Page 108 of Live for Me

I stormed right back out of that house just as quickly as I’d stormed in.

All the fucking rage in the world followed right along with me. I still couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t see.

The signs had been there to tell me what had happened if I’d just been paying closer attention. She was certain that we all had these terrible behind the scenes connections to our employer. She said her parents had decided at some point that they didn’t want her or her sister. She hadn’t been intimate with anyone of her own choosing. She felt like she couldn’t leave the country because she was afraid her sister might need her again. I’d already decided I disliked our President, and anyone left inside that organization, but this made her desire to personally ruin the man very clear to me. I suddenly wasn’t interested in ruining his work, though. I was interested in removing his head from his body.

“What the fuuuuuck,” I mumbled while I stomped around on the porch.

“That really wasn’t how I imagined you’d handle that,” Indy said quietly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you react like that.To anything.”

“My bad,” I hissed. “I didn’t realize I was a disappointment to you. Of all the fucking times, Indy, this isn’t the one to mess with me.”

New Jersey appeared on the porch behind him right after that.

“And I amreallynot in the fucking mood for your shit right now, old man,” I warned, pointing at Jersey. He chuckled and came the rest of the way around the house to lean against the porch railing, despite my warning.

“I’m never in the mood to wake up and find you punksstillin my house, yet here we are.”

“Alright, so when I walk away this time, New Jersey, I’m going to need you to stay right the fuck here, so I don’t hurt you the next time you open your mouth. I won’t have a good explanation for Memphis, and I don’t want to have to lie to her. Just fucking stay here,” I said and shook my head at this jackass and all of his nerve.

“Calm down, kid,” he said and grabbed my shoulder to prevent me from actually walking away. “There was a time when I was pissed that you showed up to keep me from drinking.”

“And what? You’re here to settle a debt? Because I don’t have an alcohol problem.”

New Jersey looked back at Indy that time. “Beat it.”

Indy looked at me before he went anywhere.

“I won’t kill him,” I said.

Jersey waited for Indy to actually walk away before he spoke again.

“I’m here because something in Memphis clings to something in you. She looks at you and somehow sees a lifeline. She looks at you and feels what I felt when she was given to me as a Judge. A reason to just keep going. I’m here because I don’t want her reason to fall apart. If that happens, she falls apart with it.”

I tried to breathe in all the air in Indiana. “For the record, Memphismademe follow you back then.”

“For the record, Memphis made me go back for Trista when I tried to pawn her ass off on somebody else back in the day too,” he chuckled.

“I think she probably did that because she knew it was what you wanted, whether you were able to admit it or not, old man.”

“Exactly, pipsqueak.”

I closed my eyes and sighed.

Kicking the shit out of him right now wouldn’t solve anything.

He was trying to be helpful, despite his DNA -deep inability to know how to be helpful.

He was trying.

“Did you know we were in an organization that had a whole fucking human trafficking ring within it?” I asked.

“No,” he said and shook his head. “Doesn’t really surprise me, given everything else we’ve learned about them. I never thought too hard about any of it back then, though. They gave me jobs and I did them.”

I shook my head to keep from laughing.

Soldier mentality was fucking wild.

“Don’t try talking to her again until your head is in the place to make it right, slick.”

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