Read Monster for Free Online Page B

scotch money could buy every month.
    One could say he was
still harboring some daddy issues.
    And he had been, for
all intents and purposes, the only family I had. A little brother.
Someone I gave a fuck about.
    And Lex Keith was
holding him against me.
    “Wanted me to
pick up someone named Alex Miller,” I told Paine, snapping out
of my memories. “Told me he'd give back Shooter in one piece if
I did. So I agreed. The fuck didn't tell me that Alex Miller is a
fuckin' chick.”
    To this, Paine's
shoulders fell. “Shit.”
    “Yeah,” I
agreed. “Got her in the warehouse as we speak. I didn't get
much in the way of instructions. Grab her. Hold her. Didn't say till
when. Sounded like he wants to... do the dirty work himself,” I
said, my words feeling venomous on my tongue.
    “Can't let him
have her,” Paine said, surprising me.
    Paine, unlike me and
Shoot, came from a good family. A poor one. With way too many kids in
a two bedroom apartment in a shit area. But a good family. With a
strong mother and grandmother. Three kickass aunts. And two little
sisters. He had a strong, ingrained need to respect and protect
women. So, yeah, while he used a lot of them for sex, he never so
much as raised his voice to one or made promises or declarations he
had no intentions to keep.
    He knew exactly what
Lex would have in store for Alex.
    And no way would he be
okay with that going down when it could be avoided.
    Problem was, I didn't
know how to avoid it.
    “I agreed to get
her some H so she could end it before he got to her.”
    Paine's
eyes slid from mine, looking out the window where the sun was starting to pierce through the sky.
    “Look, you know I
got love for Shoot,” he started, and I knew it was true.
    Paine and I got tight
just from knowing each other, frequenting the same watering holes,
making bets on which one of us would land the hottest chick of the
night (up to current times, we were pretty evenly matched). And when
Shooter became a big part of my life, he by proxy became a big part
of Paine's. It also didn't hurt that Shoot spent a large chunk of
his income keeping Paine's tattoo business going. Shoot was a big fan
of body modification- piercings (huge gauged ears, tongue piercing,
then sometimes his lip, sometimes his nose. It varied. Then there was
the ink. He was covered: arms, chest, back. He even had a tattoo of
an eagle across the front of his neck, the wings spread out back
toward his ears. Shoot spent a lot of time in Paine's chair. The two
were close.
    When Paine said he had
love for Shoot, he meant it.
    “But he's a grown
ass man. He got into this business. He, like you, knew all the risks.
And he looked them in the face and said, 'bring it mother fucker'.
Now, this girl... this girl didn't make that choice. No matter how
she got herself wrapped up with Lex, no way would it be a fair fight.
She's innocent.”
    He was right.
    Fuck.
    “I know that,”
I said, pouring myself another round. A silence hung, both of us not
sure what lines we were willing to cross. I spoke first. “She's
a hacker. That's what she does. And she admitted to try to take him
down.”
    “Take him down
with a computer?” he asked, his voice a mix of amused and
disbelieving. “Mini armies haven't been able to take him down.
Carting AKs and Molotov cocktails.”
    “Yeah,” I
agreed. Those early days had been a mess. Cops everywhere. In
everyone's business. I took out of town for a year, taking jobs on
the other coast just to keep my ass off the radar. Shoot came with,
still trying to build up a clientele so he worked part time for me
and took off the rest of the time on his own. Lots of sun and money
and bitches. Those were the good times. Suddenly, I wished we never
came back.
    Shoot would be free. I
wouldn't have some sexy piece sitting in my train car. And I wouldn't
be faced with the impossible choice between them.
    “I cross Lex, I
get dead too,” I mused out loud. He wouldn't stop by just
killing Shoot. That would