Touch And Go - Aiden Bates Page 0,70

the window. My heart raced, but I wasn’t scared anymore. When Matt cock his gun and motioned for me to follow his lead, I quickly slipped behind him. I was ready. I was going to save Sebastian.

20

Sebastian

Of all the shitty pawn shops in Washington, DC, I had to end up in the one with the guys who wanted me dead. The chair was fairly comfortable, and if I didn’t move my face, I could ignore the pain. I started to worry the blood loss was making me woozy, but I had way bigger things to be concerned with.

I’d hit up this place first because it was the one with the biggest debt owing. The spreadsheet had said Ben owed a huge chunk to a guy named Roland, and I figured I could ask the guy if he knew where my brother was. If Ben owed this guy that much cash, then surely he’d be keeping tabs on him. And since they didn’t want me, they wanted Ben, there was no reason for them not to give me the information. But when I’d asked at the glass counter of the pawn shop for ‘Roland,’ this goon came out from the back.

“What do you want with Roland?” This guy was a mountain. Shrek but not as green. “Look kid, I’m Pete. You need to see Roland, you go through Pete.”

“I’m looking for Roland.” It wasn’t a hard concept. I didn’t want to see Pete. I needed the guy in charge.

He nodded. Stared me up and down until I squirmed. “You seem familiar.” He clucked his tongue and looked me over again. There was something wrong here. “You know Ben?”

“Yeah. I know Ben. How do you know Ben?” I glanced over my shoulder toward the front door. This was a bad idea.

His eyes went wide and he smiled. “You’re Ben’s little brother.” All it took to get me the red carpet treatment. “Come on, kid. I’ll take you to Roland. He’ll be real happy to see you.”

In retrospect, it was pretty stupid of me to follow him into the backroom. And so here I was, getting the shit beaten out of me every time Roland—a bigger, uglier version of Pete—asked me a question I couldn’t answer.

“Where the fuck is my money, you skinny prick?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I stuttered through the thick line of blood trickling into my mouth.

BAM! My face exploded as his fist made contact. This time, my nose broke, and terror set in. I couldn't keep calm by counting my breaths, because I could barely breathe. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t take a deep enough breath to push out a sob and tensing my face muscles made me yelp in pain.

Roland rubbed his knuckles and scowled at Pete, like it was somehow Pete’s fault I wasn’t giving them what they wanted. But I didn’t know where Ben or the money was.

I tried once more to reason with them and spoke in a steady, clear tone. “I don’t have your money.”

“You don’t know.” Pete kicked the chair I sat on, and I jumped. “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you don’t know nothin’ about what you owe us.”

“I don’t owe you—”

BAM!

“FUCK!”

My vision went black this time, then sparked red and white as everything came back into focus.

“Fuck, little man’s got a hard skull.” Roland hissed and shook his hand while blood trickled down my throat.

Pete crouched to my eye level and looked me over like he was concerned about my well-being. It was a pretty good Dr. Dish impersonation, if it wasn’t for the goon’s fucked-up face and evil eyes.

“Why are you doing this to yourself? Is 50k really worth it?”

“Fifty what?” He couldn’t mean…

“Fifty thousand dollars, you dumb fuck.” But he did mean dollars which was substantially more than Ben had listed in his spreadsheet file. Roland kicked my shin, and I yelped like a dog. “Your piece of shit brother put you down as the guarantor on a marker, and God knows I’ve been patient getting it back. A little warning here, a little shove into traffic there…”

What the fuck? My wrist throbbed like it was remembering the day I’d fallen off the curb into traffic. And the bruises Derek had pointed out, the ones from the guy who’d grabbed me and demanded the money…

They hadn’t been accidents after all. Roland had pushed me, warning me to pay Ben’s debts. Ben, who never even told me about any of this…just put me down as guarantor and…vanished.

A