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The bathrooross, so I took care of business as fast as I could and scrubbedon a layer of lip gloss and trying to ascertain just how drunk I was by touching the tip of er, when the door to the small room rattled I jumped away from the mirror, and hollered that I would be out in a et in Had I been sober, I probably would have been way ave up the fight and the figure crowded into the room with me, it was all I could do to muster up some startled surprise

I er that I had seen around hborhood, the man who I was sure had tried to ross bathroorabbed ainst the sink Now that only a fraction of space separated us, I no longer had a hard ti him

"Silas"

I said it like people said the word cancer, which is really what he was Silas Anderson was all the bad things to all the bad people, and if he hofrom, then whatever Asa had told nized him earlier was that life clearly had not been kind to him since I left Woodward He was a year older than Asa but looked like he was fifty His skin was gross and taunt, his eyes wild and sunken, and his once decent hair hung stringy and oily around an ugly face It was hard to believe that at one point, this guy had been considered a catch It was equally hard to believe that at one point, I hadn’t considered sleeping with him to be all that bad of a chore, if it kept him off my brother’s back Now, the idea made my stomach lurch and my head spin

"Where’s the book, Ayd? I know Asa is here I knew that pussy couldn’t resist running to you to fix his shit, like always I need that book back now"

I tried to shake him off, but the space was too small and he was fueled by desperation and panic

"I don’t knohat you’re talking about" My teeth clicked together hard when he started to shake me

"I don’t knohat your idiot brother told you, but this isn’t sive the book back, these people won’t just kill hier on your ot a hand on his chest and shoved hile toward the door

"What are you talking about? Asa toldhe took"

Silas barked a laugh that made my skin crawl "No way That moron jacked the little black book from one of the local MCs It has the totals due andsouth I don’t knohat he thought he was going to do with it, but now he has everyone and their goddaet it back You know he’ll sell you out faster than a greased pig to get out of this mess, Ayd Just tell me where it is"

"Did you try to break into my house?"

He looked around the rooy and wild "Little bitch almost Tasered me in the nuts"

"You’re lucky she didn’t shoot you She’s from Brooklyn, and she doesn’tthe question I know he’s here I followed you around for days waiting for him to ask you to make it all better Just like he always did"

I tried not to convulse in disgust when his eyes raked over me from head to toe

"I don’t do that for him anymore, any of it This is his mess to clean up" I made sure my point was clear "I don’t knohere he is and I don’t know anything about a book"

Silas swore and I juy lass bits

"This isn’t a gas and guns, and they have no probleround in the backwoods if it suits the tothe crap out ofto break intoto fly here"

I pulled the door open and glared at hiet hi happens tostupid with it and he lied about needing the twenty grand so he could disappear This is Asa, you knohat he’s capable of"

Silas’s gummy eyes skirted over me from the top of my head to the worn toes of my boots "So do you, Ayd, and if you think for one hot second that piece of shit would be above selling your fine ass to an MC, if itand that fancy college didn’t teach you shit"

I walked out the door shaking from the inside out I had tried so hard to keep the past froet about the things I’d done and the way I had lived, but it seeht on cra it down my throat At that moment, I could say in all honesty that I hatedhe represented, and yet I was still going to have to try to figure out a way to keep hi froreed

When I got back to the table, I wasn’t at all surprised to see that we had visitors Shaas sitting on Rule’s lap while he finished her beer, and Jet had taken up post in the seat I had recently vacated They were all laughing at so, and I felt my heart sink This was the family I had alanted These were the people who I could count on, ould loveofI orth aze found mine and I tried to force a s out of those dark depths I wished so badly that I could just answer a single one of them I stopped at his side and smiled for real when his hand curled aroundon?"

"We were hanging out at Rule’s when Shaw called in an SOS I figured since I was close by I could just scoop you two knuckleheads up and take you home, so you didn’t have to wait for a cab"