Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Jesus Christ. What the hell has my littlest brother gotten into?
“What are you doing? Meth?”
“These days, whatever I can get my fucking hands on.”
“For fuck’s…” I inhale, rub at my forehead. “You better start at the beginning.”
He clears his throat, rubs his hand over his face, his lips trembling. “Got in with some bad stuff. Some bad people at school this year.”
“And no one was home to take care of it.”
“Well… You speak the truth. You, Hawk, the girls. All at the university.”
Anger again… “You really want to blame this on us?”
“No. I mean…” His hands tremble as he rakes his fingers through his hair. “That’s not what I mean.”
I’m tempted to berate him further, but I need him to tell me what’s going on. I can’t help him otherwise. So all I say is, “Go on. Take your time.”
He closes his eyes and rubs his temples. Then he opens his eyes again. “It started innocently enough. Smoking a little dope. But then Rod and Marco—”
“Who the hell are Rod and Marco?”
“Rod Johnson and Mark Rodriguez. The guys I started hanging out with. Rod’s brother got some coke, and we tried that.”
“All right.” Anger wells within me for the third time, but I’m determined to stay calm. “So… coke.”
“Yeah, man, and it was such an incredible high. I can’t even tell you. I had so much energy, but it can feel like normal energy, you know?”
“You can spare me the details, Eagle. I’ve never touched the stuff, and I never will. I don’t give a rat’s ass how it felt to be high.”
He clears his throat, and it sounds like he’s been smoking four packs a day. “Fair enough. So anyway. I was buying a gram here and there, with my allowance and all. But then I got cocky.”
Shocking. My little brother has always been the most arrogant of all of us. With his good looks and jovial demeanor, he’s the most popular of the Bellamy siblings. The rest of us are kind of introverts.
“Go on.”
“The housekeeper found some in my bedroom, and of course she went straight to Mom and Dad.”
“As she should.”
Another throat clear. “Yeah. So no more allowance for me.”
“That’s why you’re coming to me? For money for drugs?”
He lets out a sarcastic chuckle. “Jesus Christ, Falcon, it’s so much more than that.”
I draw in a deep breath, gather my wits. Christ almighty.
“Keep talking,” I say.
“So Mom and Dad cut me off. And of course I don’t have access to my own money yet because I’m not twenty-one.”
“If you think I’m giving you money for drugs, you can—”
He holds his hand up, still shaking. “Falcon, please.”
I draw in another breath and count to ten. “Fine. Continue.”
“So Rod and Marco, they don’t come from the kind of wealth I come from. So I asked them how they got the drugs.”
“And?”
“Marco works in town at the feed and seed part-time, but Rod…”
“Yeah?”
“He deals on the side. Turns out? The drugs Rod gets? He doesn’t just buy them and then we pay him back. He’s dealing them, and he gets a fucking cut.”
“I thought dealers didn’t use the stuff?”
“For Christ sake, Falcon. Don’t be so fucking naïve. Course they do. Why the hell do you think they get into dealing?”
He’s probably right. I’m thinking of the higher-ups. The ones who are too smart to use the shit.
“Don’t tell me you…” I shake my head.
“Yeah. It was a way to get the drugs I wanted. I started dealing.”
“And you’ve got a debt you need to pay?”
“God… If only it were that simple.”
My mind goes to the bags of cocaine Hawk and I found on our property.
The puzzle pieces are starting to fit together, and I don’t like it. Not one fucking bit.
“Go on…” I say, my voice sounding like a growl.
“So yeah. I was dealing, and one of the big bosses found out about who I was.”
“Meaning?”
“A Bellamy. With access to property right on the border.”
“Oh my fucking God.” I wipe the perspiration off my forehead. My heart is stampeding. I really don’t like where this is going.
“Yeah. So the big guy, Vega, offered me a bigger cut…if I let them use our land.”
“Which property?” I say through gritted teeth.
“That old barn next to the woods. It’s only a couple miles from the border. Easy access. Through the brush.”
Already I know the ending to this story. It ends in the coke that Hawk and I flushed into the septic tank.
“Continue…”
“One of Diego’s thugs called me today, asked me to meet him at the drop. And when I did…”
I shake my head. “The stash was gone.”
Eagle cocks his head. “Yeah. How the fuck did you know?”
“Hawk and I were out there doing target practice couple days ago. We got caught in that rainstorm, so we sought shelter in the old barn.”
“I don’t get it. They buried the shit.”