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"She stormed to her bedroom after she picked up the bike for you." I fold my arms, bite my lip, and glance at his office door again. "She said she wanted a friend to ride with. Another girl."
"Jesus." Tyke drags his hand over his face again. The guy keeps it up, he won't have a face left. "What is it with her? She thinks these women ain't any good to her until they can rough it like the men. Can't make friends with a property bitch. Oh, no," he mocks. "Couldn't stoop that low."
"I don't think it's about her not wantin’ to stoop so low," I say. "More like the property don't like her. Think she's arrogant because of her privileges."
He stares me dead in the eye. "Why the fuck do we do this to ourselves?"
"Because it'd be a fuckin’ darn sight messier around here if the brothers didn't have the women." I slap him on the arm and make a move to step around him. "What you got her doin’ in there?" I nod toward his office again.
He glances at the semi-closed door with a sigh. "Organizin’ shit on my computer. Keeps her off her feet and her mind occupied."
“Keep givin’ her jobs at the rate we are, and she’ll have the union on our back.”
My brother chuckles. “Unlikely.” He takes a deep breath, face growing solemn once more. “She’s on probation, Dig. Fucked over some guy’s car after he treated her bad one too many times, and now she’s out here on good behavior.”
The hairs on the back of my neck bristle, knowing she told him first. “Reason why she won’t testify, huh?”
“Exactly.” He frowns, glancing at the closed door. “She’s hurting, Dig. On the inside. And I won’t lie and say that it don’t mess me up a little seein’ it.”
I stay quiet, chewing the inside of my cheek. What can I say? That, yeah, I see it too. That, yeah, the need to care for her, to protect her, bit me in the ass hard enough that I fucking had her calling my name on the goddamn sofa behind me?
"You think she'll prove useful, then?” Part of me hopes he'll say no. That he'll admit he was wrong to think of her like a pawn and deny any intention to use what Rae knows as a bargaining chip against Terry. But then another part of me has seen the look on his face before: the turmoil clear as day in the twitch of his brow, the slight wrinkle to his nose.
"Hard to say."
The biggest part of me hopes she'll stick around for a while either way. I'd heard Maddie talk about this friend of hers in town a few times, but in true male style, I hadn't paid full attention to the things she said. A shrug here, a nod there—she seemed satisfied I listened.
I did fuck all of the sort.
Kind of wish I had, now that I've met the woman in question.
"Where did you go last night?" I move toward the exit, hoping he'll follow.
Tyke drops a hefty sigh and then starts after me. "Went to see the witch, ironically." He jerks his head as though disbelieving he stooped so low as to visit his ex-wife. "Marco, to be exact.”
My shoulders stiffen as we head out into the cool dusk air. "He have anything good to say?" I find it shady as fuck that Tyke would entertain the idea of seeing that mafia off-cut, let alone actually go. But if he wants to tell me why, he will. No amount of hollering from me will change a damn thing.
"Depends how you look at it," Tyke says in answer to my question. "He didn't have anything bad to say, but in doin’ so, that wasn't much good either."
I stall, boots scraping on the concrete when I turn to stare at him. "Come again?"
"Look." One hand on his waist, Tyke drags the other over his mouth. "I need to tell you somethin’."
I lift both eyebrows to indicate I'm waiting.
A bike rumbles to life in the garage, the headlight spilling warm light over the darkening yard.
Tyke turns to look.
Fuck's sake."It's just Minion."
"Where you headed?"
"To accompany Kane on his exchange tonight. Remember?"
"Fuck. Yeah." I've seen that bullshit placating smile on my big brother's face only two times in my life. One, when he tried to cover up how he'd fucked up my pedal bike as a kid, and two, the day our father died, and he didn't know how to break it to me why.
“I can’t take her with me, Tyke. She’s gonna have to stay here without me.” I study his deepening frown. “That gonna be a problem with the others?”
