I wasn’t that impressed when I first met Jade Barlow. Sure she had a pretty face, and interesting almond shaped eyes, but she was also really short. I mean super tiny. And I usually liked my women long and lean, not that I was trying to make her my woman. She had a big mouth too. Large. Kind of foul. And some of the shit that came out of it could cut you like a razor. I preferred a woman’s mouth refined and soft and wrapped around my dick.

Not to mention that the day we met, her shirt was torn, her eye was turning a pinkish purple color, and she had a busted lip. She’d been fighting, which wasn’t a total surprise, because like I said, she has a big mouth. People were bound to have the desire to punch it.

Then when my best friend and business partner Roman, the imbecile who decided that we were going to hire this hot mess, explained the particulars around this brawl of hers, my opinion of her grew even less favorable.

She had been fighting a man.

Her boyfriend.

Willingly.

And evidently she did this on a regular basis.

Jade was not the typical type of young woman you hear about who’s being battered by her boyfriend. Frightened. Trapped. Alone. Girls who don’t see a way out of the abusive relationships they find themselves in. That I can understand. I’ve seen it first hand, but Jade was different.

From what I was told about her over the years by Roman, she was smart and tough, but he left out one very important thing. She also craved drama. She liked the fighting. Probably because she thought it meant that her loser boyfriend loved her. She may have even picked a few of the fights. Looking for a battle. Which was even harder for my brain to compute, because it looked to me, like she was losing them all.

Big time.

It’s that type of idiotic shit that I couldn’t condone. She was damaged goods. A loose cannon. A liability. I certainly didn’t want her handling any of our business. Our clients. Our money. Hell no. Roman’s father and the owner of our business, Joseph, would never go for it either. Her life was too complicated, and there was no way in hell that any of us wanted that crazy to end up on our doorstep.

Crazy attracted police officers, and law enforcement meant questions. We certainly didn’t need anyone questioning anything that the three of us were doing, because some of it wasn’t legal. Actually most of it wasn’t. I didn’t care how many cops Roman’s father may have had in his pocket. There were always cops that couldn’t be bought. Cops that would be gunning for us if they got even a whiff of something illegal. And I sure as shit wasn’t ever going to jail if I could help it. Not because of some crazy bitch.

“What the fuck, Jade?” Roman asked after knocking on her front door and noticing her bruised and disheveled appearance.

“I know what it looks like—”

“It looks like you got beat the fuck up.”

“Really? Then you should see what the other guy looks like,” she said in jest. At least I think it was a joke.

“Where is that motherfucker?” I rarely saw Roman become that genuinely pissed about other people’s domestic clusterfucks, but he was officially mad. His anger seemed to cause a moment of worry to cross Jade’s face. My question was who she was worried about. The boyfriend or herself.

“He’s not here.”

“You can’t hide him from me forever.”

“I’m not hiding him. He’s just out. We needed some distance after our … altercation.”

She pointed to me. “Is this him?” Looking me carefully up and down as if she was in any position to make an assessment about anything or anyone.

“Are you going to let us in?” Roman asked rhetorically.

“Yes, of course.” She sounded flustered for a moment. “Come in.”

It didn’t take but a second to see why she was so hesitant to let us in. The place was trashed. The few pieces of bullshit furniture in the apartment had been tossed on their sides. Clothes were strewn around the room. Old dirty dishes were piled in the sink and on the counter. Some were even broken into pieces.

The mess in her house wasn’t from one lover’s quarrel. It was definitely cumulative. That’s when I decided that if what I was seeing was any indicator of the cleanliness and organizational skills of the assistant we were there to hire, I was going to have to veto it. And my vote counted for two people, my brother and I, against Roman’s one.

“Jade,” Roman said practically seething as he looked around.

“I know, Roman, but—”

“This place looks like a goddamn meth lab. Where is he? I want to know right the fuck now. Is he getting high?”

“He doesn’t do meth,” she explained while looking over at me. As if I cared one way or another what her boyfriend’s choice of drug was. The fact that he got high was all I needed to know.

Roman rephrased the question.

“Whatever the fuck it is. He’s out buying it right now isn’t he?”

“Maybe.”

“With your money?”

“Probably,” she answered solemnly.

“I can’t let this stand anymore, Jade.”

“I said I’d handle it.”

“Look at your fucking face. This house. Do you honestly think you’ve got a handle on this situation?”

I noticed a crack in the tough girl’s armor. She was embarrassed, she was in over head, and I was pretty sure she wanted to ask for help but didn’t know how to. Especially with me, someone she just met, standing in the room.

I didn’t know much about Jade, hadn’t even really heard her name much, until Roman brought up the idea of hiring her. Roman wasn’t a big sharer, but the little he did tell me was that while she hadn’t grown up in our neighborhood, somehow the two of them met when she was a teenager. I never asked for the particulars, because I always assumed that she was just some girl that he may or may not have fucked back in the day. A blast from his past that he all of a sudden wanted to help out.

It was a hiring we debated for a couple of days because one: I didn’t know her, and two because I didn’t think we needed another person privy to the inner workings of our complicated business.

A trial run is what he countered.

I didn’t have a good feeling about it though. Especially after what I had just witnessed. That drama queen needed an intervention not a job.

“Do you still want to work for us, Jade?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she answered solemnly.

“Then it starts with you getting your shit straight. You can’t work for me and live like this. Tomorrow you get up and look for another place. A place you don’t tell the douchebag about. I’ll take care of the security deposit and first month’s rent. You can pay me back later.”

“That’s not going to work for me, Roman—”

That was it for me. I’d had enough at that point. She was turning down a very gracious one-way ticket out of loser land, and it made no sense to me. I had to jump in and stop that crazy train from traveling any further towards this is fucking stupidville.

“Are you insane?” I cocked my head to the side and questioned her.

“What the hell did you just say to me?” she asked with way too much attitude.

The balls on that chick.

“I said are you insane. Out of your mind. One fry short of a happy meal. You live with some sort of addict who beats on you, and you don’t want to leave?”

“He doesn’t beat on me. We argue. Things sometimes get out of hand. It happens to everyone.”

“Happens to everyone? No, sweetheart, it doesn’t. I’ve never hit a woman in my life,” I countered. “I think Jerry Springer still has his talk show in syndication if you and your druggie want to send over a video submission, because you sound nuts.”

“I have an exit plan, Mr. Need To Mind Your Own Fucking Business,” she rolled her eyes. “I don’t need anyone’s help or anyone’s judgment.”

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

“Cam—” Roman interrupted.

“No wait, I’m serious,” I said in defense of my position. “First of all, we come to her house for a fucking job interview. Who the hell does that? She should have come to us. The employers. Then when we get here she’s looking like a UFC fighter … who lost by the way and lives in a crack den. And on top of all of that, she doesn’t want any help to stop it?”

“Roman knows me, you don’t. I would ask for help if I really needed it.”

“Then you’re a fucking idiot, because you really need it now.”

If looks could kill, then I would have been shot right on the spot. She hated me, which was fine with me, because I didn’t like her either; and I definitely didn’t want her working for me.

“Jade, just do what I asked you to do this weekend,” Roman ordered. “Call me when you’re ready to finalize everything, and I’ll bring a check over. Then report to work on Monday at my father’s house. I’ll text you the exact address.”

“What about Tyson?”

“I’ll take care of him. I met him once or twice. I remember what he looks like.”

“But—”

“I’m going to help you, but just this one time. If you take that motherfucker back in after this, then you’re on your own. No job. No help. No more contact. I don’t do second chances, and I’m not friends with stupid people.”

I scoffed out loud at that comment. As far as I was concerned she was the stupidest woman I had ever met.

She stared at both Roman and I silently but intensely. Like a teapot warming to a slow boil. She was angry. Angry that she’d no doubt been exposed, called on her shit, and given a stern ultimatum. But I’m pretty sure that she was scared too, and being frightened was at least something I could understand.

I remember thinking, hoping, that perhaps Roman’s friend wasn’t a total idiot. That maybe she was trapped in her own cycle of self-sabotage and destructive behavior and needed a little push to get out.

“Do you want my help or not?” Roman demanded to know once and for all.

“I do,” she said flatly and under her breath.

I could tell it pained her to say the words, but what I found even more remarkable was that she genuinely seemed to be worried that she’d lose Rome’s friendship.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I do, dammit!”

“That’s better. Now start packing up this place tonight.”

“But—”

“He’s not coming back tonight or the next. Don’t worry about him.”

“Okay,” she exhaled in relief. “I don’t feel like having another fight tonight.”

That night Roman and I were both unusually quiet in the car until I broke the silence between us. I wasn’t going to veto him about hiring Jade, because after what I witnessed between the two of them inside of that apartment, I knew it would be a lost cause. He cared about the little misfit toy for some reason, and he was determined to save her from herself. I was also starting to consider the possibility that he brought me there on purpose. To see for myself. To understand first hand why he wanted to give her the job, and why I shouldn’t say no.

She needed us.

“Are you in love with that girl or something?” I asked. Knowing better than anyone that Roman had never slept with the same woman more than once, but it was the only rationale I could think of at the time for his bizarre level of patience with the tiny terror.

“No.”

“Is she in love with you?”

“Ha! Not hardly.”

“If I vetoed hiring her, would you accept my decision and move on?”

“Yes.”

“But you’d be pissed.”

He thought about his response for a moment.

“I’d understand why, but yeah, I’d be pissed.”

“Joseph is never going to go for hiring her. Can you imagine if she gives him that same sort of attitude that she gave us just now? I didn’t know women could also have Napoleon complexes. She’s too damn small to act that bitchy.”

“She’s a little rough around the edges, but there’s definitely something about you that brought out her claws today.”

“Excuses. Excuses.”

“Listen she knows how to tone it down when she needs to, and she will when she’s around Joseph. We just caught her on a bad day.”

“Make me understand, Rome. You knew we were probably going to find a mess when we got there. I would venture to guess that every day is a bad day in that house. So why this girl?”

“Simple. I trust her with my life, which means I trust her with yours.”

We searched every hole in the wall that we knew of for Jade’s boyfriend that night. We didn’t find him. It wasn’t until the next day that we located him, and it happened to be back home in their apartment. Sleeping across their dirty brown couch. Slobber practically dripping from the corner of his mouth. Jade wasn’t at home, and hadn’t called us either, so we assumed that he must have slithered in after she went out for the day.

He must not have been there long, because he was still high, and while he probably didn’t feel much, it made me feel a whole lot better to punch him in the jaw until I drew blood. It didn’t take much to scare the douchebag off. Roman and I beat his ass real good, threatened to do more if he ever came back around Jade again, and that was that. We never saw him again, and neither did she.

I also never saw her shed a tear over the dude either. In fact all I saw was a smart-mouthed, hyper-defensive, battle-worn girl turn into one of the most loyal, hard-working, assistants I’d ever seen. She metamorphosed practically overnight, and I’d been proven completely wrong about her.

Over time she became kind of the little sister Cutter and I never had. A girl who could hold her own, and keep our secrets close to the vest. Someone to help keep us on track, someone genuinely interested in seeing us succeed, and someone really adept at knowing what we needed or wanted even before we did. These were the many traits that ended up making Jade invaluable to us, and why the three of us anointed her as our “little sis.” She took care of us. Very good care.

The problem now is that you don’t fuck family, and think you can just go about the rest of your life like nothing happened. The shit doesn’t work that way. Not when it’s Jade. I wake up with morning wood thinking about her ass. I stare at her tits when she’s talking to me about a client. I’ve started purposely saying things to make her laugh, because I think it’s adorable how she squeezes her eyes tightly shut when she does. On Sundays I drop by Chickie and Pete’s to watch the game with Cutter, and pray that she walks through the door too. And the biggest problem I’m facing? What to do with the bodies when a guy comes within a fifteen-foot radius of her.

Because they always do.

Like that asshole, Dallas.