Page 62 of Cash

Brick put on his robe and slippers, trudged downstairs, and plopped on the sofa. He grabbed the TV remote and mindlessly flipped through channels until he found a nature documentary about big cats.

His mind continued to stray, and he kept checking his phone.

Nothing.

He wasn’t expecting Jules to give him any sort of gory details, but a simple hey, I’m not dead would be cool. Jules had said he would text him whenever he was on the way home, and Brick wondered crazily if Jules was dead in a ditch somewhere, shot up for going after whoever it was he was chasing tonight.

Cringing at how his mind immediately drew the worst possible conclusion, Brick tried to focus on the television.

He had finally managed to zone out watching a bit about tigers when there was a noise at the front door. He’d been so into the documentary that the sound made him jump, and he almost went for the frying pan in the kitchen.

Surely if it was Jules, he would open the door instead of mindlessly bumping into it.

There was another thump.

Frying pan time.

Brick raced into the kitchen, snatched up the frying pan, and stared down the front door. Every muscle was primed for battle, and he was nearly trembling from the flow of adrenaline. Between his fist and the gigantic cast iron frying pan, he felt surprisingly confident to go up against whatever was on the other side of that door.

The door swung open, the security system chirped in warning, and then…

Jules lumbered in, panting hard and limping to the beeping security panel with a low groan. He reset it and smiled wearily over at Brick. “Miss me?”

“Jules!” Brick ran over to embrace him. “You’re back! Finally! I was so worried!”

“Hey, baby boy.” Jules’s brow was damp with sweat, and he looked like he’d been through hell. He hugged Brick with one arm, using the other to brace himself against the wall by the door.

Brick smelled something weird, a strong and pungent odor that he couldn’t quite place. He kissed Jules eagerly, but…

Jules wasn’t kissing him back, and his lips were startlingly cool.

“Hey,” Brick said urgently, alarm bells going off in his head. “What’s wrong?”

“Just need to rest,” Jules insisted. “I just need…” His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell forward.

“Jules!” Brick cried out. He tried to catch Jules, but he wasn’t fast or strong enough to halt the giant’s descent to the floor. He dropped to his knees beside him and got him rolled over, shaking his shoulder. “Hey, hey! What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Jules’s eyes were closed, and he groaned softly. “I got nicked…”

“Got what? What happened?” Brick choked back the urge to panic and tried to stay calm. “Do I need to call 911?” He patted over Jules’s chest and stomach, trying to find where he was injured.

“No, call Cutter. No hospitals.”

“Wait, call the detective?” Brick scoffed. “Seriously? You want me to call him?”

Jules didn’t say anything. He was still breathing, but it sounded raspy and weak.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Brick’s search for Jules’s injury brought him to his legs, and he stopped when he found a wet spot. He lifted his hand and froze when he saw his palm was covered in blood. He hadn’t seen it before because Jules’s pants were such a dark color. “Oh, fuck.”

He leapt to his feet to first grab one of the packs of dish towels from the kitchen and then retrieve his phone from the couch. He got halfway back to Jules before he realized that he didn’t know Cutter’s phone number.

The card! Oh fuck, the card.

Brick raced upstairs as fast as he could, losing a slipper along the way, and grabbed the card from where he’d stashed it inside his bag. He was already dialing as he hurried back down to Jules. After getting the phone on his shoulder, he kneeled back down beside Jules and tried to figure out where exactly he was hurt.

“Come on, come on,” Brick hissed into the phone, each ring making his heart pound harder with dread.

Jules’s left pants leg was soaked in blood, and Brick discovered a small tear in the fabric. He tore it wide open to reveal Jules’s bloody thigh. He tried to wipe the blood away and gasped.

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