Library
English
Chapters
Settings

Chapter 8

The three lowlifes scrambled over themselves out the door. Squealing tires and parting shouts of, “Gonna fuck you up motherfuckers!” followed.

“I swear.” Garet backpedaled until his ass landed in an armchair that leaked its orange stuffing in bright globs onto the floor. “I didn’t. I wasn’t.”

Reed, who helped Matt to the sofa, shook his head. “I can’t believe you let them in after what we talked about.”

“But I didn’t.” Garet practically whined. “They were here when I got home from school. They broke in through the kitchen window.”

Reed and Curtis exchanged a look and Curtis went toward the back of the house, presumably to check the window. He returned grim faced. “Looks like their love for redecorating includes residential properties.”

“Fuck.” Could this day get any worse?

Curtis swung around, taking in the room. “You can’t stay here.”

Matt laughed. “I’m afraid my summer home in the Hamptons is being renovated.”

“Shut up, smartass.” Curtis returned to stand in front of him. “You’re coming back with us.”

“No way.” This again? He was starting to think of The Asylum as Hotel California. “I’m not leaving Garet alone so they can come back and crack his skull open.”

Or worse.

Matt sat forward, elbows on his knees, and held his aching head in his hands. “Especially not when I heard what you were saying to them, G. What the hell? Why did you take the fall for their shit when you didn’t even take part?”

“Look.” Curtis’s black boots appeared in Matt’s view. “They’re going to come back with reinforcements. We leave now. And you’re coming with us. Garet too.”

Matt lifted his head, bitter laughter sparking on his tongue. “Why? So The Law can take a piece out of him too?”

A dangerous look darkened Curtis’s brown eyes until they appeared almost black. “Don’t you fucking dare go there.”

Picturing the state of The Asylum when he’d arrived there two days ago, Matt understood Curtis’s anger. Even if Garet hadn’t been directly involved, he had gotten himself in with the people who had vandalized the property, and Curtis was offering to take them both in. Matt might not like having lost to Lawson but nobody had forced him to fight.

“You’re right.” Matt swallowed the bitter pill. “Thank you, but we can’t accept your charity.”

Curtis cocked his head. “You forgetting something?”

Matt’s good eye narrowed. “No. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Good, because as far as I’m concerned, The Asylum still owns your ass.”

“The Asylum?” Matt challenged. “I don’t see anyone else following me around, playing lord and master.”

In truth, though, it wasn’t Curtis’s face that Matt pictured anymore when he thought of the brick warehouse on the wrong side of...well, the wrong side of everything.

“Reed” Curtis spun to take in the bartender who had dropped onto the arm of Garet’s chair. “Go pack this idiot some clothes before I blacken his other eye. Then take them to the car while I board up the kitchen window.”

Too tired to care that Curtis bossed him around in his own home, Matt heaved a sigh and didn’t argue when Reed went to do Curtis’s bidding. Ten minutes later, he and Garet sat in the car, Matt in the passenger seat and Garet in back with Reed. When Curtis came out carrying a blue garment bag, Matt knew he’d been right not to trust the man not to rifle through his things.

Curtis slid into the car and flopped the bag onto Matt’s lap. “I listened to your voice messages. You’re going to need those.”

“Huh?”

With Curtis, life had become one WTF moment after another.

“Your boss fired you.”

Matt’s stomach bottomed out.

“I’m hiring you, as of now.” Curtis keyed the ignition, right shoulder hunching as he started the car. “And those are your new uniforms.”

His emotional and physical tailspin amplified as Curtis spun the car out of the driveway. “My new…uniforms?”

Fingering the zipper on the bag, he realized it contained his senior prom tuxedo and his karate gi.

What the fuck, indeed.

Download the app now to receive the reward
Scan the QR code to download Hinovel App.