Bax growled low in his throat and Marcus held up his hands like that would ever be enough to ward off the dark and dangerous man.
“I didn’t know the guy, had never seen him before. I don’t think he was from around here.”
“He was from the Hill?”
Marcus blinked at me like the question made no sense.
“No. Like, he was from a different country. He had an accent.”
Bax and I exchanged a puzzled look. No one came to the Point from somewhere else on purpose.
“An accent from where?” Bax’s voice sounded like gravel.
“I don’t know . . . really. Irish, Scottish, British, South African—something. Please leave me alone.” He whimpered and Bax gave him a disgusted look and moved to the end of the bed where I was standing.
“Where’s my money?” I asked.
Marcus looked at me and his eyes got huge. “What?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes at him. “You said he gave you enough to pay off your debt and extra five. Where is my money, Marcus?”
It was a tiny little room and there was no missing his eyes trying to land anywhere but on the black weekender bag someone had haphazardly tried to shove under the chair next to the bed. I inclined my head at it and Bax walked over to grab it. I heard the zipper and then he nodded at me. I put a hand on the top of Marcus’s foot and gave him a smile that was anything but sincere.
“I’m done with you. I won’t take any more action from you. You stay the hell away from Nassir’s girls; stay out of the Point altogether, Marcus.”
I pulled as hard as I could until the cable holding the leg I was leaning on gave way from the pulley device that was keeping it elevated. There was a popping noise and then the leg and the cast thudded down on the bed with a jarring force, making Marcus scream at the top of his lungs. Bax and I left just as a couple of nurses came running toward the door. Bax hefted the bag over his shoulder and I followed behind him to the parking lot without either of us saying a word.
When we were back in the car headed back to the garage, I couldn’t help but ask, “A guy with an accent?”
He didn’t say anything for a long minute and then shook his head a little. “I have no idea.”
“I’m getting together with Titus tomorrow to see what he knows about my dad. I’ll ask him.”
“I don’t like it.”
We were so used to knowing who the enemy was, knowing what was waiting for us in the dark. This new twist wasn’t welcome.
“Me either.” And I didn’t even want to speculate as to what Nassir’s reaction to this new unknown was going to be. We were supposed to be the new big-bad in the Point, not some shadowy figure with revenge on his mind and an accent who was just as good at moving through the shadows as we were.
We made the rest of the way into the city in a brooding silence that was only broken by the tapping on my phone as I texted Nassir the newest updates on our situation. His response was just a bunch of four-letter words. I was going to put my phone away when I was surprised to see that Brysen was calling me. I figured she was still mad at me and I was planning on giving her until the weekend to stew. Then I was going after her whether she was over it or not.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?”
No preamble and she didn’t exactly sound happy.
“Headed back to the garage for the night.”
“Good. I’ll meet you there.”
“Uh, okay.” She hung up without saying anything else, leaving me staring at my now-dead phone in bewilderment. I looked at Bax and he just grinned at me. “She’s meeting me at the garage.”
“She probably found out about our visit with the TA.”
“Shit.”
“She sound pissed?”
“No . . . I mean, not really. With her it’s kind of hard to tell.”
“I’m going to drop you off and head to check on Roxie.”
I made a noise of agreement. “You better tell Dovie that’s where you’re going.”
“Seriously, dude, you need to get it through your head that your sister and I are the real deal. She trusts me. She knows Roxie isn’t a thing anymore and never will be. No one matters except for her.”
He might be stupid in love with my little sister, but he was an idiot sometimes when it came to basic human emotion.
“Bax, you used to sleep with Roxie and she was the first person you went to when you got out of prison. Yes, Dovie trusts you, but it would hurt her to hear from someone else that you were going to the District in order to see a chick you used to hook up with. Just explain to her the situation to save her some heartache, all right?”
He just grunted at me, but when the Hemi pulled to a stop in front of the gates, I shoved the door open and noticed he was pulling his phone out of his hoodie pocket. I told him we could touch base later, instructed him to hand the cash we collected from Marcus off to Nassir, and punched the code into the security gate just as Brysen’s BMW pulled around the corner. She glided through the gates and I had just gone to follow her in when another car raced by on the street. I wouldn’t have thought anything about it normally, but with everything else circling around the icy blonde like a hungry vulture, I couldn’t just chalk it up to coincidence. I waited a minute to see if the vehicle would turn around and drive back by, but had no such luck.
The gates swung closed behind me and I walked to where Brysen had parked. The car was empty and she was nowhere to be seen. She had been on the compound enough to make her way through the side door and into the garage. I wasn’t sure if it was a good sign or a bad sign that she was waiting for me in my space, but I wasn’t scared of her and it didn’t matter to me what she had to say. I wasn’t ready to let her go. I knew there were serious obstacles standing in the way of just claiming her for my own, but that didn’t stop every primal thing inside of me from wanting to do it anyway.