Sebring

Dad stalked my way. “Get his ass outta here, Olivia. Get him producing.” He indicated Green behind him with a swing of his gun. “And clean this shit up.”

With that, he walked out the door.

“Towels, Tommy,” I reminded him quietly.

He jerked his head and moved to Dad’s bathroom.

I moved quickly to Green, crouched and dropped forward on my knees.

“We’ll get you to Dr. Baldwin. He’ll sort you out,” I murmured.

“I’m done, Liv,” Green clipped.

I drew in a careful breath and looked in his eyes.

“Fuckin’ asshole’s lost his goddamned mind,” Green went on. “Knew it already. He didn’t have to shoot me in the fuckin’ leg to know it. But definitely know it now.”

“Eli,” I called him the name only I called him occasionally after Georgia christened him Green.

“Stuck it out for you, babe. Did what I could. But I gotta fuckin’ eat,” he bit out.

“Georgia is working on—” I started, knowing it was a waste of breath.

Green was done and I didn’t blame him and not simply because my father had shot him in the leg.

“He calls me here to kneel before him and explain why I’m not moving product?” he cut me off to ask incredulously. “Then he loses his mind when I remind him I got no product to move because all his shit has dried up because he’s a fuckin’ lunatic and no one wants to do business with him? And Liv, you gotta be a serious fuckin’ lunatic for the lunatics in this business not to want to do business with you.”

“He’s under a lot of pressure,” I stated as Tommy approached, squatted close and pressed a clean towel to Green’s leg.

“Yeah, Liv, he is. That is not lost on me. That isn’t lost on any of the fuckin’ minions he treats like minions even though nearly two fuckin’ decades ago, Leon Jackson cut off his balls and served them up. Vincent Shade ate his own balls and he did not grow those balls back. Leon bit it, his wife ruled his roost and dug your dad’s hole deeper. She got outta the game, Valenzuela stepped in. He never got his shit together to win his patch back.”

He shook his head impatiently but gave me no chance to reply. He kept talking.

“I am not tellin’ you shit you don’t know. Shit like the fact that Denver’s only got two real players left. Marcus Sloan, who acts like your dad doesn’t even exist, and Benito Valenzuela, who doesn’t bother fuckin’ with your dad because he knows he’s a fuckin’ joke. Hell, Seth Townsend’s still in prison and he’s got more pull on the street than your dad.”

“You are, of course, telling me something I know,” I confirmed, about to go on, but Green continued explaining a situation I knew all too well considering the fact I lived and breathed it.

“Sloan’s got the guns because he wants to control who’s usin’ ’em on the streets. Other than that, he’s gone legit. Valenzuela has the rest, Liv, and there’s no gettin’ it back from him. Only outfit who might have the power to see that through is that crazy MC and only because the brothers of the Chaos Motorcycle Club are fuckin’ crazy and they got bigger balls than practically anybody.”

“Green—” I tried but got no further.

“Pot went legal, we got even more fucked, ’cause that’s all Valenzuela let us have. He’s got the rest of the dope. He’s got the whores. He’s got the film sets. He’s got the protection racket. He’s got state senators eatin’ at his table. He’s got that prosecutor bitch lubed and beggin’ to take more of him up her ass. He’s got it all. Your soldiers been existing on dregs for you, whatever Georgia can drum up for us to put on the street, which isn’t much and it sure as fuck ain’t quality, and I’m not the only one who’s done.”

This didn’t surprise me.

It concerned me, but it didn’t surprise me.

I was, of course, their team leader, as it were. They were all my soldiers. They answered to me. They also communicated with me. So I knew this all too well.

“Eli, Georgia has had a series of meetings with Valenzuela in an effort to—”

“He wants her to suck his cock,” Green declared. “After she gets on her knees, he wants her bent over his desk. He does not take her seriously, Liv, and please God, tell me one of you Shades are smart enough to know that’s the motherfuckin’ truth.”

I made no reply because I was the one Shade who did know that.

“You know,” Green whispered, eyeing me closely. “Only one with a goddamned brain in your head, you fuckin’ know. Your dad is done, Liv. He’s so fucked in the head, it’s not fuckin’ funny. Livin’ in the past, thinkin’ he’s still coastin’ on the legacy his father left him. This shit…” He indicated his leg. “Him still thinkin’ he’s king of the scene when no player acknowledges him, suppliers from here to Colombia to fuckin’ Afghanistan knowin’ he’s a joke, that shit he pulled four—”

All of a sudden his eyes jerked to Tommy’s hands on his wound then to Tommy’s face.

“Fuck, man, what the fuck?” he clipped.

“We need to get you to Baldy,” Tommy stated.

“Yeah, only reason Baldy will look at me is ’cause he’s sweet on Liv, but you get that, don’t you, Tom?” Green asked.

Tommy’s eyes flashed.

I quickly shifted closer to Green.

“How about we focus on sorting out your injury?” I suggested.