“Well, you know the saying, what goes around comes around,” I mutter. “Or even better, karma’s a bitch and then you die.”
“Is that a fucking threat?” one of the uniformed officers grits out as he puts his hand on the butt of his weapon.
Grinning even wider, I ask, “Where were these pussies when my brother was whipping your ass? Looks like you could’ve used the backup then because your face is still fucked up. Or is that how it always looks? I honestly can’t remember your lumpy, ugly ass mug now that it’s covered in bruises.”
“Watch it,” the fucker warns.
“Or what? You’ll drive a tank through our dealership? Too late.”
“I came here to offer you a chance to keep that perverted brother of yours out of prison, but never mind. I’ve had a change of heart. We’ll go pick him up now.”
Goddammit.
The son of a bitch turns to leave, and it takes all of the strength in my soul to swallow down my pride and say, “Wait.” I don’t want Conrad to get locked up; and by running my mouth, I’m only making shit worse.
Looking over his shoulder through his swollen eyes, he says, “You finally ready to play nice?”
“What do you want?” I huff. I’m too tired and too angry to play games with him.
“Take a walk,” he tells the officers, “but stay close.” To me, he says, “Looks like your crew could use a break.”
The officers hesitate at first; but when I give our guys a head nod in the direction of the lounge, they finally head out. The cops slowly walk back outside, down the steps to the parking lot. From there, they can still see us, but they can’t hear, which is obviously what Bailey wanted.
“Just spit it out already,” I tell him, wanting to get this over with. He takes a few steps to come closer but still stays a good three feet away as if he’s afraid I might pound him into the ground like Conrad did.
“I’m prepared to not press charges against Conrad if you’ll agree to do me a favor.”
“A favor? You sure about that? I’m pretty sure that the last time you came in here and asked for a favor, my brother fucked your oldest daughter and knocked her up,” I remind him. “How old is your youngest girl again? Want me to pop her cherry for you?”
He lunges forward, and I know I deserved having his fist plow into my jaw for that low blow, but still, it only makes the urge to choke him with my bare hands even stronger.
“You stay the fuck away from my family!” he warns through clenched teeth as the officers outside come a little closer to check on things.
“As long as you stay the fuck away from mine,” I reply. “And that includes Hannah now. Not that you ever seemed to care about her; just how her actions might hurt your political aspirations.”
About three months ago, the asshole blackmailed my brother into going to get his daughter and bring her home from California because she’d been racking up a few minor criminal charges that he thought may make him look bad in his run to fill the mayor seat in a special election. How convenient that the mayor up and decided to retire in the middle of his term and he hand-selected former chief Bailey to take over for him?
“I don’t give a shit about her. She’s a lost cause,” Bailey replies, flexing his fingers like my jaw hurt them. Good, I’m glad. Hope it hurt him more than it did me. “You and your brother can both have that knocked-up whore for all I care. She’s a god-damned disgrace, and I don’t want anything to do with her.”
I have to grit my teeth to keep from commenting on that statement. If Conrad was here, I’m sure he would’ve killed him by now for insulting the woman he loves; and as a result, he would probably be dead too.
“Now,” Bailey says. “If you’ll shut up for a minute, I’ll tell you what you’re going to do for me unless you want your brother locked up for so long his kid is in kindergarten before he ever meets it.”
“What am I going to do for you?” I grumble. I would do almost anything to avoid that happening to Conrad. It would break him to be away from Hannah or the baby for more than a few days.
“You’re going to find me some good dirt on my opponent. You’ve got forty-eight hours.”
“Who’s your opponent?” I ask with a sigh.
“A stuck-up little bitch named Madison Monroe.” He pulls a white handkerchief from his pocket to dab his sweaty forehead, his face burning red even though it’s probably not even fifty degrees in here.
“And what if I can’t find any dirt on her?” I question him.
“If she’s squeaky clean, then you’ve got forty-eight hours to figure out a way to strongly encourage her to drop out of the race.”
By “encourage” he obviously means he wants me to intimidate the woman or worse. “You really are scared of losing to some ‘little bitch’,” I remark with a smirk.
“She doesn’t have a chance in hell of beating me!” he exclaims, raising his voice loud enough that I’m sure even his officers heard. He glances over his shoulder at them and seems to regain his control on his temper. “But I prefer guarantees instead of leaving anything to chance.”
“You’re a real piece of shit,” I tell him honestly.
“And your brother is done if you don’t pull this off,” he warns before he starts to walk away. As he leaves, he calls out, “Conrad may have gotten the best of me once; but when he’s locked up, I’ll make sure he gets a daily dose of his own medicine.”
Shit. He’ll do it too — pay fuckers to
