“How nice of you to show up.” Monti’s sarcastic, high-pitched voice sounded from his open window as I walked up.
He wore his usual creepy grin and I noticed he’d finally gotten those three missing teeth fixed. His black SUV was parked next to six sports cars, each one different from the next. While they were smaller jobs than the ones I was used to doing, they were worth more than anything else he’d ever dropped off to me. If they weren’t cleared from the shop’s lot soon, someone would likely notice them and report it.
“How the hell do you expect me to get all of these done in one night?” I barked back, lifting my hand in a gesture toward the cars that sat next to us.
“I don’t give a fuck how you do it, it just needs to get done,” Monti replied, his smile shrinking but never actually disappearing. I hated that man with everything in me.
I scoffed at him, my eyebrows drawing together at his carelessness. I hoped he was caught one day, just not while I was still working with him.
“This is my last job,” I stated, my tone clipped and leaving no room for argument.
“We decide when you’re done,” Monti responded half-heartedly. He blinked his eyes at me as he reached inside his suit pocket and pulled out his phone. “Your lovely mother can’t seem to keep her hands off our money, and as long as she keeps borrowing, you keep working. You have a debt to pay, and you’d be smart to remember who you’re dealing with.”
Spitting on the ground next to his vehicle, I brought my eyes back to his and glared at him. “I don’t give a fuck what my mom keeps doing—I’m out. I’ll give you the difference for what she owes after tonight, but you can tell Frank that anything beyond that is on her shoulders, not mine.”
I couldn’t stop the guilty feeling flittering in my chest that I was leaving Mom for dead before it turned into a full-blown ache. But if she didn’t know how to keep her hands away from Frank’s money, she’d have to find a way to pay him back herself. The jobs Monti was bringing me stretched far beyond what I’d ever agreed to, and I should have put an end to this shit months ago.
I grew up doing more dangerous jobs than Monti’s sheltered mind could even comprehend, but I couldn’t keep taking on these cars and waiting to be caught like a sitting duck. I preferred to move fast, and they’ve kept me still for too long.
Monti didn’t respond right away. Instead, he sat with his face directed toward his phone as he tapped away at something before finally turning the screen toward me. A picture of Luna lit up in front of my face and my eyes narrowed into slits toward him. It was a candid shot, one she clearly had no idea was being taken while she stood in her bakery, talking with two other women.
Taking a deep breath, I clenched my fists into tight balls to avoid wrapping them around his neck while he threatened me.
“She’s cute, isn’t she? It would be a shame if something were to happen to her.”
An artificial frown pulled at his tattered face. I decided that was uglier than when he smiled.
Maintaining composure that I wasn’t aware I still had, I grinded my teeth together, insisting, “This is my last job.”
“We’ll see,” was all he said before rolling the window up on me and instructing his goon to drive away.
It wasn’t up to him, and he knew it. Showing his cards and letting me know he was watching Luna was an act of desperation—they needed me more than I needed them, and they were determined to make sure I didn’t leave them hanging in a vulnerable position. It had only been a few weeks since I’d walked into her bakery and introduced myself. He was grasping at straws by threatening me with the life of a stranger—even if it ignited something in me I wasn’t ready to identify.
“Damn, someone’s gotta be pissed that car is missing.” Cooper’s voice startled me from behind after I quietly pulled a Corvette into the garage and onto my open lift.
Slowly turning my body, I found him leaning against a toolbox, puffing a cigarette.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, glancing around to see if anyone else would be joining us. It looked like it was just him and me.
“Monti can be pretty convincing,” he said, pulling his body off the toolbox and sauntering toward me. “Said you’d need a hand with the haul he was bringing in tonight. I have to admit, when that mangled-faced troll told me you were choppin’ cars for him, I didn’t believe it. I thought, ‘there’s no way bad-boy Liam would stoop to such lows.’ Yet, here you are.”
A calculating smile spread across his face. His lack of education shone through every word he spoke, and it only gave me more reason to want to smash his face in. Hell, maybe I'd be doing the asshole a favor and he’d find some unused brain cells swimming around that empty fishbowl of his.
My mind swarmed with questions, but my facial expression remained schooled as I walked over toward the stolen car and began pulling lug nuts off the wheels with my impact gun. It was no surprise to me that Monti would recruit Cooper out from under Frank’s nose. They were two scumbags cut from the same cloth. What didn’t make sense was Monti bringing Cooper into our deal after threatening Luna. Was he somehow behind her rape, too?
“What do they have on you that made you start taking on such entry level jobs?” Cooper bravely continued, using anything he could think of to get under my skin.
Since the day I found out he was attacking women, I’ve treated him like shit both as a manager and a friend—a loose term he still tries to use to describe our one-way relationship because the fucker couldn’t take a hint. There was no question he was out for blood, willing to take any opportunity he could to drag me down in the sewers of Hell he frequented.
“I bet it’s something big. It’s gotta be, otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten you off the streets with Frank’s crew. Hmm, maybe something to do with your whore mom?” he jabbed, shamelessly trying to get a rise out of me.
The Mom comment had my blood pressure rising, but I wouldn’t be starting shit with him over it when I didn’t know what he was really doing there with me. Monti wouldn’t have recruited someone so close to me if he wasn’t trying to test one of us.
I lifted my gaze up to him only to say, “Do you plan on sitting here like a little bitch and gossiping all night, or are you going to start helping me with these cars?”
Cooper chuckled mockingly, taking a final, long drag on his cigarette before slowly blowing the smoke into my face. The puff surrounded me with the stale scent of Virginia Slims. The dickhead couldn’t even afford a respectable brand.
I sent him a threatening glare, working my jaw back and forth as I talked myself down from laying him out right there. He thought he was going to intimidate me with his threats. He had no idea what he was dealing with, and if Frank didn’t beat the guy’s ass, I sure as hell was going to take the first opportunity I got.
The rest of the night was spent ripping apart cars and plotting how I would tell Monti to go fuck himself. We barely finished before six, and when I finally made it home, I stumbled down the stairs and fell into a deep sleep.
Fuck Monti.
Fuck Frank.
Fuck Cooper.
And fuck Mom for getting me into this mess.