Page 43 of Baby for My Ex's Brother

Jaba wants to force me to repeat myself. To make me jump through his hoops in front of everyone. He’s toying with me, even now.

“I must say, I respect your balls for trying that tactic.” I grab his shoulder and kick him in the balls, doubling him over. “Not a lot, of course, but some.”

He coughs, still hunched over. A hoarse, “Fuck you,” scrapes out of him.

I fist his hair and force him to look up at me. “Talk or lose your tongue.”

“Fine, fine!”

I release him to let him recover his composure for a moment. Over the years, I’ve found it is these moments I hate the most. The moments between. The ones where I must be patient and let them gather themselves.

It drags out the entire process when I’d rather get answers instantly.

This is not evidence of my loss of attention span. Initially, I had thought it was. The digital age has eaten into our attention spans, and I worried I had fallen prey to such things. But over the years, I have learned that is not the case.

The longer it lasts, the louder the snarl in my ears becomes. My work requires certain things of me, and violence is one of them. There’s this snarl that becomes a roar in my ears when I must be violent, and the longer it lasts, the louder it gets.

My thoughts go quiet. My feelings are numb. When the violence is over, it takes longer and longer for the snarl to die down.

Jaba’s voice pulls me back to the moment. “Witte knows about Greenstone?—”

“No shit. What else?”

Jaba blinks. “You knew that?”

I lower my voice. “Do I look like you surprised me just now?”

“No, you?—”

“Surprise me, Jaba. Tell me something new. Like your life depends on it.”

He takes a few quick breaths, thinking. “I told him about the trophy scheme.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “How much?”

“All of it.”

I sigh, long and loud. That was one of my more fun schemes. Almost no one knows that the Hodgson Trophy is a forgery.

Almost.

I’d had Jaba in on that job, thanks to his connections to one of the owners of the Chicago Bison. It was a lot of sleight of hand, subterfuge, glad-handing, and distraction to swap that trophy for my forgery. I have no interest in selling the thing—that would be a problem. Too recognizable, could bring a lot of heat for no good reason.

Selling it was never the point. The point was to get one over on the owner because he is an asshole who outbid my legitimate business for a city contract.

Once a month, I send him a ransom note and pictures of the real trophy. A friendly rivalry, for the most part. But he can’t prove it was me. Not unless Jaba, or now, Witte decides to turn me in.

“What else, Jaba?”

“The Lavender Girl.”

My hands stretch and flex. “You fucking didn’t. You?—”

“I did.” His voice breaks, and he stares at the floor.

“No, you didn’t. Do you know how I know?”

He slowly looks up at me. “How?”