Considering Doug was the reason she was in the basement, Bea had decided - for reasons unknown to me - to hate Roux for it, to give him a lot of the blame. I had no idea what transpired between them, what he had said or done to make her loathe him so much, and neither of them seemed inclined to talk about it, but I figured it couldn't have been good. Bea was all fire. Roux was all ice. Even small disagreements between them had to have created problems. Especially on Bea's end. She needed a reaction. She wanted the argument, needed it to vent all her strong feelings. Whereas Roux let it all slide off, froze you out, refused to engage.
"You and Roux, you're going to need to sort your shit out, Bee."
"No, we really don't need to," she corrected me, brows raising, daring me to contradict her.
"You're going to be around him a lot."
"For a while, yeah. Until the Doug situation is settled. And then I will be out on my own."
"You're gonna move out of the clubhouse?" I asked, hearing the raspy edge to my voice, surprise mixed with worry, definitely a small dose of hurt.
"I have to be able to grow up, Thayer. I know you last saw me right before I was actually an adult. But I've lost a few years of my life too. Important years. Years when everyone else I had known had likely gone off to college or moved out on their own. They had parties and relationships and went on vacations. While my life stood still. I need to get my life started. I can't do that under your thumb."
"Kid, when the fuck ever have you been under my thumb? You've always done exactly what you wanted, to hell with the consequences. That wouldn't change now. Especially now. I get that you're an adult, Bee. You can come and go as you want. I don't own you."
"So, say I go out and come back with a man, you'd be cool with that?"
"Cool with it might be a stretch," I conceded, reaching up to rub a hand across my brow. "But I respect your right to have anyone over you want. That's your business. Though, between you and me, Bee, fucking no one is worthy."
"See? That's why I have to go, though. I know you would be annoyed or uncomfortable or silently judging me. And I don't want that. I want a life on my own terms, without anyone watching over me. I know you only do it because you love me, but I've been watched over enough the past few years. It's time for something new."
"What are you going to do? Move into our old house? It was a mess last time I saw it. I can't imagine it looks any better now."
"It needs work," she admitted. "But that's okay. I will slowly chip away at all of it. It's familiar. And no one else has been living there - except maybe some local wildlife now since no one has been there to check it over - so it is time someone got in there and fixed it up. You are going to have a lot on your plate for a while. So I am going to do it."
Christ.
She had grown up.
There was a quiet sort of determination about her that had never been there before. Usually, after captivity - and I would know - you tended to be almost desperate for things. There was none of that in Bea. There was careful, calculated focus. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she was going to do everything in her power to get that for herself.
"You have to stay for a while still," I reminded her.
"I know. But once you get the strip club shored up, I think I am going to be spending a lot of time there, getting control over it, making sure the girls - and whoever else we hire new - all respect me as a leader even if I am younger than most of them. Who knows, maybe we can franchise this shit," she said with a smile I remembered so well.
"Half a dozen Peaches strip clubs all up the east coast," I mused. "That'd be an interesting legacy."
"It would be good for tax purposes to have a legit reason for how much money goes in and out of this clubhouse and our old house."
"How do you know so much about this shit, huh?" I asked.
"I'm not an idiot," she told me, going past me to grab coffee. She'd been a pretty good kid, all things said, not touching any drugs even when they were always around her. But she'd picked up a cup of coffee when she was ten, and there was no going back. Cal used to tease her that it was the reason she was so fucking short while the rest of us were so tall. "Besides, Dad had a really interesting collection of books in the basement. About taxes and laws and government and starting a business."
No wonder she was so sure of herself, so unafraid to start taking over. She'd used her time locked away to better herself.
"Hey, Bee?"
"Yeah?" she asked, turning back on her way to her room.
"I'm proud of you, kid," I told her, watching as her eyes watered up, something that made her duck her head and rush off.
"That was really sweet."
"I swear to fucking God, do you not know how to follow one simple order?" I asked, turning to find Sera standing in the doorway, hunched a bit to her side, favoring her wound that she had likely irritated by getting up and moving around.
"No, no I don't," she told me, shrugging a little. "Honestly, my ass hurts from sitting on it this long," she added. "I'm used to being busy. I'm going stir crazy. And fucking Chip is likely stealing all my clients now that I am not there to stop them."
"I will have a little talk with Chip."
"I don't need you to fight my battles, you know."
"You're pretty fucking good at handling yourself, but hate to break it to you, babe, you've got a significant disadvantage since you can't even raise your hand above tit-level."
"Is 'tit-level' the official term?" she asked. "I've never had to actually fight with Chip. He's a chickenshit. All you have to do is remind him how substandard he is, and he backs right down. But, yeah, that was sweet with your sister. I didn't have you pegged as the mushy type."
"With her mom gone and Pops dead, there's no one to act as a parental figure to her."
"So you took on that job too."
"I'm the oldest. She might not look like it much of the time, but she does look up to me, needs both discipline and encouragement from me."
"She's very sure of herself for her age."
"Yeah. Think maybe you know a thing or two about that."
"I had to be a grown up when I was still in grade school. So yeah."
"But not so much for Joey."
"I didn't want her to have to be that way. It was different for me."
I didn't have to like that to understand it. The eldest kid - when put in a position of power thanks to negligent parents, or ones who pounded it into you that your little siblings were your responsibility - always had it a bit harder, while trying to make it easier for the others.
"I don't want her to leave," I admitted, not knowing why. I had never been someone who needed a sounding board. Sure, I bullshitted with my brothers, my men, but I never admitted personal feelings to them.
"I totally get that. I don't think I realized how badly I didn't want Joey to leave until she actually did. Of course, hating everything about Doug probably didn't help the matter. I'd like to think that, should she find a good man - if such a thing exists - that I would be happy to see her move on, build a life. Even if I didn't get to be in it daily anymore."
"Good men exist, babe. I know a few of them."
I didn't blame her for being bitter. A fuckuva lot of guys I had known were dickheads. I genuinely felt bad for the women stuck trying to pick a future partner out of that lot. That didn't mean that we all sucked, but I understood that it could be hard to tell the good from the bad. I had screwed up on that myself.
"Hatcher offered to go to our apartment later to get me some clothes."
"I am going to have to have a talk with him."
"What? Why?"
"'Cause I'd rather you ran out of clothes."
"Oh yeah? You'd rather I walk around here naked... in front of your brothers and Roux."
"I'd rather you naked in my bed with a locked door."
There was no mistaking the heat in her eyes. "A nice image, save for the big old hole in my gut..."
"Lot's of things we can do that don'
t involve too much work on your part." There was a shift on her face, a tension in her jaw, a bit of a wince in her eyes. Uncertainty, maybe? Confusion, too. Why, I had no idea. It was clear she wanted me just as much as I wanted her. It didn't make sense that she would try to deny it. Sure, we'd had a bit of a disagreement a few days back. But that was before all the shit went down. It was old news. At least for me it was. Maybe it was different for her.
I wasn't - by anyone's standards - the most patient of men. That said, I found myself oddly willing to wait. To feel things out. To see if it was going somewhere. First, she was hurt. That had to be factored in. All flirtation aside, I knew there was no way to get physical with her with a few makeshift stitches holding her stomach closed. Not even in a purely one-sided, me-on-my-knees kind of way. She moved around too much. And nothing killed the mood like pulling a stitch and dripping blood everywhere.
Second, well, I thought it said something that I was still this interested. Waiting on her, finding excuses to talk to her, having my mind turn to thoughts of her even when she wasn't around me.
She was going to be around for a while. Even after we dropped off Joey, she had to hang back with us until we found and handled Doug.
I had time to feel things out, decide if this was more than a slight infatuation, or if maybe it was deeper.
A couple days ago, everything was different, I knew I wasn't even capable of thinking of things like a future, like foundations. But now? Now, everything was back on track. Not perfect, but slowly but surely moving in that direction.
I owed it to myself - and Sera - to give this some time, some consideration. If this was more than wanting to get back in her pants, if I thought I had actual feelings for her, then maybe this was something worth exploring on a deeper level. The kind where we talked about futures and possibilities and houses and kids and titles and shit.
Clearly, she needed more time to warm even to that suggestion, but that was okay. I had a fuckuva lot on my plate. She had some healing to do.
We had time.
So I went ahead and changed the topic.
"Anything in particular you want the guys to get you? Some of your sketchbooks and shit? Maybe you will stay on your ass if you have something to do."
"I would actually really appreciate some of my art supplies. If they don't mind."
"They don't."
"You don't speak for them."
"I'm their president, so, yes, I do."
"They just blindly follow you, no matter what? Even off a cliff?"
"That is how it is supposed to work. Brotherhood before everything."
"What about a wife? Kids? Other close family?"
"Well, I lucked out that most of my family has been in the club. But, I dunno, they are tied, I guess. I don't have a wife or kids, so I can't say for sure. As a kid, though, we always felt equal to the club and brothers in my father's priority list."
"They aren't resentful for being pushed around?"
"Well, before Doug turned everyone against me, no. I don't have a lot of rules. I'm not a fucking dictator. But I expect them to do things for the upkeep here, follow direct orders when it comes to the business side of things, not share any club secrets. Other than that, their life is their own. There's not much to complain about seeing as they make a nice living to do very little."
"How did he get them all to turn against you?"
"That's a good question. Roux and I are going to need to have a sit-down about it, go over all the details, see what the fuck actually happened. Some of these men were people I thought I could trust with my life. So either he was a bit of an evil fucking genius, or I need to trust people less."
"I don't know... I think an argument could be made for the evil genius idea. While Joey wasn't always the greatest judge of character, she usually noticed when someone was a complete and utter shithead."
"Like all your exes?" I asked, lips twitching.
"Well, yeah," she agreed, rolling her eyes at her life choices. "But she's never liked people she thought of as dark or mean or vindictive. All things, I think, we can agree Doug is. So, he had to have played at being someone else for a long time before she was in too deep to back out. I imagine he was sneaking behind your back for a long time, sowing discontent."
And then once I was actively 'out of the way,' and going to prison for a few years, he could have easily convinced them it was in their best interest to follow him instead of my replacement brothers who he likely convinced the guys 'weren't groomed for leadership' or some shit.
"What?" she asked, head tipped to the side slightly.
"I think the only part that doesn't make sense to me is the fact that most of them were willing to... hurt Bea."
"You know what?" she asked, shaking her head with a sigh. "Some guys are just fucking monsters. Especially so when they are being led by an even bigger monster. Joey hasn't told me a whole lot, but she's told me enough. And Doug deserves to have his dick cut off, then be dipped in honey and covered in wasps."
"The Persians were some vicious fuckers," I said with a nod, getting her reference. "But, yeah, I think rapists deserve to lose their cocks. There's no curing that kind of warped. What?" I asked when her eyes went thoughtful.
"Nothing. You just don't hear that often."
"Maybe my moral compass doesn't point due north, seeing as I clearly think murder is often justified, that a lot of drugs shouldn't be illegal, that women should be allowed to sell their bodies anyway they want without getting locked up, but there are a couple basic, fundamental beliefs I have always had. Anyone who hurts kids deserves liquid fire in their veins, and anyone who uses his strength against a woman should have his dick repossessed."
"You really think all the drugs you sell should be completely legal?" she asked after a moment.
"Pot? Fuck yeah. But for some of the others, maybe not fully legal. But decriminalized? Yeah. I can think a lot better use of our tax dollars than putting people away for a dime for using drugs."
"Wouldn't decriminalization put you out of business? What's funny?" she asked when I smirked.
"Have you seen how astronomically they tax pot when they legalize it? Guys like me will never go out of business. We just don't run such a risk of getting caught."
"Interesting."
"What about you?"
"What about me? Do I support drug legalization?" she asked, brows furrowing. "Um, well. To an extent, yeah. I'm not Girl Scout. I definitely smoked a lot in high school. Mostly just recreationally at parties. Or to get through Magic: The Gathering tournaments."
"I don't even know what that means," I admitted.
"Be thankful you don't. But, yeah, to pot. Maybe even mushrooms. But the stuff Joey is hooked on? Fuck no."
"She's going to get clear again, babe," I assured her, not liking the sadness that overtook her eyes. "I'm not saying it will be fast or easy, but she is going to a great place, and she has you in her corner. She's going to be fine."
"Thanks in a large part to you."
"Sera, even if I was inside for another year, I'm sure you would have found a way to get her out."
"Well, there was that. But there's also the money. I haven't actually than-"
"Nope. We're not doing that. It's nothing."
"It's not nothing."
"Look, I get that you're not used to having anyone around that you can fall back on, but this is what people do for each other."
"I'm pretty sure most people don't give other people tens of thousands of dollars."
"Because most people don't have it. If they did, they'd probably give it when they could. If it didn't put them in the red. That's what people do."
"For people they barely know? No, they don't."
"I don't think it's right to say we barely know each other, babe."
"I didn't mean like that. That doesn't mean much these days either. But I meant... as people."
"Think I am starting to know you pretty well, Sera. But on top of that, I am responsible for getting
locked up. And therefore what happened with Doug... and Joey."
"Oh, please. That's a little dramatic. If you didn't go away, I bet you would have had some bullets in you like your brothers."
She had me there.
"It's just the point. We're bound in a way now."
"You don't owe me anything," she insisted, voice getting a little sharp. Insulted, maybe. As ridiculous as that was.
"Jesus Christ are you bad at accepting a little hand up," I said with a snort, turning to make her a refill of coffee which was likely what she was coming into the kitchen for in the first place.
"I guess I have never practiced it before."
"Well, you'll have plenty of practice accepting it around here while you heal up," I told her, handing the mug to her. "Do you want something to eat?"
"Are you going to cook for me?" she asked, a low, sweet edge to her voice.
"I'm gonna order for you," I corrected. "Now get your pretty ass back on that couch, or I am going to put you there."
For once, she didn't argue.
In fact, as she turned away, there was a smile pulling at her lips.
Oh, yeah, I was going to have fun showing her that some guys could be counted on, leaned on.
Or, more specifically, that she could count on and lean on me.
I had a feeling that was going to go off swimmingly.
But even knowing that, there was a goofy ass smile pulling at my lips at the thought.
The next few weeks were going to be interesting.
TEN
Sera
Joey had been gone for sixteen days.
On day seven, she left the detox facility where she was weaned off of heroin by being put on subs. From there, she made her way to rehab where they would slowly and carefully wean her off of the subs while exposing her to one-on-one as well as group therapy for three months.
Revenge - Reckless Renegades 1 Page 14
