“When?”
I pulled my cell out and shot off a message to Ryan, telling him the meet was in the bag. “Thirty minutes.”
“Fuck.”
Hut let the girl go and spun around. “Let’s get.” I moved to the side as he practically sprinted into the living room to tell his crew about the meet he’d been trying to get for over a month.
“Hey,” I greeted the girl. She raised her brows at me in response and uncapped her bottle.
“Brody!” Hut shouted, a command that I couldn’t leave unanswered. However much I wanted to talk to this girl and see if she’d be my in, I needed to go through with the plan that had been set out.
I spun around, moved into the living room, and grabbed my leather jacket on my way out the door. It wasn’t hard for me to fit into this world. I’d grown up in it. I never thought I’d get myself out only to thrust myself back into it, but that was the job.
Hut and his crew climbed into his blacked-out SUV that was out of place in the run-down street, but no one took a second look at it. “He wants to meet at Lucky’s. I’ll follow you there.” Hut nodded in reply, and I pulled the door open to the car I was using. I hated this thing. I preferred my Mustang, but I couldn’t rely on that in a gunfight.
I took one last look at the house, my gaze meeting the girl as she closed the door. She paused for a second, her brows furrowing, and I sped off.
My mind was a whirl of thoughts as I caught up with the SUV. The girl could be the answer to everything, but I needed to investigate it more. A file on people could only tell you so much, and as much as the words on a page and photos taken in the streets said, it had nothing on figuring it out in person.
I’d been biding my time for months, working my way in with Emerson “Hut” Hutton slowly. He surrounded himself with his crew—four guys who he trusted. I’d been chipping away at a couple of them, but no one had said anything that I could use as of right now. They were impenetrable, no matter what I said. Time was a gift we’d been given, but it was also a curse. The more time I spent on this case, the more I felt like the person I was before I’d gotten out.
I pulled to a stop outside the bar Lucky’s and switched my engine off. Hut and his crew jumped out of the SUV, and it hit me how easily I could have become him. There was a fundamental difference between us, though. He wanted to hurt people and make money. I wanted to help them.
My cell vibrated, and I pulled it out, seeing Ryan’s reply.
Ryan: To your left.
I pushed out of the car, stretched my arms above my head, and flicked my gaze over to the left. I couldn’t see inside the car parked at the curb and a little way down, but I knew that Ryan and either Kyle or Jordan would be inside it.
The four of us were a force to be reckoned with. Hut had his crew, and I had mine. The only question was which crew would win.
I was taking bets that we would. After all, we were the good guys.
Chapter Two
LOLA
I walked down the hallway, following the flow of people out of the main doors. Community college was a lot different from what I’d been expecting. I thought it would just be an extension of high school, but I was so wrong.
The people who attended ranged in age and experience, but I found myself veering toward the older students who were taking classes. They were more serious about their studies, probably because they thought it was their last chance.
I loved it here more than anywhere else. It didn’t matter that I had to travel for an hour on the train each day to get here, because it was all mine. My own little slice of heaven that no one could snatch away from me. No one knew who I was here. They didn’t know that I was the stepsister of “Hut.” They didn’t steer away from me, afraid that one wrong look or one bad word would get them hurt. They didn’t use me to get closer to him. If anything, I was invisible, just the way I liked it.
The heat of the sun beat down on me as I stepped outside, and I paused on the sidewalk to bask in it. I never just stopped to take everything in. There was always something to do or somewhere to be. Between my classes and my job at the diner, I felt like I never stopped. But it wasn’t enough.
Once I’d paid my travel costs and paid for my food, I barely had anything left to save, and that was the end goal. To save enough money so I could leave the house. It had been six months since I’d started college and my new job, and I had just over five hundred dollars in an envelope under my bed. It was slow going, and at this rate, I’d be out of the house in four years.
I wasn’t sure if I’d survive another year, never mind four.
Emerson was getting worse and worse—Hut, I had to remind myself. The more time I spent away from home, the more he tried to control me. I wouldn’t let him though. I wasn’t his to command, no matter how much he disagreed with me.
I shook my head and walked forward, needing to get to the diner to start my shift. It only took me ten minutes to get there, and as soon as I stepped inside, I knew today’s shift wasn’t going to be an easy one.
The black leatherette booths lined up in front of the windows with tables dispersed between them and the main counter. Most of the stools were taken, and people lined up behind them to make their orders. Janice stood behind the counter, her dark-red hair falling out of her ponytail as she scribbled on a pad, so I stepped toward her.
“I’ll be right there, Jan!” I shouted over the fray of students who wouldn’t do without their shakes.
“Oh, thank god.” She raised her hands in the air. “It’s Friday.”