Page 1 of My Heart Still Beats
Prologue
Ben
“Did you really think you could hide from me forever?”
I turn as the voice I hoped to never hear again crawls up the back of my neck.
Inconceivably, he looks much like he did when he was seventeen. He’s now thirty-two—the same age as I am.
Dirk Conrad.
My senior year in high school, I was lost. My brother, Braden, had graduated three years earlier and was working with our father in his fledgling construction business. Our mother had died several years before, and after school I was expected to not only get my homework done and bring back decent grades, but also to work the business at least twenty hours per week.
We needed the extra money to make ends meet.
This was my senior year, and it was supposed to be fun. Football games, parties, and girls. But not for Benjamin Black. I had to work my ass off at school and then work my ass off at some construction site until my fingers bled and my muscles ached. I’d much rather have been playing sports, but the one good thing the work did was give me a physique that any athlete would envy.
One day, though, I was sick and tired of it.
So I didn’t go to work that day.
I didn’t do my homework, either.
Instead, I went out looking for some fun.
And that’s where I found Dirk Conrad.
The same Dirk Conrad who insisted on meeting me at my office today.
So here he is, same brownish hair—though the hairline’s a little higher—same crooked smile, same attitude. Same well-worn jeans that hang low on his waist. A gray hoodie and brown work boots complete his outfit.
“What the fuck do you want?” I ask.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t come after my share eventually?” He presses his thin lips together.
I hold back a scoff. “Your share ofwhat?”
He takes a step toward my desk. “You owe me, Black. Me, Jerry, and Carlos. All of us.”
Carlos hightailed it to Mexico right after high school, and Jerry’s serving time for second-degree murder. He’s eligible for parole in five more years. I’ll worry about him then. Dirk? Last report from my PI said he was living in Bumfuck, Alabama, and had a few baby mamas. I’m guessing that’s what this is about.
He needs cash, and he thinks I’m his meal ticket.
He can think again.
“I don’t owe you shit.”
“Youdo.” He smirks, keeping his tone even. “You do, or we’re going to go to the newspapers. We’re going to tell everyone exactly what went down that night.”
The skin on the back of my neck contracts, making it feel like it’s choking me.
But I’m a businessman now. I help my brother and father negotiate multimillion-dollar deals, so I know how to bluff.
“You mean theroyalwe? Because Jerry’s in prison, and Carlos is nowhere to be found. This is all you, and you have no proof. Plus, you don’t have the balls.”
He runs his fingers over the smooth mahogany of my desk. “You think I don’t have proof?”
“If you did, you’d have squirmed out from underground before now. Maybe when Braden and Istartedto make it big.”
