Page 44 of Cash

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.

None of the other lights were on in the house, and the darkness between the edge of the door and the frame was horrifyingly ominous, but Brick couldn’t look away.

He inhaled sharply when the bedroom door shifted.

Someone was coming in.

Jules pounced, disappearing into the darkness of the hallway with a fierce growl. There were grunts, heavy whumps of physical contact, and then Jules snarled in what seemed to be pain.

Shit, shit, shit.

The wild and powerful urge to help Jules overwhelmed Brick’s fear, and he leapt out of bed immediately. He grabbed the closest thing he could use as a weapon, the lamp at his bedside, and ripped it out of the wall before charging to the door. He whipped it open and flicked on the hallway light so he could see what was happening, gasping as he saw Jules and a man in a ski mask grappling with each other at the top of the stairs.

Ski Mask had a gun.

Jules had both of his big hands wrapped around Ski Mask’s wrists, effectively hog-tying him and keeping the gun pointed at the ceiling. Jules clearly had the advantage of brute strength, and he jerked his head forward, crushing Ski Mask’s nose and wrenching the gun away from him.

The sudden force sent Ski Mask off balance, and he teetered backwards down the stairs with a loud cry. He tumbled over and over before landing at the bottom with a final deafening crack, and then he did not move.

Jules tilted his head, looking over the very unnatural position of the body, and then he shrugged. “Oopsies.”

“Oopsies? Fucking oopsies?” Brick barked, shaking the lamp at him. “What kind of fucking gangster says oopsies?”

“What? It just popped out. I was very surprised.” Jules tried not to grin. “Probably not as surprised as him though.”

“Christ.”

“Hey, that was funny.”

“What do we do?” Brick demanded. “There is a dead man at the bottom of my stairs. There is a corpse right there where I put my snowman rug out every Christmas!”

“It’s okay, baby boy. Calm down. I got this.” Jules tucked the gun into the back of his pants. “Just be cool.”

Brick laughed hysterically. “Be cool? Be cool? I’m standing here naked with a lamp that I was going to use to bludgeon an intruder with, an intruder who is now very dead—”

“Hey, hey, you did great.” Jules pried the lamp away from Brick. “Chill out for a second and let me handle this, all right? I gotta make a quick phone call.”

“What, what, who are you calling? Some kinda mafia cleaning service?”

“No.” Jules patted Brick’s shoulder reassuringly. “I’m calling the cops.”

“Oh, okay. Cops. Wait—what?”

“You might wanna put some pants on.”

Chapter Eight

Brick was certain he was going to throw up.

Jules had explained that he didn’t have anyone to help dispose of the body, and the man’s death had truly been an accident. The best thing to do was to call it in and let the police deal with it.

Amazingly, it worked.

Jules did all the talking, explaining they’d had trouble with someone trying to break in the other night and that was why they’d just installed the new security system. He was confident that this was one of the same men from before, and Jules had attacked him in self-defense. He certainly hadn’t meant for the man to fall down the stairs and break his neck. That was an accident.

Oopsies.

Brick bowed his head and sighed miserably.

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