Finally, I snatched up my phone and answered.
“You take care of it?” I asked Keys. He was the tech brother for Gray Fort, and the one I’d called to help fix Danny’s situation.
“Yeah, brother,” he replied. “It took me a bit to track the fucker down, but I did. I was able to get into his bank account, and I put the money back in Danny’s account. Apparently, this guy makes a habit of doing this shit.”
“Asshole,” I muttered.
I might not have lived straight by the law, but I wouldn’t hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. Danny didn’t deserve that shit. I was getting fired up thinkin’ about it, and I wanted to draw blood.
“Yeah,” Keys agreed. “I’m doing my best to untangle this shit and try and get the money back to the people he scammed.”
It might have been shitty, but Danny was my only concern right now. It was a good thing Keys took it on himself to do the right thing.
“We’ve decided to turn it over to the FBI when I’m done, anonymously, and they won’t be able to trace the reversals back to me,” he went on. Though his statement was smug, his tone wasn’t. “Unless you want his address?”
I thought about it for a long minute. I’d like to break his legs. Maybe all his fingers. Some ribs, too. But would Danny want that? No, I figured Danny would want to give the guy a second chance. Spread some holiday spirit or some shit. Leaving it up to the law was a break, in my opinion, so it was gonna have to be good enough.
There was a huge part of me that wanted to hunt his ex down and give him a hurting too. But I didn’t think Danny would like that either. So, I’d have to settle for other things. Wasn’t sure what those other things were yet. I figured I’d give myself some time to think on it. Besides, it would have been shitty of me to give Keys more stuff to do so close to Christmas. Maybe I’d beentouched with a little of the holiday magic. I imagined Danny would have been thrilled to hear it. Which was why I wasn’t gonna tell him.
“Nah,” I answered. “That’s good enough.”
“Well, your boy should be all set to go. So that’s a good thing, yeah?” There was something in his tone that dug at me, but I was too distracted to figure it out.
“He’s not my boy,” I said with a grunt.
“Uh, you do know that, um, he’s…” He cleared his throat, and I could hear the squeak of the leather as if he were shifting awkwardly in his desk chair. “He makes videos.”
“Yeah, I know. So fuckin’ what?”
“Have you seen them?”
I paused, brain spinning as I read between the lines.
“Have… you?”
Keys cleared his throat again.
“I was just trying to figure out who was staying with you. You didn’t want me to tell your brother, but that doesn’t mean we don’t look out for our own.” He sighed. “And I don’t need Crawler givin’ me shit for the next month once he gets wind of things, and you know he will.”
I grunted, but didn’t say anything. I was still waiting for him to give me an answer.
Mostly… I wanted to see the gut reaction I had when I heard it.
“So, of course, I looked into him. And I did stumble upon his stuff.”
“Just fuckin’ answer.”
“Yeah, okay. I did watch a few. And then a few more.” There was a long pause. And despite the weird shit going on, I might have been smiling. My gut didn’t clench. I didn’t like the idea of knowing he’d watched it, but I didn’t get thatpissed-off-ready-to-kill-someonefeeling that I’d been waiting for. I think it mostly had to do with the fact that I knew Keys.
Which told me a lot.
It told me that I could really be there for Danny. I could support him without feeling like I was holding back.
And strangely, I was starting to want that.
“Is that a problem?” he asked with a sharpness in his tone. “Because if there is a problem, I’m gonna have to go off on you a little. He is his own man, and he has a right to do what he wants. That’s his work. You can’t get upset with that. And he’s got a way about it that is special. Think that kinda shit is needed.”
“Shut it,” I barked playfully. “I don’t got a problem. I haven’t seen his stuff yet, but I can tell you I’m proud of him. Just the way he talks about it, I can tell it makes him happy. Only a bastard fucker would take that away from him. I’m a lot of things, but I ain’t that.”
