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“Bats? Like… baseball bats?” I quizzed.
“Yes,” Garret affirmed with a sullen nod. “They held them up as if they were ready to swing them at my arms and legs at any seconds. The goons. They wanted to pound me to the ground.”
“Thank goodness the car came by at the right moment and scared them off,” I said.
“They scampered off in every direction. Cowards if you ask me.” Garret’s jaw visibly tightened.
“Do you think they would have really hit you with the bats?” I found it unlikely, given the surveillance cameras around the club, but at the same time, I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
Garret looked at me with a cold and calculated expression. “I know for a fact that they would have tried to beat me to a pulp.”
“Did you get a good look at them? Maybe we could go to the police and have a description drawn—”
“They were wearing black ski masks and black tracksuits,” Garret said, “so I wasn’t able to get a good look at their faces.”
“How did you even know they were out here?” I asked, feeling even more baffled than I was when I had initially walked outside.
“I came outside to see if there were any other club members trying to get in. It’s too cold to have the doors open. The club looks closed because it’s not very busy. I was going to see if I could wrangle any people into coming inside for a good time.”
I tried not to give him a pitying glance, but his account was extremely sad. “And they just happened to be walking up at the same time you came outside?”
“Either that or they might have been waiting for me to exit the club.”
Garret’s eyes burned with anger. There was no telling what kind of revenge tactics were brewing in his mind, running rampant. I had to prevent him from doing something reckless that might end up jeopardizing everything he had worked so hard to achieve.
“We both know that Nelson did this,” Garret said in a sinister tone. “He’s going to have to answer to his crimes.”
“I know, but we really have to think this through,” I said as rationally as I could. I didn’t want Garret’s anger to explode on me, either.
Before Garret could retort, a black Mustang sped up to us and screeched to a grinding halt right in front of the club where we stood.
Nelson was in the driver’s seat and he appeared to be alone in the car. He had a condescending look on his face. His eyes flickered patronizingly.
“Are you prepared to hear my new offer?” he asked in the snidest tone possible.
The only thing Garret was prepared to do was breathe fire. He was livid beside me. He didn’t respond, but Nelson spouted out the new offer anyway.
Garret glared at him. “Even if I wanted to accept that offer, it’s ten percent less than your original one.”
“Exactly.” Nelson looked proud of himself. “And the cost of dawdling around with indecision is going to keep going up until you grow a brain in that thick skull of yours and come around. It’s time you smarten up and realize what’s at stake here.”
Without another word, Nelson peeled out down the street. His taillights disappeared as he rounded a corner. Nelson was gone, but his threat still lingered in the air between me and Garret.
I glanced at him to see how he was holding up, and what I saw wasn’t reassuring. The color had completely drained from Garret’s face and he was positively ashen. His mouth was curved into an oval of shock.
“What he said before…” Garret said and trailed off. “That’s exactly what those street thugs told me.”
I studied Garret, waiting for him to elaborate. “What did they say?”
Garret slowly turned to look at me. His features were haunted. “They told me that I better smarten up or else more bad things would keep happening. The words… are still echoing in my mind.”
“It’s going to be okay.” I patted his back repeated the words over and over, but no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that it was true, my mind wouldn’t believe it.
18
Garret
“Why don’t we go back to my place tonight,” Felix suggested.
