Page 101 of Fight for You

"Maybe you shouldn't talk," he says, making it sound more like a question than a statement.

"Settle down. I'm not saying I did it," I mutter, even though I did actually do the shit I'm being hauled in to discuss. "I'm just saying, I grew up poor, leading an MC. I expected to see the back of a police car a long time ago."

Had it not been for January, I'm sure I probably would have, but I kept my nose as clean as possible so I wouldn't disappoint her or have to leave her. Not that it mattered much in the long run since I'm pretty sure I managed to destroy us both, but I tried like hell to make her proud of me.

"You from around here?" I ask the kid. "Shit. I don't even know your name."

"Alex Stanton. Officer Stanton."

"Officer Stanton, you from around here?" I tip my head back against the seat and close my eyes as we make our way through the neighborhood, headed toward the local precinct with Hernandez following behind in an unmarked Tahoe. It's barely after noon, but it feels later. We've been sifting through Kaleo's house for the last hour. He's no cleaner now than he was back then. The fucker still lives like a pig. No pun intended.

"I grew up in West Hills."

"Damn," I chuckle, not surprised Stanton grew up where boys like him are the right kind of white…the kind that has money in the bank and parents with connections. "How'd you get assigned to this beat?"

He shrugs instead of answering.

"No offense, but this neighborhood is going to eat you alive," I mutter, shaking my head.

"Like it did you?" he asks.

Is that what happened to me? Maybe. Maybe that's what always happens to kids in places like this. We're all paddling the same goddamn boat around here.

"Nah," I decide, kicking my feet up on the bench seat and getting comfortable. I'm too tired to function, but I don't think sleep is in my immediate future. Call me crazy, but I don't think LAPD would be cool with me asking for a nap break like this is kindergarten and I'm tired of playing with the other kids. "This neighborhood didn't chew me up and spit me out. It's still choking on my fucking bones."

The kid snorts like he thinks I'm being funny, but I'm not. I may have fled seven years ago, but I never really left. Mentally and emotionally, I've been here the whole damn time, trapped like every other motherfucker inside the invisible lines that make up South Central. It just took me a little longer than most to figure that shit out. It took me a little bit longer to come to terms with it. Funny thing though…I don't regret being stuck here. So long as January is here, I'll never regret it.

By the time we get to the station fifteen minutes later, I've decided the kid isn't half bad. He's still too fucking green to be working this neighborhood, but he has a good head on his shoulders. The job will probably grind that ambition and positive attitude right out of him, but in another life, I could have been just like the poor son of a bitch. If, you know, I wasn't a murderer and worse.

"Kincaid," Hernandez says once they've got me settled in an interview room. Like most interview rooms, this one is complete shit. The floors are scraped to hell, it's stuffy, and the table is about two good pushes from collapsing. The room is clean, though, almost like the guys who call this station home actually give enough of a shit to slap some Pine-sol on the floor and run a mop through it every few days.

"Hernandez."

He drops a case file onto the table in front of him and then straddles a chair. He eyes me for a minute like he's trying to get a read on me. Octavio Hernandez isn't sure what to make of me. I don't think he likes that much.

Sucks for him, though, because I'm not even sure what to make of myself most days, and I've lived with my sexy ass for twenty-nine years. If I haven't figured myself out by now, I don't think an hour or two in this room will do it for him, either.

It frustrates me that he's trying. Most people don't bother. They see what I want them to see and move along. Not Hernandez though. He's peeling back layers with those eyes like I'm Shrek and he's Donkey.

"Let's get this over with," I mutter and kick back in my chair, taking a power position. Nobody does chill like a teenage gangbanger. They perfected that shit decades ago, and I was a quick study.

"We received a tip that you were involved in the murders of three members of the Southside Diablos seven years ago," he says, cutting to the chase.

"Good ole' Curtis Kaleo," I say with a chuckle, giving nothing away. "That motherfucker never did know when he was beaten. I'm guessing since I'm here, you actually believe his bullshit."

Hernandez cocks a brow but doesn't acknowledge that Kaleo's the one who passed along their tip or that he believes him. I know the drill, though. You don't pull cops into interview rooms without a damn good reason…and Curtis Kaleo isn't exactly a reliable witness. Hernandez has something else on me.

"Where were you the night of February 3rd, 2017?"

"No clue," I admit, leaning my forearms on the table. "My girl kicked me to the curb at some point that week. I spent a few days stumbling around this fine city like a lost puppy. Don't know where the fuck I was or what day it was until about three days after that."

"Can anyone confirm that?"

"Nah, but Nazario Leyva didn't know what to make of my stupid ass when he had to tell me the date on February 7th," I say. It wasn't exactly a proud moment in my life. But I don't actually know what day I killed those motherfuckers. I never cared enough to find out.

"Were you aware that Adams, Adcock, and Cortez were suspects in the murders of Titan and Jana James?"

"Nope. Last I heard, Detective Whitten was too busy stressing me to actually find out who murdered Titan and Jana. Matter of fact, the day January kicked my ass to the curb, he was on my doorstep, asking me the same bullshit they'd already asked me," I confess, holding his gaze. "I believe I told him to go fuck himself and get off my goddamn lawn."