Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance (77 page)

Instantly she was pissed again, her hand on her hip, her cheeks going pink as she drew in her breath.

“You know what? Maybe you
do
need a boss, Auger. At least if you’re going to
sell your ass
 you should
get paid
.”

“Let’s get one thing clear,” he hissed, pulling up close to her. She stood her ground and he almost lost it, smelling her sweat right there in front of him, her cheeks red, her hair damp along her hairline. “
Nobody
 tells me what to do. I’m not taking that asshole’s money. I make my own decisions.”

Callie said nothing, just stood there glaring like she was daring Auger to make a move. Seconds ticked by. He quaked as a flurry of images pounded through his mind: holding her, smashing Winsor’s face in, Twister’s rage, and the last time he saw Callie’s cheeks that deliciously flushed. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides but Callie held her ground defiantly, her chin jutting out in a brazen dare.

If she doesn’t let up, I’m going to have to...

Suddenly, a bell went off.

“Hey, isn’t that your cue?” Auger whispered snidely, so happy she was going to have to give in. “Don’t you need to get back to work?”

Squinting her eyes, she nodded subtly. Her shoulders went down and she looked smaller. The bell went off again and he saw her wince a little. All at once he saw how silly this all was and wanted to take it all back. Throw it in reverse, start over.

I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have broken my word for a lousy grand. I shouldn’t have dropped that guy to the mat. I should have kept going looking for straight jobs, trying to be the man I told her I would be, so Bryce could be the man he was supposed to be too.

As she turned away he desperately wanted to drag her back and apologize. But as usual, it was too late.

There were still two matches left in the night, but suddenly he desperately needed air. As the lights went on over the ring for the second bout, he slipped through the crowd and made his way back to the dressing room. The hallways seemed too narrow and chilly, and the dressing room reeked of armpits and disinfectant spray.

Reaching for his clothes, he found an envelope with “Odin” scrawled on it in overly-large print. Inside were ten crisp hundred dollar bills. He flipped through them, chewing the inside of his lip and trying to tamp down his disgust. After all that pride-swallowing, he was barely closer to even than he had been at the beginning of the night.

 Flipping through the hundreds again, he saw the small cream-colored business card. “Winsor Cooke,” it read simply. Penned neatly on the bottom was a handwritten number and the simple words, “personal cell.”

Callie

The front door banged open against the plaster wall, shaking the whole apartment and hurling Callie out of sleep. She bolted out of her room and toward the kitchen. Auger sat upright on the couch and squinted toward the commotion as Bryce stumbled into the apartment, his arms flung out sideways to steady himself.

“Dammit, Bryce! Do you have to make so much noise?” she yelled, clutching her chest and leaning heavily against the wall.

“Yeah, what the fuck, man,” Auger complained from the sofa, pushing his hair back from his face. “You scared the crap outta me.”

“Yeah… fuck you both…” Bryce slurred, leaning against his forearms and working his gym shoes off slowly.

Auger sighed through his nose and settled back on the sofa, squinting away from the beating sunlight through the window. It was about 9 am. Auger pretended to fall back asleep.

Callie watched Bryce stumbling through the small galley kitchen, slamming cabinet doors, flipping on the tap, opening the fridge three times in a row.

Finally she groaned in defeat. “Dude, sit down,” she said. “I’ll make you some eggs or something.”

“Oh, now you wanna do something for me?” Bryce shot back.

She flinched but didn’t respond. A few more cabinet doors slammed and then a pan clattered against the ceramic tile floor and Bryce cursed at it.

“Seriously, sit down before you break something. I’ll cook,” she insisted.

Bryce lurched from the kitchen, narrowly missing banging his forehead on the beam that separated the counter from the living room. He grabbed for the counter and swung around, planting his body heavily in one of the bar stools on the other side. His head dropped into his hands.

“That bad huh?” she asked carefully as she took eggs and bacon from the fridge and laid them on the counter.

“Fugoff,” came Bryce’s muffled groan from behind his palms.

She grabbed the orange juice, then thought better of it and picked up the Gatorade. She splashed a healthy portion in a glass and slid it toward her brother. Bryce didn’t acknowledge it, just sat there holding his forehead and moaning.

Holding herself back from humming, she got breakfast ready. The coffee was already brewing by the time the electric stove was heated up. The heavy pan felt satisfying in her hand, and the immediate sizzle of the bacon against the cast iron set her mouth watering.

Slicing some leftover baked potato into some heated butter, she had the distinct impression their grandmother would be pleased, if not impressed. Every task was done with precision, nested into other tasks and timed perfectly.

In nine minutes flat, she set a steaming plate of fluffy scrambled eggs, home fries and bacon in front of Bryce and smiled at him proudly. Bryce rubbed his forehead hard.

“Callie,” he mumbled, “you gotta go.”

She rolled her eyes and pursed her lips out. “Haha, very funny. You wanted over easy eggs?”

“No,” Bryce shook his head. He looked up at her with a desolate expression that made her wince. “I’m sorry,” he finally whispered.

She took a step back, her mouth open. “Bryce, what are you talking about?”

“It’s just… We gotta get outta here. I can’t… This was just gonna be temporary, right?”

“Bryce, you are not making any sense. We don’t have to go anywhere. We have to keep just moving forward. Right? Like we said?”

She watched Bryce take a sniff of the food, then push the plate away. He kept his eyes cast down. Auger stirred on the couch, sitting up and meeting her eyes from across the room. Silently she pleaded with him.

Fix this! Help me!

“Callie, it’s just… I don’t know,” Bryce continued after a few more long seconds. He looked like he was talking to the countertop, and his shoulders were caved in as though an invisible block of granite weighed him down. “I figured we’d be on our feet a long time ago… But nothing seems to be going like I thought...”

“No...” She heard herself say as she struggled to keep her confusion to a dull roar. Something was very wrong here. Auger heard her tone rise and stood up in his boxer briefs, walking slowly toward the kitchen. “Bryce, what’s changed? Why are you talking like this?”

“Man, why don’t you just get some sleep…” Auger suggested softly, his hand covering Bryce’s shoulder. Despite herself, Callie wanted to reach out and lace her fingers in his, to thank him for being here so she didn’t have to do this alone anymore. “We can talk about this later.”

Bryce shook his head. “Naw, it’s done.”

Auger glanced at Callie, the alarm plain on his face.

“What is done?” he said, keeping his voice carefully even. “What the hell is different from last night? I got paid, you got paid… Everything is better right?”

Bryce looked away.

“Wait… Everything
is
 better, right? Bryce?” Callie said quietly as a sick feeling rose in her chest. She was starting to get a pretty clear idea what had happened. She knew the feeling of a morning with collapsing options only too well.

Sometimes being in too is just... too damn deep. I should know
.

“Bryce, what did you do?” she asked softly.

Bryce laughed disgustedly, shaking his head. “Well first I beat Trent’s ass,” he snorted.

“That was great,” she agreed, remembering. He was solid, going all three rounds doggedly like it was his job to stretch the clock to the limit, finally winning by points.

“Heh, yeah. So Orion’s guys came to me with three thousand and asked for the other seven. Which of course I don’t have.”

“Oh—”

“Yeah.”

“Come on. Orion’s got you in the bag,” Auger offered helpfully. “He knows you’ll work it off.”

Bryce shook his head. “So I asked for a day to get it, and took the three Kand went out to Rivers.”

“But you suck at blackjack,” Auger reminded him.

Bryce chuckled cruelly. “Yes. Yes I do,” he moaned.

Callie stared hard at Bryce, trying not to judge him, trying not to feel betrayed. His shoulders were hunched over and his hands opened and closed repeatedly. She felt like she could see the weight that was crushing him.

Don’t scream at him. Don’t lecture. This is hurting him too, I know it.

“I wish I could help you, bro,” Auger said softly. Callie thought of all the times Auger had helped him before. Growing up, Bryce had always needed a push here, a leg up there. Auger got him better grades, better dates, and out of more than a few scrapes with the county police.

“Your stuff will be easy to pack, at least,” Bryce offered weakly, glancing at the sofa. He looked like a dog that had been caught stealing dinner off the counter and was now resolved for the inevitable beating he would get. Callie’s heart ached. She could clearly see the little-boy Bryce she had been taking care of practically all her life now.

She looked up and met Auger’s light brown eyes. His big hand covered Bryce’s shoulder and he looked at her with unconcealed tenderness and pity. He seemed so sad, so soft for her, like he used to. If there was anybody in the world who understood how much she loved Bryce, it was him. He felt it too. She knew it.

“It always seems worse than it is, Bryce,” she whispered. He just shook his head and wouldn’t look up.

Auger held her eyes until the realization started to dawn on her. Bryce wasn’t exaggerating. This was not a drill. This was it. The end of the line. Fear coiled in her chest and squeezed her lungs.

“Oh no,” she heard herself whisper hoarsely. Her hand trembled against the countertop so hard that it made a knocking noise. Auger reached out and gave her fingers a hard squeeze. Then he angled his body to the side, blocking her off from Bryce, trying to make a shield for the news he knew was coming.

“So… the plan is… what, to run? We shouldn’t have to
run
, man. We can fix this.”

Bryce shrugged. He finally lifted his eyes and Auger to see the truth was there. “Running is all we have left. Actually, it’s our smartest move… They don’t know anything about us, really. They do know where we live, though… they’ll take it outta you guys if you’re here when they get here, and I’m not. And I’m
definitely
 not sticking around… If I’m outta here, you better be outta here too.”

“How did this happen? You just told us about it yesterday…”

He half-shrugged, his eyes cutting guiltily sideways. From the slope of his posture, it looked like this weight had been secretly crushing him for some time.

Callie nodded and breathed a heavy sigh. Hope dissolved like the last light going off in a big room. They didn’t know anyone else in the city to turn to. Her own failures crowded into the front of her thoughts.

I never got the food blog going.

I never got a better job.

I never even learned to use that camera!

We should probably consider ourselves lucky we have the cash to get back to Fox county. If that is even an option anymore...

“I feel… like shit…” Bryce groaned from between his bruised hands.

“Yeah,” Auger sighed. “Me too, man.”

Callie tossed the pans in the sink and turned on the tap to fill them with water out of habit. The magnitude of what Bryce was suggesting was just starting to settle in. Give up Chicago, turn around, run home. Cut off all paths that led away from Millslake. It felt stifling: as though a hundred doors suddenly slammed shut.

But Bryce probably didn’t want to hear her whine about how much she was really looking forward to making a trendsetting website right now. If he really thought Orion’s guys were coming… He probably thought they were coming for blood.

Bryce is in a lot deeper than he’s letting on,
 she realized suddenly.

Walking to the sofa, Auger jammed a pair of jeans in his big army-surplus duffle and surveyed the bay window with his hands on his hips. It would take him all of four minutes to pack. He didn’t have anything. Nudging his discarded track pants with the toe of his sock, he exposed the envelope beneath them. He bent over and picked it up, turning it over in his hands.

“How long do we have?” Auger asked suddenly, turning around. Callie flipped the tap water off to listen.

Bryce rubbed his bleary eyes and squinted over his shoulder. “What?”

“Do you really think Orion’s guys are coming here?”

Bryce nodded silently, his lips set in a hard line.