Page 172 of Ready to Cash Out

So much for that.

“I’m sorry.” Juicy frowned. “I really thought there might be six.”

“No, no, it’s okay.” Trev offered a small smile. “I understand you’re trying to help me. It’s… It’s really all right.” He returned to the desk to plot, his thoughts in shambles.

Fuck.

This…

This really might be it.

“Your mother was really a lovely woman,” Juicy said suddenly.

“Excuse me?” Trev quirked his brows.

“Your mother.” Juicy smiled. “She knew, I think. That I was watching over you two. She noticed. Of course she did, heh. She was smart. And she knew it wasn’t a coincidence that I kept showing up everywhere you were. She was very observant, smart. Clever.”

Trev hesitated to say anything that might interrupt Juicy’s rambling.

He had said very little to Trev about his mother, and he couldn’t imagine another time he might be able to hear any of this. “Yeah? Was she?”

“Oh yes.” Juicy nodded. “Mind teasers, brain puzzles, riddles. She had a real knack for them. Whiz at crosswords too. She was always kind to me…” He touched his brow. “Even when my mind started to go. Wherever it goes. Huh. Where does it go?”

“What?”

“Your mind.” Juicy stared at him intently. “When it goes, where is it? Where does it end up?”

“Maybe…” Trev smiled. “Maybe it goes to the beach and we’ll find it there.”

“You really think we’re going to make it to the beach?”

“I have to.” Trev hit the desk, his frustrations bubbling over. “I have to fucking believe in something. I’m not going to give up. I can’t just sit here waiting to get fucking murdered! I was in danger, always at risk. I put myself in stupid fucking situations all the time, I did some of the dumbest shit you can think of, and…”

Somehow I made it.

Why?

How?

“There were so many times I could have died,” Trev said quietly. “I was… arrogant. I didn’t care. I thought I was in control and I was smarter than everyone else was. Which, hey, is true for a lot of people, but… not all of them. I was a fucking idiot. All that mattered to me was the next payout, the next hustle, the next anything that would get me away from Perry City.”

“And now?” Juicy prompted.

Trev’s eyes were hot. “Now…”

Juicy came over to sit beside Trev on the desk, slinging his arm around Trev’s shoulders. “What is it, kid? Talk to me.”

Trev stared at a spot on the floor. “Now it’s not just about me. There’s people I care about and I have so much to lose. You, Jupiter, Rowena, Jimmy…”

“Cold?”

“He’s already gone,” Trev whispered bitterly. “I think I was just starting to understand him and now he’s fucking dead. Because he’s like me. Was like me. Arrogant, cocky, thought he had everything planned out, that he could control fucking everything. And look where it fucking got him.”

“The boss of Strassen Springs?”

“Dead.”

“Ah, yes. That too.”

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