“You’re sick again?” Suzie asks over the phone, the buzz of the bar filling up with customers loud in the background. “Jarett…”

“I know,” I say, turning away from Mav and Angel who are talking in low voices at the street corner. “I know, okay? I’m sorry.”

“I can’t keep covering for you. What’s going on?”

What am I gonna tell her? Gang business? We’re about to rob a store, and I’m the lookout?

Hell.

“You’re gonna lose the job if you keep doing that, Jarett,” she says, and actually sounds sad. Fuck me… “You know that, right?”

“Yeah. Thanks, girl, I appreciate it.”

“If this is about your mom, you just come out and say it,” she goes on. “No need to lie to me.”

My blood goes cold. “My mom? What do you know about her?”

“Sorry, was that a secret? You once said she’d had a couple of bad days, and I figured she’s sick.”

“No, it’s okay. You’re right, she’s sick.” Shit, I was probably drunk off my ass. I normally don’t talk about Mrs. Lowe, or my past, or about me, period. “It doesn’t matter. Can you cover for me tonight, or not?”

“Last time, Jarett. I mean it.” She tsks, and I realize that her crush on me is fading.

Good for her. I’m not worth her time.

What’s there to like, anyway? I’m a fuck-up. Been screwing up my life, and the lives of others, ever since the day I was born.

“What’s the fucking hold-up now?” Mav yells from behind me, and I almost drop the goddamn phone. “Ready to get to work, or do you maybe need more time with your girlfriend?”

“Not my girlfriend,” I mutter.

“Know what, Jarett? You’re on your own, and by the way, screw you,” Suzie hisses into the phone, and the call disconnects.

“Fuck,” I whisper. “Just… fuck.”

Angel smirks at me. “Trouble in paradise?”

“No fucking trouble at all.” I stare at my phone for a long sec, trying to figure out how I managed to fuck this one up, then give up and drop it in my back pocket. “Let’s go.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Mav drawls, voice dripping acid, and turns to go, gesturing at the others who’re standing about, smoking. “Shall we?”

Sebastian flicks his cigarette away and glares at me as he straightens from his slouch against a car’s hood. “You’re a pain in the ass,” he mutters, loud enough for me to hear.

I ignore the motherfucker. After he pulled that knife on me and stole my money, what little patience I had with him is all gone. And I’m not even gonna point out we didn’t stop here for me, but to wait for Mav’s go ahead.

Fuck you, Seb.

Though considering I’m only here to make sure he makes it through tonight’s gig alive, isn’t that a fucking contradiction? Hilarious.

Yeah, Jarett, real funny the mess you put yourself into. Save your adopted brother’s skin, and rob a store. Bag of laughs.

My heart slams against my ribs as I fall into step behind the group, the Glock heavy at the back of my jeans, a sheathed knife chafing against the inside of my jacket pocket. Pulling out my pack of smokes, I light up, trying to steady my shaking hands.

Not my first rodeo, but we’ve been doing this more and more lately, and it’s fucking with my mind. I’m not a thief. I may have no morals left, but I want to think I still have some basic honesty in me, instilled by Connor, the only father figure I can remember—adopted, but who gives a shit about that, right? About blood ties and family trees. After years drifting inside the system, Connor took me in, and taught me things. How to use a gun and a knife, how to cook basic stuff, how to survive alone.

How to be a better person. A better man.

But above all, he gave me two tenets to live by: family is everything, and nobody is above the law.

So how the hell do I reconcile these two things?

Another doubt nags at me as I trudge after the gang who has fallen quiet as we wind through narrow streets. I draw smoke into my lungs, thinking.

Like, did Connor know what he was talking about? What did he base his slogans on? I have been wondering about that since his death. He had no family to speak of, and the law he upheld let him down.

I guess the law is above everyone, but can’t keep everyone alive. So if the law is weak… how do you survive by being lawful? By following the weaker side, how do you survive? Connor taught me survival. He taught me to protect my family at all cost.

So what would he say knowing I’m protecting my family at the cost of the law and other people?

Shit. I run a hand through my hair and do my best to release the tension gathering in my shoulders, at the base of my skull, a vise of pain pressing around my head.

“Okay, here we are,” Angel says. “Take your positions. Jarett, Shem outside. The rest of you are coming in with me.”

“Pussy,” one of Mav’s latest recruits, Declan, spits at me as he walks by me to join Mav. “Keeping your ass safe and cozy, huh?”

“Fuck you.” My fists clench, itching to knock that sneer off his ugly face.

“What did you say?” Ugly Declan turns back toward me. I’m giving him what he wants, but I’m still pissed, and confused, which makes it worse. “I’m gonna rearrange your face.”

“Not now, assholes,” Angel snaps, and hauls Declan away from me, after shooting me a death glare. “Come on, Dec.”

“What about a getaway car?” Jorge asks.

“Don’t worry your pretty head about that,” Angel snarks. “It’s already in place.”

I throw the butt of my cigarette down and step on it, then shove my hands into my pockets and glance around as the others gather around Mav and Angel for instructions.

That’s when it strikes me that I know where we are, and fuck, we’re not far from the bar and the campus. I really hope no students are around, that I won’t see anyone I know from the bar, and yeah… that Gigi isn’t going home at this time.

Come to think of it, that’s about the time I saw her head to the bus stop from the university last time.

Fuck. I can’t be that unlucky, can I? Angel will go ballistic if he sees her around here. Around me.

If he sees anyone nearby during the heist.

Not that I give a shit about her. The fact I scrubbed the apartment clean in case she comes over again, that I put up a poster of a group on my bedroom wall and made the bed has nothing to do with her.

Right…

Pulling another smoke from the pack, I put it between my lips and light it up. Shem is staring at me, so I offer him one, and he takes it.

“How come you’re not going in with them?” I ask, eyeing him over the smoke drifting up in the cold air.

Going in means taking a cut. I’m here pretty much for free, paid peanuts whenever Angel and Mav are in the mood to pay me. I don’t expect the sky to rain dollars cuz I’m in the gang, like Seb does.

He’s such an idiot, and I ask myself for the thousandth fucking time why I’m here, doing this to myself, for a rash promise I made to a woman who doesn’t even remember me.

Yeah. Fucking great.

“Angel doesn’t trust me not to fuck it up,” he says with a shrug. “Not after I got into that fight last time. Need to win back his trust, he says, and shit like that.”

I shrug, too, unsure what to say. I settle for a “Yeah,” and hide behind my cigarette smoke.

Trying to ignore the fact that, behind me, the gang is breaking into an electronics store to rob it, smashing through the glass cases and breaking the plastic locks attached to the tablets and phones to carry them away.

That I’m an accomplice to a crime, in full conscience of the fact, for reasons that don’t count as excuses at all. Protecting my family? Yeah, right. As if that makes a difference to the store owners. To the goddamn law.

A crash comes from behind my back, and I jerk, the cigarette falling from my fingers. Then an alarm goes off, and it’s on.

Waiting for the gang—for my brother, dammit—to come out of the store, I put a hand to the small of my back, wrapping my hand around the gun handle. If anyone comes this way…

What, I’ll shoot them? The fuck. Gritting my teeth, I keep watch, as I’m supposed to do, and take my hand away from the gun.

When I think to check, I find Shem gone. Probably ran away the moment the alarm went off. The wailing siren is still going, in fact, and no sight of the gang.

Where the hell are they? My skin is crawling. I see someone walking by in the distance, and my fingers twitch.

Go away, whoever you are. Run away, while there’s still time.

They told me Mav once shot a guy who witnessed one of the gang’s robberies, to keep his mouth shut. Maria told me, a gang recruit, before she fled across the country and was never seen or heard from again. She said nobody in the gang would ever tell the cops, and she didn’t know the victim’s name.

Who knows if it was even true? Could be fucking hearsay.

Or not.

My leg muscles burn to get running. My stomach roils with unease. The alarm is still blaring right in my ears, deafening. I turn again toward the store.

They burst out of the smashed façade, hauling duffel bags heavy with loot, and it all seems eerily quiet, the sounds muffled by the siren.

Holy shit.

I glance between them and the street, my heart hammering.

“Where’s Shem?” Angel asks.

“Fuck knows,” I snap, freaked out by the noise and the increasing probability of the cops descending on us. “Let’s go.”

“We’re going, but what about that guy? Goddammit, J, you had one job.”

“Not to let you get caught,” I snarl, turning to see a guy crossing the street, engrossed in texting on his phone. “He’s nobody. Hasn’t even seen us.”

“So you say.” Angel nods at Dec and another guy, Jorge. “Get him.”

Fuck.

“No, Jesus, don’t!” I find myself running after Angel’s thugs, shouting at the guy to go. “Go away!” I shout at him. “Run!”

He looks up and freezes. Then he finally catches on and starts to run.

By the time I reach him, the other two are already there, punching and kicking at him.

“Gimme the gun,” Declan shouts at me, but I move out of his reach and yank the poor guy out of their hands.

“Go,” I hiss at him. “Run!”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Declan is on me before you can say ‘asshole,’ and keeping myself between the guy who’s following my advice and getting the hell out of Dodge, and Angel’s gorilla is damn near impossible, especially when he’s joined by his buddy Jorge. “Angel said to get him.”

“Guy hasn’t seen anything. It’s dark.”

But I know my logic doesn’t mean jack to his gnat brain, so I kick him in the leg, and have the satisfaction of seeing him jerk backward, his face going pale. Turning to Jorge, I deliver a flurry of punches to his solar plexus before he can get his hands properly on me. I’m keeping an eye on Declan, cuz I’m damn sure he’s not going down with a kick to his leg unless he has a weakness there I didn’t know about.

Jorge stumbles back, and I turn to Declan just as he bowls into me with an enraged roar. Ready for him, I shift onto my weak leg and knee him in the nuts.

Thanks for the move, Karate Kid.

Hey, Connor used to like the movie.

Now both of them are whimpering, and the guy they were sent to silence is long gone. I bend over slightly, trying to catch my breath, keeping a wary eye on them, anyway.

Holy shit, these guys. They’re complete and total morons. I bet without the gang giving them a direction in life, misguided as it is, they’d be going around hitting each other over the head with clubs and growling like animals.

Angel whistles from a distance. It’s time to blow this joint. I see the gang vanishing in a side street, and hurry after them, followed by a limping Declan and a cursing Jorge. Not that I’m much better myself, favoring my good leg and struggling to move fast, even as I check the street for anyone lurking, for cops arriving.

Quiet. And still I expect a police siren, a cop hollering at us to drop down, a shot to go off. We pile up inside the two cars, and take off into the night.

All clear. We’re so damn lucky.

I know our luck won’t hold out forever. It never does.

* * *

The loot is piled in the cars, and Mav and Angel prepare to drive them away to one of the safehouses where the goods will stay until a new deal comes up for selling them.

Mav is checking the bags together with Jorge and Elena. Declan and Alfie are having an argument over who’s going to ride shotgun.

Angel is smoking a joint, the sweet smell making my mouth water. I could use a few drags to calm my frayed nerves, still my shaking hands.

“What the hell happened over there?” Angel glares at me through the curling smoke. He looks older tonight, deep grooves in his forehead and at the corners of his mouth.

Maybe it’s just the shadows.

“Nothing,” I mutter, fumble with my pack of smokes, and although my throat feels like I swallowed a cheese grater, I consider lighting up another.

“I told you to get that guy. Instead you fought with Dec and Jorge and beat them up good. What the fuck, Jarett?”

I shrug, my shoulders aching with tension. “That guy was an innocent bystander. Besides, he didn’t see a thing.”

“Fuck. Your heart is too damn soft for this game.”

What is he now, the voice of my conscience?

He’s about to kick me from the gang, I sort of feel it in my gut, and I can’t afford that. Kicking me out means shooting a hole through my chest, and then who’s gonna look after Sebastian, and his mom?

I have to make my case or I’m a dead man walking.

“You’re wrong,” I tell him, my voice sounding harsh in my own ears. “Listen to me.” I meet his gaze, hold it even if it gives me the creeps. “I could have put a bullet through the guy’s brain. But killing him would have got everyone into so much fucking trouble, and you know it.”

He draws smoke into his lungs. “Keep talking.”

“My job is to keep you safe. By you I mean Sebastian, and then the gang. I do what is best for you, not whatever your bloodthirsty mind dictates. Simple as that. You pay me to protect you. That’s what I’m doing.”

He arches a brow. “Bold. I like that. You have backbone, unlike your brother.” He gestures for me to come closer, and I do, not trusting him, prepared for the worst. When he grabs my arm, I jerk a little. “But the thing is, Jarett, I call the shots around here, not you. You’re just hired help, nothing more. When I say, get that guy, you get that guy. When I say fetch, you fetch. When I say roll over, you roll over. Do you fucking understand?”

Dammit.

I nod.

He stares at me for a few long seconds, his grip tight on my arm, his eyes narrowed and bloodshot. “You’re either all in or all out in this business, Jarett,” he says, and I hate my name on his lips. “There’s no halfway, and you’re halfway. Not a good place to be. Got no protection from either side that way. Choose a goddamn side, or I’ll choose for you.”

The side of the gang, of the family—or the side of the law.

The side of past promises—or the side of hope.

As he releases me and I stumble back, I’m not even sure I’m sent home to ponder his words, this impossible choice he’s putting on the table, or if he’s made the choice for me, if he decided I stepped over the line and I’m done.

But as I step further back, he doesn’t come after me, or gesture for Declan and Jorge to tear me to shreds, something I’ll bet they’d be fucking delighted to do. As Angel puts out his joint and climbs into one of the cars, Mav into the other, and the gang scatters, no gun goes off, no bullet tears through me.

Alive. Still alive.

I watch them go, and then I turn and head off in the direction of home, putting one foot in front of the other, my brain empty and buzzing.

I realize I didn’t even think to see where Sebastian was headed, if he went into the car with Angel or Mav, or just left with the others.

Shit.

The wind slices through me, and I barely feel it, my hands shoved deep in the pockets of my threadbare jeans. Good thing Angel and Mav didn’t drop us off far from where I live. As I approach the campus, I find streams of students passing around me, as if I’m a rock in a river.

It’s earlier than I thought, the whole breaking and entering, saving a man from getting beaten to a pulp and then getting threatened by Angel didn’t take all that long. It just felt like years to me.

Across the street, I see Declan and Elena walking, heads bowed together, and a shiver goes through me.

Dammit.

I pat my pocket for my keys, staring blindly at the students passing by, heading toward the nearby bars and bus stops and carparks, wondering what’s on their minds, if it’s just how to have a good time out, a good dinner, a good fuck. If they worry about money, and rent, and the future, like me.

Probably.

God, I wish I only worried about that stuff, that the other, bigger shit didn’t hang over my head all the time. If only life would stop dry-fucking me in the ass for a while…

And then someone stops in front of me, just as I’m taking out my key, someone familiar.

My breath stops. “Gigi?”

Her long hair is windblown, her red coat makes her face glow.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” She gestures at the building. “I wasn’t even sure this was the right place.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Is this real? She’s been on my thoughts every night and every day, replaying every moment with her, from the filthiest, hottest ones as she went down on me to the sweetness of her smile—and the cold of her absence when she stepped out the door.

I thought she never wanted to see me again, which would have made perfect fucking sense after the way I treated her, and… God, she’s so pretty, I can’t think. Blood is quickly heading south, my jeans getting too damn tight. She’s all bright blue eyes and soft lips, a heart-shaped face and a cleavage deep and mesmerizing.

My hands ache to map her every sexy curve. I ache for her, dying to bury myself inside her. I lick my lips, remembering her taste on my tongue, and my dick is about to bust through my zipper.

I reach for her, my only thought to kiss her.

But then I remember Declan and Elena across the street. I can’t see them, but I’m not taking any chances.

“Come on,” I say, grabbing her hand and pulling her after me. “Not safe for you here.”

“Why not?” she asks, her small hand folded up in mine, her voice breathless.

I don’t reply as I unlock the building door.

I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on Sebastian. He’s my family. Gigi isn’t. She isn’t, dammit. And I never made a promise to anyone to look after her, too. I’m not about to do more than I bargained for. It’s every man for himself in this world.

That’s not what Connor taught me, but it’s what he showed me.

And still I drag her inside the building and up to my apartment, breaking my rules, making a choice I wasn’t supposed to make, hoping to keep her safe.