Chapter 26

I can now forget what I’m doing while I’m actually doing it.

-Text from Travis to Hannah

Travis

“Got it,” Evander grunted, attaching the last chain. “You want me to go ahead and deliver it straight to the bank?”

I nodded my head. “Yea. It’s getting on up there in time…”

My phone rang, and I winced when I saw the screen.

I held up my hand at Evander. “Go, I gotta take this.”

I didn’t want to take this, but I had to.

Evander gave me a lazy wave and then got into the truck and drove off all before I could say another word.

Wiping the sweat off my forehead—we pushed the fucking car all the way out of the garage from the top floor—I answered it with a terse, “Hello?”

“Travis?”

I’d heard Allegra crying all of four times in my life, so to hear her actively bawling, and sounding like she was in pain, it made me stop for a few moments.

“Yeah?” I asked warily.

“Something bad happened to me,” she sniffled. “And I need to tell you something.”

Need to tell me something?

“What?” I asked, wondering if what she had to tell me was related to how fucked up and stupid she was for having driven my child in a car with her while she was drunk off her ass.

“I’m sick,” she coughed. “And I want to give you some papers.”

“What kind of papers?”

I heard her moan.

“Papers that give up my rights as a parent,” she hesitated. “I know that what I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have pursued custody in court, and I think it’s time that I leave. Leave this town, and never come back.”

That made me angry.

“And what about Alex?” I growled.

“Alex is safer without me around. I’m not in a good place. I’ve done some…things,” she hedged.

Some things.

I didn’t want to know what ‘things’ she’d done.

Not at all.

But I sensed that if she didn’t meet with me, she’d be gone for good, and I would forever be waiting for the other shoe to drop when it came to her.

So, I agreed to meet.

“Fine,” I said. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Your house?”

I snorted. “Definitely not.”

She made a frustrated noise. “How about mine?”

That wouldn’t be happening either.

“I’ll be at the office in ten. We can meet in the parking lot there.”

It was only a few blocks away, and it was as neutral as it could get in a town this small with people that made it a living to butt into everyone else’s business.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be there in about a minute and a half.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll get there when I get there.”

She said something else, but I’d already hit the ‘END’ call button and shoved it into my pocket.

Then I thought better of it, remembering my fight with Hannah last night, and pulled it back out to call her.

She didn’t answer, though.

So I left a voicemail and got into my truck.

It took me eight to get back to the shop, but only because it seemed like every single officer in the county was now on their way to a scene.

Making a mental note to turn my radio onto scan once Allegra was through with whatever bullshit she had to give me so I could figure out what in the hell was going on, I pulled into the parking lot of my business and parked in one of the bays.

Once I had it where I wanted it, I shut the truck off and got out, looking around at all the trucks that were supposed to be there today that weren’t.

There was only one tow truck in the bay today, and that was one that was meant to be serviced.

Hell, even the service guys weren’t around.

Where the hell was everyone at?

“There you are,” I heard Allegra’s voice come from behind the truck.

I turned, took one step, and felt the most searing pain I’d ever felt hit my chest.

I heard the roar of the shotgun just as my head hit the concrete.

I’d fallen.

I’d hit the ground so hard that I was having trouble breathing.

Or was it because I’d been hit in the chest by something?

My brain was fuzzy, and I couldn’t make sense of things.

Allegra? Had Allegra hit me with something?

***

Baylor

I grunted as I pulled the last of the chains off the truck.

Today was normally the day that I’d be off, but since we were short staffed, I’d come in anyway.

Now I was having to deal with this bullshit.

“Listen,” the woman whose car I was repossessing pleaded, “if you take the car, I have no way to get to work.

I looked over at her, then dropped down to my knees and started to crawl under the car to attach the chains.

They weren’t needed, not with today’s technology and advances when it came to towing, but I was old school. I liked them on there because it made me feel better, so sue me.

That’s when I felt something on my foot.

I looked down at the woman—girl really. What was she, all of twenty-one?

“Don’t touch me,” I ordered.

I hated being touched. Fuck, that was why I hadn’t had sex in over eight years.

I was seriously on the verge of kicking out with my foot when she let go, then fell to her ass in defeat.

“Perfect,” she whispered.

That’s when the tears started to drip out of her eyes.

Fuck!

I hated when women cried. Especially pretty ones.

Shit, fuck, damn.

I attached the chain and scooted out from under the car, not bothering to dust the dirt and grass off my back. This wasn’t the first time today I got on the ground, and wouldn’t be the last. That I knew for sure.

If I wasn’t repossessing a car, I’d be towing a truck to either A, the impound yard. B, an auto mechanic, or C, a body specialist to get repair work done due to a wreck.

Not all of my pick-ups were repossessions.

And most of them didn’t come with crying women. The majority of them came with little to no trouble at all, but if there was trouble, I preferred it in the form of a man swinging his fist at my face instead of tears.

But that’s just me.

I lived for the adrenaline spikes that this job offered me.

“Come on, darlin’.” I held out my hand. “I’ll take you where you need to go.”

She looked around the parking lot—the mall parking lot—and swallowed.

She didn’t take my hand.

“That’s okay,” she whispered. “I’ll walk. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again.”

I didn’t get a chance to say anything before my phone rang.

When I pulled it out of my pocket and placed it to my ear, the woman was already slinking away, her head hung.

I resisted the urge to wrap my arms around her shoulder—because goddamn I did not need another crying woman on my hands—and answered the phone.

“Yo.”

“Get down here now.”

“Tate?” I asked.

Before I could reply, he said, “Shop.” And then hung up.

I didn’t even look back at the woman as I dove for the open door of my truck.

If Tate was out, and he said to get to the shop now, then something was seriously wrong.

Five minutes of bat-shit-out-of-hell driving later, I arrived at the shop and pulled into the parking lot just in time to see Tate Casey, my best friend, and the man that’d been in jail for what felt like forever, aim a gun at the back of Allegra’s body, and pull the trigger.

She fell like a rock, clutching her arm.

When she scooted around and went to turn to see what had hit her, Tate stepped behind the rack of tires, and I bailed out of my truck.

I took the gun from my friend, the one that normally hung in Travis’ office, and looked at him with confusion clouding my eyes.

That was until I saw my brother on the floor, blood pooling around him on the dirty bay floor, with a hole in his chest. Well, a lot of them.

That was likely due to the shotgun discarded haphazardly at Allegra’s feet.

“Fuck, man,” I groaned. “Get the fuck out of here. Don’t come back for a few days.”

When I turned to make sure Tate complied, he was already gone.