Scum (Wrong Side of the Tracks 1)

“Your wife? The weather lady?” Shane asked, too dumbfounded to argue with Beck’s assumption that money could take away the misery of ten years in prison. It was one thing to push a stranger under the bus, but having a member of your own family dissolved in acid instead of giving them a proper burial was a whole new level of depravity.

This guy could not be Rosen’s father.

Beck nodded and started pacing by the side of the car. “I told her to stop snorting that shit, but she said she had her own mind, and now here we are! No one’s gonna believe I didn’t know,” he said as if her dead body really was a problem for all of them.

“You’re fucking shitting me! You have all this money, and it didn’t occur to you to get her to rehab?” Shane roared and moved toward Beck, but Frank grabbed him by the arm.

Beck scowled, but his face reddened. “That’s none of your business. Now, do what I ask and take the damn money!”

Frank nodded. “We’ll discuss the options.”

Shane saw red. He knew all too well that Frank liked a cushy amount of money but to serve Ed Beck again in any way? “Like hell we will!”

“We will. It’s too much cash to ignore.” Frank pulled on Shane’s arm as if he wanted to rip it off, but the way he squeezed it three times cooled Shane’s head just enough to abandon the instinctual drive to punch the fucker who messed up his life.

“Fine,” he said and faced Jag. “Keep an eye on him!”

Jag nodded and scooted down like an obedient dog.

Shane’s legs were stiff and heavy as lead pipes on the short way to the door, but once he stepped into the warm kitchen, the air felt almost too rich, and his head spun a bit.

“What the fuck? Frank, are you shitting me?” he uttered, stalling when his eyes met Ros’s.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

The boy was as pale as fresh snow. “I overheard most of it,” he uttered. “This is insane. He’s even worse than I imagined.”

Frank put his hand on Ros’s shoulder. “Calm down. We need to consider how to handle this, and I’m not having that conversations in front of him. Shane, I’m not saying I want it, but that bag is full. We’ll do what you want, because you’ve got the right to that choice, but think it through.”

Shane stepped back, rubbing the shaved sides of his head as the rock in his throat grew. “What? I don’t need his money. I—” His gaze landed on Rosen’s ashen face again, and his heart sank.

This boy deserved more than a tiny, cold room in the junkyard. His life had taken a turn for the worse because of Shane’s thirst for revenge, so maybe giving up on getting back at Beck altogether would adequately prove that he had changed?

A part of Shane worried Rosen might disappear from his life the moment he improved his circumstances, but he had every right to make his own choices about relationships.

It hurt to imagine that the boy might leave him behind, but Shane was not scum and didn’t want a partner who only stayed with him because he had no other prospects.

“Maybe we could make him gift the cash to Ros? He could finish his university, have a fresh start.”

Shane wasn’t broke just yet, but he’d been burning through the cash Frank had saved up for him over the years at a rapid pace. Between vet bills for Cerberus, what he’d paid Ros’s old landlord, and other expenses, he wasn’t in a position to help the boy finish his education, no matter how much he wanted to.

Frank raised his eyebrows, stilling. “Wasn’t exactly what I had in mind—”

But Shane’s attention was on Ros who stepped closer, and grabbed Shane’s hand, making his heart beat faster. So maybe this would be a missed opportunity to once and for all destroy Ed Beck, but the adoration with which Ros looked at him in that moment was worth more than the junkyard would have been if it were made of gold.

“No… Shane,” Ros uttered, squeezing Shane’s hand harder. “I don’t want his dirty money. Not after finding out what he did to you. He’ll never be punished for his crime from years ago, but he could be tried for this. He’s sick in the head and so entitled I can’t believe it’s even possible. We should call the cops so he can rot in prison forever.”

Shane stared at him, but when the handsome face didn’t disperse into a blurred image straight from his drunken imagination, it sank in that Rosen was serious. That he really wanted to give Shane his closure instead of accepting the money that would have allowed Ros to live in the comfort he was used to.