“Cash, money, dollars, currency . . . do you need some money to get some clothes and girly shit until you can stop laying low?”

She tilted her head at me like I was speaking a foreign language, so I swore under my breath and pulled a couple hundreds out of my wallet and shoved them into her hand.

“Let’s go. I’m starving and I’ve had enough of this house.” I headed for the front door, not bothering to see if she was following me or not. She was acting scared, and it irritated me. I hadn’t done anything scandalous or forward toward her and she was acting like I had followed through on my threat from the night before.

I heard her scrambling behind me, and before I could round the car, she stopped me with a hand on my elbow. She tried to shove the money back at me but I just shook her off and went to the driver’s door.

“I can’t take this from you. We aren’t friends. I don’t even think we’re on the same team anymore, and I don’t want anything to do with your criminal enterprise.”

I gritted my teeth and lifted an eyebrow. She was being a bitch this morning. I figured waking up on top of me might not have been something that thrilled her, but I would be damned if I was going to be a target for her ire.

“Get in the car. The money is clean.” Well, clean in terms of that I earned it selling an old Super Bee I had fixed up and turned into a straight street rod. Not clean in terms of I won the Bee in an illegal race before I was even old enough to vote. “I don’t have the patience to deal with you this morning, Copper-Top, so your choice. Get in and let me drop you off, or walk. I don’t give two fucks either way.”

She was considering it. I could see it, but I started the car and she climbed in. Her hair was a tangled mess. I knew it was softer than anything I had ever felt in life and it was real easy to get your hands all twisted up in those curls, but I didn’t want to think about that. Her lips were compressed in a tight line and she had her arms crossed under what I was beginning to suspect were some seriously awesome breasts, if her legs were any indication as to what the rest of her looked like. She resembled a little kid pouting. I think it peeved her I wasn’t going to delve into the complicated girl reasoning that made her need to get away from me. It was what it was, and all it meant for me was that I could move about more freely while trying to find Race.

She gave me stilted instructions to a really nice house that was a little farther up into the hills than my mom’s was. No one would really think to look for her there. I idled at the end of the driveway and waited for her to climb out. It wasn’t like I owed her a heartfelt good-bye or anything. She watched me for a second and took the money I had given her and put it on the dash. Without another word, she slipped out of the car and headed up the driveway to the big house. I blew out a breath that I felt like I had been holding for an hour and peeled out, making sure I left rubber and smoke in my wake.

I don’t know what the deal with Race’s sister was, or if it was the fact that she was tied to the only person in my life I genuinely cared about, but I couldn’t afford to let her be twisting me all up. My life wasn’t set up for feel-good crap like that.

I spent the rest of the day running around, touching base with people I missed, people who owed me cash, anyone and everyone I thought could put me in touch with Race. I went and saw my mom at the hovel she lived in. It was just a rented room in a house filled with other addicts and people that had simply given up. She could be in the house I bought for her but couldn’t put the bottle down long enough to make that happen. It burned like acid in my guts and of course put me in a nasty and harsh mood.

I made it a point to kick it with Roxie and tell her I would be back later that night. What I didn’t do one single time was think of Dovie or what could have happened to send her running like I had personally done her wrong. I wasn’t a good guy, but I hadn’t done anything bad to her and I didn’t like her treating me like the enemy, even if that was what she ultimately had determined that I was.

I was frustrated and short with everyone I ran across the rest of the week. It was starting to grate on my last nerve that no one—and I mean no one—had any information on Race. I had heard from three other people that he had been asking around about some rich guy when he came back, but no one had a name or anything helpful to use, and everywhere I turned I ran into either a wall or Benny. I was about done with his sense of smug satisfaction that I wasn’t getting any further than he had with finding my buddy. When he asked how Dovie liked the remodel of her place, it literally took every ounce of self-control I had not to break all his teeth in. But if nothing else, prison had taught me how to be patient, how to bide my time, and how sweet retribution was when it was delivered unexpectedly. I just ignored him and made sure he could see the storm brewing in my eyes every time I walked away from him.

I sent Dovie a text in the middle of the week to let her know I hadn’t made any progress, but considering she now thought I was out to harm her brother, I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t hear anything back. I was pissed at myself that her snub poked under my normally thick skin like a splinter. It wasn’t my way to try and convince her that I needed Race to explain what he had done to me before deciding how to feel about it. I wasn’t the explaining or justifying-my-actions type, plus the guy had always had my back, no questions asked. There had to be an explanation as to why he had set me up, an explanation behind the bitterest betrayal I had ever experienced in my fairly young life, and it needed to come from him and be delivered man to man. I might very well have to murder him if his answer wasn’t up to par, but I knew Race. He spent so much time trying to save me, there was no way he would have just watched me burn.

Before I knew it, it was Friday and I had to show up at Nassir’s club for the fight. I hadn’t been in a knock-down, drag-out, blood-splattering, dirty-as-hell fight since the first year I was locked up. Once you put down all the guys who were bigger than you out of sheer desperation, they stopped trying to take you down a peg. In fact, they stopped trying to mess with you at all. There were always scuffles and dustups, that was going to happen with a bunch of violent men locked up together, but fighting for my life or my pride wasn’t something I’d had to do in a long time. Fighting for a paycheck wasn’t something I had done since I was a teenager. I hoped I could still take a beating and bounce back enough to function the next day.

I was smoking like a chimney. Full of nervous energy I would never admit to. Nassir’s had turned from an electric house party to a hollowed-out fight club. Instead of trendy kids filtering in from the Hill and the university looking for a good time, it was now packed to the rafters with men and women looking for an animalistic and gory show. I didn’t want to know what the odds were. I had caught just a glimpse of the other guy when he rolled in with his entourage, and there was no denying he was a monster. He probably had a good inch on me, but was leaner and more cut. I had a thick, bulky build that came from cheap prison equipment. This guy looked like he had a trainer and a team of people whose sole purpose was to make him a fighting machine.

“Nervous?” Nassir’s smooth voice scraped across my already frayed nerves as I looked down at the bare circle someone had drawn on the center of the factory floor with red spray paint. No ring. No pads. Nothing but fists and blood. It was a brutal way to make a buck.

“No.”

I looked over my shoulder at him. He was holding a tumbler of Scotch that was older than me and watching me with unfathomable eyes.