“You got the best shirt in the world?”
I smiled, nodded, and held out my hand. He plunked the cash down in my palm.
I shoved it into a box under the counter, walked into the back, got his shirt with his pills in the middle, and handed them to him.
He must’ve known the drill, because he took the shirt without comment and left.
That was my real job. Sure, I sold my own products from time to time and that brought in money, but the pills were the real goal. Everything else was just a front.
I leaned forward on my elbows and stared out the front window again.
Just a front. Those words played through my mind all afternoon as a few more pill customers came and went, accepting their shirt without argument. It felt like my whole life was a front these days—a front for something else, maybe the thing I’d always wanted to be, the person I dreamed of when I looked in the mirror and pretended to see my future-self smiling back. When I stood in the shop and smiled and sold my shirts and handed out pills, there was a strange emptiness in my chest that I couldn’t quite define.
And that disappeared as soon as I saw Owain again.
I knew it was him. I didn’t want to admit it, even if I knew it, more and more with each passing day, with each passing night spend in his bedroom feeling his body against mine, his sweat on my skin, my lips on his chest—his hands on my hips. He was the thing keeping me in this, not the money or the power or the seat as the table, but him.
Every time I got close to that truth, I had to shove it away. I couldn’t face it, not really. I couldn’t think about it and still rectify myself as the person I wanted to be or though I used t obe, as the girl with a brother and a mother—even if that brother was dead.
I couldn’t picture myself as enthralled with a gangster, but I was, so much deeper than I ever imagined.
The door rang as it slid open. I stood up straight, expecting a customer, but finding Rolan instead. He smirked at me and ran a hand along the shelf to his left, his fingers brushing over the t-shirts, until he got close to the front and stopped. He leaned up against the rack and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Place looks good.”
“I hear you had a lot to do with that.”
He shrugged. “A little bit.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Figured I’d stop in and say hello, since we’re equals now.”
I gave him a tight smile. “Yeah? We’re equals in your eyes?”
He smiled right back. “Owain says so at least.”
“What’s with him and all of you, anyway?” I leaned forward on my elbows again and I caught Rolan’s eyes flip down to my chest. Fine by me—let him look, maybe it’ll keep him distracted and talking.
“Not sure what you mean.”
“Why do you all follow him? I could tell some of the guys weren’t happy about the war and all that stuff.”
Rolan waved a hand. “You mean Camillo? Don’t worry about him. He’s always causing trouble. Just the kind of asshole he is, although that particular kind of asshole can be very useful in our line of work.”
“No, I mean, how’d he become the boss?”
“Ah.” Rolan ran a hand through his hand and hesitated. “It’s not a real interesting story. You want to hear it?”
“I think so.”
“He killed the last boss.” His eyes sparkled and he didn’t smile. I knwo right away that he wasn’t lying.
“How’d it happen?”
“A few years back, before the main crew splintered into these smaller crews, Owain was another one of the central figures in the whole thing. It’s hard to explain, but there was like this council of twelve guys with Hedeon at the top. Owain was on that council.”
“So he was like a leader in the original group?”
“Exactly. There was another leader, this guy named Frank. He built our crew originally, got the whole drug network set up. Owain joined up with Frank, and together they got the pill trade up and running.”
“So why would Owain kill him?”
“Apparently they got into some disagreement. I don’t know about what, but I do know Frank was stealing from the crew. Not a lot, but a little here and there, you know, getting high on the stash, pocketing a few hundred bucks when he wanted it, petty shit. Most bosses would let that kind of thing slide.”
“But Owain wouldn’t.” I let out a harsh laugh. I could imagine how he’d react to something like that. It wouldn’t be kind and it wouldn’t be forgiving.
“No, Owain wouldn’t. He got angry, really fucking angry, and I guess they got into some fistfight. You’ve never seen Owain fight, not really, but the guy doesn’t know how to stop until his opponent’s not moving anymore. I think he goes into it thinking that only one person was gonna walk away, and he always made sure it was the other guy.”
“So he beat Frank to death?”
“With his fists, yeah, beat him to death. Maybe didn’t mean to do it, since Frank was older and couldn’t take the beating like some younger guys, but still. Smashed his face in with his fists. Knocked all his teeth out and left his face a wrecked pulp. Even if he had survived, he never would’ve been the same.”
I shook my head, trying to imagine it, and realized it wasn’t hard. Owain could be funny and kind and even gentle when his hands were on my body and he wanted me to feel a particular way—but the danger always lurked just below the surface, ready to manifest at any time.
“I don’t get why the guys would let that happen, if Frank was their leader.”
“People didn’t like Frank all that
