by Natalie Dean
Then again, she was about an hour ahead of schedule. She could go visit her mom. It’d been a while and Teddy was sure that she missed her.
Nodding to herself, she changed her course and headed toward the edge of their little neighborhood, where the church was and then the deadlands that were full of condemned buildings and abandoned businesses. A terrible fire had struck in the nineties; the area had never recovered.
But she wasn’t heading for the deadlands. No, she had a different location in mind entirely.
She arrived without incident, chaining her bike to the rack at the church then crossing behind it to a large, sprawling plot of land. The church had all that land only because the holy building was so old. She was happy about it, though; the plot had several weeping willows in it and flowered bushes around the edges.
She couldn’t think of a nicer graveyard for her mother to rest in.
Teddy had long since memorized the path to her mother’s final resting place. Sitting down in front of it, she looked at the worn stone. She hadn’t brought flowers this time, but she was sure her mother understood.
Her mother had always understood everything.
“Hey, sorry it’s been a while. Things have been crazy at the shop, you know.”
Mom didn’t say anything, because she never did, but Teddy still felt that familiar warmth in her chest. She could see in her mind how her mom would smile and nod, reaching out her hand to hold. Was there a more welcoming place than being in the arms of her mother?
No, probably not. But that place was long gone, so all she had was the gravestone.
“I know you’d want me to get out more. You always worried about me being so serious. But I… I’m worried, Mom. There’s been three different upper-echelon folks sharkin’ around here. Real bloodhounds, sniffing everywhere they can get their noses. We all know what they’re doing, but it scares me, ya know?”
Her mother would nod and have a solution. Mom always knew how to solve every puzzle.
Except maybe the one on getting better.
“I don’t know what would happen to me if we lost this neighborhood. It’s my whole life. And what if they do something to this church? What if they take you away? I know…” Teddy shook her head, bringing her knees up so she could rest her brow against it. “I know you’re not really there, but this is our place. Just me and you. Sometimes this feels like the only place in the world where I can still feel you beside me.
“I’m scared, I guess. And angry. I just want to take all of these guys and throw them headfirst into trash cans. It’s where—”
She was cut off as her phone rang. No one ever really called her unless it was about the shop, so she picked it up and answered. Mom would understand.
Teddy expected an update about a car, or a part, or a problem fix, but instead it was Jamal’s panicked voice on the other end. She could hardly understand him, but what she did catch horrified her down to her core.
Swearing, she bid her goodbye to Mom and raced to her bike.
Oh no.
Her brain was blindly panicked as she peddled furiously. Her heart was in her throat and she knew she was going to have the worst thigh-burn, but that didn’t matter. No. She just needed to get home as fast as possible.
Somehow, she made it without passing out, but her arrival brought no relief. She recognized the man standing in front of their shop, a ruthless businessman, a real sleazeball that they’d had issues with for a while. Oh sure, things had started out civil, but once Andre had made it clear that he wasn’t interested in selling the property, things had declined rapidly.
The man wasn’t alone either. His muscle was there, with a couple men in suits who she guessed were lawyers. Geez, he really was putting the pressure on, wasn’t he?
Too bad that wasn’t going to work. Her brother Roman was standing at the door, arms folded across his barrel chest. He had that placid look on his face that both he and Teddy had learned from Andre. If there was anyone who knew how to weather the storm, it was their dad.
“Hey,” Teddy said, running up and standing beside him. She was covered in sweat, and she was acutely aware of how red her face was and how frizzy her hair was, but she didn’t care. They were a united front against these interlopers. They were family and would present themselves as one. “I came as soon as I heard.”
“Aw, it’s alright,” Roman said with a shrug. “Mr. Cartwright was just heading out.”
“Actually, that’s not quite true,” the man said with a grin that really did make the shark metaphor seem that much more apt. “You see, we understand how important the community is here, and we understand where our last offer didn’t really value that properly. So, we’ve come to offer you something that we think would be much more your speed.”
“Our speed is not interested,” Teddy said sharply. “We’re real sorry you wasted your time comin’ out here, but as we said before, this is a family business, and we plan on staying around as long as our family keeps on going.”
The man narrowed his eyes. He had been so smooth, so oiled when he’d first shown up nearly six months earlier, but it was clear he was losing patience. “We understand that change can be scary, but we hope that you’ll share our excitement with all the new opportunities—”
Teddy was so very tired of it all. This guy had interrupted her time with her mom, just another wrong in a long list of them. “The only thing we want to share with you is a pleasant goodbye. Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Cartwright, but you and your… employees can head back to wherever it is you came from.”
“While I respect your love of this neighborhood, you’re not the owner here. If I could speak to Mr. Parker—”
“He’s already spoken to you and expressed his wishes. Us, his children, are happy to remind you of that.”
“His child,” the man corrected idly.
Teddy stiffened, her spine locking vertebra by vertebra. “What was that?”
“I said his child, as in his son. Not an informally adopted daughter who was passed off by a con artist who happened to get a pitiable disease.”
Teddy saw red.
The world expanded outward, her vision going tunneled as his words reverberated in her head. She was Andre’s daughter. He had been the only father that she had ever known. His hands had been the ones to wipe away her tears. It’d been him who taught her how to ride a bike, had taken her into a store to buy her first feminine products after her period had surprised her at the ripe ol’ age of eleven. He was the one who had gone to all of her softball games, who had bandaged her hurts, had taught her everything she knew about cars. He was her dad.
And her mother wasn’t a con artist. She was kind. She was so sweet and warm. She had never yelled at Teddy. She had only ever wanted to love and be loved. She—
Suddenly the man was stumbling back, a sickening crack splitting the air. He had been punched. And it was only after a ragged breath that Teddy realized it was Roman who had slugged him across his face.
“Don’t talk to my sister like that!” he snarled, his face drawn up into a furious expression.
Teddy blinked, surprised by the act. She was always the scrapper, the one with the bad temper. It was so jarring to see her brother act violently, that she just stood there a moment as pandemonium erupted around her.
The muscle guys were surging forward. She yanked her brother back, putting her body in front of him and raising her fists. Sure, maybe the hired goons would have no problem attacking a black guy who slugged their boss, but she was smaller than them and a white woman, and they’d be striking her in broad daylight. She was aware of the stark difference those two scenarios carried, and she was more than fine using her body to protect her brother. Her very real brother, no matter what poisonous things Mr. Cartwright said.
One of the lawyers was yelling at them, but she wasn’t listening. She was trying to crowd Roman backward into the shop, but he was pressing against her, still wanting to get at the men. When was the last time she’
d ever seen him so incensed? She couldn’t even remember.
Someone was on the phone; she was sure she heard them calling the cops. No, no, no. That was never good.
There was more screaming, more crowding, her holding her hands up to keep the hired guards at bay but also her legs trying to ground her to press her brother back. It was all so much. She wished Andre was there. She wished her mom was there.
The minutes all blended into each other, panicked and fueled with adrenaline. The cops arrived way too soon, as if they had been waiting close by. Like someone had tipped them off of something happening long before Mr. Cartwright had arrived. The next thing Teddy knew, her brother was being arrested and driven away, her ears rushing as the business posse all left in victory.
What had just happened? Since when was she so… so… helpless?
She didn’t know. Her brain was spinning. She wasn’t even aware that anyone was talking to her until someone gripped her arm and yanked her into the shop.
She shoved back, alarmed and confused, coming back to reality to realize it was Hassan, who was holding out a water bottle to her and ordering her to drink. She did, realizing her hands were shaking.
What had just happened?
“We called your father. He’s on his way. You need to breathe, okay? Just breathe, chica, we all got you. Your brother is gonna be okay.”
Breathe. Drink. Drink. Breathe.
It had just been a normal day. A good day. How had everything gone so wrong so fast? Had they been set up?
It felt like that, but that thought was also too terrifying to think about. There was blood in the water now, and the sharks were growing more and more desperate. How could her family fight them? The sharks had time, money and the smarts. All her community had was each other, and what was that if they were picked off one by one. A fight here. A disturbance there. It was no secret that most of the cops weren’t overly fond of her area, especially with the gangs. They would probably be all too happy to come clear out such a ‘troubled’ area. What was there to be done? She couldn’t just roll over and give in. There was too much at stake. But was fighting them just suicide?
“Sweet pea? You okay? I’m here. I’m here now.”
Teddy looked up with watery eyes to see her dad standing in the door of the shop, looking as worried and scared as she felt. She didn’t have to think twice as she threw herself at him, and his strong arms wrapped around her. Hugging her. Holding her. He was her rock. Her comfort. He had protected her all these years, and she loved him so much.
“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay, Teddy. I’m going to go to the police station. If you want to come with me, I’m going to need you to breathe and pull yourself together. They can’t see us weak. You know how it is.”
Teddy nodded, letting the warm rise and fall of his chest dictate her own breath. She could be calm for her brother. She could pack everything away until it was okay to feel again.
“Let’s go get Roman,” she said.
“That’s my girl.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead and then they were rushing out, jumping into the beater of a car he drove around and heading to the station. The entire time, Teddy worked on composing herself. She couldn’t afford to lose her temper. She couldn’t be some hysterical woman making a scene. Besides, maybe if she was pitiable enough, personable enough, they would believe that Roman was acting in self-defense.
Which wasn’t technically true. He’d been acting in her defense. But they were family and that was almost the same thing… right?
They reached the police station before she really had an answer and then they were going in. Everything was kinda hazy, most details rushing past her as she looked around for her brother. Had they already taken his fingerprints? Admitted him? Was that even the right word? She had no idea.
It seemed to take forever to find the right person to talk to, and once they did, a cop intercepted them and proceeded to give them the worst time. His comments were snide, his directions were vague, and the two of them had to sit there and take it. To smile and placate and be as polite as possible while the man they were talking to exaggerated Roman’s actions like he was a hardened criminal.
But the end of the conversation rocked her world. The cop explained that Roman was being booked and that he was being held for a full forty-eight hours before his arraignment. No discussion. No wiggle room.
Her brother was going to be in jail for two days.
Teddy just stared forward, and for the first time in a long while, she felt so utterly defeated. Was there a way out from the hole they had suddenly found themselves in?
It certainly didn’t feel like it.
7
Silas
“Hand me that scrubber, would ya? There’s a bit of corrosion packed in here.”
“You know that’s not what it’s called, right.”
Silas shot his older brother a look. “Oh really, Solomon? And what would you like me to call it then?”
Solomon laughed as he handed him the bristled tool. “Honestly, I don’t even remember. Here you go.”
Silas took it happily, cleaning around an area that was packed with debris and rust. He would need to oil it once he was done—which surprisingly was probably going to be that day.
He hadn’t had any plans when he’d woken up—grateful to be done collecting all of the information that his dad wanted about the new development. His older brother had approached him and asked if he wanted to help work on the feed grinder.
And the strange thing was, Silas had agreed. Sterling was off with their dad to a business thing because it was his turn. People could rarely tell them apart, so the two of them hardly ever attended events at the same time. Some folks apparently thought this meant that Dad only had five sons, but Silas thought that was hilarious.
“You know, we have workers who we literally pay to do this,” Silas commented absently, finishing using the scrubber and reaching for the oil rag they had been using.
“Yeah, but it’s kinda nice to do something with our hands, isn’t it?”
There was something odd about his tone. Almost wistful? Melancholy? The elder twin couldn’t place his finger on it, but he was acutely aware that something was changing with his brother.
Could it be that city girl?
His brother had always been so stern, so dedicated to the business; it seemed impossible that just one person could change him in any way.
“It is,” Silas agreed eventually. “Not that we’re very good at it. If Dad wasn’t so fit to be tied about Samuel, maybe we could just fly Benji here to teach us. Except Dad would never agree to that.”
Solomon paused in what they were doing, looking at all the tools they had laid out around them, the two manuals being held open with clamps, and the mess they’d created. “Hah, I suppose not. But it’s getting done, isn’t it?”
Silas cracked another smile. “Yeah. It is. Wanna go for a ride with me after this?”
“You’ve been hanging around the stables a lot. Anything going on there?”
“Just reconnecting with some of the things we used to do a lot more of when we were younger.”
“You mean before Dad got into that fight with our uncle and then went real obsessed with ‘building his legacy’?”
Now it was Silas’ turn to pause, and he did, giving his brother a long look. “Is that what happened?”
“You were real young. You probably don’t remember. Probably didn’t even realize that things were changing right away either.”
Silas didn’t know what to think about that, but before he could say anything, his phone was buzzing. Taking off one of his gloves, he pulled it from his pocket. It was his twin, Sterling.
Mrs. Worthington called me Silas three times today. This is hilarious. I’m going to make you look like such a jerk.
Silas chuckled to himself, knowing that his twin was teasing. He wouldn’t damage any of their reputations purposefully because none of them would ever hear the end of it from
their dad.
Don’t you dare, Silas texted back quickly. He did feel bad that his brother was stuck at a tedious sort of charity event that was less about giving back to the poor and was more about the political machinations of their dad. He loved his dad; he really did. But he couldn’t help but feel that certain things were… wrong? No, that wasn’t the right word for it.
Too late. I already spiked the punch bowl.
You’re juvenile.
Thank you, I do try.
You’re just doing this so Dad will never ask you to another event.
Stop twin-reading my mind.
Stop being so obvious.
Yeah, yeah. Whatever, time to go drown myself in the punch bowl before I have to deal with another debutante here hitting on me but thinking I’m you. You owe me.
Love you too, little brother.
Only by ten minutes!
Silas chuckled and tucked his phone away. When he returned to his work, he saw Solomon eyeing him curiously.
“Something up?” Silas asked.
Solomon shrugged and then shook his head. “That Sterling?”
“Who else would it be?”
“Right. It’s not like any of us talk to anyone outside the family.”
Now that was bitter. It surprised Silas, and he found himself looking over his older brother again. So many things were changing, but they were such small things that Silas wasn’t sure what to think about any of it.
“Hey, you okay, brother?” Silas asked.
Solomon shrugged yet again; his mouth pulled into something that was possibly supposed to be a smile but was just his lips pressed into a very thin, tight line. It was the kind of grin that wasn’t a grin at all, but rather a sarcastic expression to communicate that no, he wasn’t okay in the slightest. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
