Worth It

Pick Ryan had always been a good guy in school. But if there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that everything had changed in the last six years.



It wasn’t as if I had any other options, though. And a place to crash would be nice.



Maybe I could play along until I learned the catch.



“You sure?” I asked, watching him intently, trying to discover his ulterior motive.



Pick clasped my shoulder warmly. “Yeah, man. Of course. It’s no problem.” Waving Ten away, he called, “Let me know as soon as you get word about Zoey, okay?”



Ten flipped him off in answer and started toward the hospital as Pick guided me to an old Barracuda across the parking lot.



Once we were away from his friend, he drew in a deep breath and glanced over at me. “Now...let’s talk business.”



And here it came.



I jerked to a stop, suddenly realizing where this was going. A big guy like me, straight from the pen...I guess I did have some use.



“Fuck that,” I growled in Pick’s face. “I’m not going to be some drug runner for you, or hit man, or—”



“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Laughing, Pick lifted his hands and shook his head. “No, you got me all wrong, Parker.”



I tipped my head to the side, scowling, not sure what he was trying to pull.



After one last chuckle, he let out a long sigh. “I own a nightclub,” he explained. “And Quinn—Zoey’s husband—is one of my bartenders. I was already looking for a spot to fill since business has been booming, but now that Hamilton will be down with Zoey, I’m going to need help a lot sooner than I expected. It’s completely legitimate work. Nothing under the table. I’ll need your social security number and all that other legal bullshit to even hire you. So, now...are you interested?”



He seemed serious, so I frowned, even more confused. I’d just gotten out of the slammer, learned my family was gone, and someone was offering me a completely legitimate job?



It didn’t even sound possible.



I shook my head. “Wait, you own a nightclub?”



In school, he’d been one of the kids in foster care, always kicked around from one home to another and eating half-priced poor-kid lunches with me. “How’d you swing that?”



He grinned and shrugged one shoulder. “I fell in love with some rich man’s daughter.”



My stomach flared with heat as I narrowed my eyes. If he’d been trying to make a dig at me, he’d succeeded. I wanted to grab his neck and squeeze.



When I actually took a menacing step toward him, realization widened his eyes. He instantly lifted both his hands. “Not your rich man’s daughter. Shit. Sorry. No. Someone else entirely...from Florida.”



I don’t know why, but my coiled muscles immediately loosened. Why the hell had I been so affronted? Even if he had been talking about her, it wouldn’t have mattered. She wasn’t my rich man’s daughter. She wasn’t my anything. Not any longer. She most likely belonged to someone else now. Some lucky, rich fucker who’d never been in jail, never killed anyone with his bare hands or turned into a soulless monster. Someone who deserved her.



And her rich daddy probably approved of him, too.



“No, this is a totally different rich man’s daughter,” Pick went on. Then he shrugged. “And my situation obviously turned out better for me than yours did for you.”



“Obviously,” I said dryly.



He cleared his throat, forced a smile, and pressed, “So, about that job...”



It was bound to happen. The Bainbridge family was fated to cross paths in public with the Parker family. I was just glad my father or Garrett wasn’t around when it did.



Mother had taken me to the ladies’ boutique on Broadway to get a dress for the cotillion she and her friends had set up as a charity fundraiser. I had no idea why people paid money to go watch other people parade their daughters around in fancy, frivolous dresses, but their yearly cotillions always brought in more cash than any other fundraiser.



Mother found her favorite dress for me within an hour¸ only making me try on half a dozen outfits. It was laid out in a plastic bag she had draped over her arm when we left the boutique. We turned left to start toward her car when we had to pull up short to keep from getting run over by the rowdy mob leaving the hardware store next door.



A bunch of talkative, hyper boys surrounded two women, the younger lady cradling a baby to her chest.



I realized it was the Parker family about the same moment my mother gasped and jerked me backward away from them.



Mrs. Parker froze as well, causing her daughter to pause and look up questioningly before meeting my gaze.