Page 33 of Lost Kingdom

11

TIM

SARGE’S CLUB

December, in Copeland City, means darkness hits before the end of a standard workday. It means office-workers commute home with the streetlights on and the snow dropping to cover their windshields.

It’s a miserable existence, spending half your lifetime stuck behind the wheel of your car. Traveling to work. Traveling home. Having just enough time inside the house you work to pay for to do the laundry and stack the dishwasher. Sleep. Make a pot of coffee. Then out the door again.

It’s a cycle I’ve never had to live. Which is a privilege, I know. It’s a lifestyle afforded to me because of the things my father did.

Maybe we can’t stand the prick—couldn’t when he was alive, and those feelings haven’t changed now that he’s dead—but that doesn’t mean his fortune went away just because he did. Timothy the Second quadrupled every cent Timothy the First created. And now, Felix and Micah are multiplying it some more.

Different tactics. Though some remain the same.

With Timothy’s death came a bank account for Felix to inherit. A portfolio that comprised a fuck ton of zeros, properties, cars, boats, planes, and sundry assets. Houses. Land. Buildings. Bars and clubs. The old man was a rich motherfucker, and sure, we could sit on our high horses and say no to the money earned from illegal means.

But that’s not what we did.

It’s certainly not what Felix did. And instead of keeping it all for himself, squirreling his newfound fortune away, he split it five ways and made damn sure we were all taken care of.

But just because I understand my privilege, doesn’t mean I’d give it up and trade my life for an hour-long commute and snow on the windshield.

Cars meander by while I stand on the sidewalk and wait outside a bar—not mine. I rest one foot on the brick wall behind me and watch as commuters attempt to escape the city in search of their homes a little further out. Bumper to bumper traffic, wheels rolling so slowly, they may as well walk. The fact they’re essentially sitting ducks in this part of town makes them desirable targets for the assholes who come around here.

But I’m not their hero, and they’ve locked their doors.Probably. So I keep my eyes to myself and my ears on the bar at my back. I hear the shouts and cheers of men who’ve been drinking instead of working. Many who gamble more than they can afford. Others who have families, either already grieving the man they’ve lost, or clueless to the fact he’s too deep in a world he won’t escape unscathed.

I focus on the voices on the other side of the wall, trying to pick them apart and string conversations together in my mind, and when some wander by and attempt to glance under the brim of my hat, I keep my head down.

It’s not about fear. It’s about not starting a war.

I don’t intend to swing my brothers into something they never started.

“L-listen, man! I was just getting started, ya know?”

Here he comes.

“You cut me off right when I was hitting my streak!”

“You’ve run out of credit, son.” One of Sarge’s soldiers escorts a man through the front door and onto the sidewalk just a mere few feet from where I stand. They shove him back so he stumbles, then they slam a boot into his belly when he attempts to run back inside.

I feel his pain in my stomach, my lips curling with the unpleasant sensation. But I mind my business. Hands in my pockets, eyes down, and the brim of my hat shielding my identity from men who might find interest in Felix Malone’s big brother standing guard.

“I said stay gone!” The soldier sinks his boot into the guy’s ribs, bouncing him on the concrete and lifting him an entire foot before he crumbles again. “Until you’ve paid what you owe, you’re not coming back in here.”

“I can’t pay what I owetillyou let me back in!” He heaves, his lungswhistling and his voice crackling with pain. “I lost my money in there, Tio! I’m trying to make it back again. For Sarge.”

“That’s not how that works.” He presses his boot to the back of the guy’s neck and mercilessly pins him to the ground. “You have a week. You’ve received your warnings, so make good on what you owe, or you won’t like what comes next.”

“Let’s go.” A second guard waits by the door and clicks his tongue. “We’ll start breaking your bones next week. The less functionality you have to work, the harder it’ll be to pay us back. You know what you need to do.”

No one rushes in to help the guy. The boy. He looks younger than his twenty-five years. And though there’s a part of me that might find sympathy for the situation he’s found himself in, thegrew up in hell and found my own waypart of me says fuck it, he’s a grown ass man and should know better.

I’m not here for him. Not now, and not ever.

I wait where I am, not moving a single muscle until Tio and his buddy head back inside the bar filled to the brim with hepatitis and bad choices, then once the area is clear and the guy on the ground attempts to climb to his hands and knees, I swoop in, fast as a rattlesnake, and scoop my arm beneath his.

I pull him to his feet in one quick move and have us walking away just as quickly.

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