Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

TRISTAN

T ank grunts as I lay a heavy right hand into the pad, twisting my body to add extra torque. Sweat pours down my body, my shirt drenched and sticking to me. When the round buzzer goes off, I growl, “Keep going.”

“That’s ten minutes, bro,” Tank says, then quickly raises the pad when I lay in a double jab, right hook combo.

“The fight’s tomorrow night,” Tank goes on, following my movements, shifting from side to side with his eyes fixated on me. “You expect to learn how to fight in a day?”

“You saying I don’t know how already?” I smirk, ducking into an overhand right, then blocking when he answers with a quick left hook.

“No, that’s my point.” Tank stalks me around the room as I match his tempo, firing shots from my back foot. “Where is the fight, anyway?”

My smirk slides right off my face. This is the third time he’s asked this. Maybe if he thinks he slips it in when I’m tired, I’ll be more likely to answer.

I shake my head, waving him off, and he lowers his hands. “It’s that sort of deal, is it?” he says sourly.

“Tank,” I grunt.

“I know, I know,” the big man says, a grumbling note in his voice. “It’s still tough, T. I’m doing my best to clean this city up.”

“The stuff I do, Tank, it’s … not what you think.”

I sit at the edge of the upstairs gym. The cops own it, but it’s often empty, which is a bad sign. Tank agreed to come here on his day off and help me work the pads. My body feels good, my skills focused. I just wish there wasn’t this thing called morality nibbling at my heels.

Tank sits next to me. “And what do I think?”

“I don’t know,” I growl, “but I’m not some scumbag. I draw the line.”

“Sooner or later, they’ll try and force you to redraw that line, T. It’s how they operate.”

I grind my teeth. “Have you seen my sanctuary? When I were out there, I never could’ve imagined it—all those happy dogs.”

“You’re a tough bastard, T, but this soft spot for dogs is going to get you messed up one of these days.”

We both know he’s probably alluding to when I chased Odin into a house with three insurgents inside. It was one of the only times the battle-hardened Malinois lost his cool.

“A fight’s a fight,” I tell him. “This is one of the only jobs you shouldn’t have a problem with.”

“It’s them—the Trentinis. All of them are enemies in my book. The stuff they do: getting people hooked on drugs, getting young girls involved in dancing. These are girls who’d otherwise go on to do something else. They’re not good, T.”

“I never said they were,” I growl. “But I served this damn country for eleven years, and when I went to the bank and asked them for a loan, they told me to go fuck myself.”

Tank pushes away from his sitting position, walking quickly to the opposite window of the narrow room, then turns to me with his chest puffed up. He looks capable with his white tank and his Marine tat showing. We’ve been through too much together for me ever to think he’d swing on me but he looks like he wants to.

“Goddamn it,” he says. “Save me the phony moralizing, bro. The bank rejected the loan application because the place isn’t profitable .”

“It doesn’t need to be,” I tell him. “I take care of that.”

“By pushing drugs. By recruiting women?”

I stare at him coldly. It doesn’t even take a second for him to drop his gaze.

“I’m sorry. I know you’d never do anything like that, but goddamn. It’s what they do, and if you’re working with them …”

I grit my teeth. My head is pulsing. It’s been six months since I started working with Raffie, six months since I made a pledge to those dogs. I know Tank is right on some level, but I’ve drawn my lines, and that has to mean something. There are things I won’t do.

What if they try to force me? What if they threaten the home?

“If you’ve dug yourself a hole,” Tank says, “remember, you’ve got friends. I’ll help you climb out.”

“I don’t need help,” I tell him coldly. “I’m a freelance operator. The fact that we’re here, even having this conversation, is proof of that.”

He sighs, but I can see he gets my point. He knows that any true Mafioso wouldn’t be permitted to meet with a cop, even if they used to be buddies or served in the military together. Yet I can go anywhere I want and do what I want. That’s what I tell myself. I’m not a prisoner.

“Another round?”

“Save yourself,” Tank says. “Whatever these psychos have planned, it won’t be good.”

“Good. Bad. It doesn’t matter.”

I just need that cash.

“Don’t hesitate,” Tank says. “You never do, anyway. If you don’t hesitate, T, then whoever it is, and I don’t care if they’re a UFC champ, they don’t stand a chance.”

I curl my hands into tight fists. Maybe he’s just trying to inflate my ego and puff me up before the fight. That proves he’s a good friend. He disagrees and hates what I’m doing but is still rooting for me.

“You shouldn’t have hired that girl,” Tank says after a pause. “That’s why you need the extra cash, right?”

“She’s doing well.” Some deep, easily stirred instinct triggers when he starts to talk about Maya. I don’t know why. It’s just, hell, I feel weirdly protective over her. “Miles says she’s putting in the work of three people.”

When I think of Miles, I remember watching him walk Maya to the parking lot yesterday. The way he touched her arm. I had to stop looking before I did something stupid. I like Miles. He’s a good kid and a hard worker, but I wanted to shatter his face at that moment.

“You don’t need her, though.” Tank is watching me closely. I’m tempted to turn away, but I hide so much from my old buddy. He deserves honesty … sometimes. “Is there something else going on?” he asks. “I thought, after Vanessa?—”

“Why the fuck would you bring her into this?” I growl. “That was eight years ago. I don’t think about her anymore. I don’t think about all that crap.”

That’s mostly true, except for now and then when those vicious, ugly feelings return. I always stamp them down, not letting myself experience the pain.

“You’re seeing stuff that isn’t there,” I tell him. “Maya’s just …”

I trail off, not wanting to finish that sentence. I don’t want to call her just anything, but that seems to prove Tank’s unspoken point.

“Let’s do another round,” I growl, hopping to my feet and rolling my shoulders.

“You sure?”

“Fighting’s easier than talking.”

Tank laughs savagely. That’s the thing with us. Whatever happens, however many people we lose, no matter how much blood we shed, we can always find a way to laugh.