“I’m not gonna help you kill anyone,” I said.
Linc stared hard at me for a moment, as if he couldn’t believe what I was saying. Then he shrugged. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“I don’t need your help.”
I stood. “Yeah, you do.”
He sneered. “Oh, right. You’ve done such a bang up job so far on all this.”
The sympathy that I’d been feeling for the kid for the last few minutes was quickly shifting into anger. “And if your brother had been smart and just left you alone, I wouldn’t have been dragged into any of this.”
He turned away from me. “Fuck off.”
I grabbed his arm and spun him back. “Hey. You think I don’t feel bad about what’s happened? To your brother and Malia and Rachel? I do. And I wanna get it set straight. But you hunting down a bunch of assholes and killing them does nothing. For anyone.”
“Does for me,” he said, and lunged at me with his free arm.
His fist glanced off my shoulder. I slid my hand down to his wrist and twisted hard. His face screwed up into a knot of pain and I kicked his legs out from under him. He landed with a thud, the air rushing out of his chest.
“You can’t even take me out,” I said. “And I’m not even close to being as dangerous as Mo or Deacon or any of those other guys.”
The adrenaline surge made my skin tingle. I watched Linc lay on the floor and try to get his breath back. He was wincing, the pain in his back probably surprising him. Landing flat on your spine will do that.
“The best place for you is somewhere safe,” I said.
He grunted. “Where’s that?”
I ignored the question. “I will take care of this,” I said. “I’m better equipped.”
“You weren’t yesterday. You couldn’t save Malia.”
I resisted the urge to plant my foot in his ribs. “Neither could you, asshole. However, I will make sure Lonnie and Mo pay for what they did to Peter and Malia. And I will make sure that Deacon and his boys back off.”
“I can do it myself,” he said, sounding like a four-year-old trying to use a fork for the first time.
“No, you can’t,” I said.
He pushed himself up into a sitting position, reaching around to rub his back. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you care?” he asked. “My brother hired you. He’s…gone. It’s none of your business anymore.”
Lonnie and Mo had made it my business, but I didn’t feel the need to explain that to Linc.
“I promised your aunt,” I said, telling him part of the truth. “I told her I’d find you.”
“You did that.”
“My promises are all-inclusive. Finding you means keeping you safe.”
“I can keep myself safe.”
“Really? That why you’re hiding out here? That why you were hiding behind Malia’s door when I showed up?”
His chin dropped and he looked away from me, his jaw locked tight.
I sat down in the chair. “Linc, I’m not trying to embarrass you. But you’re in over your head right now. You’ve told me as much. I’ll clean it up. It’s what I do.”
He picked at his shoelaces, his head still hung. He looked like a puppy that wasn’t sure how to grow up.
“They killed my brother and my girlfriend,” he said quietly. “I’m not gonna let that go.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m telling you that I will take care of it. It’s better that way.”
He grunted and then looked up at me, confusion and frustration on his face. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
This was the part I didn’t know how to explain to him yet.
“I’m gonna put you someplace where no one can get to you,” I said, pulling out my cell phone.
He smirked. “Where? The Arctic Circle?”
I scrolled through the phone book, looking for the number I wanted. “A lot closer than that.”
The smirk changed to wariness. “Where?”
“Jail,” I said.
“What the fuck?” Linc said, leaping to his feet and knocking the phone out of my hand.
Lunging out of the chair, I caught Linc right in the sternum and shoved him backward. His head popped back when he hit the sofa and cracked against the wall. Before he had a chance to recover, I rolled him over onto his stomach and put my knee into his back. A holding cell was the safest place for him right now, even if he didn’t understand that.
“Linc, trust me,” I said
“Yeah, Linc. Trust the homeboy,” a voice said behind us.
I turned around.
Deacon and Wesley were standing in the doorway, each armed and smiling like they’d won the lottery.