Vice (Tortured Heroes Book 1) Read Online Free

was fifteen and my sister Mandy was twenty-one. She’d saved up waitressing tips to buy train tickets to the Falls and surprised me for my birthday. It was the only vacation we’d ever taken together and the year after our dad died. Mandy was good back then. She’d been clean for almost a year. We made plans to open a bar like this on that very trip while getting soaked on the Maid of the Mist . A few months after that, she hooked up with another loser boyfriend and disappeared for a while. A pattern she repeated a half dozen more times before I left for college and up until the last one. Just a few more weeks until the 4 th of July and it would be a full year since I’d seen her.
    “Yeah, my sister.”
    “Something wrong,” Jase said. “You just kind of went there for a second.”
    “What? Oh. No. Just running through everything I need to finish up tonight. Sorry to cut this short.”
    “No problem. So, are you looking at your new dishwasher?”
    I reached across the desk and shook his hand again. “Probationary. You okay with that? I need to check your references. Floyd runs the kitchen and I trust his judgment. You get on with him, you’ll have no trouble from me.”
    “Floyd?”
    “You can’t miss him. Big guy. Built like a grizzly. Red crew cut and a handlebar mustache. Big swirly tattoo on his forearm that says, ‘Only God Can Judge Me.’”
    Jase smiled. “You fucking serious?”
    “As a heart attack. Try not to laugh. He gets angry when people laugh. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
    I stepped around the desk and Jase rose to his feet. He seemed big as a mountain as I stood close to him. I looked up and gave him a half-smile then led him down the hall toward the kitchen. Heat blasted me in the face when I opened the door.
    “They’re messing with my shit tonight, Dev!” Floyd’s voice boomed across the room and he slammed the fryer basket into the sizzling water.
    “Sorry, Floyd. Georgia’s running herself ragged. Bella’s a no-show. But cheer up, Buttercup. I brought you some help.”
    Floyd looked up. He had a cigarette tucked behind his left ear. He didn’t smoke. Not for over a decade but he kept it there as a reminder.
    “You gonna do something about Bella?” Floyd gave me a pointed stare as he jostled the fryer cage. Floyd Bowles was maybe the best judge of character I knew. He was a tough son of a bitch, but if you did your work, he’d cut off his damn arm for you. Clichéd tattoo and all. He ran the waitresses through their paces but I couldn’t run this place without him. He was an old friend of my dad’s and promised him on his deathbed he’d look out for me and Mandy. Now I couldn’t imagine trying to run this place without him. Floyd also had the biggest heart of anyone I knew. He was pissed at Bella like I was, but he was also worried about her.
    “She’s a grown-up, Floyd. I can’t keep looking the other way. And Georgia can’t keep picking up her slack. Anyway though, this is Jase,” I said pressing my palm against Jase’s rock-hard chest. His pulse thundered under my fingertips. I looked to make sure Floyd had the back door open to let some fresh air in.
    Jase squared his shoulders and stepped around me. He went almost toe to toe with Floyd and shook his hand. Floyd’s jaw hung to the side and his eyes flicked from me to Jase and back again. Jase wasted no time waiting for a reaction. He just stepped around Floyd and headed down the line toward the industrial dishwasher. Plates and glasses had piled up into the baskets. He shoved the handle on the dishwasher door up and slid one of the baskets inside of it. He slammed the door down hard in one swift motion to start the wash cycle. Then he pulled a heaping bag of trash out of the nearest can and headed back for the door. I hadn’t given him the grand tour, but he’d worked out that was the other exit toward the alley. He shot me a devastating wink and hoisted the trash bag over his shoulder as he headed out the