tynan looked at me, studying my profile. “You good?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Just asking. I can do this if…”
I shot him a look and he shook his head. Tynan was good at this—we both were—but some runners weren’t worth the risk. They were purposely eluding the law because they didn’t want the consequences which meant anything goes when it came to them continuing to run. Sometimes the jobs were easy, sometimes they weren’t. This one was the latter.
“You found out anything about the money he owes yet?”
I kept my eyes on the door we were watching, not surprised Tynan knew about our father’s debt. Our father liked to pit us against each other, or at least try. It never worked. The only constant in either of our lives was each other.
“No but I haven’t reached out to anyone. I’m probably gonna just pay the money.”
I felt him glaring. Knowing what was on his mind, I turned to face him. “There’s no point in traveling down that road, Ty.”
“You don’t want to know?”
“I don’t.”
He snorted, shaking his head and turning back to watch the door. After a long punishing silence, laced with his heavy ass thoughts pulsing around me, he spoke again. “It doesn’t fuck with you that she’s out there, obviously doing well, but not giving a damn a about us?”
“No and it shouldn’t bother you either. Fuck her and her reasons. Knowing won’t change what she did, Ty.”
“It might help though. You more than me.”
I laughed dryly. “I don’t need help that’s connected to her.”
“Yeah the fuck you don’t,Trouble.” He put emphasis on my nickname. One I’d earned as a kid because I couldn’t seem to do what was right. I was angry as hell and didn’t know what to do with my anger. My father refusing to be the one to acknowledge my displaced anger only made things worse.Your punk ass crying over her when she don’t give a damn about any of us.
He was quick to single out my reactions but denied his own. Our father shut off his emotions, which meant shutting us out. You couldn’t be emotionally detached and properly raise your kids. He was mean, unfeeling, and the model that created me. I was my father just with more aggression.
“I’m good.”
“You’re not good. When is the last time you connected with someone?”
Last night.
“Why you always trying to fix me, Ty? You think I’m broken?”
“You are broken. When’s the last time you were in a relationship?”
I glared at my brother, trying to figure out what the fuck we were doing. “I don’t need you analyzing my life. We both have shit to figure out. I’ve done relationships so stop trying to say I have issues with women because ofher.”
“You’ve had women who you fucked with but they weren’t relationships. At least not on your end. They might have been in something serious with you, but it was damn sure single-sided and that is abouther. You don’t want to give anyone a chance to bounce out of your life like she did.”
“And you fall in love with every pretty face that smiles at you because you want them to be what she never was.Present.”
He shrugged. “I do that. I won’t lie and say I don’t but at least I know I have issues. You act like you don’t and the shit is just fucking sad. She did that to us and she’s out there somewhere living her life like she didn’t play a role in giving us life. Fuck her, Balor. We deserve to be happy.” His voice elevated and I noticed his fingers curl into his palms which had my posture relaxing. Our father brushed over our emotions or refused to let us acknowledge them. Since we got enough of that from him, I wouldn’t do that to my brother. That was the one thing I did pay attention to and work on. I was going to be a better man to myself and my brother than the one who’d raised us.
“You can’t replace what you don’t understand and I can’t trust what I’ve never had.”
