Free Bad Things by Varian Krylov Page A

“No need to be so nervous, Carson. We have another proposition for you.”
    “ Okay. Great.”
    He’d assumed it would be another quick run. Taking something somewhere to someone. A drive, a handshake, a hand-off. But when Max started talking, Carson couldn’t believe what he was saying. What he was asking of him.
    “Well?” Max asked when he’d laid his crazy idea out. “Can you handle it?”
    Was he actually serious? It had to be a joke. Because people only did things that stupid in bad movies with huge explosions that distracted you from the fact that there wasn’t really much of a story.
    “Um. Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not really—aren’t people trained to do that kind of thing?” He laughed. “I mean, I’m a bartender.”
    Max’s smile disappeared as if it had never been there, and his chatty tone went cold and sharp. “You haven’t been a bartender for two weeks. Do bartenders make the kind of money you’ve been making?”
    He’d known. Shit. Shit. Shit. Why the fuck had he ignored that icky feeling in his stomach when Brian had him run that first errand?
    “ Answer my fucking question.” Without raising his voice, just sitting there looking at him, suddenly Max was the scariest man Carson had ever known. Even scarier than his father had been.
    “ No. I guess they don’t.”
    “ You know damn well they don’t,” Max said, his voice almost creepy soft. “You know damn well, the only way a wannabe photographer with a fine arts degree from a third rate state college makes that kind of money is by doing something illegal. So don’t start acting all innocent, now, like we’re the bad guys and you’re just the guy mixing the martinis. Because when you start doing that, acting like you’re on one side of the law, and we’re on the other, you make us nervous. You make us feel like we can’t trust you.”
    Carson shot a glance at Brian, expecting his shitty grin. But Brian wasn’t smiling. Brian looked scared.
    Shit. He was fucked.
    “ So tell me, Carson. Can we trust you?”
    How had running a couple stupid errands gotten so fucking out of hand?
    “Yeah. Of course.”
    “ Of course what?”
    “ You can trust me.”
    “ Good. Because when we can’t trust people anymore, we have to take precautions. Which means if we don’t feel safe with you, you’re not safe with us.”
    “ I didn’t mean you can’t trust me.” Carson knew he sounded weird, but he couldn’t help it. He was thinking too hard about which words to choose. What to say to get out of that shit storm. “I just…I’ve never done anything like what you’re asking me to do. I don’t feel qualified.”
    Max’s warm, friendly grin came back, but it didn’t calm Carson. It just made him more nauseous.
    “Don’t worry about that. I’ll talk you through the little technical things.”
    “ Okay.”
    “ You still sound worried, Carson.” That paternal tone made Carson shudder, but he tried to hide it.
    “ I’m not good at lying to people.”
    “ Sure you are. Even people who think they’re honest are liars. You lie to people every day. You just don’t think about it.” Max laughed. A low, warm belly laugh. “Hell, most of us lie to ourselves a dozen times before breakfast.”
     
     
     

     
     
     
    Carson looked squirrelly as fuck, coming down the stairs from Brian’s office. Like a rabbit trapped in a clearing, a wolf on one side and a redneck with a rifle on the other. Maybe Brian had caught him making a play for one of the girls, and now either Brian or the girl was going to chew him up and spit him out.
    Nope. Carson had just sent Natalie off with a tray-load of drinks when Xavier saw what it was that had the bartender so spastic. Max Ulianenko, descending the stairs like the fucking Godfather. Like he was going to sit on his throne and everybody in the place was going to line up to kneel and kiss his ring.
    So. Carson wasn’t in a snit because Brian had caught him getting blown in the alley by