Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“What’s the matter,” Pagan asked, pushing me something in a very bright blue color that smelled the kind of sickly-sweet like I liked, “we didn’t have any fucking horse blankets down there for you to wear?”
“I know, right?” I asked, laughing off my ridiculously oversized outfit. “This is good,” I told him after a tentative sip. “What is it?”
“You know how Laz has that ‘Kitchen Sink Soup’ recipe where he just throws everything in the pot?”
“Yeah.”
“This is my ‘Speed Rail Cocktail,’” he said, gesturing toward the shelf under the bar. “Little bit of everything in it. Figured you might need it.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, exhaling hard, though not for the reasons he was thinking.
“Need me to knock anyone’s heads together?” he asked, making a little smile pull at my lips.
If there was one thing you could count on Uncle Pagan for, it was wanting a fight.
“Not at the moment, but when I do, I know who to come to.”
“Yeah, you do,” he said.
“Hey,” my father said, pushing my cousin off the stool next to me so he could sit down instead.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Before this meeting starts, I want to check in without anyone listening.”
“I’m fine. I promise.”
“The thing is, sweetheart, you’re always fine.”
“What?”
“You’re always fine. Even when you’re falling apart, you’re gonna insist you’re fine. Dunno why you feel like not being fine isn’t an option, but it is. So, if you’re not fine, that’s okay.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I didn’t like to feel like a burden to anyone, even though I knew my family would never feel that way. So I did always insist I was okay, even if I wasn’t.
But in this case, I really did mean it.
“I appreciate that, Dad. But I really am okay. It was barely anything. It wasn’t even the scariest thing that’s happened to me this month.”
“The shooting,” he agreed.
“And the drunk guys,” I mumbled before I remembered that, yeah, I’d left that little nugget out of conversations with my family.
“The who now?” my dad asked, stiffening.
“Where are they? What do they look like?” Uncle Pagan, a shameless eavesdropper from way back, asked.
Oh, geez.
This was just what this night needed: more reasons for the men in my life to worry about me.
“Just a couple of stupid drunk guys. They followed me for a few blocks over at that dive bar by 3rd Street.” I waved a hand.
But there was no waving off something like that. Not in this town. Not with these men.
“Did you hear a name?” my father asked.
“Give me some descriptions,” Uncle Pagan demanded.
God.
This was getting away from me fast.
“It was nothing! Just a couple of idiot drunk guys. I actually ran into Perish when he was out taking a walk, and he walked me home.”
“Where was your car?” Uncle Pagan asked.
“The master fuse,” my father concluded.
“Yeah.”
“I am going to need a lot more in—” my father started.
But just then, the door closed for the last time, and a hush fell across the clubhouse as everyone waited for Fallon to start speaking.
“Got word from Hailstorm,” he said, making all the men straighten, worried about their women and kids. “All the wives and kids were scooped up and are settled. Our older cousins are mostly there too.”
“Mostly?” Malcolm asked.
“Violet is out of town with her husband. Willa is at work and won’t leave until after her meeting. Chris sent several guards there with her, some inside, some outside. She’s safe. And Hope, well, Andres is closing ranks around her. Think we can all agree she will be safe. The only thing is… no one can locate Layna.”
“She’s in the air,” I piped in, letting out a strange choked sound when every head in the building turned my way. “She’s on a flight to Vegas. She should be landing in…” I went to reach for my phone before remembering it was in my purse back in my office. My father held out his instead. “In like three hours. I don’t think she is going to come back. She has an important game coming up.”
“I think she’ll be okay,” Perish said.
Fallon gave him a long look before nodding. “Edison, make sure you get in touch with Layna when she lands.”
He got a nod from Uncle Edison, then he turned to Perish.
“Now, what the fuck is going on?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Perish
When your parents name you ‘Perish’—like on that official paperwork and my social security card and shit—it kind of says something about their background… and what they expect from your future.
My dad was rough and mean and in and out of prison so often that I sometimes forgot he existed for long spans of time.
But an absent dad and a disinterested mother meant I grew up wild and feral. I was out more than I was home from all of five years old, hanging out with neighborhood kids. We got into small-time kid trouble: stealing shit from people’s yards or packages from their porches, tagging old buildings and billboards, picking up smoking and drinking way too fucking early.