CHAPTER 1

Bax

THERE ARE VERY FEW things that can kill the buzz of postsex mellowness. Getting coldcocked in the side of the head by a pair of knuckles that felt like they were encased in steel ranks right at the top of the list. My ears rang from the blow as my head snapped around from the force. I would’ve reacted, but an uppercut had my chin flying back and my skull ringing solidly against the brick wall behind me. Now I was seeing stars and swallowing blood. Not like these guys cared about a fair fight, but eventually I was going to get my wits back, and there was going to be hell to pay. I spit out a mouthful of blood and took the cigarette the guy who had inflicted the blows offered me.

“Long time no see, Bax.”

I lifted a hand and worked my jaw back and forth to see if it was broken. Nothing ruined a mellow, postorgasm mood like dealing with a bunch of clueless idiots and the thought of losing some teeth.

“How did you find me?” I blew out a stream of smoke and leaned back against the wall of the apartment building I had just exited. The copper taste of blood was tangy on my tongue. I made sure it landed on my assailant’s wing tips when I spit out another mouthful.

“Five years is a long time for a man to go without.” He lifted his eyebrows and flexed those hands I knew from experience were capable of far worse than a little smackdown. “No pu**y, no booze, no blow, no fast cars, and no one who gives a shit who you are. I know you, kid; I knew the first thing you would want when you got out was tail. I gave Roxie a heads-up to call me when you came knocking.”

He was wrong. The first thing I went for was the fast car. Granted, I used it to haul ass to a sure thing I knew wouldn’t say no, but still, pu**y came after a quality ride.

“So you took it upon yourself to make sure my welcome home sucked as much as possible?”

“If I know Roxie, and I do, you don’t have anything to complain about.” His merry band of thugs all chuckled and I just rolled my eyes. There was a reason Roxie was a sure thing, and not just a sure thing for me, even though I had been out of commission for the last five years.

“I’m not here for me. Novak wants to see you.”

Novak. The name made normal men shake in fear. It usually only came up when people were talking about murder, mayhem, and general discord on the streets. He was ruthless. He was cold-blooded. He was untouchable and a legend in the Point and beyond it. In the shadows and back alleyways he was king. Nobody crossed him. No one walked away from him. No one dared defy him . . . no one except for me. I wanted to see Novak as well, but I wanted to do it on my terms.

I finished the cigarette and put it out under the sole of the heavy black boots I had on. I was a lot bigger now than when I had gotten locked up. I wondered if these guys had bothered to notice. Living a life full of booze, drugs, and easy girls, no matter how young and active you were, isn’t a recipe for healthy living. Getting all that unceremoniously yanked away changes not only how a man lives mentally, but also what he becomes physically, be it by choice or not.

“I don’t want to see Novak.” At least not right now. My ears had finished ringing and all I had now was a splitting headache. These guys didn’t have the element of surprise anymore, and if they wanted to push the issue, it was going to get bloody and ugly really fast. I didn’t care even if I knew the goons were more than likely packing.

The guy who had delivered the blows just stared at me while I stared back. I wasn’t some scared kid anymore who wanted to belong . . . who wanted these guys to be impressed. Sacrificing five years of your life for a bunch of bullshit has a way of leaving a mark on a guy. Novak should’ve known that.

“Race is missing.”

Now, that had the desired effect. My eyes narrowed and my shoulders tensed. I pushed off the apartment building and ran rough hands over my shorn hair. Having hair in the joint was a bad plan, and even with the wicked scar that curved across the side of my scalp, I had no intention of growing the jet-black locks back. Low maintenance was necessary in my line of work—well, my former line of work—but that was a problem I didn’t want to think about now, or ever.

“What do you mean he’s missing? Like he went on a trip, or like Novak made him disappear?” It wouldn’t be the first time Novak took it upon himself to make a problem go away with a bullet between the eyes.

The guy shifted on his feet and my patience vanished. I lunged forward and grabbed him by the collar of his fancy button-up shirt. I wasn’t eighteen and scrawny anymore, so I saw the fear flash in his eyes as I literally pulled him to the tips of his toes so we were now eye-to-eye. I heard the slide of a gun get pulled back, but I didn’t take my gaze from his as he clawed at my wrists for purchase.

“Answer me, Benny. What do you mean Race is missing?”

Race Hartman was a good dude for the most part. Too good and too smart for this life. He should have never gotten caught up with Novak, should have never been out on the streets with me the night everything went to hell. Doing a nickel to keep a guy like Race out of the clutches of a piece of shit like Novak was a sacrifice I had no trouble making, but if the idiot hadn’t heeded my warning and walked away like he was supposed to when they slapped the cuffs on me, I was going to level the entire city.

Benny tried to kick me in the shin with his sissy wing tip and I tossed him away from me. I shot a dirty look at thug number one, who was holding a gun on me, and flipped him off.

“Bax . . .” Benny sighed and moved to smooth out his shirt where I had wrinkled it up by manhandling him. “Race went to ground the second you got busted. No one heard anything from him; he wasn’t around. None of the girls even saw him. Novak kept an eye out for him in case all that mess the two of you created came back to bite us in the ass, but nothing. Then last week, when the word was out you were getting out, he popped back up. He came around making threats, telling Novak it was bullshit you went down for what happened. I thought he had a death wish, but then . . . poof, he was just gone after stirring up the hornet’s nest. Now, you tell me why a smart guy like Race would do something like that?”

I didn’t know, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t have any friends in this world, anyone I trusted, aside from Race Hartman.

“Tell Novak to back off. I’ll see what I can do to get a pulse on him, but if Novak had something to do with Race going AWOL, he will regret it.”

“Pretty brave making threats when you haven’t even been out of lockup for a full twenty-four hours.”

I snorted and stepped around Benny like he wasn’t worth my time, which he wasn’t.

“Five years is a long time to go without; it’s also a long time to work on a grudge and grow the f**k up. You don’t know me, Benny. Novak doesn’t know me, and I don’t care what kind of muscle or firepower he wants to throw at me, if he had anything to do with Race going missing, I’ll make him pay. Tell Roxie thanks for ratting me out.”

“You get what you pay for.” I wasn’t sure if that was a dig at me or at her.

“I don’t know about you and your ugly mug, but I’ve never had to pay for it in my life.”

I saw him scowl and took advantage of his distraction to lunge forward and slam the hardest part of my forehead right into the bridge of his nose. I heard a satisfying crunch, and then his scream of pain as his cronies hurried forward to keep him from folding to his knees in the dirty alley. I gave my head a shake to clear my vision, because the move hadn’t done a thing for my headache. I stepped around my now howling and blood-gushing adversary, tossing over my shoulder as I made my way to the mouth of the alley:

“You might not want to underestimate me, Benny. That was always your downfall.”

My name is Shane Baxter, Bax to most people, and I’m a thief.

Got a girl? I’ll take her from you. Got a sweet ride you dropped a mint on? I’ll take it from you. Got expensive electronics you think are safe? I’ll come and take them, because you probably didn’t need them anyway. If it isn’t nailed down or attached to you by unbreakable chains, there is a good chance I can make it mine. It was the only thing I was good at. Taking things that didn’t belong to me was second nature; well, that and finding all the worst kinds of trouble to get into. I was only twenty-three, had gone in for a nickel right on the heels of my eighteenth birthday, but that wasn’t even close to the first time I got busted or banged heads with the law. I wasn’t a master of good choices or clean living, but I knew my strengths and I stuck with them and I took care of my own. Whatever the cost might be.

I had two people in my life I bothered to care about: my mom and Race. There used to be three, but the last one let me down in too many ways to count, and now I swore I would coldcock him the next time I got the opportunity. My mom was long-suffering, stubborn, and the only person who stayed on my side when I went away. She had terrible taste in boyfriends, a bad habit of drinking more than was healthy, and trouble keeping a steady job. She was the very definition of down-and-out no matter how many lifelines I tried to throw her.

I started stealing stuff before I understood what I was doing because I was so tired of going without. As I got older and better at it, I did it to pay the bills and to keep a roof over our heads. My mom never judged me, never turned her back on me, and was the only person in the world who would actually be happy to see me out of prison.

Race and I were the two most unlikely friends anyone could imagine. He was college-bound, tech-savvy, and from a family that had all the right connections and pedigrees. He was well spoken and charming, always dressed like he was going to a job interview, and was full of patience and common sense. He was a delightful summer breeze to my blizzard of destruction. I hadn’t even finished high school, could barely read a full sentence, didn’t have a family beyond my mom and the slum we lived in, and I looked like what I was: a thug. Even before serving hard time I had carried layers of hard muscle and bulk making me a big guy who no one wanted to mess with. No one but Race.

I tried to jack his car one night when we were both teenagers. He was driving a sweet Roush Mustang with an even sweeter blonde in the passenger seat. I had no idea what he was doing in such a bad part of town, but I wasn’t the kind of guy who let an opportunity pass me by. I shoved a knife in his face, pulled him out of the driver’s seat, and proceeded to try and take his car. Only Race was in no hurry to let it go. I never knew if he was fighting for the girl or for the ride, but either way, we beat the shit out of each other. I broke his wrist, he cracked my ribs and knocked out my two front teeth. It was gory, and epic, and by the time it was all said and done, we were blood brothers.

I got the blonde’s seat in the Stang on the way to the hospital and I got a brother from another mother in Race. I never went to his fancy house on the Hill or dirtied up his good name at his fancy prep school. He never slummed it with me in the ghetto or had to deal with my mom’s drunken outbursts. When I started boosting high-end cars for Novak on the regular and needed help with the computer systems in the rides that cost in the high-six and sometimes seven figures, he was the only one I trusted to have my back. We had a good time, blew through hot girls, and partied with stuff kids our age shouldn’t know anything about. Every day I regretted asking him, regretted dragging him down to my level so badly. Five years was a long-ass time to work on an apology. It was just as long to wait for one that was owed, one that when it came, I hoped would be enough to keep me from having to put my hands around my best friend’s throat. We both had made some serious mistakes along the way that needed atoning for.

Trouble was, I had no idea where to start. When I went away, he had been enrolled in some Ivy League school out east. I wasn’t sure if he made it to that place, I went away so he could, but there were no guarantees in life. I learned that lesson the hard way.

I shook out a smoke from the pack I had snagged from Roxie and dug out the prepaid cell phone I had picked up when I went and got my car. I walked up and around the block to where I had parked the beauty, far away from curious stares and hot hands. I knew what kind of cars thieves looked for and what kind of cars car guys wanted for their own. My bumblebee-yellow-and-black, race-striped, 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner with its tricked-out hemi and hood scoop was both. It was loud. It was tough. It was faster than fast, and it was the only thing I had left after I got locked up. I told my mom to sell it when I went down, but she refused. She knew how much work, how much sweat and tears I had put into that car, so if it meant rent or my baby, my baby won.