Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick Page B

thought this through at all. I hadn’t meant to say these words. But a small, horrible, and despicable part of me wanted Patch to hurt as much as I was hurt. “I want you out of my life. All the way.”
    After a heavy beat of silence, Patch reached around me and shoved something deep into the back pocket of my jeans. I couldn’t tell whether I’d imagined that his hand had stayed there a half beat longer than necessary.
    “Cash,” he explained. “You’re going to need it.”
    I dug the money out. “I don’t want your money.” When he didn’t take the outstretched wad of cash, I slapped it against his chest, meaning to brush past him as I did, but Patch caught my hand, trapping it against his body.
    “Take it.” The tone of his voice told me I knew nothing. I didn’t understand him, or his world. I was a stranger, and I’d never fit in. “Half the guys in there are carrying some form of weapon. If anything happens, throw the money on the table and head for the doors. Nobody’s going to follow you with a pile of cash up for grabs.”
    I remembered Marcie. Was he suggesting that someone might try to knife me? I nearly laughed. Did he honestly think that would scare me? Whether I wanted him as my guardian angel was irrelevant. The fact of the matter was, nothing I said or did would change his duty. He
had
to keep me safe. The fact that he was here right now proved it.
    He released my hand and tugged on the door handle, the muscles along his arm rigid. The door closed behind him, quaking on its hinges.

CHAPTER
6

    I FOUND SCOTT LEANING ON HIS POOL STICK AT A TABLE near the front. He was studying a spread of billiard balls when I walked up.
    “Find an ATM?” I asked, tossing my damp jean jacket on a metal folding chair pushed up against the wall.
    “Yeah, but not before I swallowed ten gallons of rain.” He lifted the Hawaiian hat and shook out the water for emphasis. Maybe he’d found an ATM—but not until after he’d finished whatever itwas he’d been doing in the side alley. And as much as I would have liked to know what that was, I probably wasn’t going to find out any time soon. I’d missed my chance when Patch had pulled me away to tell me I was in over my head here at the Z and should run along home.
    I spread my hands on the lip of the pool table and leaned in casually, hoping I looked completely in my element, but the truth was, my heart rate was high. Not only had I just come off a confrontation with Patch, but no one in the near vicinity looked remotely friendly. And try as I might, I couldn’t sweep away the memory that someone had bled out on one of the tables. Was it this one? I pushed up from the table and brushed my hands clean.
    “We’re just about to start a game,” Scott said. “Fifty dollars and you’re in. Grab a cue.”
    I wasn’t in the mood to play and would have preferred watching, but a quick scan of the room revealed that Patch was seated at a poker table in the back. Even though his body wasn’t directly facing mine, I knew he was watching me. He was watching everyone in the room. He never went anywhere without making a careful and detailed assessment of his surroundings.
    Knowing this, I tried on the most dazzling smile I had inside me at the moment. “I’d love to.” I didn’t want Patch to know how upset I was, how much I was hurting. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t having a good time with Scott.
    But before I could head over to the rack, a short man in wireglasses and a sweater vest came up beside Scott. Everything about him looked out of place—he was groomed, his pants were pressed, and his loafers were polished. He asked Scott in a voice almost too muted to hear, “How much?”
    “Fifty,” Scott answered with a touch of annoyance. “Same as always.”
    “The game has a hundred minimum.”
    “Since when?”
    “Let me rephrase. For
you
it has a hundred minimum.”
    Scott went red in the face, reached for his drink on the table’s edge, and