Page 143 of Joey

He shakes his head at me. “What would you tell me?”

“I’d tell you, ‘You better pick me, motherfucker. Because I guarantee you, I’m gonna live through it. And if you take my side, I’ll get you through it too.’”

“You are un-fucking-believable. And I’m gonna call you all three right now. Unbelievably stupid, unbelievably naïve, and unbelievably ignorant.”

“That’s fine,” I say. “You can think that all you want. But for once in my life, I’m not even lying. This is the God’s honest truth.”

“I’ve tried, Brooke,” he says. “I’ve spent the last thirteen fucking years trying to find a way out of this shit and nothing ever works.”

“That’s because you didn’t have me.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right. Now you have me. And we,” I say, stressing the word, “we have something else too. Something they don’t have.”

“Yeah?” Johnny Boston says. “Aside from badass Brooke Alder, what do we have that they don’t?”

“Their money.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - JOEY

Huck, Wald, and I are just getting out of the truck in front of the Bossy building when two cars pull up behind us. Jesse gets out of one and Emma and her friends all pile out of the other one.

Jesse comes towards me, adjusting the collar of his untucked shirt.

“Did you…” I side-eye him. “Did you dress up for Johnny?”

“What?” he says. “I’m just trying to clean up my image.”

“Well, it’s not working.”

“Fuck you,” he says, tucking in his shirt. “At least I’m trying.”

“OK, what’s the plan?” Emma asks, just as she and her friends crowd in on us guys.

Nobody says anything.

“That’s just fucking great,” I say. “Fine. I’ll lead.” I point at Jesse. “But I’m not in charge of this… whatever it is when we get up there.”

“She’s your girlfriend,” Jesse says. Then he looks at Huck and Wald, who haven’t said a word yet, and nods his head. “Your friends?”

Huck opens his mouth, but there’s no time for the details, so I cut him off with a reply of, “My partners.”

Jesse squints his eyes at me. But fuck him. I don’t owe him an explanation and he has no room to judge me anyway.

We all start walking towards the Bossy and when we enter all the security guards take notice.

We own this building, so you’d think they worked for us. But it’s not quite like that. They work for Johnny. So when we approach the glass-doored security archway that only certain people have access to, there’s a little group of them waiting for us.

“Get out of the way,” I say to the biggest one. “And I’m not gonna tell you that twice.”

There’s a moment when I think he’s gonna take matters into his own hands, but then another guy—shorter, skinnier, who must actually have rank here—says, “I’ll let him know you’re coming.”

“You do that,” I say, just as I flash my security card at the control panel.

The doors open and we enter, going left towards the private elevators.

There are eight of us so we’re quite packed together inside the elevator. And by the time the doors open onto my floor, it’s claustrophobic.