“When will you go?” she asked, wrapping her gum around her finger before plucking it back into her mouth.
“When I have some money. So, you know, never.”
“Wait right here,” Gemma said, popping up and hopping off the sofa, disappearing behind the pocket door. He really had no place else to go. He could still barely walk.
Once more, his thoughts turned to his predicament. Tennessee worked both Nash and Memphis hard, but only Nash got to keep any of the money he earned running errands for his father. Memphis had to hand over every dime. Truthfully, Memphis probably would have tried to make a run for it two years ago, but then Rita had given birth to Knox and Memphis had fallen head over heels for his baby brother. He was terrified to leave him alone with Tennessee and Nash.
Rita was a good person, but she was afraid of Tennessee just like everybody else. She wouldn’t be able to stand up to him anymore than Nash’s and Memphis’s mother had. Everybody knew the one time his mother had talked back, she’d disappeared three days later. Rita knew it, too. She was a hostage and was barely sixteen herself. There was no way she could protect Knox.
Gemma returned with a tampon box in her hands and knelt down beside Memphis. “Here, take it.”
His brows knitted together. “I know my dad thinks I’m a girl, but I don’t exactly need tampons.”
“No, dummy. Look.” She opened the box and pulled one of the wrappers free. Inside each, where a tampon should be, were tiny rolls of money. “It’s where I stash my tips from the club so don’t nobody come around here and try to steal them. It’s only like five grand, but it could be enough to get you out of here.”
“Five grand?” Memphis practically shouted, trying to whip himself into an upright position and quickly regretting it as knife sharp pains wracked his torso, stealing his breath.
“I’m a good dancer. I make lots of tips. Rita used to be the best dancer before Knox, so now, I get all her customers, too.”
Neither talked about how neither Gemma or Rita were old enough to be working at a strip club. Right and wrong didn’t matter in Rexford. In Rexford, the only things that mattered were Keith ‘Tennessee’ Camden and the Devil’s Crew motorcycle club. And nothing would ever change that. Ever.
“I can’t go. I can’t, and I definitely can’t take your money. You need to get out of this town before Tennessee ruins you, too.”
She waved her hand, sitting on the floor of the trailer, plopping her feet right next to Memphis’s thigh. He poked absently at her perfectly manicured toes, but she paid him no mind. “Please. Whether Tomcat wants to admit it or not, I’m still his only daughter. Your Daddy ain’t gonna fuck with me.”
Memphis stared longingly at the box filled with money. Leaving would be selfish, probably the most selfish thing he ever did in his whole life. But what was his life expectancy in Rexford? Maybe twenty if he filled out and learned to pretend he was as big a piece of shit as his brother and father.
“You gotta get out of here, Memphis. As soon as you get where you’re going, you can call me, and if anything happens to Knox, I’ll call you. I promise.” He could feel himself folding. He wanted to be free of this godforsaken place once and for all. Gemma seemed to realize he was giving in. “At least start making a plan. Before it’s too late.”
Memphis nodded reluctantly, tossing an ace bandage to Gemma, so she could wrap his ribs tight enough for him to walk home without passing out from the pain.
Gemma was right. He needed to get out. Los Angeles was only an hour’s drive if anything went wrong. He couldn’t help Knox if he was dead. Right? “Fine. But I definitely need a plan. Where do I start?”
“Tell me why you do this again?” Preacher Graves asked, wrinkling his nose at the stench coming from the property just ahead of them.
“Because that smell is a bunch of dogs lying in their own filth or dying from septic shock after being torn up in a dog fight,” Cy said. “And those fuckers in that house right there are the ones who caused it. So, we’re going to go roust them so Animal Control can come in there and do their jobs. Get these animals the care they need.”
Preacher gave a long-suffering sigh. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the animals. He did. But, even though Cy and Preacher had done twenty years in a federal penitentiary together, Cy’s record was expunged. Whereas Preacher was guilty of the crimes that had sent him up north for twenty-five years, and he really wasn’t looking forward to going back. “And this is all legal? What we’re doing? Like, the cops aren’t going to arrest us for busting into somebody’s private property?”
Cy shook his head. “This is our job. We have a deal with the state. Because we’re private citizens, we have a little more leeway with what we can get away with than county employees. Besides, these shitheads all have records longer than my dick.”
Cyrus Whitaker was a huge man by any measure. Even behind bars, his very presence had often been enough to prevent anything too gruesome from happening to him. Preacher, on the other hand, had survived by creating a persona for himself. As he’d aged, he’d gone from target to guru, his near constant state of zen and a small wooden cross convincing the other inmates he had some kind of wisdom to share. It was all bullshit. Preacher didn’t have shit going for him. He just wanted to be left in peace, but Cy paid cash and Preacher was in dire need, so there he was, with an illegal firearm jammed against his lower back, about to raid a house full of dog-fighting criminals. Prison had been much easier in some ways.
Cy crept forward, peering in the window. He held up four fingers to Preacher before crouching out of sight. They weren’t alone. Cy had hired both Lawson and Javier, both former inmates from the same prison, as well as two other guys, Manson and Cabbot, who were not only convicts but former gangbangers. They were a ragtag group if Preacher had ever seen one, but he didn’t think the dogs were real picky about who rescued them from the hellhole that was a rusted out shed.
Cy gave one final nod before planting a booted foot on the door and pulling a shock and awe. “Nobody move!” he shouted, voice booming.
Chaos erupted, the four men scrambling for their weapons about a minute too late. They froze, hands in the air, clearly irritated but not afraid.
“On your knees, hands behind your heads. Now!”
One guy with a tattoo across his forehead spit on the floor. “You don’t look like fucking cops to me.”
“Do I look like somebody who won’t hesitate to splatter your brains across this ugly fucking wallpaper?” Javier asked, lowering his weapon to kick the other men’s guns out of reach. “Lawson, frisk them. Make sure they ain’t holding.”
Lawson grimaced. “Ah, man. Why do I have to do it? They all smell like weed and stale beer.”
“‘Cause it’s your fucking birthright, bitch. Just do it.”
