“I am. Your judge too.” Rolland congratulated him on getting himself so high up in the legal system. “You’re an idiot, aren’t you? Just as Matt told me. I wanted him to be sure that he was all right with the way things are going to go. After visiting with you for several minutes, he came to tell me that he didn’t care what I did. I want you to meet some people.”
“I have always wondered what is up with Matthew. He lets on that he doesn’t like me, even will tell me that, but I don’t believe him. Matthew is a good boy and will be great someday. After he grows up a little more.” Matthew entered the room behind the man, and Rolland smiled. “What are you doing here? Did you come back so that I could explain?”
“No. I’m here for clean-up. You’ve caused enough trouble, Rolland. More than that, I don’t think, nor does anyone else in the family, that you’ll ever change.” Rolland asked him what he thought he needed to change for. He liked who he was. “No one else does, and that’s the issue.” Rolland looked at the two women and the man with them. He asked if he was going to meet some new friends. “Doubtful that you’ll think so after this is done. This is Margie Dark. This woman is Ashley Dark, and her husband Ollie Dark. They’re the parents and the wife of the man whose car you stole and ran him down. Margie is now raising her three sons all on her own, with the help of Ashley and Ollie. You did this to them.”
“See? You don’t have any of that even a little bit right. I told you what happened, and I’ll tell them the same. It wasn’t anything that I caused to happen. It’s one of those...what do you call it? Right. Cause and effect. He left the car there, and the effect was that I stole it. If you think about it, it’s really all his fault.” The younger of the two women started crying. “Now there is no cause for that, ma’am. I know you hate to hear the truth of the matter, but that’s just the way it is. He shouldn’t have been out running, and the car wouldn’t have hit him. It’s the way things go, I guess.”
No one said anything more as the woman got herself under control again. He was glad. Crying women gave him the willies. Pulling on his boots so that he could finish up here and go straight outside, he was standing there with his coat in his hand when the man from before spoke again.
“My name is Thomas Abbott. I’m the pack leader of the Abbott pack. I’m the third Abbott to be the pack leader. I have to say; this is the first time in all the years there has been a pack around here that I’ve heard anyone blaming the victim for someone hitting them with their own car.” Rolland tried to explain again what had really happened, but Thomas told him to shut the fuck up. “I do not want to hear another word out of you. I’ll be glad when this day is done. I have never felt something was so justified as is killing you.”
“I’m not sure you should—what did you say? Something about killing me.” Thomas nodded, and Rolland looked at Matthew. “Did you hear what he just said? He’s going to kill me. Going to kill your brother. You’re not going to allow him to do that, are you?” Matthew shook his head. “I should hope you’re not. Christ, the things that you hear inside of here.”
“Ollie is going to do it. For his son.” The man changed. Just like that, he had gone from an old man to a gray wolf. Leaping back from him when the wolf started toward him, Rolland was almost too afraid to hear when Matthew spoke again. “I’m here, as I said, to clean up. Would you like to know how I’m going to do that? Rolland? Did you hear me? Would you like to see how I’m the one who is going to clean up after you’re dead?”
“You can’t be serious right now. What will you tell our mother?” Matthew said that she knew what was going on. “I don’t believe you. There is no way that my mom would condone this happening to me. You might want to check with her to make sure.”
He heard his mother’s voice and turned to Matthew, tearing his eyes from the wolf that was about a foot from him, and looked at the cell phone that Matthew now had in his hand. Rolland could see her face there and knew that she was able to speak to him. She said Hi to him as if he wasn’t standing there with a wolf in front of him, ready to chew his face off.
“Rolland, are you paying attention to me?” Rolland told her that he was. Then he told her what was going on right now. “I know. I’ve also spoken to that wonderful woman, Ashley, and her daughter-in-law Margie. You left her husband to die, Rolland. Had you simply pulled over and helped him by calling an ambulance or even taken him there on your own, he could have been hurt but not dead. He won’t get to see his sons grow up, or provide for his family, because of what you’d done. How can you live with yourself for the things that you’ve done?”
“Mom, you’re thinking of this all wrong. Had I done that, called the police or an ambulance, I would have gone to prison. You didn’t want that either, I’m betting.” She said it would have been better than him killing someone. “You’re only saying that now. But you’d have missed me. Also, taking him to the hospital would have had people asking me questions. As it was then, I couldn’t very well keep the car after he’d gotten his blood all over it. And the dents too. There was one on the hood, and the light was broken out. Also, the roof where he’d gone up and over the car was a mess. It was difficult to drive around with it, so I had to ditch it almost as soon as I took it, Mom. To blame this on me, it’s not even my fault.”
“I figured you’d say that. I never realized that you were such a selfish prick before finding Patrick.” Rolland suggested to her that she lose him again. “I don’t think so. He’s treated me better in my life with him than you or your father ever did. Did you know that yesterday was my birthday, Rolland? Patrick got me three dozen red roses and a new car. Matt and Aisling took us both out to dinner, and I got a beautiful robe and a cruise with Patrick. You have only ever given me heartache and misery. After today, I won’t have to worry about you anymore.”
“Is that because you’re going to send me to a nice tropical island? Mom, it’s the least you could do for me since you have all this other stuff coming your way.” He laughed a little, thinking that this entire thing was a gag. “You win, Mom. You win. I have an idea. Why don’t you ditch Patrick, and you and I go on this cruise together? Have some fun on his dime. When we come back, everything will be set for us. You remember how much you enjoyed it when you got away for a while.”
“I do. Because neither you nor your father was with me.” She asked Matt if Rolland had been made aware of him. “You know what I mean, son.”
“I do. I’m about to show you. You and Dad have a nice trip, Julia. And when you return, perhaps we’ll be able to put this all behind us. Aisling and I are looking forward to hosting a family gathering at our home.” Matthew handed the phone to Thomas after hanging up with Mom. “You’re going to love this, Rolland. It might well be the biggest thing you’ve ever seen in all your life, I think.”
Matt took off his shirt and handed it over to Thomas. When he took off his belt, Rolland asked him if he was going to do a little striptease for him. All he did was kick off his shoes and stare at him. Rolland, no longer afraid that anything was going to happen, watched as Matt smiled at him.
“I can’t believe the two of us got off so badly on the wrong foot. I do hope that after today you and I can be better at being brothers. I know you said that you couldn’t do it, but I really would like to be a lord or something. Do you think you can finally get around to making that happen?” He only said no before he simply disappeared. “Holy mother of god. What the hell are you?”
Thomas was laughing as he backed away from the lizard. That’s what it had to be, too. There wasn’t any way that the thing in front of him was a dragon. The big wolf sat down on his butt and stared at the lizard as well.
“We didn’t know if he’d be able to make the magic work that Bryce used to make him be able to shift and be small enough to be in this room with you. You understand now what he meant by clean up?” Rolland said that this was a good joke, but he didn’t believe it. “No. I would imagine you’d not. To
think, Rolland, you had a pair of dragons there in your life, and you never once knew it. I’m surprised that you didn’t. I mean, think of the gems you could have been getting.”
“Gems? They really have gems?” Rolland moved to stand closer to the dragon. Not that he believed it was his brother, but he was willing to do anything for a few gems. “What sort of rocks are you going to share with me, brother dear?”
Something hit him from behind. It was heavy, and it hurt a little, but he didn’t think anything about it. There was a diamond just at the tear duct of the dragon’s eye. Reaching to pull it away, he looked at his arm when he realized that it wasn’t working right.
His hand and arm were gone. All the way up to his elbow, it was just a bloodied mess. Turning to see what was going on, Rolland was nearly sick with the sight of the wolf behind him, covered in blood, with Rolland’s arm hanging out of his mouth. At least it looked sort of like his arm.
“I don’t understand.” The heat seared into his skin where his arm had been. Looking at the dragon again, he got what Matthew had meant by him cleaning up. “You’re going to burn me away when he’s done with me? That’s not too terribly brother like, Matthew.”
If anyone spoke to him, Rolland couldn’t understand them. The wolf lunged at him again. Then again. Every time he came at him, Rolland would beg him to stop, and begged him right up until his face was torn into. As he laid there, watching his blood pour down the drain in the middle of the floor, he saw the dragon, a beautiful blue dragon, draw in a deep breath, and then the heat hit him full in the face. Rolland didn’t know what the hospital was going to be able to do for him, but he did hope that someone was calling him an ambulance. He was hurt pretty badly. Then he felt nothing. His mind wasn’t functioning right. His eyes hurt.
The last thing he saw before the pain got to be too much for him was Margie flipping him off. People were so rude, he thought. Kicking a man when he was down.
Chapter 8
Angel pulled the dirty dishes off the table and stacked them neatly into the bus tub. She’d figured out on the first day that she could bus more tables by doing it this way than she could by just tossing them into the tub. The dishwashers loved her for it too. It meant that they didn’t have to sort them so much.
The next table that she bussed had money on it. She never touched the money that was on the table. Angel would move it around with her washcloth when clearing the table, but she’d never pick it up or move it with her hands. That was a good way to have the waitstaff come down on your head and cost you your job. She couldn’t afford either of those right now.
“Miss?” She looked at the table in the section that wasn’t hers. “I was wondering if you could get your manager for us. We have some things that we’d like to talk about with you.”
The two couples there looked like they just stepped off a photoshoot. She smiled at them and told them that she’d do that for them, that it would be her pleasure. Angel wouldn’t, of course. She didn’t want to lose her job over sitting at a table with the clientele like she was one of them. Angel hadn’t ever sat at one of these tables, and she wasn’t about to start tonight.
There wasn’t any way that she could have afforded ever to eat here. Not even with getting her meals for half-price had Angel ever been able to have a meal. She usually brought her lunch or dinner, sometimes both, so that she could have a meal that she could afford. Angel thought about what Gabe might be having. Trying not to think about him was getting easier and easier of late.
They were going to be married soon, she supposed. A lot of factors still had her doubting that they could make it on what she made each week. There always seemed to be something that needed money. Not that she wanted things to fall apart around her, but it was only Gabe that seemed to notice them.
Such as last night, he’d needed fifty dollars for a new toilet kit. Angel had no idea what that was but didn’t argue with him about it. It took her until this afternoon, her first shift of the day, to find out what it meant, and that it wasn’t nearly fifty dollars. At most, it should have been half that. But she was beginning to understand not to argue with him anymore. Which, she thought, was sadder than anything in her life right now.
Going to the backroom to drop off her load, Mr. Sinclair asked her what the table had wanted. She had to tell him now. It was that, or he’d go ask them. The man was forever thinking that someone was going to give him a terrible review.
“They asked me to get you. They have something they want to talk to me about.” He asked what it could be. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask them. I didn’t figure that it was anything that you’d approve of, so I didn’t ask.”
“That would normally be good thinking on your part, but I know that one gentleman. He’s the Duke of Green Gables. I just saw his and his lovely fiancée’s pictures in the paper. If they need to speak to you, you should do it. They might have a job for you that will make you more money. I know you need it.” She did too. Her marriage to Gabe was coming up, and since they were paying for it themselves, it was making things tight for them on things like bills and such. And they were only getting married at the courthouse. “You go on out and talk to them, and I’ll have one of the dishwashers finish up here. We’re closing soon anyway, and you might as well find out what they want.”
She didn’t want to talk to them. They were fancy, she was not. They smelled like money. She knew that she smelled like every bit of food that she’d cleared off the table tonight. When she sat down with them, telling them that her boss said it was okay, she was handed a small plate and part of the appetizer that had only just been set at the table.
“I’m not hungry.” The woman to her left, a beautiful woman, laughed. For some reason, instead of embarrassing her as she thought it might have, it upset her a little too much. “I’m not hungry. And if I eat any of this, Mr. Sinclair will not be happy.”
“As of an hour ago, we own this place. So if I wanted you to be able to dance on the tables, Angel, he’d let you. Have some of the shrimp cocktail. I think you’ll find it very good.” The man held the hand of the woman next to her. “You eat, and we’ll tell you why we’re here. My future wife will tell you. Please. Enjoy.”
“Why did you buy this place? Whatever you paid for it, it was too much. I think it was just last week that we were unable to get a food delivery in. There isn’t any cashflow here to make that work, we were told.” Aisling, she said her name was, told her why. “The owners are robbing the till? Really? Mr. Sinclair, he told me he didn’t understand what was going on. Are you sure?”
“Very much so. This place should have been thriving, but instead, it might well have closed up if we’d not stepped in and bought it. The previous owners are going to jail now.” Angel asked if that was what she wanted to tell her. “No. That was just to get you to calm down and speak to us. It’s the truth, but you seem to be much more relaxed right now. As I said, my name is Aisling. This is my husband to be, Matt. The beautiful woman there is Julia, Matt’s mother, and his dad is Patrick. We found something that belongs to you.”
“I don’t think you have the right person if you think that you might have found something that belonged to me. I don’t have anything that would have you come here to fake a dinner, then have you want to talk to me.” Aisling smiled as their dinners were served to them. There was even one for her. “As much as I would love to have this, I can’t afford the half price of this thing to make it worth having a full belly.”
“That rule is out the door as well. Matt, would you please make a note of that?” He did, pulling out a pad of paper and writing it down under the name of the restaurant. “Eat. I’ll talk while you do. Your great grandfather was a clockmaker, did you know that? His son, William, your grandfather, raped a woman, just as his son did to your mother. It wasn’t hard to find out information on William or his son. What was hard to find was your family on the other side. They’re all gone, aren’t
they?”
“My mother died recently. She is the one that told me about William the third. I won’t call him Father or Dad because he wasn’t one. But he was killed when he thought it would be a good idea to rape a woman whose boyfriend objected. I was a product of that.” She cut into the steak and bit down on the moistest thing she’d ever tasted. “This really is good, isn’t it?”
“It really is.” They took a few more bites of food before Aisling spoke again. “William the first, he fixed a clock that belonged to Lord St. James here. Patrick. I need to remember to call him Patrick. Anyway, the first William made him another clock because the first one that Patrick brought to him was damaged. I don’t think it matters how it was broken, but it was broken beyond repair. So he made him another one. The one that I found a satchel in.”
“I’m sorry. Did you say that my great grandfather made a clock for you, sir?” Patrick nodded and smiled at her. “You guys are pulling some shit over me, aren’t you? I don’t have shit that you can take from me. I don’t know what you heard about me, but I couldn’t be more broke.”
“We’re not shitting you at all, Miss Chime. We truly aren’t. I’m not human. I know you know that there are others out there that aren’t human. I’m one of them. An immortal.” She nodded at Patrick and wondered what their scam was. “There is no scam, Miss Chime. I promise you. We’re here to give you something that belongs to you. It was found in the bottom of my clock recently. And after doing some research, Aisling found you.”
Angel asked her how she’d found her.
“Magic. I have a great deal of it because of what I am and my age. Would you like to know what I am?” Angel shook her head. “Too bad. I would have enjoyed that, I think, as would you have. But this is yours.”
The satchel, nothing more than a leather handmade bag, was set next to her plate. She didn’t touch it for fear, again, that it was a trick. After a couple of minutes, Aisling picked it up and poured it out onto the table. When she had it just so, Angel could tell that it was a very old and very expensive necklace.
Matthew: House of Wilkshire ― Paranormal Dragon Shifter Romance Page 11
