Page 39 of Rox

I want to be mad. I want to be angry he’s only here because of this assbag that burned my house down, but he just gave me a fantastic idea. I’m tired of being watched and followed. It’s time I do what I’ve told my family I can do, and handle it my damn self.

Hugging Angel, I look up at him as I pull back, “Thanks.”

“For what? I’m so confused.”

“It’s fine,” I tell him as I pat his face and turn back toward the shop entrance.

“Roxie! What the hell are you doing?”

He calls out, but I ignore him as I jog back toward the front door. I hear him mutter, and then the crunch of his shoesfollows. He’s too late, though, as I open the door, and all sets of eyes turn to me.

“We obviously can’t do an expo in such a short amount of time, but what if we do a flash sale? We could have it here. Free up the whole day and do it as a fundraiser instead.”

They want to catch the guy, I want them all, besides Max, to stay out of my day to day life. Problem, meet solution. I’m fucking welcome.

Angel gives me a look I can’t quite read. “I see shops promote flash sales online all the time. They do it on a first-come-first-serve basis. Since Angel is such a hot commodity, we can do raffles for him to be the artist while the rest of us grab the next person once we’re done with our current.”

Not only do I help them find the person who is after me, but I can and will use this as an opportunity to show them all what I can do.

“I know my opinion doesn’t matter, but I think this is a great idea. You can raise money for a charity, or for a battered women’s shelter, children’s shelter, or something like that.” Mark says as he approaches me, “Just a thought. But listen, I have to go. I’m going to set another appointment in a week if that’s cool, but I have somewhere I have to be, and I can’t be late.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’m sorry we didn’t get it finished today.”

“It’s no problem. I’d rather have to see you more, and it is perfect, than see you once and be unhappy. See ya soon.”

I turn around and watch Mark leave. Angel has his eyes on him as well. Once the door is shut, I give Angel a hopeful look. The same look I know is on Duncan’s face.

“I like this plan a lot,” I hear Stanford call behind me. “Duncan, you and Roxie can start making copies of all of our flash art. We will do one and done with the art. Feel free to makenew ones too. I’ll look at the schedule and see what day works best to do it.”

“Yeah, man. We can do that. What do you say, Angel?” Duncan asks hopefully. I don’t turn around to look at either of them, though. My eyes stay on Angel. They’re telling him,please do this.

“Thanks for thinking of me and asking me to be a part of it. But my answer is no.” With that, I watch him walk out, and when he sits on his bike, I close my eyes and drop my head in defeat.

Nineteen

Mimic

“Any new orders of business?” Prez asks, looking around at all of us at the table. I can’t think of anything other than getting home to Rox and getting lost in her. I want to make her forget her worries and fears in this world. I want to erase the fact that she has to have a brother always on her. She’s been so sad with the loss of her home, upset with our protection, and just overall over it. If even for a moment, I want her to forget everything. I want her sole focus to be me—us.

Rox consumes my soul. She’s the reason I breathe and want to be a better man. She makes me better, but she also makes me worse because I will burn the world down for her happiness. I don’t care who I have to rid this planet of if it means I get to see her smile.

There’s a saying, something like ‘The hero will sacrifice you for the world. The villain will sacrifice the world for you.’I’m the villain. No one means more to me than she does. She controls my heart and heals my soul. Seeing her hurt because ofwhat the world has given her kills me. So much so that my only goal now is to correct it.

I’m so focused on Rox that I’m not listening to anything being said. But the moment Angel says her name, my attention is pulled from getting lost between her legs and making her forget to now.

“She’s actually on board with this. She pitched it to me as if it’s the best idea ever.” Angel tosses his hands up in the air, at a loss as to what to do with her.

Aren’t we all, brother?

“But you shot the idea down, right? There’s no need for her to have that many people coming in and out of the shop. People we can’t vet. How can we make sure they aren’t the person responsible for everything? We can’t trust whoever would be hired for security!” Dizz starts getting wild, and I’m lost as to what Rox would be doing that would need a different security detail. One that isn’t one of us.

Right now, she’s at her mom’s house baking with her siblings. She implicitly told us that she was only here to spend time with her mom—not because we told her to be here, where we knew she’d be safe.

If you asked her, she was making a choice of her own free will. I smiled, kissed her, and walked away. It wasn’t worth the fight.

But whatever this is, it has Angel and Dizz up in arms. Something tells me it’s going to turn into a fight at home.

“I don’t think we’d be as out of control as you think,” Omen says cautiously. He knows a cannon is about to blow. Omen has been the VP since this charter started. He came from Wyman with Dizz and Angel. He knows how Dizz can get better than anyone, especially when the issue is Dizz’s children.

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