I throw on my jacket and enter the cold of the night.

    Once Dax laid eyes on me, that complacent smirk lacing his lips - I was a goner. Ditching Madision, I disappeared into the crowd. When I thought I lost him, I headed for the back door.

    My car is only parked a block away, but I hurry, making sure I don't trip over my own feet. Dax would definitely try to follow me to get what he came for. I have no idea what that might be, but I'm not sticking around to find out.

    Looking behind me, he's nowhere in sight. For a second, I think I'm in the clear, but before I can focus on the street ahead, I bump into something hard and stagger back.

    "Sorr-" I stop myself mid-word when I notice who I ran into.

    Eddie.

    "Fu-" I attempt to make a run for it, but he cuts me off and grabs my arm.

    Edwardo Torres is only a couple of inches taller than me - standing at a good six feet and three inches. His fingers dig into my arm, almost cutting off the circulation. The confrontation draws a few wandering eyes of classmates, but they don't interfere.

    I tear my arm away from his grip, but I don't run. There's no point now.

    "Long time no see, Griff," Eddie grins, looking quite pleased with himself that he's the one who caught me. "You didn't think we wouldn't be back someday to collect did you?"

    "I figured attempting to kill me cleared my debt?" I cross my arms and straighten my posture to give the illusion of being taller than I really am. Eddie plays off the fear of others, so I won't give him the satisfaction.

    He chuckles. That nauseating sound strikes my very core, making me feel as inferior as I did when I was thirteen - meeting him for the first time all over again. My face falters immediately.

    "Trust me, Griffin, if we were trying to kill you back then, we would've succeeded." Eddie takes a step closer to me, leaving only centimeters between us. "Answer me this: How would we get out money back if you were dead? You're of so much more use to us alive - even thought there's nothing that I'd find more enjoyable than ending you."

    "But you're not in charge of this operation, are you?" An amused smirk replaces the nervous expression that claimed my face during this whole conversation and I almost forget how afraid I am for a second.

    Eddie squints and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "No." The usual irritation that his voice always held aslo has a hint of sadness to it. "After Antonio, Dax took over."

    I can't keep the satisfaction out of my tone as I speak. "Your brother chose Dax over you?" His scowl deepens which makes me laugh out loud. "And how did he accomplish that?"

    Before Eddie can answer, his focus shifts behind me, and someone else answers for him.

    "The right perspective," the voice informs smoothly.

    My blood runs cold as I turn to face my greatest enemy. An uneasiness settles in the bit of my stomach. Once we're eye to eye, a sinister nostalgia stares right back at me.

    "Hey there, Austin." A winning smile is etched on his face while a cigarette hangs from his lips. Taking out a match, he lights it with ease - letting out a puff of smoke after inhaling deeply. "Heard you've been having some girfriend troubles. Very chatty, these classmates of yours."

    "What do you want?" I snap. Luckily, I succeed in keeping the shakiness out of my voice.

    He doesn't answer my question. In fact, he straight up ignores it. "The girl you dragged away from that guy earlier - that was your girlfriend, right?"

    Every muscle in my body tightens in one singular moment.

    Dax inhales deeply, and smoke follows his words as he speaks. "She's the one you left us for, isn't she?" He grins when my eyes widen. "Thought so. What was her name, again?"

    Now it's my turn to ignore his question, and repeat my old one. "What do you want, Dax?"

    A look of amusement flashes in his eyes as he raises a brow at me. He leans forward, and I want nothing more than to back away, but I stand my ground. Stretching out his hand, he taps at the burnt end of his cigarette and little flakes of ash land on my shoe.

    If it were anyone else, they would be cradling a borken nose while rolling around on the ground by now, but this is Dax. Plus, Eddie - who is still behind me - would beat me to a bloody pulp if I were to even mouth of to his new first in command.

    Dax was dangerous before he was in charge - I can't even imagine what he is capable of now.

    My face goes red as I try to refrain from retaliation. Dax's already satisfied smirk becomes even more complacent. He was trying to wind me up - testing me just like old times. Every little thing he does is a strategic blow to see how I react.

    "Okay, here's the deal," Dax finally say, a smug look directed my way. When he puts his arm around my shoulders, I immediately tense up, but he doesn't notice. "You owe us money. You give us what we want, and you never have to hear from us again."

    The proposal sounded too good to be true.

    A lump in my throat makes it hard to swallow and I close my eyes, defeated. "How much do I owe you?"

    "Hm, let's see..." He trails off, pretending to be deep in thought. "Well about two years ago is when you could have paid off your debt, and that was about five grant. But now, with interest added, that's like..." This time when he trails off, he takes an extra long drag of his cigarette. "Twenty."

    My jaw drops, and my voice shakes. "Thousand?!"

    Dax pats my shoulder, hard, before pulling away from me.

    "Yup," he replies, all seriousness in his voice. "And you better get to it to us by the end of the week. You know what happens to people who don't pay up."

    "Fuck you." My mouth moves faster than my brain, and before I know it, I'm being held back by Eddie while Dax strikes. I double over, coughing in an attempt to breath - I had forgotten how hard he could hit.

    "This is not a time for you to act all tough. You owe us, and you will not like the consequences if you disappoint me." Dax is pissed, that much is clear. A quick temper is a quality we both share, but I'm not bipolar on top of that, like he is. Just one snarky comment could mean the difference between him handling things the easy way, or the hard way.

    "Hey!" A deep voice calls out from just a few feet away, and I know I'm safe for now.

    Rodney approaches with Cole and Bradley by his side. He sends a demeaning scowl towards Dax once he gets to the three of us. "Is there a problem here?"

    I feel Eddie releasing me from his grip as he raises his arms in surrender. "Nope. No problems here."

    "My friend and I here were just leaving," Dax raises his brows in recognition. "Nice to see you again, Watts."

    "It's Reid now," Rodney correct him, a malicious smirk starts to settle on his face. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this neighborhood a little out of your league. I mean, shouldnt' you be trying to deal to some trailer trash, or do you not sell to your own kind anymore?"

    Dax huffs out a breath and chuckles darkly. "I thin you're underestimating how successful I've become since the last time we spoke."

    "Last time you spoke I'm pretty sure you ended up with a black eye," Cole calls out from behind his team captain - backing him up like he has always done.

    I remember that night. Inviting Dax to one of Rodneys parties was a bad call on my part, but he needed some extra cash, and at the time, I wanted to help. When Rodney had asked him politely to stop dealing under his roof, and Dax refused, things got physical.

    Of course, Dax had blamed it all on me, resulting in him beating the shit out of me.

    That was when I realized that Dax wasn't my friend, or anything of the sort. Only a month later, I tried to leave, but when you get yourself involved with a group like that, it's hard to quit. A few months after that, I finally managed to escape, but not without landing myself in the hospital.

    After that night, I never thougth I'd ever have another run in with Dax - yet, here he is.

    "Maybe this time you'll get one." Eddie takes a step forward, but Dax stop him with a raised hand.

    "It's been nice - this reunion shit and all - but we're gonna go before I let my friend here off his leash and do something we'll all regret." He ignores the snarl he gets from Eddie, and glances back at me. "This isn't over - you'll be hearing from us again."

    His promise sends a shiver down my spine. I watch my greatest tormentor walk away, and it feels like my brain has totally shut down. Nothing in this moment feels real. Any minute now, and I will wake up, realizing that this is just another one of my paranoid dreams filled with my deepest fears.

    After a few moments, I realize that this isn't a bad dream. You can wake up from a nightmare, and then laugh to yourself about how real it felt. But I come to terms fast.

    My life is a nightmare - a nightmare I can't wake up from.

Every muscle in my body is shaking with adrenaline as I rummage through my father's office desk. I'm not sure what I'm expecting to find. Maybe some sort of safe combination, bank information, credit card numbers - anything that can help me with the problem at hand.

    This is the first time I've snuck in here in over a year. The last time I was caught was when I was looking for the keys to the car garage. Andrew wouldn't have known that I had taken a midnight drive if it weren't for the crash that caused thousands of dollars in property damage. The punishment was increased in severity when he found out the accident wasn't an accident at all, but done on purpose to get back at him.

    For what. I can't remember.

    I was let off easy when all my father did was bring out the belt. Boarding school was the first option that came to his mind. I gratefully took welts all over my back rather than moving away to New York to be held captive in an all boys reform school.

    Digging through my father's paperwork for some answers is harder than I thought it would be. I couldn't blame him for being careful, though. There was a time where I stole more money than I could hide to use for drugs and alcohol to buy from Dax. A couple of times, I was even pressured to bail out a friend or two of his from jail.

    A notification pops up on my father's laptop, the noise startling me.

    Looking at the tab, it doesn't strike me as anything important - just some email from Charles Griffin - the grandfather I hadn't heard from in years. Obviously my father has to keep in contact with him, but only for work.

    Andrew doesn't think very highly of Charles, and even though I don't agree with my father on most things, we both share a disliking for him. He never was around much, and since he never showed any interest in getting to know me, I never showed any interest in reaching out to him either.

    Ignoring the little piece of information that doens't concern me, I hover the mouse over a folder that catches my eyes. It's labeled 'Finances', without doubt that had to be the jackpot.

    "What are you doing here?" I jump out of Andrew's office chair, nearly tipping it over in the process.

    "Oh, um, I didn't think you'd-" I stutter a bit before I manage to find the guts to get out of my sentence. "W-what are you doing home?"

    His eyes darken as he pulls the office doors closed behind him. "You didn't answer my question," he points out, taking a few steps closer to his desk, which I am now occupying.

    There is not point in lying to him. He would find out eventuall, and thing would only be worse then. If there is a fatherly bone left in Andrew's body, he'd help me now. He'd help me out of this hole I've dug for myself.

    "I need twenty thousand dollar." I avoid eye contact as I feel his eyes invading my person space. When I finally get the nerve to look at him, he is not even a couple of feet away from me. Luckily, I never opened any of the files before he came in. My mouth is dry as I try to speak again, but somehow manage to get the words out.

    "Dax is back." I look pleadingly at him for a moment and then back down - ashamed of what I'm about to say. "I need your help."

    Silence takes over the room for far too long, but finally he speaks, sounding almost dumbfounded as he does so. "You want my help? After everything that your arrogance has put this family though, you want me to take twenty grand from my well earned money to pay off a debt you should have paid off a long time ago?"

    I don't trust myself enough to speak at the moment, but I don't have to, because he already continues with his rant. "That night, I thought you ran off with my money to pay off the debt - hours later I got a call from the hospital that you were in critical condition. If you would have listened to me, and paid Dax off, they wouldn't have been out to get you."

    Even though I didn't want to admit it, Andrew did have a point.

    "But that's not what you did, is it?" Andrew snarls. "No, you called the police, and set up a whole scheme to get back at them for the way they were treating you. You have no idea what I went through that night in the hospital! I could've lost... You could've... And now you ask me to help you get out of the exact same problem, and you expect me to just hand over twenty grand to you just because you ask for it?!"

    "Yes, because this time I can do it right!"

    The fact about my arrogance on not giving the money to Dax the first time was painfully true. I was arrogant and stupid when I decided to show up without the money on an inescapable rooftop full of thugs I owed money to. Who know, maybe they would have lost interest in me completely after that if I had just paid up, but I had to mess up and get the cops involved.

    "Please," I beg. "I know I've made so many mistakes, but Dax isn't the same guy I knew two years ago. He won't just stabe me and leave me out 'til the paramedic come, he will actually kill me!"

    A shimmer of hope goes through me as I see my father's dark eyes turn a few shades lighter.

    "Son, guys like these are like leeches. Dax didn't have such a tight hold on your back then, but now, he is out for more than just money - he's out for revenge. He is going to keep taking and taking until he's completely sucked you dry, and then after he and his followers are done destroying you, they'll continue to tear you down by asking for more when you have nothing."

    Every single time my father opens hi mouth to add more to his rant, more pieces of my confidence that thigns will work out cip away from me. Right now, there's no silver lining. No way out.

    The only thing I can think about is how right Andrew is.

    If I'd listened a couple years ago, Dax wouldn't be out to get me. Clearly, just getting money from me isn't the only thing on his agenda. Since he's out of hiding, no doubt he's out for blood.

    Just the thought brings a stirring in the pit of my stomach, and I cup my side where so much blood had spilled from me on the night I tried to avenge myself.

    The fact that my efforts were all for nothing made it even worse. Neither Dax, nor any of his allies were caught that night, and I was left with a scar that would mock me the rest of my life for trying to do the right thing.

    "Then what the hell do I do?" I ask, totally out of options.

    Andrew sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose while squeezing his eyes shut. His silence is telling me exactly what I've been thinking ever since Dax laid eyes on my last night - I'm fucked.

    ***

BMR has reached 4,000 reads! Thank you so much to everyone who has been sticking with this story. It means so much, and hopefully the number keeps rising XD

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