Page 9 of Full Throttle

“What?” Dontell blurted.

“How?” Jer questioned, his head snapping up.

“It was the drugs,” I explained. “I was young and stupid, looking for some quick cash. When some people from The Pit approached me with the offer, it was simple. I needed to get out of that city anyways.” I held my tongue. They didn’t need know why I needed to leave. I continued, not giving them a chance to ask questions, “The offer was fifteen Gs in cash in exchange for transfer down to Texas. I agreed, but those guys failed to tell me those drugs had been stolen from the fucking Bratva.”

“Fuck,” Leon muttered, his hand going to back of his neck.

Jeremy shook his head as he closed his eyes. A second later, he opened them. “So Kavi came to collect his debt.”

“I had no choice,” I replied before I looked back to Leon, repeating it, my voice strained. “I had no fucking choice.”

“Why not?” Dontell pressed.

“Because he knew where Xander was, and if I didn’t work for him…” I trailed off, letting them fill in the blanks.

Xander was two years older than me, and the second he turned eighteen, he left Detroit.

Leaving me in the dust.

Funny thing, finding out your brother in is prison at the same time as you—just three thousand miles away.

“Kavi used my brother as leverage, and he wanted me, not the money,” I told them.

“Why?” Leon asked, stepping forward. “Why did he want you instead of the money?”

I scoffed. “I come from shit, but God graced me with a high IQ and the desire to build shit. Xander doesn’t have the same talent as me. Kavi saw me as an asset. Xander was just a chess piece, and when he got caught up in the gambling shit, Kavi did some digging. That’s how he found me.”

Over the next forty-five minutes, I told them everything the Bratva made me do during those three years. I told them who Kavi made deals with and how he avoided the Italian Mafia.

Silence stretched over us for a while, and then Jer broke the silence. “And what about Dominique?”

I stiffened. “What about her?”

“You want her out of all this shit,” Jer deadpanned. “We need to know why.”

The truth, in most situations, wasn’t complicated. It was the feelings that came along with it when you pulled it up from the depths. I wasn’t doing that today. I had no intention of feeling those emotions ever again. So, I gave them the half-truth, the version they could understand, because they were at tight knit as people came. “I grew up with her. In Detroit.”

It worked. The men nodded in understanding and agreed.

Dominique would stay out of it.

Chapter Two

Nikki

“Oh, for shits and giggles,” I muttered, tossing the TV remote onto the breakfast tray, eying the gray oatmeal and mushy strawberries.

I was starving.

Since Cain’s little drop in, I hadn’t moved from the bed. My nurses instructed me not to walk until the doctor came in…whenever that would be. I couldn’t call anyone, because my phone was destroyed in the crash. For the last few hours, I’d tried my hardest to remember what happened, but everything was fuzzy. I remember the explosion, but I didn’t know what caused it. I remembered the blazing heat of the flames. I remembered getting out of the seat harness and dropping down onto the roof of the upside-down car.

Wasn’t it?

A loud laugh that came from the hallway drew me back into the now, and I focused on the breakfast a nurse had brought in for me about twenty minutes ago. Patients didn’t get a choice; they were given the food that was on the menu.

Which sucked. I mean really, really fucking sucked.

I needed to eat something, and staring at the possibly disgusting food wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Taking a deep breath, I picked up the cheap plastic spoon and scooped up some of the mush. I cringed on the inside, my tongue revolting at the idea of something this…slimy touching it. My stomach growled, not caring about my sensory issues.

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