Hardcore: Volume 2 (4 page)

I BLEW OUT OF the building and to the sidewalk, ducking into an alley to climb. The need to be alone was overwhelming. I wanted as much distance as possible between me and anyone else. The higher I climbed, the calmer I was, and found myself staring out over the city, covered in a blanket of fog. Buildings swam in and out of the mist, shrouded and gray.
 

It was over. I didn’t know if Van would let it go, but I’d hit the detonator.
 

There was no comfort in the fact. I still had to face Jade. I still had to break into Van’s apartment. I still had to mend my heart after the sick game I’d gambled it on and lost. At least I’d checked one dirty deed off my list.

I had no fight left.

But then I realized I didn’t have to fight. Fighting it was futile. All that was left to do was go through the motions. To do what Jade wanted and hope to God that someday I could find a way to be more than this. Find a way to be happy after the taste had been washed away.

I couldn’t change it — I could only accept it. I held onto the thought. It was all I had.

After a long while, I picked myself up and made my way home, feeling calmer than I had since everything fell apart, though I was unprepared to find Jade sitting at the table when I walked in the door.
 

I stopped dead in the doorway. Her face was tight with a smug smile across her lips, icy eyes narrow as she stared me down. Neither of us said a word. I was the first to move. I closed the door behind me with my eyes glued to hers while I tossed my keys on the table and pulled off my bag. Tension snapped between us. Now that I knew what I was dealing with, she wouldn’t get a leg up on me again.

People don’t change. They’re only revealed,
I thought as we eyed each other in silence.

She watched me like a jackal from the chair with that shitty smile on her face, waiting.

I broke the stillness, ready to check off another task and get the fuck out of there. “This job is about you and me, not the girls. I don’t want to drag them into it, and they don’t want to be a part of it.”

Jade shrugged. “More cash for us.” She folded her arms across her chest.

“More cash for
you.
I’ll tell you how to get in and out, but I’m not going with you.”

She laughed, the sound joyless. “Fuck you. You’re coming with me.”

Anger flared, but I held onto control. “I’ll give you what you want. Why make me do this? You don’t need me to hack in, you can get one of your ‘connections’ to do it. So why? Just to make me miserable?”

“I can’t say that’s not a motivator, but no. I don’t trust you, Cory, so you’re coming with me. If you set me up, you go down too. You won’t touch the painting, and you won’t go without me.”

The answer was no surprise. I’d known what she’d say before I asked. I took a breath and let it out slow. “Then that’s that.”

She crossed her legs as her horrible smile stretched wider. “You’re awfully accommodating today. How’s your head?” she asked, half laughing.
 

“Great. Feeling like a million bucks,” I deadpanned.

“Or fifteen.” Jade was amused, shaking her head. “God, you are such a fucking sucker. I can’t believe you thought you’d actually put me on the ground.”

“My mistake. I forgot you weren’t human for a second there.”

Her eyes narrowed again, and she assessed me. “So you’re really not going to put up a fight?”

“Would it do me any good?”
 

“Not this time.”

“Didn’t think so.” I laid my palms on the table, hearing the hardness in my voice as I leaned toward her. “But I’ll tell you this, Jade. You lay another finger on me, and I’ll break it. Touch my sister, and I will fucking kill you.”

She leaned forward, not afraid at all, which was her mistake. She should have been terrified. “Don’t fuck up and I won’t have a reason to.”

I contemplated hitting her. It would feel so good to hurt her, to take all of my pain and give it back to her. But it wouldn’t change anything. There was no reasoning with someone who existed at that level of crazy.
 

That, and I didn’t know if I could stop myself once I got the best of her.

She didn’t wait for a response from me. “When are we going for it? I need to coordinate with Sammy and Trevor for the drop.”

“Who are these guys?”

“Just a couple of fences that have contacts with master fences. They said they can sell the piece, but I need to set up the drop. So when’s it going to be?”

There was only one time I knew he wouldn’t be home. “He’s got a show day after tomorrow, at night.” One I was supposed to go to. But I’d never see him again.
 

“That’s it, then. How do we get in?”

“You’ll need to pick the lock on his door. I’ve got the rest.” My stomach churned at the thought of breaking in, and I swallowed hard.

“Good. We’ll figure out the details tomorrow with Jace.”

“Have you told them who I am?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because I don’t want to get involved with these fences. That’s my other condition. I’ve stayed out of that part of the job for this long, and I’m not about to start now. Not with this job.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

I nodded and turned for my bedroom.

“Glad you came around,” she called after me. “Smartest thing you ever did.”

I sat on my bed among stacks of laundry late that afternoon, doing my best to be productive. I’d washed five loads, not even realizing I had that many clothes or that it had been so long since I’d done laundry. One of the best things about living in the industrial space was that we had our own washer and dryer, which in New York was practically mythological.

My phone buzzed in my pocket again. I hadn’t looked the last three times it had gone off, afraid it was him. I pulled it out of my pocket, intending to put it on my nightstand, but when I saw his messages on my lock screen, I couldn’t help myself.

3:24: Please, talk to me. I’m not ready to walk away from you, Cory.

4:43: Come to my show tomorrow night. I just want to talk about this.

6:17: This is making me crazy. Just answer me, even if you just say no.

My nose burned as I took a breath, staring at his words. I shouldn’t have looked. All I wanted was to say yes.

I typed two letters and hit send.

No.

I tossed my phone onto my pillows and climbed off my bed, walked out of my room and into Erin’s, fighting down my hurt and anger. She was in her bed reading a book, which she lowered when she saw me. I crawled in next to her and stretched out, folding a pillow to tuck it under my head.

“How’s laundry going?” she joked.

“Shitty.” I pulled another pillow into my aching chest.

“Want to talk about it?”

“I don’t even know what to say.”

Erin set her book aside and slid down on the bed, mirroring my position, even down to the pillows. She watched me across the space between us with bright eyes and a worried brow.

I didn’t even know what I wanted from her. To not be alone. To tell her how I felt. I thought of Van, knowing he didn’t understand, that he was probably confused, that I’d hurt him. Resentment stirred in my chest like hot embers. “I hate this.”

“I know.”

“I hate Jade, and I hate myself for putting Jill in danger. I hate that I hurt Van, and I hate that I want him.”
 

“Since when are you not allowed to want someone? You never take anything for yourself.”

My frown sagged even deeper. “That’s not true.”

“Yeah, it is. It’s absolutely true. You’re hard as fuck and even more stubborn, but you put yourself last. Don’t you dare berate yourself for wanting something just for you.”

“This has been fucked up from the start. I shouldn’t have ever agreed to this, not at any point. Why did he have to find me? Why did I have to cave when Jade pushed me at the beginning of this mess? I could have said no. Played it off. But instead, I jumped into this mess. Now he’s hurt. I’m hurt. I’ve ruined everyone’s lives, put my sister in danger. I’m poison.”

“It’s not like you want to do this, Cor. Jade is blackmailing you.”

I didn’t feel like that absolved me, but her confidence gave me an ounce of comfort.

She looked me over again. “You can still tell him the truth. It would cut Jade off at the knees if he knew she wanted to steal it. Or we could set her up so when she goes to steal it, she gets busted.”

“Except I have to be there, which means I get busted too.”

Erin shook her head. “There’s a way. I’m not giving up, and neither should you.”

“I don’t believe in magic.”
 

Morgan shouted from the other room, and we jumped, rolling off the bed in a rush. The second the door was open, we heard the fight, exchanging a fast glance before hurrying into the kitchen.

Jade and Morgan leaned on opposite ends of the table, glaring at each other.

Morgan snarled. “Don’t sit here and act like everything’s fine because it’s one hundred percent
not
fine. I’m not going to pretend like it is just so you’ll shut the fuck up.”

“Nobody gives a fuck what you think, Morgan.” Jade leaned a little farther, and her blond hair slipped over her shoulder.

“Nobody, meaning you?” Morgan dared her. “Do you really think I care, you fucking tyrant? I’m not your bitch, and I don’t have to do a single thing you say.”

“You do if you want to get paid.”

Morgan laughed, the sound bitter. “Don’t you get it? It’s
over
. You’ve gone too far, Jade. Consider yourself lucky that we put up with you for this long.”

“Don’t push me, Morgan,” Jade said through her teeth.
 

Morgan knew exactly what she was doing. Erin shifted like she was going to intervene, but I touched her arm with the shake of my head. Morgan would never move on until she’d said what she needed to say.

“Don’t threaten me, Jade. I won’t roll over for you. And if you touch Jill, I will gut you.”

“Then make sure Cory doesn’t fuck around.”

“God.” Morgan rolled her eyes. “Fuck you. I’m not her fucking mother, and neither are you. You’ve lowered yourself to blackmail and the potential murder of people you used to care about. Who the fuck
are
you?”

“Shut up,” Jade growled, her cheeks so red her eyes sparkled like diamonds.

But Morgan kept going. “I don’t even really think you’ll do it. You don’t have the fucking guts. You’ve always been a megalomaniac, trying to run our lives. Do you get off on it? Does it make you feel important to push people around?” She shook her head with her lip curled in disgust. “It’s fucking pathetic that you really want to believe that all this time we’ve been here for you. That we respect
you
.”

Jade’s voice was low enough, threatening enough that the hairs on my arms stood up straight. “I don’t really give a fuck why you’re here. You’re all replaceable, every last one of you. And I want you to think real hard about whether or not I’ll do what I have to do to get what I want.”

Morgan clenched her teeth, tracking Jade as she moved around the table.

“If I have to squeeze Cory to get this done, I will. You think I can’t find Jill?” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and brought something up on the screen before sliding it across the table. “Go ahead and scroll through them. He sends me one every hour. You didn’t think I would let my leverage walk around unattended, did you?”

Morgan glanced at me with wide eyes, then looked back to Jade. “You’re psychotic,” she whispered.

My feet were heavy and numb as they carried me to the table, and my eyes never left Jade’s phone. The closer I got, the more the dread twisted through me, and when I saw Jill’s picture on the screen, my heart stopped. She was sitting on the train, and whoever was following her had taken the picture from a dozen or so seats away. I scrolled through. There was one of her walking out of school. Another of her outside, eating lunch with her friends.
 

Bile raced up my throat. “I said I’d do it, Jade.”

“Yeah, well forgive me for not trusting you.” Jade snatched her phone off the table and turned her gaze on each one of us. “I’m not walking away from this, and none of you are going to stop me. Fuck with me, Jill pays. Understand?”

No one moved, but the silence was agreement enough for her.
 

“Since you’re all
so
over it, then you can
all
get the fuck out when it’s done.”

Morgan turned to me with a wry smile. “You hear that, Cor? We’re off the hook.” She sneered at Jade. “I’ve never been so happy to get fired.”

I spun around and flew to my room with Erin on my heels, scooping my phone off my bed to bring up Jill’s contact with trembling hands. I pressed the phone to my ear and tried to breathe. Every ring was agony.

“Hey,” Jill answered as I closed my door behind Erin, who sat on the end of my bed with a hand on her mouth.

A tiny bit of tension left me at the sound of Jill’s voice. “Where are you?”

“Um, at home.” She was suspicious. Just those few words were heavy with questions.

I blew out the breath I’d been holding, thinking through what I could and couldn’t say to her. I cleared my throat and tried for a lighter tone, but my voice was strained. “Have a good day?”