“The doctor said to take the first pill within twenty-four hours of my period—”

“I don’t want to know all the shit about your period. Just give me a date.” I knew I sounded like a jerk but it was my fear of damaging us speaking. This was new territory for our friendship. I felt out of my normal and part of me regretted saying I would have sex with her. It was smarter to tell her this was a mistake but I didn’t know that I was strong enough to watch her walk away with some other guy.

She crammed the container back into her purse. “Dammit, Ryan. Is this part of the asshole act you use to make sure girls don’t waste their hearts on you?”

“Who says it’s an act?”

“I do, because I know you better,” she snapped.

“You don’t know the me you’ll fuck.”

“Whatever, Ryan.” She turned around to stomp back toward her car.

Beneath the anger, there was a hitch to her voice. Any other girl, I would have gone right back to wiping down the tools. But Tana wasn’t any other girl. I couldn’t let her walk away.

“Hey!” I caught up to her before she could get into her car. I stuck my hands in the pockets of my jeans to keep from reaching for her. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You didn’t. I can separate sex from friendship, Ryan, and I can do it without acting the way you’re acting. If you changed your mind about sleeping with me, all you have to do is say so.” She sounded like she had an attitude a mile wide and that she wasn’t hurt, but I saw her lower lip tremble slightly.

I didn’t have a chance to respond to that because a black SUV pulled up behind her car, blocking her in and when the driver’s door opened, I knew my past had just caught up to me.

Chapter Four

TANA

When the SUV pulled up and the driver’s side door opened, Ryan’s demeanor changed. The expression on his face was one I’d never seen before. He looked totally different. Hard and mean. Like he was about to kick ass.

“Don’t say a word and don’t react to anything anyone says,” he warned.

I nodded and turned my attention to the guy walking toward us. He was a skinny Asian guy, probably in his late twenties. Not handsome, but eye-catching. His face was square, defined with all sharp edges like the old comic book heroes. His pupils were so big, it looked like his eyes were filled with black oil. He was dressed in black and every tattoo lining both his arms was just as devoid of color as his clothes.

“Ryan. How you been, my brother?”

“What do you want, Chanos?”

“Am I so unwelcome?” He flung his arms out. “I can’t pay my brother a little visit for old times sake?”

His gaze flicked to me and his eyes crawled over my skin. I shuddered.

“You traded up, bro. Nice. You wanna deal for the ‘ho?” Chanos reached out his hand toward the side of my face and I clenched my teeth together, fighting the urge to slap him.

His hand never connected with my skin. Ryan moved, putting himself between the guy and me. “You wanna keep that hand?”

Chanos’ eyes widened with surprise and he lowered his arm. “You boned out and you want to talk that trash?”

“I didn’t bone out. I took a bullet and we were clear.”

“Yeah. We were. Then.” He rubbed his forehead with his thumb. “Everybody living happily ever after. But now, I’m missing a little something from the warehouse where your dumbass brothers work and I think you might know where it’s hiding.”

“That’s not my scene anymore.” Ryan put his hand out behind him when I made a noise. He pushed me slightly to the side so that I was completely covered by his body.

“Not your scene?” Chanos lips turned upward in amusement. “Mama Leena has you in the church to spoon feed you some religion?” He raised his hands toward the sky and shook them. “Hallelujah.” He lowered his hands and smirked. “Don’t you know, boy, there ain’t no redemption for motherfuckers like you and me?”

I peeked up at Ryan’s face. He yawned and crossed his arms.

That action made Chanos laugh. “You always were one cocky sonofabitch.” His laughter faded. “Street value thirty eight thousand. You think you might know somebody besides yourself with balls big enough to walk out with my product?”

I’d known Ryan long enough to know when something upset him and he didn’t want to let on. There was a slight shift in the way he stood, in the way he curled his lip at one corner. “Can’t think of anyone.”

Chanos rapped his knuckles on the side of the SUV. The back doors opened and two other guys stepped out. One black, one white, both with shaved heads, baggy pants and lifeless eyes focused on Ryan. Their T-shirts were caked with spots of what looked like dried blood. My stomach churned.

“I wish I could accept that, but you know how it is.” Chanos shook his head. “You let one fucker slide and the next thing you know, there goes the goddamn neighborhood.”

“You want me to talk to him?” The white guy took a step forward right into Chanos’ upraised hand.

“It’s not necessary. My brother, Ryan, is a reasonable man. He knows that when one family member owes a debt, they all owe a debt.”

Ryan looked at the white guy with a sneer. “Still Chanos’ bitch.”

When the white guy took another step forward, Chanos warned him, “Ryan’s the king of bare knuckle hurt. I once saw him break a man’s jaw who was twice his size. Put that baby in the dirt begging for mercy. He’ll fuck you up the same if you touch him. Make you wish you were dead. Isn’t that right, Ryan?”

Ryan didn’t answer and the guy looked at Chanos and then back at Ryan.

Chanos moved closer and looped his arm around Ryan’s shoulder. “I think you can ask some questions, yeah? Find out who’s playing hide and seek with my kilogram, for old time’s sake, huh?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Chanos smiled and patted Ryan on the back. “See? I knew I could count on you. Once a family, always a family.” His dark gaze switched to me and his voice lowered like the hiss of a snake. “And you know how much it hurts to lose a member of the family.” He made a twirling motion with his hand and the two guys with him went back to the SUV. Chanos opened the driver’s door and looked at Ryan. “I’ll be waiting.”

As soon as the SUV was gone, I breathed out. “Losing a member of the family? He was threatening me.”

“Uh huh.” He was edgy, impatient.

“Because someone took drugs that belonged to him?” I wanted to hear Ryan say it because I could hardly believe one of his brothers was messing with a drug dealer.

Ryan headed back to the garage and started turning off the lights. When he was through, he came back to where I waited. “Why don’t you go home and I’ll call you later?”

“I’m not stupid, Ryan. Something is going on with your brothers and that guy’s drugs, right?”

For a second, I thought Ryan was going to tell me again to leave, but he sighed. “Yeah, something bad.”

I rubbed my hands on my arms and shivered.

He shot me a look. “What’s wrong?”

“Seeing that out there made me realize that even though you and I have been friends for years, there’s a part of your life I don’t know anything about,” I said, hoping maybe he’d tell me what that part was.

“And it’s going to stay that way.”

Ryan should know I didn’t blow off that easily. “You said you took a bullet. What did you mean?”

The impatience was back, stronger this time. He gave me a hard look. “Tana, trust me when I tell you my past is a world you don’t want to know anything about.”

“If it concerns you, I do.”

He assessed me, his eyes going dark and then haunted. “You think you’re ready for my world?”

His question was heavy with a meaning I didn’t really understand, but I nodded anyway.

“Come inside.” He walked back into the garage and without turning on the light headed into the small office. Pushing open the door, he stepped in, waited for me to enter and then slammed the door hard behind me. The glass in the small window rattled and I jumped slightly. “Alright, rich girl, I’ll show you.”