Page 10 of The Fighter

“I’m looking at my options. Right now there’s… a definiteatmosphere.”

“Right, and who doesn’t crave the stabbings-in-back-alley atmosphere?”

He scoffed. “It’s not so bad.”

I’d met Tav there, so really, I probably should have been cherishing the place. Although, when I’d met him there, he hadn’t been mine yet.

He still isn’t yours, you fool, a voice said. Except when he’d been in my apartment, he’d been mine. Gloriously, perfectly mine.

Ben stood, taking me from my thoughts, which was probably a good thing. “There a reason you’ve been avoiding me?”

Never mind, this entire visit wasn’t a good thing. And I didn’t really have a good excuse for avoiding Ben. Other than the fact that he could read me well, and he’d be able to tell that my mindwas preoccupied. I continued my study of the city outside my window and shrugged. “I wasn’t avoiding you.”

“Try again.”

“I was busy.”

“Uh, try again, loser.”

This prying. Always with the prying. My temper flared with a sudden burst that surprised me, and I turned. “It’s just been a week, and answering your calls about your dirty club wasn’t high on my priority list.”

As soon as I hissed the words at my best friend, I regretted them. Hurt shone in his eyes for just a minute before the muscles in his face tightened. “Wow, okay.”

Fuck.“Ben, I didn’t?—”

He held up a hand. “It’s fine. I’m going to let you sit with whatever is bothering you, because I know it’s not me, since I’m very lovable. Then, when you’re ready to be an adult, I’ll listen.”

“Oh, fuck off, Ben.” My laugh was dry. “Why can’t you just call me an asshole?”

He grinned. “Okay, you’re definitely an asshole.” He waved a hand. “I’ll leave you to your important task of staring out of the window. Return my calls or don’t. I’ll still be your friend, and you’ll still be an asshole, which means all is right in the world.”

He had his hand on the doorknob when I cleared my throat. He turned and glanced at me over his shoulder with one eyebrow raised.

I refused to fidget. “You’re going to want to gut Collar. But the staff are good, so find a way not to lose them. And find a better DJ, for Christ’s sake.”

He grinned. “See, there’s my Conrad.”

“I’m not your Conrad!” I called after him as he left my office, shutting the door behind him.

A few minutes later, I was at my desk trying to get work done when I heard footsteps. “You forget something?” I asked without looking up.

“You wanted information.”

I turned around at the sound of Nik’s voice. He wore a pair of dark jeans and a white button down under a long wool coat, collar turned up. An unlit cigarette dangled from his lips. He nodded to a folder he slapped on my desk. “There.”

I sat down in my chair and ran my finger along the edge of the folder. “Will this make me unhappy?”

He sat down on a chair across from my desk and placed an ankle on the opposite knee. “Very.”

Nik was sixteen when I met him. I’d been barely twenty, and running the streets with Devlin and Ben, looking for any hustle we could to make money and get a foothold of power in this city. Nik had been a Russian immigrant, abused by an alcoholic father and neglected by a drug addict mother. He’d been on the streets trading blow jobs for cash when I gave him a job. It wasn’t a legal job, but it was better than him being on his knees without protection. He’d been with me ever since. Sometimes I felt guilty for trapping him into the life I’d created for myself, but the one time I’d offered him an out, a new identity and enough money to start over, he’d punched me in the mouth so hard, he knocked out a molar.

I never asked again.

He was twenty kinds of shady and secretive, and God knew what he did in his free time, but he was loyal to me, so that was all that mattered.

I opened the folder, scanned Nik’s chicken-scratched notes in his spiky handwriting along with the grainy photos. Then I slammed the folder shut and jammed the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. “Fuck.”

“Should have let me deal with Devlin my way,” Nik muttered.