“Well, I do,” I said. “And all told, that bag on the floor is probably worth close to a hundred grand. Not bad for one night, and I bet your uncle’s going to be pissed.”
She watched me as I drove, but I didn’t care what she thought.
I was too high on the violence and the close call. I was too excited that I’d ripped those fuckers off and hurt them where it mattered. If we hit them again and again like that, sooner or later they’d run out of money to pay their soldiers, and the whole Club would collapse under itself.
Or I could just kill them all. That might be easier.
I grinned as I drove and angled the car back toward my place.
14
Colleen
I followed Steven back into the house. He shut the locked the door behind us.
“I have to make some calls,” he said and tossed the black trash bag onto the couch. I stared at it for a long moment as he walked into the kitchen. I turned and watched him pour himself a glass of whisky and sip it as he lifted his phone up to his ear.
I went upstairs. I couldn’t stand to be around that trash bag for another second. I marched back to my room and slammed the door behind me, feeling a mixture of anger and despair wash over my body. I flopped down onto my bed and stared up at the ceiling.
I knew the Club was bad. I knew they sold drugs, hurt people, stole from businesses, threatened politicians, and did a whole lot of despicable shit. But I’d never seen proof of what they did and what they sold before tonight, and staring at the crack cocaine in those little vials at the bottom of all that cash sent a chill down my spine.
Because that’s what my father used to do.
I closed my eyes and thought about my dad from the past few years. He worked as a dock supervisor, and although he didn’t love the job, he loved that he had steady, honest work. He left early in the morning and came home late in the evening, but he never seemed unhappy and rarely had a complaint about the docks. He cracked a beer, watched a football game, and went to bed early.
It was hard to believe that man used to sell crack, or heroin, or whatever they were selling when he was still a part of the Club.
That was a long time ago though. He was a much younger man, and his life was radically different now. He’d been outside of that world for almost two decades, and it was easy to forget how far a person could come in that much time. I doubted my father would sell drugs now if he ever had the chance to do it again, and that almost pissed me off even more.
He’d gotten out and made himself better. Maybe his life wasn’t as exciting or sexy as it used to be, but he had an honest job and he took care of me all on his own. It wasn’t easy for him, and he had some help from neighborhood people, but he was the one that got me up in the morning, he was the one that poured my cereal and made my dinner at night. He put on cartoons, he threw me a ball in the back yard, he bought me a bike and taught me to ride it.
It was always him. As I looked back on my life with my father, I realized how much he’d given up for me, and how much he’d done to make my life comfortable.
There was a knock at my door. I sat up and stared at it. I thought I might tell him to fuck off for just a second, but dismissed that as childish and stupid. It wasn’t Steven’s fault that my father used to be a gangster.
“Come in,” I said.
Steven pushed open the door and stepped inside. He looked at me, head titled to one side.
“You’re not happy,” he said.
“No, I’m not.”
“Why?” He stood in the doorway and watched me with a strange expression on his face.
“It’s not you,” I said, looking away. “I’m just thinking about my dad.”
“Ah,” he said. “He wasn’t in there, if you were wondering.”
I let out a breath. “That hadn’t even occurred to me.”
“He wasn’t,” he said again. “We checked every room.”
“What happened in there?” I asked.
“I fucked up.” He stepped further into the room and his eyes met mine again. “I left them an opening to fight back and they took it. I fucked up and I’ll have to make it up to my guys for that. I think I’ll give them all the loot we just took.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really?” I asked.
“Really,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “It’s not a big deal. I don’t need the money, if I’m honest.”
“What do you need then?” I asked.
He frowned. “Power,” he said. “Territory. Strength. The more I expand, the more money I bring in, the more muscle I can build.”
“What’s going to be enough for you?”
He shook his head. “Nothing will ever be enough,” he said and smiled at me. “Except for you, my Colleen.”
I gave him a look. “Don’t do that.”
He tilted his head. “Dow hat?”
“Pretend like you want me,” I said. “For anything more than… than… just what you can get from me.”
He let out a soft laugh and shook his head. “You really don’t know me,” he said and reached into his pocket. He took out a phone and tossed it to me.
I caught it and stared. It was my phone, the one he kept in his medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
“Like I promised,” he said. “Your phone back.”
I held it in my hands then looked at him. “You’re sure?” I asked. “You’re not going to take it away again?”
“I don’t think I’ll have to,” he said. “Not if you’re really working on this with me. Doesn’t
