Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
I needed to focus on the present. On finding that asshole.
“Can you call him?” I asked.
“Why don’t you call him?”
“Bobby, come on. Be a pal. Just this once,” I said, sounding tired. Because I was. I was so fucking tired of thinking about Jake.
“Okay,” he said, taking his noodles over to his desk, righting his chair, sitting down, and reaching for his phone. The movement made some sort of motion-detecting neon lights flash on in a short little pattern.
“That’s kind of cool,” I admitted.
“Right? I got sent them.”
“Sent? By who?”
“The company.”
“Why would a company send them?” I asked, and watched as his neck and cheeks went red. “What?”
“I started streaming,” he said, unable to look up at me as his elbow nudged his mouse, making his screen wake up, showing the home screen of his channel.
He had almost half a million followers.
“Holy shit, Bobby,” I said, eyes going round.
“I’m making money and everything,” he said, smiling.
“That was your dream, right?” I asked.
“I mean, kind of,” he said, playing it down. Meanwhile, I’d listened to him gush on and on about his favorite streamers and how cool it was that they made a living from doing their favorite thing.
“That’s really cool, Bobby. I mean it. Good for you.”
For all his faults, I didn’t actually wish the guy bad. If anything, I wished he would get out of the apartment more and live a bit more of a normal life. If this was the life he truly wanted, though, who the hell was I to judge?
“Thanks,” he said, smiling to himself as he unlocked his phone and scrolled his contacts.
He lifted his phone to his ear, but it was just a few seconds before his brows scrunched.
“What is it?” I asked.
Bobby hung up, then switched it to speaker, and called again.
“We’re sorry. The number you are trying to reach is disconnected or no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this message in error, please check the number and try again.”
“What the fuck?” I asked aloud. “Jake has had that line… forever.”
Bobby had nothing to add to that, just shook his head.
“Was he acting weird before he left?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Was he hanging out with anyone new? Right before you saw him last.”
“Not that he brought around here. He was always texting people, though.”
“Fuck,” I hissed, whipping around to stalk across the apartment. “Fuck,” I added, more defeated.
This was supposed to be easy.
Pop in, give Jake a piece of my mind, tell him to stay the fuck away from me. And then that was it. It was over. I was done with this old life of mine. For good this time.
Now?
Now, I had to worry about that idiot and what he’d gotten himself into.
I wanted to tell myself not to care, to just walk away and not look back.
The problem with that was, despite myself, some part of me did still care. The other part was also worried that this wouldn’t be the last time. That, maybe, those guys would come back to the meat shop, that the one guy would finish what he started.
Damnit.
“Alright,” I said, walking back over to Bobby’s desk, grabbing a sticky note, and jotting down my new email address onto it. I’d be damned if I gave Bobby, and possibly by extension, Jake, access to my new phone number. “If you hear from him, email me.”
“Should I tell him you stopped by?” Bobby asked as I made my way to the door.
“If I told you not to, you wouldn’t listen to me anyway,” I said, shrugging, then making my way out into the hall.
I waited until I was in the elevator to lean against the wall and take several deep, steadying breaths.
I never wanted to get wrapped up with Jake and his bullshit again.
But I couldn’t just walk away when things looked… off.
Could I?
No.
No, of course not.
He was my brother, after all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rico
Our investigation went nowhere.
Sure, we had footage. But the guys had been masked and gloved. So aside from having general body types and an eye color or two, we had nothing else to go on.
The footage from the office had been what had me out of my chair, wanting to hit the streets, and beat someone to death.
Sure, Kick had been pushed around in the front of the store. Had her lip split open. But that was all, you know, part of the robbery. As fucked as that was to think.
But that fucker walked her back into the office under the guise of getting the money from the safe. Only to get her alone to try to assault her.
That shit was hard to watch.
But I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
And, really, there didn’t seem to be anything.
Until the other guy came in, grabbing the one who was attacking Kick, claiming Kick had hit a silent alarm that didn’t exist.