by Lena North
He got it then. Mimi felt ignored, which she was, and had made her move with the sole purpose of punishing him.
“I don’t want to sleep with you,” he said bluntly but regretted his words immediately. She got that ugly look in her eyes and whatever she came up with to punish him would also hurt Charlie. “I’m sorry,” he added quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that, but it’s a lot to adjust to for me.”
“Will you have dinner with me tomorrow?” she asked.
There it was. It was time to pay for what he’d said, and how he’d stayed away from her.
“Okay,” he agreed. “Early dinner, though. I promised I’d spend time with Tina and Thea tomorrow, but I have time to eat first.”
Her face darkened when he mentioned Tina, but she’d gotten what she wanted and knew better than to say anything negative about that particular cousin. He decided to push it a little.
“I’ll join them at the bar,” he said.
“Joao,” she snapped. “I thought we weren’t supposed to go there.”
“You are not supposed to go there,” he corrected her. “Now I have to, after what you pulled today. We don’t want Dupree to press charges.”
Mimi considered this, and he watched her, wondering if she’d really buy that argument. Dupree wouldn’t try to get him to arrest her, and even if he did, there was no way those charges would lead to anything at all.
“I can talk to some people. Perhaps I can get them to see that this was just a misunderstanding,” he added, and she nodded immediately.
Gossip would be brutal, and most people would side with Charlie, something Mimi apparently had realized. He held back a grin and murmured a quiet goodnight.
He locked the door, went to bed with a book, and tried to read, but the words bounced around in his still somewhat rum-poisoned brain. When he’d turned the lights off, he waited, hoping this would be the evening she’d stop with the madness. It wasn’t, and he smiled grimly when the handle moved quietly. He’d locked the door the first night but not the next and had woken up when she climbed into bed with him, which had made him jump up so fast she’d fallen to the floor. He’d told her in no uncertain terms to leave, and when she said that sleeping in the same bed would bring them closer together, he’d closed the door in her face and locked it. And he kept it locked every night.
***
“What are you doing here?” Pauline asked as he held the door to the bar open for her.
“Meeting Tina and Thea,” he said casually, but added when she narrowed her brows, “Need to talk to Dupree.”
He wished he didn’t sound so defensive, and the look on her face told him she didn’t believe one word. He wasn’t going to talk to Charlie, he promised himself. He’d stay in a corner somewhere and spend time with his cousins and friends. He hadn’t been to the bar since Mimi moved into his house, and he missed the laid-back, casual companionship he’d had with the people there.
Loud music was playing, and it was a happy song they all knew. The bar was mostly full of local people who sang along, swaying and clapping their hands. Lippy was handing out beer to the beat of the music, and when a familiar song started playing, he grinned and started dancing. It was a simple and silly dance, but Joao had seen the men do that routine behind the bar all his life and turned to look for Dupree. Charlie was working at the other end of the bar, and when she saw Lippy, she suddenly burst out laughing.
She’d apparently seen them do it too because she suddenly started moving, swaying her hips and bopping her head, following her uncle’s lead. A cheer went up in the room as they danced and then Dupree walked in from the side. He took one look at his daughter, barked out laughter and started moving. The crowd went crazy.
Ban was watching from the opening to the kitchen with a huge grin on his face, and he was slapping two bananas against the doorframe as if he was a drummer in a rock band. Joao heard his aunt cheer next to him, and his heart clenched. The girl who had told him she thought it was hard to be surrounded by her cousins in a busy bar looked happy and carefree as she danced with her father and uncle. He felt like crying suddenly but couldn’t look away.
When the song was over, they bowed, and Charlie was laughing as she turned to say something to Dupree who immediately froze and stared at her. Then he raised a hand and put it on her cheek, ignoring everyone around them.
The crowd thinned out in front of the bar, and Joao moved to the side, hoping he could stay hidden just a little while longer. Something was happening, and he didn’t want to disturb them.
“It’s time,” Dupree said loudly.
Then he looked at his brother at the other end of the bar, and a big grin spread on their faces. Dupree walked into the kitchen, and the back door slammed. Lippy moved toward the group of tourists sitting in a corner, staring at the happy crowd in the room. He spoke quietly with them, and they nodded. Then they left, and Lippy flipped the sign on the door to indicate that the place was closed, and turned the lock.
There was another cheer when Dupree came back in, soaking wet. Joao got it then and so did everyone else because a hushed silence spread. Ban walked out, still grinning as he pulled up a chair in the center of the room. Dupree shuffled a confused looking Charlie in front of him, handed her a pair of scissors and sat down.
“It’s time,” he repeated gently.
She was so focused she didn’t notice him, but Joao saw her face. Tears glittered in her eyes, but she smiled and moved her father’s head to the side.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Fuck, yeah,” Dupree said.
A loud cheer went through the bar when she cut the first dreadlock, close to his head.
“I told you fathers aren’t supposed to use that word,” Charlie said primly, handed the dread to Ban, and went on to slowly cut the rest of the hair off her father’s head.
They were talking quietly while she worked, and when she was done, she moved her hand over Dupree’s head. He tilted it back to look up at her with happy eyes full of tears.
“You look a little like a funky chicken, Papi,” she said, and the tears spilled over, but he started laughing too.
“Right. I’ll go shave.”
“I’ll help you,” Ban said, and they walked out.
Lippy unlocked the front door, went back behind the bar to start up the music again, and Charlie straightened.
Her eyes were happy, and when she saw him, her smile didn’t fade. They looked at each other for a few seconds. Then she nodded and walked over to the bar.
Joao felt his lips curve into the first smile since he’d come home to find Mimi outside his door. Tina waved a beer at him, and he walked over to sit down with her for a while. The mood was happy, and as the evening passed by, Joao moved around to talk to his cousins, reclaiming a part of his life he hadn’t known he’d miss so much until it was gone. Through the evening, he kept the promise he’d made, and didn’t exchange a single word with Charlie.
Chapter Fourteen
Lottie
Joao
He thought he’d feel better after the evening at the bar. Having an important part of his life back again should have made everything easier, but instead, he got angry, and the way he got angry was not pretty. He snapped at his deputies, and when Tina stopped by to talk to him, he told her to go fuck herself for absolutely no reason at all. She shoved him to the side and marched away, but then Thea asked quietly if he wanted to come to their place for dinner and he promptly told her to go fuck herself too, which made Tina come back and slap him. Then she saw the look on his face and backed away, scowling angrily. He walked into his office, slammed the door shut and spent the afternoon growling at people over the phone. When he got home, word about his foul mood had apparently spread around town because Mimi put her arms around him and told him he shouldn’t waste so much time on people he didn’t like. Since he didn’t spend time with anyone, and since he didn’t like her, he’d just moved her to the side, walked in
to his bedroom and locked the door. A-fucking-gain.
The one taking the brunt of his anger was Roark, though, and he didn’t back away. Instead, he seemed to seek out his brother and push him into whatever argument he could come up with as long as it ended with them raising their fists. Joao was only a bit more than a year older but a lot stronger, so he held back when he put his fist in his brother’s face. It wasn’t Roark he was pissed off with, not really. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Mimi either. He was pissed off at life.
Domenico and Snow visited the Islands, and when he saw them walking along the beach at a distance, Joao knew he couldn’t handle seeing them. Not when the last happy words he’d said was that he had what they had. Not when he’d lost what they had. Instead, he went away and spent a few days far out on the ocean on his catamaran, roaring his anger to the skies and taking his other shape to rush through the water. The dolphins wisely kept their distance, so he hunted down a shark and punched the surprised animal in the belly. It made a hasty retreat, and he followed it for a while but gave up when it kept swimming away from him. Nothing eased his pain, and when a brief thunderstorm turned the cat over in a way that broke its mast, he gave up another frustrated roar, tied a rope to the boat and towed it back to Croxier. He was in his human shape when he swam through the harbor, pulling the wrecked catamaran behind him, and people stopped to stare.
He scowled when Roark and Toby jumped in the water to help him and snarled at them to take his damned boat to the dump. Then he dropped the rope and kept swimming until he reached the beach.
The blow came from nowhere, hitting the side of his head in a way that made him rear back.
“The hell?” he grunted and stared right into angry turquoise eyes.
“You need to stop feeling fucking sorry for yourself, boy,” Dupree growled. “Pull yourself together and sort shit out.”
Joao charged at the older man immediately, expecting to take him down easily. Dupree was almost twenty-five years his senior, as tall as him, but lean and not even remotely as muscular as he was. It turned out there wasn’t anything easy about it at all because, Jesus, how the older man could fight.
Dupree sidestepped nimbly and slammed an elbow in the back of his head, so he fell face first into the sand. He’d barely gotten up when he got three quick punches in his face, and each of them hurt like hell. Joao started swinging and hit Dupree’s ribs but immediately got a shoulder in his midriff which turned him sideways. A hard kick to his legs had him falling face first into the sand again, and this time, Dupree came down on top of him, pulling his arm behind his back in a way designed to immobilize and hurt.
He’d deputized his cousins when he took over as chief of police, but as his face was unceremoniously pushed into the sand, it hit him that he’d forgotten the older generation. Dupree yanked his arm up, and he grunted when pain radiated up his spine.
“Now you’ll listen to me,” the older man snarled into his ear. “We all feel how you’re pulling back. You’re the protector, and you’re not protecting a goddamned thing right now so get yourself together and sort shit out.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Joao asked.
Dupree moved his head back slightly and slammed his forehead into Joao’s temple. Stars twinkled in front of his eyes, and he pushed out air in a hoarse growl.
“My girl is stronger than anyone I’ve ever met,” Dupree murmured. “She doesn’t know it yet, but she’ll get through this and come out on the other side shining so fucking bright it’ll hurt to watch. I’ll get my grandchildren; don’t you worry about that. But how’s it gonna feel, Joao, watching her give that to someone else?”
A knee ground into his ribs and his arm was yanked again when he tried to move, and Dupree kept growling in his ear. “Who will it be? Someone from the mainland, visiting the bar? One of the cousins?” He made a short pause and leaned in even closer to whisper tauntingly, “I’d prefer if it were Roark.”
Joao’s whole body tensed, and he ignored the pain in his head and arm as he bucked, throwing Dupree off him. Everything inside him quieted down, and all he could think of was Charlie. His brother wouldn’t –
“Get your head in the game, boy,” Dupree said calmly, standing close so the people surrounding them wouldn’t hear. “Stop pissing off the sack of garbage you have in your home and find a way out of this. Go talk to a lawyer.”
“I don’t want to drag my –”
Dupree cut that off immediately.
“Yeah, I know the crap my daughter fed you, but she’s wrong. It’s better to have a father who fights for you than one who caves in to blackmail because that’s not a man who deserves to be a father at all.”
That pissed Joao off, mostly because he had a feeling Dupree might not be entirely wrong.
“What the hell do you know?” he asked sourly.
“I would have fought for my daughter,” Dupree snapped. “But I didn’t get that chance, so no one ever did. Not me.” He glared at Joao. “And not you.”
Hell. Oh, fuck. Dupree was right. He’d tried to do what seemed right for his unborn child, but as he did, he’d let Charlie go without a fight.
“Shit,” he grunted.
“Fight for my girl, Joao. Find a way out of this,” Dupree whispered. “You have friends on the mainland. Family here. There are hands stretched out everywhere around you. Take one of them and accept that you can’t do it all on your own.”
Then he turned and walked away, and Joao looked at the sand on his feet. A drop of blood suddenly fell from his nose. Someone handed him a towel, and he raised his head to look straight into his cousin’s sharp gaze.
“I need your help, Nicky,” he said, and the piercing eyes softened.
“You got it.”
***
He walked into the bar feeling like a fool. Part of that was because of the way one of his eyes had a blueish circle around it which was fading toward yellow at the edges. Mostly it was because he’d been one. Tina, Thea, and Roark watched him with hard faces as he crossed the floor.
“I was an asshole,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
A plastic cup full of beer was suddenly put down on the table in front of him with a little too much force. Some splashed out, and he watched the drops hit the table.
“Sit,” Dupree ordered calmly and tossed a few napkins on the table. “Looks like someone punched you in the face,” he added, and Joao could see humor in his eyes.
“You know how to fight,” he said, which was a ridiculous understatement.
“Don’t be an idiot, boy. Haven’t spent most of my life as a barman without learning how to take down anyone crossing me.”
“Lippy learned too?”
“Well, yeah,” Dupree said.
“Either of you feel up to giving me a hand when shit hits our shores?”
“Sure,” Dupree said casually and walked away.
Joao followed the older man with his eyes, and then he saw Charlie behind the bar. She was laughing at something one of the customers said and didn’t look his way. He closed his eyes but opened them again when he heard someone kick the chair out in front of him.
“Don’t be such a melodramatic moron,” Roark said. “We forgive you. Now sit down.”
He promptly placed his behind in the chair, leaned forward and told them quietly about his visit to the mainland. He’d told Mimi he had to talk to some government officials, and she’d smiled and told him to ask them if they had any open positions, sharing that she expected him to have more regular working hours when the child was born. He said he would, which had been a total lie. He’s been on the mainland to meet with a lawyer his cousin had connections to. The elderly gentleman had instructed him to stay calm, keep Mimi happy, and start dropping hints that he had a medical condition in his family history which they’d need to test for. If she took the test, it would give them the opportunity to get proof of his paternity at the same time, and the lawyer seemed
to think a joint custody agreement could be arranged even before the child was born.
Joao felt like a complete idiot, for not talking to the lawyer immediately and for not investigating what could be done about his shitty situation. What the lawyer advised seemed obvious, and he should have figured it out himself. Nicky took him back to the airport, told him to keep a cool head and not beat himself up for not knowing about fetal paternity tests and the legal intricacies of custody arrangements. He was still pissed at himself, though.
“You can’t tell Charlie,” Thea murmured. “She’s just getting back on her feet, Joao. Most people see her laughing and moving on with her life, but there’s something… She isn’t happy. You can’t tell her yet.”
“I know,” he murmured and forced himself to not look toward the bar.
Instead, he focused on a group of people walking through the door and fought the urge to roll his eyes when they immediately started gushing about local ambiance. They walked up to the bar, and then one of them suddenly squealed.
“Lottie!”
Joao felt his blood turn cold and turned slowly. Charlie was at the other end of the bar and hadn’t moved a muscle in reaction to someone calling out her old nickname. The women started whispering, and they were glancing over at Charlie.
“Well it couldn’t be her,” one them said. “She was always a quiet one.”
“But it looks exactly like Lottie,” the woman insisted. “Sebastian brought her to our place several times. They were going to spend the holidays with us a few years ago. Seb’s father was away and she doesn’t have any family. She got sick, though, so he canceled.”
Joao clenched his jaws and looked down because he knew she’d had a black eye and a sprained wrist, which didn’t qualify as sick in his book. She’d also left him after that incident.
“I don’t think –”
The man was interrupted by the woman leaning forward, squealing, “Hey, you look like our friend.”
