Free Unbreakable Hearts by Harper Bentley Page A

Maybe Tilly would be interested in borrowing it? I think they’re about the same size. Well, when Sadie was younger, that is. She’s put on a good seventy pounds since she walked the aisle.”
    Great. He’d really opened a can of worms now. But who knew? Maybe his mom would give Tilly a call and set her straight once and for all.
    ***
    As luck would have it, the next day Oz found his mark in the restroom of a dollar store.
    He’d followed Rico inside the store after watching him make some kind of drug deal on the street, pocketing whatever he’d bought. He’d next gone in the store, charming the girl at the register to let him use their employees-only restroom. Oz had followed him inside then waited about five minutes before moving toward the back to the restroom.
    He tried the doorknob, but finding it locked, knocked on the door.
    “ Occupied. Fuck off,” Rico replied from inside.
    Oz waited a couple more minutes then knocked again.
    “I said, fuck off, asshole.”
    And now he’d had enough. Lowering his shoulder, Oz hit the door busting it open to find Rico, jacket sleeve pushed up, with a damned syringe stuck in his arm.
    “What the fuck?” the guy yell ed, pushing the plunger all the way down, injecting whatever the hell was in it into his system, then yanking the needle out of his arm and coming at Oz with it.
    F uck. Oz didn’t know he’d need rubber gloves with this one or perhaps full body armor. Somehow avoiding the needle, he grabbed Rico’s wrist, squeezing it, making him drop the syringe then turned him and slammed him face-first against the wall. Cranking Rico’s arm behind him and pressing his own forearm against the guy’s upper shoulders, Oz hissed in his ear, “Gotcha, motherfucker.”
    Face to the wall, Rico practically giggled, the laugh one of someone who now had a potent narcotic coursing through his veins, his movements becoming sluggish with every passing minute. Jesus.
    Oz snatch ed the cuffs out of his back pocket securing one link around the wrist he held behind Rico’s back then pulled back the other wrist, looping the other cuff around it. Rico chortled the entire time, giggling like this was all a big joke, which was not a little creepy. At least the guy wasn’t high on something crazy that made him fight tooth and nail or had him wanting to eat Oz’s face off. Oz undid the belt the guy had around his arm as a makeshift tourniquet, looping it over the cuffs. Then he bent and picked up the syringe, throwing it in the trashcan.
    “You got any other needles on you, Hernandez?” he asked as he patted the guy down. Hell, he didn’t want to stick his fucking hand in a pocket and get pricked, so he just left well enough alone. He’d leave it to the cops when he made the drop off.
    As he wa lked him out of the bathroom, Oz swore under his breath seeing how, sans belt, the guy’s jeans sagged even more than they had to begin with.
    “Christ,” he muttered, grabbing the back belt loop to hold the idiot’s pants up as he walked him back through the store.
    Surprisingly, he got no trouble from anyone in the store or on the street as he walked the perp to his truck. Oz guessed that maybe it was that he was in a different neighborhood and Rico wasn’t one of their own or maybe it was they’d made their money off him and didn’t give a shit one way or the other now what happened to him.
    He had to chuckle when he helped Rico up into his truck and Rico turned to look at him and said with a smile, “Thanks, man.”
    “Any time, dude,” Oz replied, closing the door then going around to get in and head back to NYC.
    “Where we headed, bro?” Rico asked as they jumped on the turnpike.
    “Back to New York. Gotta pay for what you did, Rico.”
    Rico sighed. “Yeah, I know.” Then he passed out, his head against the back of the seat, mouth hanging wide open.
    Every now and then Oz reached a hand over in front of the guy’s mouth to check to make sure he was breathing, that he