Page 45 of Single Mom's Daddies
But my jaw is tight. Because I know what he’s doing. And I’m getting tired of the game.
Just as I open my car door, I see them.
Three boys, clustered at the mouth of an alley, not really hiding. One of them leans against a wall, arms crossed. Another chews gum with performative aggression. The third keeps glancing toward the shop, pretending he’s not.
He’s the one from the footage.
I track Ruger’s movements. He’s in his car, parked across the street at the corner. He pulls away, though I doubt he’s really going anywhere.
Doesn’t matter. I have a job to do. I don’t look twice. Just walk. Casual. One block, then two. Then I cut through a side street, double back around. Come at them from behind.
They don’t notice me until I’m already in their space. I grab the first one by the collar and shove him into the alley wall, hard enough to rattle teeth.
The other two shout, move to lunge.
I drop the first and meet the second with a knee to the stomach, then an elbow to the jaw. He stumbles. The third one pulls a knife.
Children.
I snatch his wrist, twist, and hear the pop before the blade hits the ground. The kid screams and drops like a stone. His knife skitters across the pavement, and I kick it into the shadows, out of reach. The other two freeze, wide-eyed.
“Don’t move,” I say.
They don’t.
I turn back to the one I slammed into the wall. He’s breathing hard through his nose, trying to look tough. It’s not working. There’s blood in his mouth and his right eye is swelling. But he got to his feet.
I hate that I respect that, even a little. “Tell me your name.”
He hesitates. “Rico.”
“Rico,” I repeat. “You were watching the shop.”
He swallows. “No.”
I punch him in the stomach. Not hard enough to break anything—but enough to fold him.
He wheezes, curls forward.
“You’re bad at this,” I say. “Try again.”
The second kid—the one who tried to throw a punch and failed—leans against the wall, nursing his arm. The dislocated one is still curled on the ground, whimpering.
Rico straightens slowly. “Yeah. We were watching the store.”
“Why?”
No answer.
“Wrong,” I say, and slam him against the wall again.
He gasps. “We didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
“Of course not.”
“We just—we thought?—”
“What?” I ask. “That the Garcías wouldn’t have protection? That you’d roll in again and find what—cash? Beer?”
