Page 26 of Psycho

I stood up and left.

4

MICAH

I pulledup to the trailer in Del Paso Heights.

This place was one of the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods in Sacramento, and the piece of shit Ozzy Reyes lived here, along with Lainey.

I had thought about taking her away from this shit place so many times, but I doubted she would have come with me willingly. And as morally ambiguous as my character was, I supposed there was a line I should draw.

Perhaps it was kidnapping an innocent woman and taking her home with me.

I didn’t know.

Lainey Reyes had the special ability to confuse the ever-living hell out of me, and I had never even spoken a word to her.

I hopped off my bike and went to work, stepping up the two steps leading up to the front door and knocking loudly. I could hear some shuffling sound inside, and I waited for Ozzy to come and open the door.

His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a mess, and there was some sort of brown stains on his what was once a white wife-beater, that I didn’t want to think so much about.

It was still a fucking shock that someone like him could set up one of the most successful underground fight rings in all of Sacramento. Still, the son of a bitch had done it, and because of it, the King’s Men had profited off it nicely.

His eyes cleared when he found me standing there, and he straightened.

“Micah. What are you doing here so early?”

My expression didn’t change to show my thoughts or emotions when I said, “Do you really have to ask? I’m sure you drew in a nice little crowd from Saturday’s fight, didn’t you?”

He placed one hand behind his back, shifting nervously on his feet. I narrowed my eyes at the move, already knowing what he was going to say before he even said it.

“Yes. I did, but—”

I didn’t wait for him to finish.

I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him out of the trailer until he flew down the steps and fell to the ground.

He quickly turned around and scrambled backward on his feet.

“Micah, please…”

He noticeably swallowed as I slowly made my way down, coming in closer to him.

“Do you know how much you owe the King’s Men?”

“I, uh, I—Oh,fuck!”

He screamed when I stepped on his ankle. Movements on the left caught my attention, and I turned to it, finding Edger looking out his window at us, his dark eyes glinting with mirth before he ducked his head back inside the trailer. It was no secret that Edger didn’t think much of the piece of shit on the ground.

It wouldn’t have mattered if it were someone else walking by seeing me manhandle Ozzy.

I could be skinning the fucker alive in front of his shit trailer, and no one would call the cops or come out to help him.

I shook my head as thoughts of Lainey entered my mind.

This was no time to be thinking about the girl.

I eased up and leaned down, grabbing a fistful of his hair until he looked at me.

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