Page 60 of Shark’s Pride

“Go?” Abbi softly queried. “Where?”

I disregarded her. The memories started coming, hard and fast—and relentless.

“I’ve known Viktor Blake since I was a kid.” I tick-tocked my head while I worked out the number of years. “Probably since I was eight or nine. He’s a couple years older than I am, but not by much.”

“Bas.” She was back at my side in seconds, her touch at the middle of my chest, her warmth so near. “Really, Bas. You don’t have to get into this. I—”

“This is what you wanted,” I insisted, but I could already hear the pain in my own voice. Christ, what must it sound like to her?

She remained silent now. Though she kept her hand on my chest, her energy was resigned to the verdict I’d just meted. Felt like a damn good word for the occasion.

“He was always a prick,” I said then. “Even when we were kids. His father owned half the city, or at least it seemed that way to me and everyone else in our school.” I tensed but took no measure to hide it. “I seriously hated school. But I tested into an advanced learning program the school offered, and the district wanted me to attend a different campus than my own neighborhood school to help their stats. They promised not to turn my father over to Child Protective Services and fed us twice a day in exchange for me playing the grades game. Everyone got what they wanted.”

“Only not really.”

“Not after the Blakes joined the parent-teacher organization.”

She swallowed. “What happened then?”

“They moved in—and took over. And Viktor was well aware of the immunity he’d gained because of it. He played every shred of it up like the playground bully he was.”

“I believe you.” Shadows took over her eyes. “More than I want to admit.”

I wanted to press for details on her knowing tone but tucked the comment into a mental file for later—though not too far in the future.

“No one was safe. Blake was the kid who took whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. Lunch money, sanity, dignity—nothing was off-limits for the asshole. He’d push weak kids down and hold his foot on their neck while they cried for help. He cheated on every test and threatened to knife a guy’s mom for refusing to write a research paper for him. He had a group of boys who followed him around as if he were a deity. Grant and I just tried to stay far away from him.”

She jerked her head up by an inch. “You and Grant were already friends at that age too?”

“Yeah.” I smiled while summoning memories of the skinny, too-tall-for-his-age kid that I’d met in a rat-infested alley on the east side. “We became friends during our daily bus rides to the west side. We were misfits and didn’t fit in with any of the other groups, so we made our own group. Just the two of us.”

“So what was the issue with Viktor?”

“What wasn’t the issue with Viktor?” I rebutted. “Like I said, we attempted to steer clear—and succeeded. Most of the time.”

“Most of the time?” Her smile faded.

“Well, he was a big guy—and not just in terms of his dad’s money. But we were smarter and faster. We were usually able to outrun the bastard, but it pissed us off that we had to. So we’d play tricks on him. Just when he had one figured out, we’d change up the ruse and make him fall for another.” I laughed at the memory.

But Abbigail stared as if I’d just confessed to sticking my head in a lion’s mouth. “What did he do about that?”

“Honestly? Not much. He was always up to as much mischief, if not more, than we were. Reporting us meant the possibility of getting his dad involved—and let’s just say the asshole apple didn’t fall far from the tree in that family.”

“Okaaay,” she finally drew out while sliding her hand down into mine. “That all makes sense…if you’re ten. But you’re grown men now. How has that playground rivalry carried into your adult lives?” She pursed her lips. “It seems petty.”

“And it would be,” I concurred, “if all the bullshit had stopped there.”

“It didn’t?”

“Hell, no. The antics grew as we did. I’m not proud of it, Red, but you wanted the truth, and this is it. As we grew older, the stakes got bigger and the plots got more complex.”

And here we were. The part of our history I hated revisiting the most. Once again, the school-aged me and the grown male part of me were merged too closely in my mind. And once again, there was nothing I could do about it. As usual, I was paying unearned fines for my father’s dereliction.

“The summer before fifth grade, Viktor’s father bought the home my father rented—‘home’ being a loose term here.” I gritted my teeth and compelled myself to go on. “My dad was always late paying the rent. When Blake Senior came around to collect the money, he’d bring Junior with him.”

A soft groan from my exquisite, empathetic woman. “Sounds like that was as much fun as a root canal.”

“Indeed.” I frowned, the memories flooding back like bile repeating after a bout of indigestion—bitter and acrid to swallow. “Viktor used every detail from those house calls as ammo at school. He couldn’t resist telling everyone how poor I was, in full-color detail. He took great pleasure in detailing how my father was a drunk loser, barely able to pay the rent.”