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River shook his head as he exhaled. “Nah, man, you know this is in my blood.”
“You do good at that, too. Ride was clean last night.”
It was the one part of this that had never sat right. Running drugs. People were fucked as it was without them being blitzed out of their minds. Families ruined.
His gut twisted, thinking how he’d feel if his baby sister got tangled in something like that.
Trent hesitated, itching as he looked around before he started to speak toward his boots. “Wanted to warn you that I think there might be a shift coming.”
Uncertainty squeezed River’s chest. “What kind of shift?”
“Some shit’s going down. Think my brothers and I are gonna have to split.”
“Fuck,” River mumbled toward the ground as he ran an agitated hand through his hair. Knew what that meant. The implications.
Last thing River wanted was to be under the thumb of Cutter Lawson.
Trent was the only reason he was there.
“Keep it on the low, yeah? Not sure what’s going to happen. Just wanted you to know so you can prepare.”
“Of course, brother.”
Trent squeezed his shoulder. “Know I can count on you.”
Then he pushed from the wall and disappeared back into the club.
River blew out a frustrated sigh, dread pounding through hisbloodstream. He straightened and started out of the alleyway and headed out front. He bypassed his bike that sat among the thirty-odd others lining the front of the club.
He needed to walk.
Think.
He shoved his hands into his pockets as he took to the sidewalk. It was after one in the morning, and that seedy drone had taken to the atmosphere. The drone of trucks as they passed on the freeway in the distance, the barking of dogs, those sirens that never ceased.
He took a left and headed down a narrower street. It was lined by shitty apartment buildings and bowed in poverty.
Guilt constricted again. Knowing he was a part of the problem. He did his best to ignore the begging he heard through an open window above.
A woman pleading, “No…please stop…I didn’t do it.”
He heard the slug that was undeniably a punch.
She wailed. Wailed and begged.
River tried to keep moving. To mind his own business. But he was scaling the fire escape on the side of the building. One second later, he was inside the crummy apartment, looming behind the piece of shit who towered over a battered woman on the floor.
The man went to kick her in the face with his boot, and River was on him without him knowing, his knife drawn from his pocket and flicked open. The man flailed and tried to whirl, but River outsized him at least by double. River pulled the bastard’s head back by the hair and he dragged the knife across his throat.
Not one fuckin’ hesitation.
The woman screamed and screamed.
River let him go, and the man slumped to the floor.
He turned to the woman who was scrambling back, her screams turning to whimpers as she begged, “Please, no.”
Terror blanketed her eyes, and he carefully knelt in front of her as he murmured, “I’m notgoing to hurt you.”
