Time stood still as I waited for the dickhead to move, sit up, and shake his head from the brief knockout. I stood above him, practically begging him to move, but he didn’t. Not one twitch, not one breath from his chest.

“Kace, Kace, we have got to fucking move,” Jett said, but all I could do was stare down at the lifeless man in front of me, the provoker, the antagonizer.

“The bartender called the fucking cops. We have to move.”

Nothing. I was completely void.

Everything around me faded but the man lying on the floor. “Is he….” I started to ask, but I couldn’t even say the words. Just thinking them had my stomach rolling.

“Kace, fucking move!” Jett shouted as he grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the back door.

The bartender blocked our escape. “I can’t let you leave,” the man said. “And even if you do leave, I will tell them it was Kace Haywood.”

Frustrated, Jett pulled out his wallet and grabbed a wad of hundreds from his billfold and shoved it at the man. “This is to keep your mouth shut until the morning. I will be back with more. The man who did this took off toward Royal Street. If you help us, I will help you. If you open your mouth, I will destroy you. Don’t forget who owns half this city.”

Jett knew when to pull his elite card, and right now, he used it well.

The bartender looked at the cash in his hands, then back at Jett, and nodded. “The man took off toward Royal Street.”

“And what did he look like?” Jett asked.

“Blonde, brown eyes I think, six foot with a beard. He was wearing a green shirt.” The bartender described the complete opposite of my brown hair, blue eyes, and scruffy jaw.

“Very good,” Jett said, patting the bartender on the arm. “I will meet you tomorrow at seven in the morning in front of the steamboat. Don’t be late.”

He stepped aside as sirens sounded in the small streets of the Quarter.

Jett grabbed my arm and dragged me through the back door where a car was waiting for us. He shoved me in the backseat and climbed in behind me.

Once again, Jett had my back. In the midst of staring at the blood on my hands, Jett constructed a cover-up and getaway.

“Go,” Jett said to the driver, who took off immediately, navigating through the one-way streets toward the Garden District where Jett lived.

My mind was numb. I looked down at my fists and realized the impact they really had, the brutal force they possessed.

“He provoked you,” Jett said, trying to ease the tension in the car.

“He’s dead,” I said, looking out the window, saying the words for the first time as realization set in.

“You don’t know that. You probably knocked out the fucker. It was well deserved.”

It wasn’t. No one deserved to be knocked to the floor like that, no matter what kind of dick they were.

“You have to forget about it,” Jett said, but I could tell from the way his voice wavered, he was just as concerned as I was.

What if he really did die? A small part of me prayed I was wrong, prayed Jett was right, prayed I hadn’t just taken a man’s life.

The following morning, I turned on the TV to find a local news station reporting about the bar fight. They’d interviewed the bartender, and he told the story Jett coached had him on without even a slight twitch in his eye. Jett had paid the man off that morning, enough so he wouldn’t have to work anymore.

As for the man who’d provoked me, he died from the impact of my fists to his head. There was no chance to save him. I’d killed him. I’d let rage take over, and I’d killed him with my hands.

The worst part was finding out he’d had a family; he was a father of one.

I thought I knew my weaknesses until I realized the trauma a little girl would go through growing up without her father.

Chapter Nine

My present…

I stood in front of the community center, taking it all in. The building stood for justice. Justice for those who were wrongfully affected by other’s decisions. It was a sanctuary to those seeking second chances in life, new opportunities.

I tried to have a positive outlook on my new job.

Standing outside the majestic building, I felt a twinge of excitement but also nerves, because who was I to help people when I couldn’t help myself?

The landscaping still needed to be installed and the sidewalks were missing their cement, but the modern take on the French Quarter wrought iron decorated the façade of the building, making up for what was incomplete on the exterior.

I took a deep breath as I thought about what this building could bring me. This was a fresh start for me. No longer was I under Jett’s watchful eye. Enough time had passed where I could walk around the streets of my city and not be sneered at or looked down upon, but I still felt slightly apprehensive.

I wished there was someone in my life I could share this moment with, someone I could talk to about how I was feeling, someone to be proud of me, but my family was out of my life, and Lyla… fuck.

It’d been a week since I’d taken her up against the wall at the club. Every last inch of me was itching to be inside her, and even though my brain was screaming at me to let her go, to not take advantage of her willing body once again, I couldn’t help myself. I was a selfish bastard, I took what I wanted and then left her confused.

That night, she was taunting me, she was testing my limits, and after a few minutes of her rubbing her sweet ass on my lap, I was by no means able to reign in the carnal need that was rushing through my body.

 I fucked her…hard and then left. Something I told myself I wouldn’t do because she deserved more than that, she deserved the sweet connection every woman deserved. She was a woman who needed someone to caress her, worship her…love her. I wasn’t that kind of man. I could never hand over what she needed, not after everything I’d done.

Shaking the negative thoughts out of my head, not wanting them to taint the moment in front of me, I relished in the positive energy coming from the community center. This was my new chapter; this was my chance to give back more than I should have been allowed.

I needed to feel good about myself. I needed to have this change, something to live for, because without it, I didn’t know where my life would take me. It was a dark fucking path that tempted me every day. I woke up in the morning and chose to live, chose to move on and continue to suffer with the demons that hung over my head, but fuck if I wasn’t tempted to end it all.

I fucking needed this.

“Looks great, doesn’t it?” George, Jett’s lawyer, asked from behind me.

I turned to see a kind-faced man giving me a gentle smile while he gestured a two-fingered salute. “Kace, good to see you.”

“You too, George,” I replied. I held out my hand for George. He shook it with a strong grasp and then looked at the center, hope reflecting in his eyes.

“I had my doubts about Justice ever coming to fruition, but damn if it doesn’t feel good to see it erected.”

I cringed and shook my head in laughter. “Come on, George, don’t say erected.”

Laughing, he pointed at me and said, “Before you young kids turned that word into something filthy, we used to talk about buildings being erected all over the place. It’s not my fault you all have dirty minds.”

“We’re not in the 1920s anymore, George. It’s time to start living in the present day.”

“Is that why you have a smile on your face today? You’re finally living in the present?”

Caught off-guard for a second, I lowered my head and gave him a quick nod. George didn’t know the details of my past, but given the news of the man dying in the bar spreading, the giant deposit Jett had made to an off-shore bank account, and the cover-up George had had to do, I could imagine George connecting the dots. He wasn’t dumb.