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Ugh I didn’t have the time or the space for any of it And yet when I finally drifted off, it was his pretty face and his perfect mouth that followed me into drea on me after that weird text

Chapter 2

Race

I PULLED MY FULLY restored and totally tricked out ’66, cherry-red Mustang through the security gates that surrounded the garage that looked like nothingpile of concrete and rusted metal If only the outside world knew the treasure trove of ly façade Millions of dollars’ worth of restored n imports lined the walls Some were there to be revitalized and repaired, butfor their owners to coh on this debt or that loan that they owed me If the owner didn’t pay up, I kept the car and then let my best friend chop it and turn it over for a tidy little profit

It was a system that had proven profitable and played to both ths People didn’t like it when you took their ride It was hard to explain thefaher than the average number runner and loan shark Bax had connections upon connections in the world of stolen cars, and when a debtor didn’t coh, it was an easy way to recoup the loss Besides, I think Bax still needed the thrill of jacking a car now that he waspretty clean We had a hard-and-fast rule that we never discussed this part of the garage business around my sister

Dovie was a doll She eet, full of love and kindness, and had soh all the barbed wire and chain link that surrounded Bax’s heart and taken up perrown up very differently from me, and she knew inherently that life wasn’t always easy, that the things we did in the Point changed us I knew Bax had clued her in on as going on in the highly secured compound he had started to build shortly after the death of his dad—Novak—the man who had ruled the underbelly of the city with his brutal iron fists But she loved us both enough not to ask questions or get between us and e had to do So far it was a systerowing and growing

Dovie esome, and as much as I had initially hated the idea of her and Bax as a couple, I understood now that she needed someone like my best friend to keep her safe; protect her from this place and this life And Baxwell, he needed Dovie to keep hiible to keep on living for I needed both of theround of the Point coht-hand man He had the connections both inside and outside of prison walls, the reputation, the presence to ht that reminded me why someone like me needed to take over where Novak had left off

In a place like the Point, there were always going to be bad things that fueled the day-to-day grind When people live in a place covered in filth and gris, eneral mayhem were commonplace on this particular battlefield, and when a tyrant—an evil, horrible she could hold the city in a choke hold I had no desire to do that

I understood that those things were never going to go anywhere in the Point, and as long as I was the guy in charge of how they were running, how they were being doled out to the pitiful masses, then I could make a place that was pretty much uncivilized at least mostly tolerable to live in It was tricky and risky, but I had always thrived on a good challenge, which was how I had ended up tangled up in the crio It was also why I couldn’t get enough of Brysen Carter

Everything about her was cool and pale The disdain she felt for ant shoulders whenever ithin breathing distance of each other Her deniaze tried to freeze me in place every time she looked at eous body whenever I got close le time She was polished and perfect She reminded me of another life I had kicked to the curb, and I wanted her like I wanted my next breath The fact that she couldn’t stand ht I was scuet her naked and rumple her up, but because Dovie was so fond of her, I maintained soht

As I pulled the car into the garage, closing the bulletproof, metal bay door shut behind ht of her irl A pretty blonde froht side of town, but, irl froling hunger she had eating at et even more insistent