Page 34 of Enzo

“Make me a coffee,” he ordered as soon as I closed the door behind us, “and find a cookie in that top cupboard behind the healthy fucking cereal Logan forces on me.”

“I’m not sure I?—”

“Don’t even think of stopping a dying man from his caffeine and cookies.”

“You’re not dying,” I defended, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Jesus, Tudor? Are you?” I ignored the coffee and cookies thing and crouched before him as he grunted in his chair.

“We all gotta die one day.” He cackled, and I nearly thumped him. Asshole.

“Don’t mess with me like that,” I snapped, and he gave me the finger. Seriously. The fuck?

I gave him the finger right back, then made coffee and pulled down the double chocolate chip cookie bag.

“You remember the day I met you?” Tudor asked after swallowing his first bite of chocolate goodness. Usually, he’d work up to talking about the past, shooting the breeze about cars or baseball, but this time, he was going straight in. He loved talking to all four of us about where we’d come from, needling into our pasts a little more each time. Hell, he’d spent an hour talking at Rio last week, and he’d come in to drop off an envelope for Logan and hadn’t been one of Tudor’s rescues for a very long time.

“Yeah, I remember,” I said, the memory still sharp. Stepping out of prison, the heat of the sun on my face for the first time in years, and there he was—this old guy standing there like he owned my ass, waiting like he’d been doing it for years. He hadn’t offered a handshake, hadn’t wasted words, simply told me I had a job and a place to sleep.

I’d accused him of being some old, perverted bastard searching for an easy target. And then he punched me. This small, frail man—who I’d later learn was anything but frail—slugged me right in the face. I’d been too shocked to do anything but stand there, rubbing my jaw, staring at him as if he’d lost his damn mind.

Then he’d pointed at his car, standing there like a goddamn prize. A mint-condition 1969 Dodge Charger, deep black with a hood scoop that looked mean under the sun’s glare. “What do you know about these?” he’d asked.

I’d blinked, thrown off, but instinct took over. I launched into it, rattling off everything I knew—the V8 engine, the horsepower, the top speed, the weight ratio. I crouched down, running a hand over the tires, noting the wear pattern. “Paint job needs some work,” I’d told him, fingers trailing over a faint scratch in the glossy black.

Tudor had grunted, arms crossed, his expression unreadable. “They said you knew cars,” he’d announced. Of course, I knew cars; I’d been boosting and chopping them up since I was eight for Stone Cross—not that anything automobile-related had finally gotten me behind bars. “Are you still affiliated with Stone Cross?”

“Fuck no,” I’d snapped, even lifted my T-shirt to show him the prison tattoos I’d added to obliterate the cross that had been forced on me as a teenager.

“They still want you.”

“I did my time, I made a deal. I’m out.”

“You’ll do,” he’d added after a pause. And that was that. I got in the car, he drove me to Redcars, and my life changed.

After that I spent every day working on cars, fixing what was broken, convincing myself I’d leave when the time was right. I kept telling myself Redcars was temporary, and I wouldn’t get stuck like the others, that I was passing through, another drifter looking for a foothold. I always thought that one day, I’d take one of the cars dropped at the garage, something worth money, and I wouldn’t have to boost it, I could take the keys from the hook and run.

Only, somehow, I’d never left.

It became home in a way I’d never expected. The smell of oil and metal, the hum of an engine finally running smooth, the way Tudor would huff at me when I got something right as if he hadn’t doubted me for a second. It crept into my bones, settled there, and refused to let go.

And Stone Cross had stayed away.

“Reckon, you’re better than you used to be,” Tudor muttered, his voice softer than usual, but the weight of his words was impossible to ignore.

I exhaled, shaking my head. “Reckon I’m not.”

“You care about Redcars.”

“I don’t care,” I snapped. “Caring gets you fucked over before you can blink.”

The words hung in the air, thick and heavy, although I didn’t mean them as a challenge. It was just that I knew who I was—what I was. I wasn’t kind. I wasn’t concerned. And I sure as hell couldn’t do anything other than fighting. My fists, intimidating size, and the gang tattoos on my arms were all I had.

We had an epic staring match, and then he rolled his eyes. His expression grew smug in the blink of an eye, “You see how Robbie was all tearful this morning?”

I could tell he was trying to read me, trying to gauge whether I gave a damn, needle me into reacting.

I stiffened at the question. It was my job to notice when Robbie was upset, and I hadn’t seen him get up in his head and lose his shit or hide. Hell, I hadn’t noticed Robbie was upset, and a knot formed in my stomach, which quickly turned to anger.

“Who upset him?” My voice was lower than I intended, the words coming out with more bite than I wanted. “Was it Rio? I’ll fucking kill him?—”

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