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The apartht when I was there alone This place didn’t feel right either, but it didn’t make my skin crawl When I stripped and lay down on the bed Dovie had h that I ed to fall into a shallow and fitful sleep My dreaht of iron bars and blood, the soing to s me up I woke up in the early afternoon covered in sweat and shaking I had always lived a fairly unpredictable life, never gave ht about what it would mean for me to see the next day, and now that it was al to have regrets

I regrettedto be ht for her I regretted ever dragging Race into the darkness Our friendship had started out based on violence, and it was going to end in violence, and that sucked I regretted hating ive hiht, but I could see more clearly now that ere all the products of the choices weme in jail was the bad choice, but it was the only one he could make Titus wasn’t my enemy, but he wasn’t on , and he saw it

Then there was Dovie I should be drowning in regret where she was concerned I should be beatingin toher life upside dohen I never had any intention of sticking around to help her when everything was over My soul should be shredding fro I left black sh When I thought about her, all I could feel was light The short tiivenout of those prison gates ever had If someone as sweet, as careful with herself as Dovie, could see so about, then there wasn’t only blackness She was right; I was e could change the path that was already laid out before me Just like my destiny had always looked like my options were very clear to ue because Novak was going to killparts and so ht in the cross fire if I could help it This was a shon that had been brewing for far longer than I think anyone could really understand I didn’t have a plan, any rhyo down All I kneas that I needed to face off with the bastard and only one of us was going to make it out of the confrontation alive

I spent the rest of the day hanging around the house Titus called s were eerily quiet on the streets and it washim nervous I didn’t knohat to tell hiot a chance, which ot released, and even with all her problems, she had never disavowed me or sold me out when it would have been so easy for her to do One of us, Titus orup on her, and sinceto have to be hi to do about keeping an eye on Dovie that night, but the call went right to voice mail Too restless to stick around, I did what I did best and drove I got in the Runner, opened the throttle, and took off I didn’t have a destination in ine and the feel of all that horsepower vibrating to keep ive in to ias, until I was lost and my mind was numb I drove until the sun fell out of the sky and I needed to head back to the city and get to Nassir’s I called Race again on the way in, but he didn’t answer and cold shards of apprehension slid down my spine

I called Dovie because, really, she was the one I was ultimately worried about, and felt my heart constrict when her voice cah of relief and hung up on her She was fine; that was all I needed to keepforward

I parked the car in front of the warehouse and tried to give er needed to feel the s of fists to the face in order to getsorandeur, ulti process He was just as bad as Novak when it caao down The Point needed to be burned and purged so people like Dovie and the kids she was trying so hard to save got a fair shot atit out I would burn with it in the end if that’s what it took

I wound my way down the hallway that led to the open floor of the club Had I not been so twisted up on the inside, I would have noticed so electronic music, no sreed that always see By the time I made my way to the old factory floor, it was too late for self-preservation The hair on the back ofhalt in the center of the floor

The lights were on, so a swirl of neon slashed across Nassir’s face as he grinned atca next to hiht cut across the harsh contours of his face, it revealed the fiend that he truly was

“Nassir told h on your plate without looking for a fight, Bax”

When most people think about a crime boss, a uy who looked like Benny A slick suit So with clad in a pair of five-thousand-dollar shoes with blood on the soles Novak was anything but He was big—bigger thanand fell into eyes that were the same hollow and endless black asother than jeans and a T-shirt with boots on He had the city in a chokehold and he looked like asas I did