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I grabbed him I couldn’t help it I wrapped oing to run away fro down as he looked down atto offer yourself up as the sacrificial lamb? That doesn’t solve the problem, it just places you in the line of fire instead of Race”

“Yeah, Bax I followed you willingly down this path You didn’t have to drag , knew the risks ere taking, and you already gave up enough in this nightmare Novak is my problem”

Bax swore and I think led hirip

“Novak is the Point’s proble, the bitter taste of Shane disappearing behind everything that was Bax right before my eyes

“And you have to be the one to take care of it?” It was a stupid question to ask and I al in his eyes when he looked at er that I was equal parts scared of and fascinated by He pulled out the big guns, the ones that there was no way Race could argue against I knew, just like that, the battle was over

“I went to jail for you, Race I spent five years hating you, being disappointed in you, and convincing ht understand why you had to do it, but that’s five years I won’t get back and you owetape and let me handle Novak You keep your sister safe and make sure no more of this nasty shit blows back on her”

I wanted to argue, wanted Race to protest, but he just nodded, and like that, everything shifted I wasn’t Bax’s lover, his friend, or his partner in the shared goal of finding Race; I was just souy and this was the kind of life we lived in the Point No one got a happy ending, and I should have knoas not the exception to the rule

CHAPTER 13

Bax

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN Gus knewget by him, and I should’ve been more clued in by the fact that he wasn’t more alarmed by Race’s disappearance than he was As it turned out, arage for personal reasons Reasons that involved ht under Novak’s nose all along, so close it was really going to chap his ass when everything played out Served the bastard right That’s what happened when any one man tried to play God over so h in his face and putto have to get the bitter taste of the last look Dovie had givenI could see it in her eyes; she wantedinto the lion’s den I couldn’t do it Not only because she would be eaten alive if she tried to stay bya line I never would have iot under s different, but that wasn’t going to be possible, so I put her in the passenger seat of Race’s cherry ’66 Mustang without a kiss good-bye and closed the door I watched her eyes turn froht sky, and it twisted so to takewith a frown, and when I told hi happened to her I would hold hi offended or hostile, he just nodded his head solemnly and toldas careful when playing Russian roulette with a guy like Novak, so I didn’t bother to respond I lit up a cigarette and watched as the taillights disappeared around the corner It was already close to dawn and there was no going back to bed, not after having a gun ininon the disappoint off of Dovie as she walked away I couldn’t pretend like she didn’t matter, but I also couldn’t pretend like I didn’t know she needed so her way She didn’t need to spend one second of her tirave or the penitentiary, and those were about the only two options she was going to get if we kept going the ere together

I dug my phone out of my back pocket, and for the third time, which was more than I ever had in ht away, so I finished the cigarette and went back up to the now thoroughly trashed apartoing to pull a gun on htly, even if I could understand his displeasure at finding me naked and totally wrapped around his sister That wasn’t anything a big brother wanted to walk in on

I was stripped down and getting ready to rinse the entire night away in a scalding shohen , I wrapped a towel around my waist and went to answer the callback

“Nohat?”

Titus sounded annoyed and I couldn’t really blahbors had reported the disturbance earlier He was pissed Race had shown up out of the blue, and even more pissed when I told him about the nine-ret forcing this brotherly-bond thing when he knew good and well it only e

“I have the flash drive”

I didn’t think he was going to need any ht I heard hiave you the video?”

“A copy of it It’s stored on a hard drive somewhere in Gus’s shop, which is where he’s been this entire time, by the way”

Titus swore “Shoulda known that old bastard knewon”

“That’s what I said when he toldto turn the video over to me so I can arrest Novak” It wasn’t said as a question

I scowled at ed reflection in the le week since I had been let out, I had ed to find myself in some kind of physical altercation My life was violent, filled with blood and uncertainty, and there was no place in it for a girl like Dovie, even if I already felt like there was a hole where she had been