"He wasn't threatening. He was just He was like a wall. You know, not a wall you run into, a wall you realize has been there the whole time and you just weren't paying attention." Leo lowered his shotgun 2 in. He didn't mean to.
His arms just did it. Declan noticed. His eyes moved to Leo's hands, cataloged the lowered angle, and then moved back to Corey with the revolver. Garrett noticed, too.
He shifted his weight very slightly on the seat, just the smallest repositioning, the kind of unconscious adjustment you'd make if you were getting ready to stand up in a hurry. Neither man said anything. Mike hadn't looked away from Corey. Um "Last chance." he said.
"You understand me? This is your last chance to make a choice you'll be able to live with." Corey's face was doing something complicated. The bravado was still there, painted on, but underneath it something was cracking, not dramatically, not all at once, but the way old paint cracks on a wall starting from a single point and spreading outward in every direction simultaneously. And once it starts, you can't make it stop.
We need that money, Corey said, and his voice had changed. The hardness was gone. What was left was something younger and more honest, desperate, and tired, and scared in a way that had nothing to do with the men in the booth and everything to do with the weeks and months that had led to this moment. We owe Toad.
We owe him, man, and if we don't How much? Mike said. Corey blinked. What?
How much do you owe? The question came out of nowhere and landed in the middle of the room like something dropped from a height. And for a moment, nobody quite knew what to do with it. Corey's mouth opened and closed.
Leo, still holding the lowered shotgun, turned his head slowly toward the booth with an expression that said he was no longer entirely sure what kind of night this was. 6,000, Leo said before Corey could answer. His voice was hollow. We owe $6,000 to a man named Hector Velasquez.