Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Sure, maybe the guy just had his conscience kick in and wanted to stop shit before they went any further. But I dunno. Something just didn’t sit right with me about it. I couldn’t put my finger on why, so I had to let it drop.
All the capos had their ears to the ground, but no one was talking about the robbery. It was rare for petty criminals like that not to run their mouths. Something always slipped eventually.
Unless they hadn’t known who they were stealing from and were now lying low in fear of retribution.
All I knew was a week and a half passed with no leads and I found myself dropping into the meat shop even when I didn’t need to be there on the off-chance that Kick would be back early.
Not that I’d given her much incentive to do that when she had ten grand in her hands. Judging by her place, that kind of money could set her up for months.
That didn’t stop me from tensing as I walked up to the shop, wondering if she would be there behind the counter, making sandwiches. Or pushing through the crowd and threatening guys who got too handsy.
“Boss,” Ricky called, making me jerk, realizing I’d been lost in thoughts of Kick walking through the door.
He wasn’t back at a hundred-percent yet either. But he claimed he was suffering at home, that his wife was only feeding him ‘rabbit food,’ and not letting him sleep for more than half an hour at a time without waking him up, despite the doctor telling her that was mostly an old wives’ tale about concussions.
So we all went with the story that he’d fallen and smacked his face. Which wasn’t even much of a lie.
“What’s up?” I asked, rolling a crick out of my neck.
“Got someone here to see you,” he said.
“A customer?” I asked, not sure I was in the mood to deal with someone’s bitching about the price of roast beef or how their ‘thinly-cut’ meat wasn’t thin enough. Or whatever the fuck someone wanted to complain about.
“No. Well, he ordered a sandwich, but no.”
“Alright,” I said, brows pinched as I followed him out.
Only to find my fucking cousin standing on the other side of the counter.
“Bastian?” I asked, taken aback. “The fuck?” I added, going around the counter to grab him and pull him in for a quick hug. “I was supposed to be picking you up.”
“Yeah, well, now you don’t gotta.”
We were only cousins, but the family resemblance was strong with us. Our old men were practically impossible to tell apart. And their genes had been strong.
We were both tall with a slim, but strong frame. Though, with his time away, Bass had clearly been doing more working out than I’ve been.
His dark hair was shaved short and the time away had etched his features a little more sharply. He had dark brown eyes with lashes chicks were always commenting on.
“You got some prison ink, huh?” I asked, pushing his head to the side to inspect the tattoo on his neck that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen him.
“Gotta do something to kill the time,” Bass said, shrugging.
“Roast beef on rye,” one of the guys called, making Bastian raise his hand.
“That’s on the house,” I said to Ricky, who gave me a nod. “Anything he eats is on the house,” I added.
“Perks to having a cousin in high places,” Bass said, taking the food. “Place is nice.”
“Just finished some renovations. Eat in the back where we can talk.”
“Huh,” Bass said as he followed me into the back.
“What?”
“Just curious if having a fully plastic room with a drain in the floor was part of the decision-making process in buying the meat shop,” he said, shooting me a smirk.
“To be fair, the walls didn’t exist before the renovations,” I told him, getting a little grunt out of him as he took a bite of his sandwich. “How’d you get all the way here?” I asked as we got into the office.
“They give us all a Q100 to get off the island. But I had a nice chain on when I was brought in. Walked around, found a pawn shop, got the cash, and used the cash to get here.”
“Woulda been easier to wait for me to come get you.”
“Been in a cage for years. Felt good to be able to move around. Haven’t been away so long that I forgot how to get around.”
That was fair. Both having shitty home lives, we’d been kicking around Brooklyn and the rest of the boroughs since we were in elementary school.
“So what are your plans for the day? Figure after food and a change of clothes, it likely involves a woman.”
“Gotta admit, it was disappointing as fuck not to see a single one here.”