A desk sits in the center of the room. There’s plenty of space between it and me, so their crew can line up for job assignments and payments. The floor is still the same cement, and that old, dank and musty smell is only slightly overpowered by the years of cigarettes, spilled beer, and Chinese takeout.
Young people play video games, the men at the bar turn to eye me, and a round of laughter echoes from down the hallway, in the old locker room.
A woman growls. More laughter. I curl my fists.
So many new faces, but so little has changed. I’m sure they’re a lot more profitable now, but Weston isn’t any better off for it. There’s no getting out of a system created to give you just enough to survive, but not enough to leave, and all you have to exchange for it is your reputation, your children, and sometimes, your freedom.
The hair on my arms lifts, and my clothes stick like a second skin. The adrenaline runs, making me hear the footsteps above, and even the exhale of cigarette smoke in the room ahead.
I walk, not pausing when I see a couple of the guys at the bar jump off their stools to follow me. Heading down the dark hallway, I watch it open up into a room still fitted with rusty, red lockers.
“Well, shit.” Hugo blows out smoke, leaning back in his chair. “Coming to evict us?”
The men behind me filter in, ready to move on me if he gives the signal.
Three tables positioned in nearly a complete square fill the room. I flit my gaze to Farrow two seats down from Hugo, a black-haired girl standing behind him with her arms draped over his shoulders. Stacks of money cover the tables.
Glancing around, I don’t recognize anyone else. Many of them are young, too young to have been around the lasttime I was here. But drugs are piled in front of one, and scars adorn the face of another. Guns litter the table.
“Thanks for coming to me,” Hugo muses. “It makes this so much easier.”
The hallway is behind me, but I know I wouldn’t make it far.
I swallow. “Is Reeves here?”
He blows out another puff, narrowing his eyes. “Why would he be here?”
“I assumed you were in contact,” I tell him. “He almost sacrificed you the other night.”
His men glance at him, and I see his uncomfortable shift and chuckle as he drops all four legs of his chair back to the ground. “You must’ve been dreaming, man.”
I tilt my head. If Drew isn’t enlisting his aid, then they’re not on the same side. Which makes Hugo even weaker.
I square my shoulders. “I know you think there’s only one way out for you—death or prison,” I tell him, seeing Tommy drift through a door to the left. She holds the ammo case by the handle and my chest swells with hope. “But you can leave. You can leave now with whoever wants to go with you.”
I have the deed. The firehouse is mine. I’m not stopping him from vacating.
Tommy goes unnoticed, setting down the ammo box on a side table.
But Hugo just mocks me, “And why would I do that?”
Walking over, I flip open the box Tommy brought down, seeing that she’s conveniently disappeared.
The Composition notebook is folded in half and squeezed inside the long box. The words on the outside are faded, but I can make out the word ‘Log.’
Pulling out the book, I turn and hold it up. “Reeves kept this on the people who worked for him,” I explain. “On everyone.”
Farrow watches, tapping his fingers on the tabletop. He knows this threatens him too.
“It’s filled with dates, times, receipts, pictures”—I fan the pages, noticing it’s a lot more full than the last time I was here,—“leverage he could use on anyone he did business with. Including his employees.” I pause, meeting their eyes. “He kept it in the gun cabinet upstairs because he knew you don’t look beyond the end of your nose.”
Reeves probably has another log somewhere, maybe more. Eight years is a lot of time to collect more dirt. But they don’t know what’s in this one and what’s not.
“There’s some really shitty stuff on you in here,” I tell Hugo. He was definitely working here by the time I left. “Do you think it will matter that you were so young?”
They stare at me, some of the much older members knowing they’re definitely mentioned in this book. Their crimes, but what else? Are there photos? Receipts? Texts? Cell logs? They don’t know.
Hugo isn’t smiling anymore. “What’s to stop us from charging you right now?”
