Chapter 28

Blake

Dom took me off The Den the day after Christmas, with a single sentence in the hall.

“You’re done babysitting,” he said, without breaking stride. “She’s not going back there.”

That was it. No explanation, no thanks. He just kept walking.

I should have been relieved. Three nights of sitting at the end of that bar with a flat club soda, watching her dodge drunks and pretend I didn’t exist, and one more I still can’t think about without my jaw going tight. I hated every minute of it.

So it makes no sense that, two weeks later, I still feel like something’s been taken from me.

I’ve been taking it out on every engine that rolls into the garage.

Then, on a gray Tuesday in January, Lena’s walk-in freezer dies.

She finds me at the garage at seven in the morning, still in her apron, and tells me in no uncertain terms that she has forty pounds of venison and every scrap of butter in the county going soft, and that if I’m not in her