Stone Cold - Ashby Crime Family

“Don’t act like you of all people can’t tell, Cal.”

Shit. I hated that Jasper knew me so well, that he’d been the one there for me when I nearly lost everything. Including my life. He was right, and I just nodded. Right now, she was both. Not dealing with her shit well, which made her our liability.

The question he hadn’t asked hung in the air. Was she worth the risk she posed to the family? “Did you come here for a real reason or just to check on Bonnie?”

Jas finished off the beer and nodded. “You heard about the dead priest?” I nodded; it was hard not to hear about the latest. It was particularly gruesome and had drawn together a multi-agency task force. Allegedly. Nothing had been announced officially, just email chatter going around local and state law enforcement.

“The FBI came sniffing around, including Agent Beck, asking questions about him. Find out what you can about Father Seamus O’Brien. Just in case.”

I mentally added the name to my list of things to do and gave Jasper a quick nod. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have something.”

“Good, and if you’re really worried about Bonnie, try a distraction. I seem to remember some video game helping you through your shit.”

“Some video game?” I chuckled. “You mean the apps I created that earned me my first, second and third million?”

He nodded. “And mostly from coming up with it in rehab too. You’re the best person to get her back to reality if she’s falling over the edge.”

I agreed, but it didn’t sound like something the older brother I knew and loved would ever say. I told him as much. “Were you hit in the head? Tell me something nobody else knows, so I know it’s you.”

He rolled his eyes, a move designed to make me feel like a child. Always. “If you like her, and it’s obvious you do, even if you’re not ready to admit it yet, then it’s better for her and for us that she shakes this shit and stops being a liability. I can’t have a drug addict fucking up the business.”

My shoulders relaxed and a small smile touched my lips. “There’s the calculating brother I know and love.”

He flipped me off as he walked toward the door, the sound of my laughter at his back.

Alone once again, my thoughts inevitably turned back to Bonnie and that fucking kiss. Maybe it wasn’t all that great. Hell, maybe my reaction to that kiss meant I needed to get out of the house more. Spend some time away from my computer and find a chick without an airplane hangar full of baggage.

Like I was one to talk. I could rent the one beside her.

All the more reason to keep some distance between us.

Chapter Nine

Bonnie

Pain clinics were terrible places. I couldn’t judge all clinics by the one I sat in for the third time in two weeks, but this one had a kind of franchise vibe. The paintings all had a vaguely southwestern theme with a remote nod to the area’s Native American roots. The hard plastic chairs came in two colors, alternating rows of cheerless gray and blue. Both the receptionist and the nurses shielded themselves behind a thick layer of plexiglass, which only had me clutching my purse tighter in my lap.

All around me, misery reigned. Everyone here was in pain of some sort. Physical pain was the tale we all told and most stories were legit. Yet, we all knew it was the other pain that drugs so effectively numbed. And it was that pain that had me waiting for more than three hours to get a refill. I sat here because I had to, because I knew it was only a matter of time before my parents cut off my insurance. And all the money I’d saved since I started babysitting in junior high school, working food service in college, and took whatever crummy odd jobs came along in the summers. Now my little nest egg was running low.

Dangerously low.

I’d have to do something about it soon.

I wasn’t sure how I’d survive each day dealing with this pain head on. It seemed like an impossible task, and I didn’t like to think about it, so I sat sandwiched between a woman so far gone she twitched and itched with withdrawal symptoms and a fat guy with a broken arm. I waited some more.

Patiently.

Mostly patiently.

The phone buzzed in my pocket, and I ignored it, hoping the fact that I hadn’t answered at all meant my parents would get the hint and stop calling. But as soon as the buzzing stopped, it started up again. I knew I couldn’t ignore them forever. I would tell them to stop calling and that would be it. I hoped. “Hello?”