Worth Fighting For (Fighting to Be Free 2)

leaving my shoulders, my mind now fully occupied on something other than a grieving Ellie.

Maybe I could race tonight. That would certainly make me feel better. I dug in my pocket for my cell phone, shooting a message to Rodriguez, one of the organizers of the races that I entered, asking if there was anything planned for tonight. There hadn’t been any whisperings of one on the streets, though, so chances were there wasn’t a race planned. Shame.

I’d make sure she was in perfect working order, just in case.

* * *

It took almost all afternoon to fix up the car and have her purring like a kitten. She was ready, raring to go, a thing of beauty. After I’d finished working on her, I’d hoisted myself up on the bench, and Ray and I were having a celebratory beer. I was halfway through the bottle when Ed walked in, his face stern and his mouth set in a tight line.

“Kid, I’ve been calling you. Why are you not answering?” he asked, frowning at the beer in my hand as if it were the sole reason I hadn’t responded to him.

I shrugged, glancing down at my cell phone on the bench next to me, seeing three missed calls from him. “Ah, sorry, I must have accidentally put it on silent when I took it out of my pocket.” I picked it up now, also seeing a text from Rodriguez confirming there was no race tonight, but he said to make sure I checked my messages again in the next couple of days. Meaning a race was on the horizon once they found the perfect venue.

Ed sighed, running a perfectly manicured hand through his slicked-back brown hair. I frowned, taking another sip of my beer, looking him over. He seemed more stressed than usual; his double-breasted suit jacket was even unbuttoned—something I rarely saw. Ed prided himself on image. He liked to wear expensive suits and a $30,000 watch to show everyone he had money and status. In all honesty, he was a douche who worked for me, someone who aspired to be number one but never would be. He was an ass-licking, smarmy prick who thought too much of himself. When he’d worked for Brett, he’d had more say in what went on—he’d been Brett’s voice a lot of the time, his number two in command. Under me, though, he ranked distinctly lower, but he still hadn’t given up his penchant for expensive suits.

“So what’s up, then?” I asked, cocking my head to the side, waiting for his reply.

His eyebrows knitted together, and his lips pursed in distaste as he spat two words. “The Salazars.”

At the name, I frowned, too. The Salazars were my biggest opposition in town. The two Salazar brothers, Alberto and Mateo, had arrived about nine months ago from Mexico, bringing some cheap-as-shit drugs with them, and had set up camp on my turf. At first they’d wanted a partnership, wanted us to start selling their drugs—some cocaine shit cut with God only knows what—and when I’d not so politely told them to take a hike, we’d become rivals. They were the lowest of the low, in my opinion. They didn’t care that their drugs were laced with rat poison or levamisole, a drug used to deworm animals that I’d heard literally rotted people’s skin off. They weren’t like us; they had no morals and didn’t care how many people they hurt or killed with their impure product. We’d had many a battle with them over territories and where they were “allowed” to sell their second-rate drugs. We had an agreement.

“What have those greasy punks done now?” I growled, tightening my hand around the bottle.

“They sent some of their little skank girls into one of our clubs last night, peddling their shit. One guy had an epileptic fit in the middle of the dance floor, and now the police are sniffing around to try to find where he got it from. I’ve been fielding questions all day; really could have done with you answering your cell!” he replied, his tone clipped and accusing.

“Motherfuckers! Why are they sending pushers into our clubs?” I snapped, shaking my head angrily. “Call Alberto, tell him I want to meet with him. Tonight,” I ordered, pulling my arm back and then launching my bottle across the workshop in anger, hearing it smash against the wall and spray glass everywhere.

I’m going to kill that son of a bitch!

CHAPTER 8

ELLIE

EACH HOUR OF the three days I’d been home felt like a painfilled eternity, yet at the same time there had barely been enough time for me to do all that was required.

Since that first visit to the hospital when the doctor had suggested I take control of the situation and make arrangements for my father’s funeral, I hadn’t stopped. I hadn’t realized how much planning and organizing was involved or how much time each task would take. Simple things, or things you would assume were simple, such as picking out flowers, took hours. Other things, like designing the order-of-service programs—and even finding a reputable place to have them printed—took even longer. I’d spent almost every spare moment sorting through photographs of my father, picking out his favorite music, and choosing readings that would be good for the service. It was painful, heart-wrenching work that seemed never-ending. Each photograph or meaningful piece of music was like a vise tightening around my heart. I’d barely managed to hold myself together; I was hanging by a thread at the moment, on the edge just waiting to tumble back over the grief cliff. I knew it would happen eventually; at some point I’d start to cry again, and when that happened, I wasn’t sure I would ever stop. Luckily, though, I was doing a good job of holding my emotions at bay—so far, anyway.

Today had been close, though. Today’s task was pushing me extremely close to that breaking point.

I looked down at my mother’s beautifully penned address book and ran my finger down the page, stopping at the last entry. Julie and Peter Watkins. I bypassed their address, finding their number and punching it into the phone. As it rang on the other end, I rubbed at my forehead, willing the headache that I’d had from sleep deprivation for the last two days to subside.

“Hello?” a woman’s chipper voice answered.

I closed my eyes and prepared myself for another painful conversation; this was the forty-second call I’d made today, working my way through my mother’s address book starting with the letter A and ending with the last couple named—the Watkinses.

“Hi, is this Julie Watkins?”

“It is.”

“Hi, Julie. My name’s Ellie Pearce. You probably won’t remember me, I think I was about fifteen or sixteen the last time I saw you,” I said, massaging my forehead a little harder. I knew my parents kept in touch with the Watkinses, but the last time I saw them was at their son’s christening about five years ago. They were friends of my parents from their college days.

“Ellie! Of course, I remember you,” she replied, her voice warm and cheerful. “How are you?”

I opened my eyes and looked down at her name in the address book, knowing I was about to obliterate that cheerful tone in her voice. I frowned. “I’m calling to tell you some bad news.” I swallowed awkwardly; no matter how many times I’d said this exact same thing today, it hadn’t gotten any easier. “My parents were involved in a car accident this weekend. My father has passed away, and my mother is currently in critical condition in the hospital.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line, a few moments of silence, and then came the words, ones I had heard so many times today that they were now meaningless to me. I knew they were uttered with good intent, but they were just words now in varying phrases but all meaning the same thing.

“Oh, Ellie. I’m so sorry!” she cried.

I’m so sorry, sorry for your loss, I’m sorry this happened. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Everyone apologized like it was their fault.

“Thank you,” I muttered. “I know you and your husband knew both of my parents from years back, so I just wanted to let you know a couple of details about my dad’s funeral in case you wanted to attend. It’s Friday at three p.m., at the crematorium on Everglade Drive. There’s a wake after at our house.”

“Of course, thank you for telling us. We’ll both be there,” Julie answered, her voice quivering as she spoke. “How is your mother? You said she was in the hos

pital?”

I nodded slowly. Throughout all of these calls, I’d tried to remain detached, not to think about what I was saying or people’s reactions to the news. It was so much easier for me to remain numb, to pretend I was talking about something else, someone else’s family, some person who meant nothing to me at all. It was the only way I could get through it. If I let myself feel the words, I never would have gotten through these calls and would probably still be a blubbering mess after the first one.