Page 13 of Enzo
“Jesus, Robbie!” I yelled.
He went quiet. Then after a pause, some more scraping, and then he opened the door a little. “Push it,” he said, and I assume he meant the mattress.
“I can’t if you’re in there and you’re in the way, be sensible about this, Robbie?—”
“Push it, please…”
I shoved and it fell in. He shut the door, and I was stuck outside again.
“Kid’s a mess,” Tudor murmured. “Some assholes out there are going to hell.”
“Yeah…”
“If they come looking for him…” Logan seemed twitchy.
“Then we’ll deal with it,” Rio snapped, and only subsided when Tudor raised an eyebrow. That damn thing was magic, one tic and we all backed down. “Sorry, boss,” He threw at Logan who didn’t even hear him.
“You think he’s bringing trouble to our doorstep?” I asked.
Tudor didn’t answer right away. He took another sip. “Maybe trouble follows him here.”
“But that doesn’t mean we turn him away, right?” I asked, aware I was confronting the man who had given me—a messed-up murderer—a second chance. I knew he would do the right thing but doubt and lack of sleep were clouding my judgment. Tudor leveled a look at me, one conveying his displeasure with what I had said, and I fell silent. At least he didn’t use the eyebrow.
“It’s not just about Robbie,” Logan said from behind us, and I turned to face my best friend, who was as exhausted as I was. “It’s Cassidy.”
“We’d never let anything happen to Cass,” I reassured Logan because that little girl was precious to all of us. Logan might be her daddy, but we were all surrogate uncles.
“Yeah, I get that, but there’s been some trouble around here, some… the fires at Cardinal Park.”
Violence and threats had been circling us for months now, creeping closer like a noose tightening. Some of it came from the pasts we carried—men who’d pissed off the wrong people, who had enemies they couldn’t outrun. Some of it was newer—gangs carving up the streets, staking claims in the vacuum left behind by a broken police force. And then there was the gentrification, the slow influx of developers picking apart old buildings, driving up rents, and pushing out families who’d lived here for generations. Redcars had always been a target—too many people thought they could take what we had. Too many believed we couldn’t hold the line. I knew better—Logan knew better. But a victim of the worst kinds of violence being here, was different. Seeing something this close was personal, affecting each of us differently.
“What if Robbie is part of that?” Logan continued, “what if he’s one of the bad guys and?—”
“You know he’s not,” I snapped. “He’s a freaking victim. Jesus, Lo!”
Tudor placed a hand on my chest, but he spoke to Logan. “Logan, you’re thinking like a leader,” Tudor said. “But don’t forget what this place is. You, Enzo, Jamie, Rio… hell, even me when my pops dragged me kicking and screaming out of Jeb Butler’s whore house when I was thirteen—we all brought trouble when we came here. We were all someone else’s problem.”
That hit hard.
Logan held up a hand in defense. “I never said we should make him go.”
Tudor’s eyes met Logan’s, and then his gaze flicked to me. “Robbie is welcome here.”
“But what if whoever did this to him is… fuck… trafficking… and Cassidy… Jesus,” Logan muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “And this gets fucked this up…”
“You’re not wrong,” Tudor agreed. “But Logan?—”
“What if this puts Cassidy in danger?” Logan looked up at him, eyes shadowed with exhaustion.
Tudor shook his head. “You don’t carry it alone. We all look out for the little angel”
I nodded. “He’s right, Lo. We hold the line together. Looking out for Cassidy isn’t just you. It’s all of us. Same with this place.” In the nine years I’d been here I’d gone from wanting nothing to do with Redcars, to clinging for dear life to our small fucked-up family. I would stand between danger and Cassidy because that kid was like my niece or something, and I took that shit seriously.
Logan exhaled, shoulders relaxing a fraction. “I just… I can’t afford to fuck this up, I can’t have trouble at the door, not when my ex’s partner is waiting for me to crack. I’m not losing my kid.”
Tudor gave a slight, approving nod. “Let’s start with finding out where he came from.”
“Good luck with that, he’s barely right in the head to think, let alone talk, and he’s terrified.”
