Page 20 of Mad Max

Honestly, the name and slogan alone are a dead giveaway. “T to T: Trash to Treasures, where one man’s throwaways are another’s desires.” Either the place is just irony at its best or the owner is a sicko and gets a kick out of the play on words if he’s thinking a person is equivalent to a throwaway pair of jeans.

Once I figured out the place, I sat and watched. I’ve spent more hours than I care to at this coffee place. The only thing they have on the menu that isn’t coffee is tea, which is worse than coffee, and hot chocolate. I don’t think a person has drunk this many cups of cocoa in one week in the middle of summer before. And it’s not like they even do anything fancy to make it. I swear it’s just the instant type that they add hot water to.

Even if the hot chocolate isn’t great, the staff is at least ambivalent, and they don’t bother me or care that I keep coming back. Which is perfect, since I hate making small talk with strangers, and I need the time to research.

So far, I’ve learned that the store recently moved to new management earlier this year. I can’t find anything on the last owner. The name on the bill of sale three years ago led me to a dead end. I might not consider myself a hacker, but I know how to decipher a few codes and get past some firewalls. Nothing on a grand scale, but enough to find things out.

The transfer of sale lists Fisher and Mitchells, an accounting firm, but not the name of the new owner. I’ve looked into them, and besides an office fire that took the manager’s life and his clients’ who were trapped inside a few months back, I don’t see a connection. Well, except that the reports were a bad attempt at covering something up. I guess they weren’t that bad—I still can’t figure out the truth—but it’s obvious, at least to me, a girl who looks at reports daily, to see that the arson investigator and police detectives did the minimal amount of paperwork to get the whole thing overlooked by anyone checking. Which kind of pisses me off. I don’t like when I can’t figure things out, no matter how much I dig. Jimmy calls it pride; I just call it an unattainable challenge that festers in the brain.

A chair screeching across the tile has me jumping and spilling my lukewarm cocoa on my lap. I brush the liquid from my suit pants, not caring if it stains. I’m rocking my power suit, all business and black. Hides stains well, and I look the part I’m going for: a badass who knows how to talk the talk and walk the walk if needed.

Napkins are forced into my hand, and only then do I look up and see my beast.

My?

I question myself for half a second before I shrug it off and dab at the liquid so it doesn’t look like I peed myself. Might hide that it’s a chocolate stain, but a wet mark is a wet mark. No hiding that, and I don’t want anyone to think I’m nervous in that way.

I’m okay with calling him mine, for the simple matter that I have no other beast in my life. None before him and I doubt ever again. And we had sex. Twice. That has to count for a bit of allowed ownership in one’s mind, I think.

I toss the soiled napkins on the table and lean back in my chair. He’s sitting next to me and is now wearing a similar vest to his club brothers. I haven’t seen him since that little awkward moment with my uncle, but I don’t know if he’s following me or if this is just a coincidence and he regularly visits this coffee shop. But coincidence or not, the man didn’t order a coffee that I can see, and he has one helluva mean mug aimed at me.

“What?” I ask.

“What are you doing here?”

That voice of his really can make me shiver, but I hold it in. I can’t afford to be distracted.

“Taking a break from work.” Sort of. Kind of. I mean, it’s a break from the traditional job, but I’m on a self-imposed gig.

He continues to glare, not liking my answer. Too bad for him, I’m not one of those girls who just lays out everything they plan to do the second a man stops by.

“You need to stop this.”

“Stop what?”

He just shakes his head at my terrible attempt to be innocent. “Your uncle doesn’t want this. No way would he want you close to any of this. Stay away.”

I snort, and he only raises his eyebrow. Guy seriously has no clue what Jimmy wants. I doubt my uncle thought I would go this far, but he did know I would do something with the information he gave me. And if I was a betting woman—which I’m not, ’cause I did the math and know the house rigs it for them to win—I know Mad Max is following the same lead I got. I’m not fool enough to think his club didn’t hear Jimmy tell me to see Lou when I left, just surprised it took them so long.

And that isn’t pride talking at all. I’ve been watching this street for days. I know who’s here and who isn’t. I’ve counted heads, memorized addresses. Looked up people on social media when I got a ping that someone notified the world that they checked into a store or anything else on Ford Street. And I especially noticed that not one Hound of the Reaper has been here all week. Sure, they could have gone undercover, but again, I would have noticed someone watching.

“Don’t let that old man fool you. He might act one way with you and another with me, but only he knows what he wants. The rest of us are just guessing. I gave up trying to figure him out a long time ago and just accept what he gives me,” I say with a shrug.

“What’s that?” He tilts his head a bit, and the way he speaks, I almost feel like he’s fishing for information. Like he thinks I’m involved more than just looking into what’s going on.

We hardly know each other, and I’m not upset that he doesn’t trust me. I don’t know if I even trust him at this point in our “getting to know each other” relationship. Sure, we know we work in the biblical sense, but the matters of the mind are much more complex than those of the body. Our bodies do what feels good, damn the consequences. Our heads are the ones left to figure out what it all means and how we feel about it after.

I answer truthfully. “A family that accepts me for me.”

I didn’t say it to shock him, even though it’s clear I did as he leans back into the chair. “You didn’t get that from your parents?”

“No.”

“You’re young. You got time for that shit. Do as they do in the movies and talk shit out. You want things to change, you got to speak up.” He’s kind of philosophical when he stops grunting and actually talks.

“Don’t have a problem speaking up.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

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