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He stopped and turned on the stairs to gaze up at me

“Why do you think that?”

“She’s been getting weird text ht someone took aim at her with a car She’s just a normal chick Goes to school, lives out in the burbs, kinda by Dovie and Bax She even lives at ho threatened and scared It doesn’t have a place in the kind of life she’s got going on”

Concern flashed across his face “She got a wound-up ex or so you can look into?”

I shrugged because I didn’t know if the pissed off TA or legion of spurned suitors really counted as being wound up enough to be dangerous

“I don’t know I have a guy esan eye on her for a minute, but I don’t like it It doesn’t add up to ured out”

“You need to be looking out for yourself Add a pretty girl in the mix and you end up with a weak spot anyone from a million miles away can see Just ask my brother”

“I dunno, Titus Bax got wrapped up in Dovie and suddenly cared enough to take on the entire world for her Seeirl into theto really be dangerous for”

He tilted his head to the side “Maybe If you get any solid info—a naivedown for you”

I told hiarage I was sure he wasa mental note of all the plates on the cars so he could run theood ht let Bax and ave hi both Bax andit for our own good

I trudged to the shower of dooht full of sexual frustration that it was going to be ice cubes and not fire today The way ive testi a bed for the place And the truth of the s with Brysen and me were far fro to put the moves on her in a place that had one chair, a foldout couch, and only a bottle of Scotch in the freezer She deserved better than that I could offer her better than that, but then what? She would leave and I would have to pretend like I wasn’t living this life where I was constantly on the alert, constantly thinking twenty moves ahead

Really, one of the reasons I was living so sparsely, so unfettered, was because I knehat it was like to lose everything I had had all the opulence, all the s that any one person could want in order to live athat hadn’t hurt nearly asthat the family, the illusion that provided it all, was just made of smoke and mirrors My dad was an attempted murderer and his hands were just as filthy as my own My momwell, I didn’t kno co, and I made a conscious effort not to really find out I still had one parent I could stand to be in the same room with, not that my father allowed it Ever since he had disowned me, my contact with either one of thees

When you didn’t haveit didn’t seem that bad

I got dressed for the day, shoved a stale bagel in e floor I wanted to swing by Nassir’s and see what his take on the bodies was If we had a coure out who it ht this weekend and I wanted to knohat the odds on his fighters were Nassir never did anything as sio at each other; he always had a trick up his sleeve to , and now that ere in business together, I had to know just what those tricks were so I could hter paid out to the highest potential

Bax was talking to one of the legitie operation since he took over had beco venture No one knew oldout was unparalleled in quality He didn’t need to be helping rateful he did

He tilted his chin at me and his dark eyes flashed “You see Titus?”

“Yeah, and now I’o and talk to Nassir”