Monster - Gadziala Jessica. Страница 43

I wondered if he realized how his house looked to an outsider. How painfully obvious it was that he was trying to erase all the traces of the homeless street kid he had been back in the day. A kid who never learned how to play piano or pronounce the names of classical musicians. A kid who had never even heard of Proust or Machiavelli.

Granted, I didn't know shit about them either. But I wasn't trying to fuckin' act like I did.

“He wants you to see him downstairs,” the nameless guard said, nodding his head toward the hallway and I moved toward it, him a few feet to my back.

Downstairs.

As in the basement.

Great.

“Through here,” he said, leading me into the kitchen and opening a door that had wooden stairs leading downward. “You go alone.”

Double great.

“Right,” I said, nodding, and moving toward the stairs. No use putting off the inevitable.

I had been half expecting cinderblocks and barred windows. Maybe I should have known better. Estates like his had finished basements as a rule. His was no exception. I hit the landing and was in a sprawling space. Sand-colored tile floors, a deep reddish orange paint to the walls, a bar stationed far to one end beside a door.

That door was the only ominous thing in the room.

The rest of it looked like a place a man went to to relax, get away from his nagging wife, jerk off to embarrassing porn.

“Breaker,” Lex's voice called and I saw him closing the door beside the bar and coming toward me.

“Lex,” I said, nodding.

“Where's Alex?”

Right to it then.

“Not here,” I said, shrugging.

“I can see that,” he said, his voice getting icy. “Care to explain yourself?”

“Not particularly.”

“I'm not a man you want to play games with, Bryan.”

“Not playin' games, Lex. She ain't here. I don't feel like talkin' 'bout it. Not a game. Just how shit is.”

“It's amazing to me that you're still breathing,” he said oddly, his head tilting to the side as if it was something that truly confused him.

“Why's that, Lex?”

“Because you either lack the respect or the brains to realize who you should watch your tongue around.”

“That's me, a stupid, reckless, pain in the ass.”

“Used to be people put up with it because you got the job done and didn't ask questions or screw around. It seems that is something that has changed about your reputation.”

“Look,” I said, holding back a sigh. “Save me the lecture. Save your money. Just give me Shoot and we can both go our separate ways.”

“You see,” he started in a tone I immediately didn't trust, “that would normally be how we would handle this. You are an asset to have around even if you did screw up this job. But, unfortunately, things have... transpired since we last spoke.”

This time, I let out the sigh. “What's transpired?”

“How about a drink? Scotch? Whiskey? Vodka? What kind of man are you?”

The kind who didn't take liquor from shitheads the likes of Lex. But I could sense I was already rocking the boat and I didn't need to make matters worse. “Whiskey is fine,” I said, generally preferring vodka. But at the thought of that, an image of Alex drunk off her ass on it flew into my head- giggling, saying silly shit, coming hard and repeatedly from my mouth and cock.

Yeah. Whiskey was a better bet.

Lex moved over to the bar and I followed, wanting to keep an eye on him. He was a slimy shit. I wouldn't put it past him to slip something into my drink. But, in the end, he didn't. He just poured us each a round and we drank.

“How about we go see your friend?” Lex suggested, putting his glass back down on the bar.

“My friend?” I asked, putting my glass down as well. He had to be talking about Shooter. But why the fuck would he want to show him to me? Unless he was planning on making an example of him.

Fuck.

“Sure,” Lex said, moving to that door that I knew as bad news. “Right through here.”

Again, not having a choice, I followed.

I got my cinderblocks. But no bars. Because there were no windows. Just fluorescent bar lights across the ceiling. There were men inside. Two. Limp Dick Rick (who must have been a favorite of Lex's seeing as he was always glued to the fucker's hip), and some guy I had never seen before- younger, but solid, brown hair and eyes, utterly forgettable, standing beside a door to a small room that I figured was a bathroom.

But my eyes took all that in in about two seconds. Because on the third second, my eyes fell on Shooter. He was sitting on a metal chair in the middle of the room. Casually. Not cuffed or tied to it. Just sitting there, shoulders back, legs wide, looking almost comfortable. There were bruises on his face and I felt my blood turn to lava at the sight. Of course it had always been a possibility. Especially because Shoot was good at pushing at people's buttons.

Still. Seeing it? Yeah. I wasn't fuckin' happy.

“Heya, Break,” Shoot said, lifting his chin at me, a smirk toying at his lips. Like we had plans to go out shoot pool, drink beer, and bang bitches later. Instead of being outnumbered on the heavily guarded property of a evil fuckhead who was obviously pissed at me.

“Shoot,” I said back, just as casually, trying to keep down the surge of worry.

“You look like shit, man,” Shoot went on, nodding his head.

Yeah. I knew I did. “Yeah and you look like you've spent the last week at a spa,” I said, giving him a smile. But he knew me well enough to see underneath it. He saw the tension. The worry. He knew something was up. I could see him take it in as he straightened slightly, his eyes got more keen.

He was with me.

It was bad.

Shit was going to go down.

Lex cleared his throat as if sensing something passing between us. “We are going to transfer Shooter here to the shed in a moment,” he started and I felt myself stiffen.

The shed.

I didn't know he had a shed on his property.

But sheds and Lex... yeah those were never good things to go together.

“But first... we have a surprise for the two of you.”

Oh fuck.

My eyes went to Shoot's to see if he had any clue at what we were in store for, but he gave me a head shake. Whatever it was, he was in the dark. Which only made my stomach roll all the more.

“Chris,” Lex said, waving at the younger guy standing by the door.

Shoot and my eyes met and the only thought that came to me was the one person left in the world that it was clear I was connected with.

Paine.

He was also connected with Shoot.

A surprise for the both of us.

Shoot turned in his chair as Chris disappeared inside the room for a second, then came back out.

And it was a surprise alright.

The kind of surprise that made me seriously think I was going to stroke.

They didn't have Paine.

They had Alex.

Chris was wrestling her out of the other room (wrestling because she was fighting like a god damn crazy woman as he did so. It got her nowhere, but I was proud of her nonetheless).

“The fuck is this, Lex?” I asked, forcing my voice to sound bored. I could feel Shoot's eyes on me, shocked, but I couldn't clue him in. Shit just got bad. And they were bad to begin with.

“It seemed I ended up having to do your job for you, Breaker,” Lex said, waving a hand toward the suddenly still Alex. Still because she heard my name and froze, her eyes snapping to mine. The anger left them (no small miracle since I knew how hot her anger ran) and all that was left was surprise. And resignation.

She thought she had saved me.

And there we both were anyway.

“So you got your girl. Our deal is done. We good?” I asked, trying to not see the horror cross Alex's face.

Lex's head tilted to the side, watching me. “This is unexpected.”