Your Fault (Culpable Book 2)

In just two days, Noah would be back. I don’t think I’d ever been so anxious to see anyone in my entire life. I was torn between wanting to kiss her all over and wanting to choke her for leaving me here, and I didn’t know which urge was stronger.

She had been weird the last few times we’d talked. She told me she was tired and was dying to see me, and I was counting the hours until it happened. I had fixed up the apartment—it was trashed before—had bought food, had even wiped the cat down with moist towelettes, for which he’d scratched me all over, and I’d had to count to a hundred not to throw the fur ball off the balcony.

I wanted us to have the best night of our lives when she returned. I wanted her to realize all she’d missed out on when she’d left me back here. I wanted her life to depend on me the way mine depended on her.

I’d spent basically the whole month at home or at work, trying to get ahead. I wanted to be done with school as soon as possible. If I kept my head down, I could graduate early, and as long as my grades were good, I could get my father to finally take me seriously.

The next night, as I was getting out of the shower wrapped in a towel, trying not to get water all over the apartment, someone rang the doorbell.

I cursed softly and went to answer: it was Lion.

“I need your help,” he said.

As he walked in, I turned around and kicked the door closed with my heel. I hadn’t seen him for a week, and the person standing before me bore only the slightest resemblance to my old friend.

“What the hell happened?” I asked, walking over to the sofa, where he’d sat down. He didn’t look at me: he just sank his head desperately into his hands.

His hair looked bad; he hadn’t shaved; I doubted he’d even showered in several days. I could tell by his eyes, he’d been drinking, even if he wasn’t drunk.

“I’m in trouble, man.”

Shit… It had to be bad, then. Lion’s problems were always major, never piddly shit.

“You know it’s been a year and a half since I stopped dealing…” he started. Hearing the word dealing was all I needed to imagine where this was going.

I grabbed a pair of pants draped over the sofa and put them on.

“Don’t tell me you’re back up in that shit, Lion!” I shouted.

He rubbed the back of his neck and glowered at me. “What do you want, man? I couldn’t turn down the chance to make that kind of cash… Luke’s living with me now. The dumbass wanted to do it himself, but he just got out. I wasn’t going to let him take the risk of getting snatched again…”

“Oh, so he can’t take the risk, but you can? You’re a fucking idiot. If you don’t watch out, you’ll be the one getting pinched!”

“Don’t you dare judge me!” he screamed, standing up. “You’ve got everything!”

I was trying to keep myself from kicking his ass because he was my friend and I knew he had money problems—but wasn’t that what the fights and the races were for? Maybe they were illegal, but that wasn’t the same as slinging drugs. He could get a ten-year bid for that, or more.

“What’s the trouble, then?” I asked.

He looked all around, then pinned me with his green eyes.

“I gotta hand over a package at the Gardens tonight. It was supposed to be on the beach, just a quick handoff, but the call came through, and now I have to go to the hood.”

Damn. The Gardens was one of the hardest hoods in LA, and Lion and I were pariahs there after a major squabble. My dad had handled it for us, and we had sworn never to go back.

“Don’t even think about asking me to come along…”

“It’ll be quick. We’ll drop off the shit, and we’ll head straight back, bruh.”

Fuck! I didn’t want trouble. Not now, when I was getting my life back on track. After what had happened with Ronnie and Noah’s dad, I’d sworn I wouldn’t get into any more bullshit. I wasn’t going to drag my girlfriend into that. Ronnie and everything that happened afterward, all that was my fault. None of it would have happened if I hadn’t brought Noah into that world.

“I’m not going, Lion,” I said, making sure he knew I was serious.

He was surprised for a second, then pissed right afterward.

“It’s suicide going there alone, and you know that… At least keep an eye on the ride while I do the drop. You said we were brothers, through thick and thin, and I need you now.”

Fuuuuuuuck.

“Drop off a package, that’s it?” I asked, already knowing I would regret it.

His face lit up.

“I hand it over and we’re out, bruh, I promise,” he said, getting up. I remembered when I’d gone to live with him and had to accompany him on runs. We were way younger and more irresponsible then. I didn’t want to fuck up again. There was too much at stake. I couldn’t go back to that world, not anymore.

“I’ll drive,” I said, grabbing my keys. I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but Lion had always been there for me when I’d needed him. I’d have liked it if he’d escaped that world, but there was nothing I could do. My father had offered him a job at the company, and Lion had turned him down. His grandfather’s garage was his life, and he wouldn’t give it up. Turning down my father’s offer meant turning down the one chance he had at a better life, without problems.

Noah was arriving home the next day, so I had plenty of time to help him out, get home, shower, and be ready to grab her from the airport.

Neither of us said a word as we got in the car and pulled out of the lot.

“Thanks for this, Nick,” Lion said, looking out the window.

“Does Jenna know you’re slinging?”

He tensed when I mentioned his girlfriend.

“No, and she’s not gonna know,” he replied cuttingly. That was a warning, no doubt about it. I wasn’t supposed to get mixed up in his business, but there he was forcing me to. Whatever.

As I headed into the Gardens, things I wished I could forget started coming up…Ronnie, his friends, the races, Noah’s kidnapping, her piece-of-shit father pointing a gun at her… All that shit had happened close to here, and I’d sworn I’d never come back.

“Take a right,” he said when we reached an intersection I knew well.

“You’re not taking me to the Midnight, are you?” I asked nervously.

The Midnight was a club where every dealer in the city gathered to do business. Part dive, part dance spot, it was where the worst people in town came to have fun. When we were younger, we used to hang there and get wild, but then things turned ugly. We’d been in there one night with a guy who moved serious weight for a rich clientele. I decided things were too hot, and I turned to go. But you can’t just turn your back on that life. They gave me an ass whooping I could still remember perfectly: they broke three of my ribs. After that, I definitely wasn’t going back, and I’d never set foot in there again, especially because the thing with my mother and sister happened soon after, and I’d had to go live with Dad again.

“Yeah, but it’s cool. I told you, just a minute. I’ll hand this shit off, get the money, and we’re out.”

I stopped by the corner of the bar. From there, I could see people entering and leaving. I had no interest in running into any dickheads from my past. I squeezed the wheel and watched Lion get out and head for the door.

When I thought sometimes about that part of my life, I couldn’t understand how I’d fucked up so bad. And yet now, when I had everything I needed, when I knew what it was to love another person more than anything in the world, even more than myself, I found myself back in the same shit.

I waited impatiently for Lion to come out, and when he didn’t, I started to feel nervous. Fifteen minutes had passed, and if what he’d said was true, he shouldn’t have needed more than five.

I cursed under my breath, hit the button on the key fob, got out, and slammed the door. As I approached the door, the two bouncers eyed me up.

“Where you think you’re going?” one asked, getting in front of me.

“Hey, easy, bro, I’m just looking for a friend,” I said, counting to ten in my head.

Before he could respond, a guy with facial piercings came out, looked me over, and said, “Let him in.”

The goon scowled at me and stepped aside. I rolled up my shirt sleeves as I passed him, knowing this wasn’t going to end well. My suspicions were right: as I followed the guy with the piercings to the back room, I saw Lion on the ground with a black eye and a split lip.

My fists clenched before I could even think about it, and my entire body was poised to strike.

“Look who we have here.” The voice uttering those words was one I knew very well. Cruz, Ronnie’s friend, the same guy who’d pounded me out that night I’d been stupid enough to walk down the wrong alley in the wrong part of town. When I saw him, memories of everything that had happened with Noah came back to me. I had tried as hard as I could to leave that shit behind, to focus on my future, on Noah, to protect her, to take a different road from the one I had started down as a teenager…but seeing Lion there laid out on the ground, and this asshole surrounded by guys just as bad as him, made all the rage I’d suppressed for months surge back up.

“I knew it would just be a matter of time till you showed your face around here,” Cruz said, leaning back on the table behind him. His black hair had grown out and was now pulled into a little ponytail. His arms were covered in tattoos, and from his eyes, I could tell he was high, even if I didn’t know on what. “Your friend owes us money. He was smart bringing his rich friend here to bail him out.”

I looked away from him and back toward Lion, who was staring at the ground.

“I don’t owe you shit, motherfucker. You better go ahead and make some other plan to get your money back because you ain’t getting shit from me.”

I chose each of my words carefully. I had no idea how I was going to get out of there. Lion was done for. Deep down, despite my anger, I felt bad for him, seeing him still caught up in that world I’d escaped. But at the same time, I was so pissed, I wanted to whoop his ass, too, for being an idiot and for dragging me into his bullshit.

Cruz walked over to me slowly.

“You know…it’s too bad Ronnie ended up in the big house, but for me, it worked out perfectly. Everything he had is now mine…so listen closely.” He stopped a foot from my face. “I’m not as dumb as he was. Your little friend here owes me three thou. I’m gonna get it back. I’ll take it in cash, or I’ll take it in blood, you decide. You make things even, and we’re good, or I’ll fuck him up so bad, his momma won’t recognize him.”

I clenched my jaw, trying to keep the one thing that mattered in my mind: Noah. I didn’t want problems. I wasn’t looking for a fight. Jenna popped into my head. If she saw Lion like that, let alone worse, her heart would break.

“I don’t have three thousand in cash. I’m not a drug dealer like you.”

Cruz cracked up laughing, and his lackeys followed suit.

“Don’t worry, pal, we got an ATM around the corner. We can go together. What do you think?”

I took a deep breath to keep myself from knocking him flat and turned toward the door. I knew they would follow me. We needed to get out of there. Even if we did give them the money, we were risking our lives being there. If we had been on neutral ground, it might have been a different question…

Once we were outside, the fresh air cleared my head, and I took a quick glance around to take stock of the situation. There were guys standing on corners in groups, an unhoused person or two, two girls talking with three guys in a car. I needed to bounce.

Lion edged over to me while Cruz and his three friends followed us to the ATM two blocks away.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” I said, stomping my feet. Even if he was my best friend, he deserved to pay for this.

“They played me,” he excused himself, then spit on the ground. “They told me I could sell the blow, and whatever I couldn’t move, I could just bring back to them, and now they’re saying I’ve got to pay for whatever I didn’t get rid of. They’re scum.”

“You’ve got a bigger problem than those assholes, and you need to figure out how to solve it,” I said, walking toward the machine.

Cruz hurried over. I was losing my patience, so I turned around and hissed, “Stop fucking around… Give me some distance, or I swear I’ll rearrange your face.”

Cruz smiled, lifted his hands, and walked backward. He was being chill because he needed that money. I took my card out and punched in my number. I hoped I wouldn’t have any problems with the withdrawal. Three thousand dollars: that was what I’d made for the entire four weeks I’d been away from Noah.

“Here—take it. And try not to run into me again,” I threatened him, handing over the cash.

Cruz counted it and grinned.

“You never should have left here, Nick. You’re a better fit than you think… This goody-two-shoes role you’ve been playing lately, it don’t fit you…”

I turned around, ready to walk away.

“I should have told you,” he added, “back when your girl got kidnapped and you sent the cops out, you know I walked right out the front door and got away? How is Noah, by the way?”

That was the last straw. My fist moved so fast that I wasn’t even aware it had struck his jaw until I saw him lying there on the ground. He sat up fast, and his boys threw me on the ground close to him. The first blow came right afterward and landed square in my left eye.

“Don’t you ever say her name again, motherfucker!” I rolled on top of him, and I pounded his face I don’t know how many times.

Just then, I felt a kick in the ribs.

“I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch,” Cruz said, and before I could react, the three guys were kicking me while I rolled back and forth. The first ankle I could grab, I pulled on with all my strength. Feet and fists rained down on me, blood was flying, but the adrenaline in my veins kept me from feeling a thing. I was blind with rage. Hearing my girlfriend’s name in his mouth threw gasoline on the fire.

I climbed on top of the guy I’d pulled down and started hitting him in the stomach. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lion taking on two others. We weren’t going to last long; it was four against two, and Lion was on his last legs. I could take on two guys with no problems, three even, but four? Even I had my limits.

Someone kneed me in the jaw, and my vision blurred. I fell to the ground facedown and got hit again, this time in the stomach. I couldn’t breathe. Every attempt to get oxygen to my lungs failed.

“Don’t come ’round here again,” I heard. “If you do, you won’t walk back out.”