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“Nevaeh?” I guess.
“Nevaeh, yeah, but she wasn’t the worst one.” His face darkens. “There was another girl who treated me like shit. I’m not saying I’m a saint. I’ve done shitty fucking things, including when I was with her, but she played me big time. The nice have never liked me.” He rubs the back of his neck. “When you actually wrapped those pretty little lips around my cock, I was shocked. I thought maybe you were fucking with me, too, because who would want me when there’s someone else?” He hikes his thumb toward the door as if he’s insinuating I would prefer Brawler.
“Don’t say that,” I tell him. I wrap him in a hug. “I’m not playing you. I promise.”
“Then you need to tell me what’s going on. I can’t stand that I don’t know shit.”
“Okay,” I say, closing my eyes. It looks like I’m about to have that conversation with him right now. I don’t even have the chance to think about what comes from my mouth, I just have to come out with it. “The two things Brawler found in my apartment were a picture of my parents and a burner cell.”
“Okay...”
I push him back to the threadbare couch and straddle his lap. I place his hands on my hips and put my own on his chest. His heart thumps underneath his ribcage. “What he didn’t find was a gun that I also had stashed there.”
Oscar’s lips thin. I can tell he’s trying to put all three of these things together in his head. How they’re linked. Why I had them. Why I really wanted them. However, to be honest, it’s not all that odd for people to be packing heat in the Heights.
“The phone links me to my aunt and uncle who took over my care after my parents died. They don’t know why I’ve come here or even where I am specifically because it’s better that way. I don’t need this life knowing about them. They’re the only family I have left in the world.” I meet Oscar’s eyes, hesitant to go on.
“You can tell me,” he says, sensing my apprehension.
“It was difficult for me to tell Brawler too,” I say, trying to placate his worries. I blow out a breath. “It’s important no one knows about them because once I get another gun…” I shoot a glance toward the door and lower my voice. “Once I get a gun, I’m going to kill Big Daddy K.”
Oscar stills. Flashes of different emotions scatter over his face.
“He murdered my parents when I was twelve,” I say, continuing to whisper. “He took everything from me, so I’m going to take everything from him.”
I fill Oscar in on the finer details about my past and how it intersects with Kingston Marx on that fateful night. He irrevocably changed my life, but he didn’t realize it. He didn’t understand the monster he made in that moment. The wound festering inside me until I decided to do something about it.
“Joanne?” Oscar laughs, his abs tightening under my touch.
I glare at him. “They used to call me Jo, but yes, that’s my real name. This is all beside the point,” I say, temper flaring. “I’m not her anymore. I’m someone completely different.”
He screws his face back to normal. “Right. Sorry. It’s just that name doesn’t suit you whatsoever.”
I drop my head back. “Tell me when you’re ready to discuss the important shit I just told you.”
Oscar grips my hips. “I love it when you get angry. It makes me hot.”
I bring my head back up and glare at him. “Do you see why I was worried about telling you?”
He slides a gaze to the door this time. Voice low, he asks, “Because you want to take out the biggest crime lord in this state? No, I can’t imagine why you didn’t want to say anything to me.”
I glare at him, and he grins.
“Princess,” he says, pushing the hair off my shoulder. “I thought you were crazy before, but now I know you’re certifiable.”
I swallow. “I know you’re in the Crew, so I’m begging for your silence on this one. You can decide you don’t want to be mixed up in this certifiable crazy—”
He pulls me down, pressing his lips to mine briefly to shut me up. “I like my chicks crazy.” He kisses me senseless for a few seconds and then lets me go. “You know I didn’t join the Crew out of any loyalty. I joined it out of sheer desperation. I had to. I had to protect myself and my mom.” His gaze hardens again. “A lot of fucking good that did because she can’t be here without getting mixed up in drugs. She was fine when she was in Spring Hill. Here? The moment we fucking got back, syringe in her arm like a damn crack whore.”
I cup his face. “Is that where she is?”
“I haven’t seen her in a month, Princess. The Crew pays my rent. When she gets like this, she stays away because she can’t stand for me to see her all doped up, but she isn’t strong enough to get out of it.”
My heart fissures. “Can we send her to get help?”
“I’ve tried in the past. It doesn’t take.”
“Maybe the Crew will help her?”