Page 35 of Devious Corruption
“Oh.” I throw away the scraps and lean back against the counter. “I’m sorry. Just a lot going on.”
“Yeah? Boy trouble?”
“No.” I huff a laugh, waving away the possibility like it’s an asinine suggestion.
“Really? Cause you said no one. So…” She purses her lips and raises her perfectly plucked eyebrows as though to suggest I’m holding back.
Which I am, but Serafina is barely nineteen. I doubt she’s had much experience with mafia men who invade her space and her brain.
“It’s nothing.” Nothing that is possible anyway. And it’s not something I should even want or think of wanting.
Aside from the fact that he’s in charge of the arms dealing for the Russian Mafia. He’s out trying to find my brothers. And if he finds them, he’ll do God knows what.
I shouldn’t have given in about it. I can blame exhaustion, or emotional overload from stress, but the reality is when he said he’d take over a small part of me wanted him to do it. I wanted the weight off me, but now that I’m clear headed, I see what a horrible mistake it was.
He won’t know how to handle them. He’ll see them as criminals, as low life scum like others have all their lives. They won’t trust him, and it will turn into a whole thing.
They’re my brothers. My problem.
“Hey. I know I have another hour on my shift, but it’s dead. Mind if I head out early?”
She looks up from her phone, having already been distracted by a social media notification.
“No, that’s fine. I got it.” She waves me off and walks to the box of books needing to be stocked tonight.
After clocking out and grabbing my things, I hurry down the street to my car. Lev’s opinion about my car was clear in his eyes. A piece of garbage. And compared to the expensive top of the line cars he’s driven around in, I suppose it is. But it’s mine.
I worked after school and weekends for a full year to save up enough money to buy it my senior year in high school. Which worked out perfectly, since after graduation I was informed I’d aged out of the foster care system and Mrs. Ingles needed my bed for a new foster kid.
Mrs. Ingles was a decent enough foster mom, I have no real complaints about her, but in the end, if she wasn’t getting a check for me, she needed me to move on. It’s not that I expected anything less; I didn’t. And I was lucky that she’d let me hang around until I was able to find a new place to live.
The boys had already moved into their own place with some friends, which meant there wasn’t room for me. They offered to get me some work, but what they considered ‘work’ the police considered ‘misdemeanors.’
I had to move further away from them, get a job, and find a place I could afford on my barely over minimum wage salary. I couldn’t help them as much as before, and I think it drove them further into their crime dreams.
I’m here now, though, and if Lev is right about theboys getting into something deeper than they can crawl out of, they are going to need me.
It takes half an hour to crawl through traffic to get to their apartment. I’ve wanted them to move into a safer part of town, but they refuse. Their apartment is over a rowdy dive bar that has as many people standing outside smoking as there are inside overindulging on beer and shots. There’s no parking near the building, so I have to walk a block.
The cold, crisp evening air bites at my face as I hurry down the street, stepping over a man sleeping in the entranceway of a convenience store that’s closed for the night. The iron gate is secured over the door, as well as the front windows.
“Hey, sweet tits!” A man calls as I get closer to the bar.
It’s a familiar voice. Jimmy. A drunk who hangs on the street corner with his bottle of beer and his joint. Marijuana’s legal here but smoking it in the open isn’t. Not that any cop would bother to get out of their car in this part of town for something so low as a joint.
“Hey, Jimmy.” I give a little wave as I open the door leading up the boy’s apartment.
“They ain’t home.” Jimmy shuffles over to me, a cloud of smoke trailing behind him.
“Have you seen them? I was supposed to meet them.” I wave away the stench as his cloud wafts over to me.
“Nah, not for a couple days.” The cherry on his joint burns bright as he takes another hit, sending him into a coughing fit. He offers it to me, but Ishake my head.
All it ever does to me is burn my throat and give me a headache.
“Maybe I’ll just check.” I leave him on the street and jog up the stairs to their door. A pile of mail sits on the top step, having fallen out of the thin mailbox.
Scooping up the junk mail and bills they probably haven’t paid in a few months; I tuck it all under my arm and dig around my purse for the key. The stale stench of smoke hangs heavy in the air inside, suffocating me at first when I walk in.
