J Ward: Crave

God, she’d probably faint if she saw his tattoo.

And run screaming if she knew what he’d been doing for a living for the last five years.

“Let me try to get you bail,” she repeated. “And then we’ll see where we are.”

He had to wonder why she cared so much about some scrub she’d never met before, but there was an undeniable mission in her eyes, and maybe that explained it: Clearly, being down here with the riffraff was exorcising some kind of demon for her. Maybe it was a case of rich-guilt. Maybe it was a religious thing. Whatever it was, she was damned determined.

“Mr. Rothe. Let me help you.”

He so didn’t want her involved in his case… but if she could set him free, he could take off and he was undoubtedly safer out in the world: His old boss would have no trouble sending a man into this jail on a charge and engineering the assassination right under the noses of the guards.

To Matthias, that would be child’s play.

Isaac felt his conscience, which had been long silent, send up a holler, but the logic was sound: She looked like the kind of lawyer who could get things done in the system, and as much as he hated to involve her in the mess he was in, he wanted to stay alive.

“I’d be grateful if you could do that, ma’am.”

She took a deep breath, like she was having a break in the middle of a marathon. “Good. All right then. Now, it says here you live over on Tremont. How long have you been there?”

“Just over two weeks.”

He could tell by the way her brows went together that that wasn’t going to help him much. “You’re unemployed?”

The technical term was AWOL, he thought. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you have any family? Here or elsewhere in the state?”

“No.” His father and brothers all thought he was dead, and that was just fine with him. And them as well in all likelihood.

“At least you don’t have any priors.” She closed the file. “I’ll go up in front of the judge in about a half hour. The bail’s going to be steep… but I know some bondsmen we could approach to put up the money.”

“How high do you think it will be?”

“Twenty thousand-if we’re lucky.”

“I can cover it.”

Another frown and she reopened his file, taking a second gander at his paperwork. “You stated here that you have no income and no savings.”

As he stayed quiet, she didn’t give him flak and didn’t seem surprised. No doubt she was used to people like him lying, but unfortunately, he was willing to bet his life that what he was keeping from her was far, far deadlier than what her Good Samaritan antics usually brought her in contact with.

Shit. Actually, he was betting her life on it, wasn’t he. Matthias cast a wide net when it came to assignments, and anyone standing next to Isaac ran the risk of being in the crosshairs.

Except once he was gone, she was never going to see him again.

“How’s your face?” she asked after a moment.

“It’s fine.”

“It looks as if it hurts. Do you want any aspirin? I’ve got some.”

Isaac stared down at his busted hands. “No, ma’am. But thank you.”

He heard the clip-clip of her high heels as she got to her feet. “I’ll be back after I-”

The door opened and the muscle who’d taken him up from holding came barreling in.

“I’m off to talk to the judge,” she said to the guard. “And he was a perfect gentleman.”

Isaac allowed himself to be dragged upright, but he wasn’t paying attention to the officer. He was staring at his public defender. She even walked like a lady-

His arm got yanked hard. “You don’t look at her,” the guard said. “Guy like you doesn’t even look at someone like her.”

Mr. Manners’ death grip was a little annoying, but there was no faulting the SOB’s opinion.

Even if he’d had a garden variety job and nothing more than a couple of speeding tickets, Isaac wasn’t anywhere near that league of woman. Hell, he wasn’t even playing in the same sport.

Jim Heron had long been aware that there were two kinds of gyms in the world: commercial and old-school. The former had coordinating color schemes and women taking spinning classes in full makeup and guys with John Mayer carp tattoos pumping weights with padded grips. You were expected to wipe down the machines after you used them and chirpy, spray-tanned trainers checked you in as you came and went.

He’d tried out one of those right after he’d left XOps. It had nearly made him go couch potato.

The old school was more up his alley and that was exactly what he and Adrian and Eddie walked into in South Boston. Mike’s Gym was a man’s world, baby: Place smelled like an armpit, had walls that were prison-worthy, and was hung with faded pictures of Arnold from back in the eighties. The mats were neon blue, the weights were iron, and the single stationary bike in the corner was one of those wind-resistant jobs with the caged fan.

Damn thing was a relic and had dust on the seat.

The men who were doing circuits on the machines or free-weighting it were big, quiet, and had tattoos of the Virgin Mary and Jesus and the cross. There were a lot of broken noses that had healed up cockeyed and some bad caps on gritted front teeth that were no doubt from hockey games or bar fights.

Undoubtedly everyone knew everybody else because they were all related somehow.

He felt right at home as he came up to the front desk. Guy behind it was sixty, maybe sixty-five, with ruddy skin and pale blue eyes and hair that was whiter than the froth on a Bass Black & Tan.

“What can I do for you boys?” the man said, lowering the Boston Herald.

A couple of the members glanced over, and kept staring. Jim and his backups weren’t lightweights, but they were unknowns, which put them into what-the-hell? territory.

“I’m looking for a guy,” Jim said as he took out the flyer with Isaac’s pic on it and spread the thing flat on the chipped Formica counter. “You seen him around here maybe?”

“No, I ain’t,” the guy replied without looking down. “I ain’t seen nobody.”

Jim glanced around. A lot more eyes on them and a lot of weights pausing. Clearly, pushing the old man wasn’t a smart move if he didn’t want to get bum-rushed.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“No problem.” The Herald snapped up into place.

Jim turned away and refolded Isaac’s picture. As he went for the door, he cursed under his breath. This was the third place they’d tried, and they’d gotten nothing but stonewalled-

“Hey. I know him.”

Jim stopped and looked over his shoulder. A guy with a Boston Fire Department T-shirt came over.

“My pops don’t like to get involved.” The guy nodded down at the flyer. “Who is he to you?”

“My brother.” And that wasn’t a total lie. They were related in a visceral way because of what he and Isaac had been through in XOps-plus there was that whole debt thing.

“He was arrested last night.”

Jim’s brows shot up. “No shit?”

“Bunch of my cousins are cops and they busted a fight ring. Your bro’s a straight-up killer. Only reason anyone ever got into the octo with him was for the big purse, but he never lost. Not once.”

“How long he been in town?”

“I only saw him fight, like, three times.” Saw was pronounced sore. “Listen, ’round here, bunch of fuckers want to get together and beat each other, we’ll let ’em do their thing. But you gotta keep it honest-that’s why they were raided. The promoter was throwing the bouts except for the ones your boy was in.”

Fuckin’ A. Isaac in the system was not a good thing.

“Pops, lemme have the Herald?” The guy reached over to his dad and took the newspaper, looking through it. “Here.”