Mark (Mallick Brothers 3)

Two hours later, we had seemed to work out the kinks and the screw-ups.

"So, this Mallick guy," Nixon said, looking up at me, smirk pulling at his lips.

"What about him?" I asked, feeling my stomach inextricably tighten in, what? Anticipation? Worry? Why worry? That made no sense whatsoever.

"Apparently, the Mallick family is local royalty," Nixon hedged, always being a pain in the ass that way. The jackass used to make my birthday presents into scavenger hunts that were so hard it generally took me a week to find my damn gifts.

"Mallick," Atlas mused. "What? Maybe Irish? Irish mob?"

"No. Get this," Nixon said, clearly delighted about whatever he found out. "They're an entire family of loansharks. Of all fucking things. Actually, this town is a fucking cesspool of criminal activity. Got an arms-dealing MC, Italian mob, three different sects of drug dealers, a sniper, hired muscle, underground fighting, oh and this place called Hailstorm. It's some paramilitary camp or some shit. Leave it to us to end up here."

"We haven't 'ended up' here," I insisted. "We are here for a job. That's it. When we retire, it needs to be out of the country. Somewhere without extradition. You know that."

"Yeah, I hear Russia is lovely this time of year," Rush said, looking horrified at the idea.

We had considered Russia because, let's face it, it's a safe bet in a lot of ways. Also, a lot of the other countries without an extradition treaty with the US were middle eastern and involved in conflict that we didn't want to be in the middle of. It left mostly options in Africa and a few Asian countries. We were mostly debating between Russia and China, both places we could all get lost easily.

Though if I were being completely honest, the idea of leaving our homeland was more than a little daunting. Also, the methods we would have to employ to do so were equally troubling.

Necessary evils, I reminded myself.

A small price to pay for doing what we had to do.

"From what I can tell, they seem to stay neutral in pretty much all situations. They don't get involved in other peoples' business unless it is directly impacting them. I don't think there's anything to worry about there. And as for the local cops, apparently they have a lot on their plate. And by 'a lot,' I mean rape and murder and huge amounts of drugs hitting the streets. I really doubt our little stunt is super high on their priority list right now."

Well that was a comfort at least. And, to be honest, the Collings guy seemed pretty chill about the whole thing. No one got hurt after all.

That was the rule.

Hell, during a job, the guns only had rubber bullets.

No one was ever going to be genuinely hurt at our hands.

It wasn't about the people.

It wasn't even about the money.

It was about the corporation.

They had to pay.

We were the fucking debt collectors.

It was as simple and as complicated as that.

"So what you're saying is, we lay low here a couple of days then we head out to the next job," Nixon mused.

I looked around, letting out a sigh at our lovely crash pad.

Home sweet shack.

And home it was for the next week.

And I did not, absolutely did not have weird as hell sex dreams about a man who smelled like fresh-cut grass and oil and manliness.

Nope.

Not me.THREEMarkFrom what I could tell, nothing ever came of the robbery. It hit the news and paper that day twice, never to be heard about again in the mainstream. After all, there were drug dealers, rapists, and murderers to report on.

I personally hadn't heard from Collings again. And, quite frankly, I was pretty sure I never would. At least not about that incident.

It was done, case closed.

Insurance money was probably already paid out.

Me, well, I royally fucked up when I offered to do some work around Shane's place in the hopes of spotting the hot as shit Angela woman.

Because it was a damn week later and I had a honey-do list as long as my right arm from not only Shane, but all the tenants who had gone without the luxury of working pipes or steady heating systems for years.

That was the price you had to be willing to pay to live in a place where you stayed under the radar of the cops when you were a criminal.

But as I was ripping up the front sidewalk because it was all chewed up and the township was breathing down Shane's neck about it, I think every single tenant walked up to me with at least three requests each. And, well, I just didn't have the heart to tell someone to suffer with their heat only working half the time. Also, the dude whose tub was leaking was only going to lead to the headache of black mold in the future if it wasn't taken care of.