AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“This is the last of it.”
Ian nods, the welding helmet covering his face while he torches the VIN numbers off plates we took off what was once a nearly pristine G-Wagon.
I yawn, checking the clock on the wall of the old shack behind the garage. It’s late. Past midnight and we both have to be up early, but that doesn’t matter.
Not on nights like tonight.
No, tonight, we’re stuck in what was once the parts building, cutting up cars. Removing pieces and parts and loading them into the back of a waiting van in the back lot.
Each time, more and more show up and I’m starting to run out of room for this shit and the patience for it.
They always come. They never give a time. I guess their people are probably watching me. They have to be to know my schedule and know who’s working. That’s what worries me. Them snooping around here whileshe’shere is only going to make shit worse.
I mean, they have to know my future brother-in-law is a fed, but I’m guessing they just don’t give a fuck.
Or they’re just fucking stupid.
I’m going with the latter.
The cars come in off the streets and they’re stored at a warehouse in some undisclosed location before they’re carted here under the cover of night. We cut them into pieces and load the parts into the van that arrives shortly after the cars do. They leave.
I never see what happens after that. Judging by the blood I’ve seen in a few of the cars, I don’t want to, either.
Chop shops are illegal. What I’mdoingis illegal, but it’s not like they sent a door-to-door salesman around, trying to get people to sign up to do their bidding.
No. The cartel takes. Whatever they want. When they want. It doesn’t matter if you say no. You’ll do it, or bad shit will happen to the people you care about.
Especially when they’ve got the government in their pocket.
The last time I refused, I received a picture from an anonymous number of my sister at the bar her husband owns in New Orleans. You could tell it was candid. She didn’t even know.
I stopped refusing after that.
“Thank fucking God,” Ian grumbles, finishing the last of the VIN plates. He tosses it in the bucket beside him and pulls the welding helmet off his head.
Ian’s my right-hand man here at the shop. My best friend, if you want to call him that. He’s the motherfucker I call when shit goes down. Does that count? He’s been around for years and I’ve known him since tech school.
We were both rowdy. We hated class and we hated our lives even more. We bonded over our sharedfuck the patriarchyattitude and now, here we are, in Dad’s shop, cutting up stolen cars for the cartel.
“I’m fucking beat,” he grumbles, swiping his forearm across his sweaty forehead. It’s hot as fuck in the back garage with no ventilation, but we can’t risk getting caught.
We get caught doing what we’re doing? It doesn’t matter if we were forced into it, we’re going straight to prison. Right next to my stepfather.
Part of me likes that idea. It would give me the chance to handle our unsolved business, but I also need to be here. Mom needs me. My sisters need me. The shop . . .her.
Right now, there are too many priorities standing in the way of me and revenge. Someday, though, I’ll find him and one of us will leave in a body bag.
It won’t be me.
“Let’s get this shit loaded up. I want to go home.”
“You got shit else to do?”
“Yeah,” Ian quips. “Come to work for you, asshole.”
My spine fills with lead and pretty cinnamon-colored hair and soft green eyes flash through my mind. “Got a new person starting tomorrow, by the way.”
I haven’t had the chance to tell him about Hannah because, well . . . I don’t even know what the fuck to do about it.
