Everyone had gone home for the night, but Maggie was still upstairs. When she’d walked in, I’d felt her judgmental stare burning into me. I’d stared back, first to make her keep her distance, and then because I just couldn’t help it.

The gym was quiet. I straightened the mats, picked up items left behind by forgetful kids and tossed them into the lost and found. The sound of laughter echoed above me, and I suppressed a flash of jealousy. Those weren’t my friends, and I didn’t want them to be. Maggie was just some girl, like any other girl. Except I couldn’t get this one out of my head. Nobody had ever stood up to me before. Well, not without some kind of weapon anyway.

I flicked off the lights and headed out, locking up behind me.

My apartment was even emptier than the gym. There was no ghost of laughter, no Maggie, close but not close enough. The memory of her that night, looking at me, haughty and unafraid, was like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

I jumped straight into the shower. The water pounded on my body, the heat easing the tension that always lingered after a workout.

When I got out, I made myself a sandwich, then cleaned up the mess. The apartment was spotless. Bare. I didn’t know how to decorate and I didn’t have photographs. It was home, but it never felt like home. Probably because it didn’t belong to me. It was just a place. The apartment and everything in it belonged to Simon. Only the clothes were mine, my endless pairs of sneakers that I couldn’t throw away even when they wore out, my first pair of boxing gloves, and one faded photograph of my old foster family, tucked inside a drawer. Those were the only things that belonged to me and the only things that made this place feel human.

I grabbed my keys and left, hoping a drive would clear my head. But I got no satisfaction out of my truck. That belonged to Simon, too. Even the money he gave me was more like a father doling out allowance rather than an employer paying his employee. This was why I couldn’t get free of him. Because you can’t be free of family.

Bass pumped from a nearby car. The lights of the strip glowed bright, enticing people to come closer, but all I could think about was Simon and Maggie. If I ever wanted a girl like that in my life, I had to live right. I doubt she’d understand doing dirty work for a cop, no matter the results. She definitely didn’t understand lending. Maybe I could ask Simon. Ask him to quit. It’s not like he’d be cut out of my life completely, just no more enforcing. No more tampering. No more errand boy.

I snorted. I’d ask, but I knew what the answer would be. Simon hated my job at the gym, he’d never understand my desire to own it. But I’d ask anyway. There was always a possibility that he valued our relationship more than my ability to get things done.

Maggie’s face flashed through my head again. I made a left and headed to The Wall, a bar near Pearl of China. I needed a drink.

“Jay, baby,” Annie said as soon as I came in. “It’s good to see you.” She leaned over the bar and I gave her a peck on the lips. “The usual?”

I nodded and she handed me a shot of whiskey which I downed in one gulp. The burn going down my throat didn’t relax me. If anything, I felt even more antsy.

With her hands braced on the bar, Annie stared at me. Her tank top was tight, drawing eyes to the roundness of her chest. Her mascara had started to run from the heat, black pooling under her eyes, but she probably didn’t know. “My shift is over in an hour if you want to hang around?”

The thing I had always liked about Annie was that she didn’t ask questions. She didn’t pester me with, are you okay, or, tell me what you’re thinking. She just was, and I just was when we were together. She was a distraction, but tonight I didn’t want it. Didn’t want her.

When I didn’t answer, she turned away, but not before I saw the hurt flash over her face. She ignored me for a while, flirting with a guy a few stools away. I didn’t even care. That’s how I knew Maggie had gotten to me, more than I wanted to admit.

Annie let out a throaty laugh. The guy she was talking to, he looked familiar. I couldn’t place him, but tension rolled down my back. Something felt wrong…

“Want another?” Annie asked. I blinked. I hadn’t noticed her return. Her fingers trailed over her neck and into the hollow of her throat. She bit her lip.

“I’d better not.” The antsiness hadn’t gone away. If anything, it was worse. There was something about that guy. Something…

He was looking at me. “You okay?” he asked.

I’d been staring like a creep. “Yeah, fine.”

Annie’s eyes flicked from me back to him.

“Can I buy you another?”

This guy had gotten the wrong impression. I turned to tell him no, when it hit me. It was the cop who’d pulled me over, asked about Simon. It couldn’t be a coincidence. I tensed for a fight. “What do you want?”

Simon would tell me to get up and leave, stay under the radar, don’t cause a scene. But right then I didn’t care what Simon wanted.

“Excuse me?” the guy said.

I wasn’t in the mood for games. “You pulled me over last week. Now you’re here. What do you want from me?”

He left his seat and took the one next to me. “A little privacy, ma’am, if that’s okay.”

Annie’s tongue pushed against her lips. She hated being called ma’am. But she turned away without a word.

The guy gave me a shrewd look. He was old, his hair greying, deep lines etching his face. Probably around Simon’s age, maybe older.

“You don’t waste time,” he said. “I appreciate that.” I waited. “Fine. I’ll give it to you straight. My name is Hopkins. Internal Affairs. I’m looking into something that Simon Ting may be involved with. I know you two are close.”

“And how do you know that?”

“What exactly is your relationship with Officer Ting?”

“Go ask him.”

“Don’t play games with me.”

He didn’t answer my question, so I sure as hell wasn’t going to answer any of his. He took one last pull from his glass, the ice tinkling as he set it down.

“I can help you, you know. You do something for me, I do something for you.”

“Who says I need anything?”

He studied me. “Here’s my card, in case you change your mind.” He put it on the counter and tapped it twice, but I didn’t pick it up and he finally left me alone.

I pushed away from the stool. The bar had lost its appeal. I didn’t want to go home to my bare apartment. Usually I’d go back to the gym and let it out on a punching bag, but with Maggie there, the place felt tainted. I could’ve gone to Pearl of China but I didn’t want to see Simon either. Like he’d somehow know a cop had cornered me, asking questions.

I had nowhere to go and no one to see and I was getting on my own nerves. If I couldn’t fight it out, I had to find another way. I drove back home.

Hopkins, Simon, Maggie—they were all problems for another day. I had a stack of books on my end table: The Small Business Bible, 50 Tips for Marketing Your Business, Accounting for Dummies… I hated them all but I needed the knowledge they held in their pages of tiny, cramped words. I couldn’t buy the gym from Conall McCrary until I knew what I was doing.

I sat in bed and grabbed the top book in the pile, opening to the folded-down page. My fists would only get me so far in life. It would be easy to keep relying on them, but I had to start using my brains, too, or I’d never be anything more than a hired thug.