Ryan (Mallick Brothers 2)

I reached for my cell and went toward the hall, slipping into her apartment for privacy and hitting the first number that came to me.

The other end picked up and my ear was assaulted with music and a woman's laughter. "Yeah?" Mark's voice asked, still half-laughing about something that I had interrupted.

But there was no time for guilt.

"Got a problem," I said and I could hear him immediately moving away from the noise until there was nothing.

"What's up?" he asked, tone serious.

"Remember my neighbor and the guys she got herself wrapped up with?"

There was a short pause and a very tentative, "Yeah?"

"They're drug dealers and she held the stash. Tonight she was robbed and busted up and, well..."

"That shit ain't gonna fly," he supplied for me.

Exactly.

"Yeah."

"Give me a name for the dealer and I will do some digging."

"Bry. That's all she gave me. They've been friends since they were kids. It's 30s so I don't think you have to worry about it being Third Street. They're more into their cheap street shit. Who is running pharmaceuticals around here anymore?"

It wasn't something I often had a need to know, to keep up to date on. We all kept an eye and ear on the bigger players in town- The Henchmen, Hailstorm, the Grassis, Richard Lyon, and...

"Oh, fuck. Tell me it's not fucking Lex, man," I said, raking a hand down my face, my calloused palms catching on the stubble there.

Mark paused. "I can't say for sure. He has his hands in everything, but I doubt he would have his shit sitting in some apartment with no protection."

True.

"Here's hoping," I agreed.

"How is she?" Mark asked into the silence.

I exhaled. "Holding it together. Looks like hell. But nothing seems serious. She's staying with me until she can stomach her own place again."

"Good," he said, uncharacteristically missing an opportunity to rib me. "So, I'm assuming that when you find out who these guys were..."

"They're going to pay," I agreed, hanging up.

There were some goddamn basic rules every decent person followed in life- you tipped your serving staff, you gave money to the people with bells at Christmas, you held doors, and you fucking never put your hands on a woman in anger.

It was time they learned that lesson the hard way.

And I was a really good fucking teacher.EIGHTDustyIs it bad that my first thought when they charged into my apartment and I knew exactly what I was in for was worrying about what Ryan would think when I saw him the next day?

I was pretty sure that was not the right thing for me to be thinking at that particular moment- men I had never met or even seen before screaming at me, shoving me, demanding to know where the pills were.

It wasn't that I hadn't been scared. But I found that all my years stressing over invisible monsters somehow made it easier for me to focus through the fear than maybe most would be able to in that situation.

So when the bigger guy slammed his fingers into my chest, making me stumble back and slam into my wall, knocking my lamp over in the process, I had somehow been able to realize that giving them that information wasn't going to help me.

Someone was going to hurt me.

The question really was would I rather my beating come from total strangers... or a man I had known my whole life?

The answer was simple.

I wasn't sure I could handle having Bry hit me.

I was under no delusions. He would have to hit me. He would have to make an example of me. Not because he wanted to. Not even because it was my fault. But because that was what was expected of him. He wasn't the boss in his little organization. He was a high mid-level guy. He had someone to answer to, someone who would want me to cough up some blood so everyone else knew that they had to do a better job of protecting the supply.

Because if he didn't beat me, he might get himself killed.

So I pressed my lips together and I didn't tell them.

Unfortunately, they apparently found them anyway.

I would like to say that hearing Ryan, seeing Ryan, had given me an overwhelming sense of relief. And there was some of that- he made the beating stop. He prevented something that might have been worse.

But him walking in on that, well, it took whatever image he had of me and shattered it. I wasn't just the nice, shut-in, shy neighbor he seemed at least somewhat into. No, I was some lowlife who got herself involved with freaking drug dealers.

Drug dealers.

God, I had sunk so low.

The me I had been three years before, yeah, she never would have believed such a thing was possible.

It was amazing what a crippling mental disorder could do. It was crazy the lengths one would go to to save their pride, to not have to grovel to the only person they had in the world to take care of them.