by Nina Levine
He bent to kiss me again, and murmured, “I’ll be sure to take that under advisement, too.”
And then he left us, and both Magan and I stared after him until he started his bike, at which point she looked at me, and said, “Holy shit, you scored big time.”
I led her into my kitchen. “We’ll see. He’s a little shy about letting down his wall, if you know what I mean, so I feel there’s a lot of work ahead of us.” Eyeing her, I asked, “Why are you here so early?”
“I wanted to come over and see if you were thinking of visiting Mum today. I’m going to head to the hospital this morning if you want to come with me.”
My stomach knotted with panic. “I can’t…not today,’ I said softly, willing her to leave it at that and not try to force me into going.
“Do you think you’ll ever give her a chance?” Her words held no accusation; it was simply a question. One I didn’t know the answer to.
“I’m honestly not sure.”
She nodded. “Okay, I won’t bug you about it again, but if you decide you do want to go, just let me know and I will go with you. She and I are getting close, and I can see how much she has changed.”
Worry filled me. Her words revealed the truth of the matter – a truth a seventeen-year-old girl, desperate for the love of a mother, couldn’t help but miss. How could she possibly see how much a woman had changed when she never knew her in the first place? I squeezed her hand and smiled. “I’ll let you know if I change my mind,” I promised, unable to burst her happy bubble. I hoped like hell our mother would not disappoint her again, but deep down, I doubted that would happen.
18
Griff
I walked the distance between my bike to the meeting point, surprised to see Blade waiting with Scott for me, but I should have realised this was the meeting point we set up when the three of us plotted to take down Marcus, so it was only natural for Scott to choose it if he was bringing Blade into something now. But what the fuck did Blade have to do with anything going on between Scott and me?
“Morning,” I said as I approached.
The set of Scott’s shoulders and the hard expression on his face led me to believe he was still angry with me. He jerked his chin, and said, “Morning.” Although everything else about him seemed tense, his voice had lost the hard tone to it from yesterday.
Glancing at Blade, I asked, “What’s going on?”
“Blade knows about your past. I needed to talk it out with someone and I didn’t want that to be anyone from Storm,” Scott filled me in, and I sucked in a breath. The more people who knew, the more chance of shit going south at some point. “Actually, I was just going to bring it up at Church, but Harlow picked up that there was something on my mind last night and suggested I talk to Blade.”
Fuck, I had no clue where he would take this, so I nodded and waited for him to lay his cards on the table.
“What you told me yesterday, that shit stays between us…the three of us. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but Blade helped me to understand that life isn’t all black and white, and that sometimes the deeds of the past shouldn’t be a reflection on the person of today. I get why you did what you did. I mightn’t like it or agree with it, but one thing I do get is loyalty to family with no questions asked and no stone left unturned.” He took a breath before continuing. “You’re my family, Griff, and the shit I said to you yesterday was in the heat of the moment. You’ve proven yourself over and over to me…you don’t have to prove yourself again.”
His words hit me in the chest, and I took a minute to recover. “Fuck,” was all I got out before Blade stepped forward and spoke.
“That being said, you’ve got a problem where Ricky is concerned. He knows your identity and I’m guessing he knows your involvement in the Bond case. That means he’ll use that to his advantage, and fuck knows his agenda these days.”
Scott nodded in agreement. “Yeah, so we need to move on him. And we need to move fast. Fuck waiting for the club to have its shit together to deal with the fallout…we need to do this today.”
My mind was still trying to wrap itself around Scott’s acceptance of my past, but I pushed that to the side to focus on our revised plan to deal with Ricky. “You got any ideas?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’ve come up with something,” Scott said and we spent the next twenty minutes going over the plan.
Today was shaping up to be a good day – by the end of it, Storm would have one less headache.
* * *
As I sat back in position, watching Ricky’s house from a few houses down and waiting for Blade’s signal, my phone buzzed silently with a text from Nash.
Nash: We have the details for tomorrow’s drug deal.
Me: Good. We’ll go over it later.
Nash: How’s our friend?
Me: Twenty minutes tops and he won’t be our friend anymore.
I shoved my phone back in my pocket. Nash, Wilder and Scott weren’t here for this part of the plan. They were out with the rest of our boys raising hell and giving Storm an alibi for this murder. Blade, J and I were taking care of Ricky with the help of Blade’s boys.
My signal from Blade came – a flick of his wrist – and I started the Range Rover, and drove it down the street. It was Ricky’s Range Rover that I’d ‘borrowed’ from his driver while said driver took a rest. Pulling up outside Ricky’s house, I asked the woman in the back, “You ready?”
“All ready, Mr. Griff.” She winked at me in the rearview mirror. “Maybe once we done for the day, you give me a go? I could show you good time.”
I met her gaze in the mirror. She was a beautiful woman, especially if you were into Asian beauty. I, however, wasn’t into any beauty other than the beauty that was spending today regrouping, so I shook my head. “I’ll have to say no, babe.”
“Ah, I see, you already got woman for tonight.”
My dick jerked at the thought. I sure as fuck did.
The back door of the Range Rover opened, and Ricky got in. I held my breath waiting to see if our plan would be shot to shit before it even really began, but the woman in the back played her part well, and stole his attention completely off me. I’d dressed appropriately, and if he’d given the back of me a quick glance, he would have assumed I was his driver, but if he’d investigated closely, we would have needed to move to Plan B.
We knew from Nash & J’s surveillance of Ricky that his driver collected women for him every day at two and then picked him up to take them both to a sex club. Today, we’d supplied the woman and Ricky wouldn’t be making it as far as the club.
While she distracted him, I drove in the direction of the club. Blade and his boys followed at a distance, and just before we arrived at the club, I took the agreed upon detour.
“Why the fuck did you turn there?” Ricky demanded, and I pressed a little harder on the pedal. We were nearly at our destination – an old warehouse that Blade owned.
I didn’t answer him. Instead, J appeared from the very back of the Range Rover, hooked his arm tightly around Ricky’s throat from behind and held his gun to Ricky’s head. “It seems we have a slight detour to make, motherfucker,” he snarled.
Ricky began kicking at the seat in front of him and clawing at J’s arm. I concentrated on the road ahead, drowning out their yelling as best I could, even though my natural instinct was to take my gun and shoot him in the goddamn head. We’d agreed, though, not to shoot him in the Range Rover. We wanted nothing left in the car that could possibly lead back to Storm.
A few minutes later, I pulled into the warehouse and slammed on the brakes. Blade and his boys pulled in after us and then the doors to the warehouse were quickly pulled shut. I jumped out, rounded the car, opened Ricky’s door and yanked him out. J followed close behind, and as I held him, J patted him down, removing weapons as he went.
Blade joined us, and Ricky scowled at his presence. “I see you boys needed Blade to tag along for this. Storm never did have any fucking balls.”
&
nbsp; Once J had removed all of Ricky’s weapons, I shoved him away from me so he stood in the middle of all three of us. Blade’s boys held back, ready for whatever went down.
“I’m merely here for fun, Ricky,” Blade said. “And to see you get what you should have gotten years ago. I don’t make many mistakes in life, but letting you live back then was one of my biggest ones.”
“No, your biggest mistake will be what goes down today. If you think I don’t have plans in place for what happens in the event of my death, you’re all fucking stupid. But then again, I always knew that.”
I punched him hard on the cheek. Something I’d wanted to do for a very long fucking time. I’d hit him with such force that he stumbled back quite a few steps. His hand moved to his cheek, and he scowled at me.
I held up my hands in a fighting position, and said, “Take a shot, motherfucker. I’m in the mood for some fun today.”
He lunged at me, but I sidestepped his punch. Moving fast, I turned and punched him in the gut.
“Fuck!” he roared, clutching his gut. He then came at me again, and managed to clip me on the side of my face.
I was ready for him, though, and punched him so hard on his cheek that he fell to the ground. Stepping forward, I pressed my boot into his gut to hold him down there. “You wanna know who made the mistake in all of this, Ricky? You, motherfucker. Storm is a force to be reckoned with now that Marcus is gone. We’re not gonna just roll over and let people fuck us anymore,” I snarled, my anger at him rolling through me, consuming me.
J eyed me, a look of pure dislike on his face. “Can we hurry this the fuck up? The shit coming out of his mouth is worse than the worst reality show on TV, and I should know how bad that stuff is ‘cause my wife subjects me to it more than I care to admit.”
“Tell you what, J…go for it, brother,” I said, yanking Ricky up off the ground.
One of the things I knew about J was that he didn’t screw around when given a job to do, and he only proved to me today how true that was. The moment I gave him the go ahead, he nodded, aimed his gun at Ricky and fired. Ricky barely had time to even process my words before he was dead on the ground before us.
I looked from Ricky to J, and said, “Fuck, you don’t like to waste time, do you?”
“The only time I’m happy to do that is when I’m waiting for my wife’s lips to move from one end of my cock to the other, brother. You give me an order, consider it done there and then,” J replied as he walked to where Ricky lay.
Blade rounded up his guys. They would be taking care of Ricky’s body to ensure it was never found, and dumping the Range Rover while Blade drove J and I back to the clubhouse.
“That almost felt too easy,” J said.
“The thing I’ve learnt about easy is that it always comes back to haunt you,” Blade shared. “I doubt Ricky’s guys will rest until they figure this out, and my guess is they’ll be looking at us first, so we have to stay alert. We’ve got the plan in place for our homes and businesses to be watched, but there’s always that element of surprise – something we haven’t thought of – so watch your backs at all times.”
* * *
“Everything go down okay?” Scott asked when I entered his office an hour later.
“Yeah. J said it felt too easy and I have to agree with him,” I replied as I sat opposite him.
“It helped that we knew his schedule so well; knew his area of weakness.”
“True. How did your end go?”
He grinned, and it was the first time I’d seen a smile on his face for weeks. “It’s been too long since Storm has had some fun, brother.”
Brother.
Thank fuck.
“You think it worked?”
To give Storm an alibi for the time of the murder, for when Ricky’s guys went digging, we’d set up a distraction. Scott, Nash and every other member we could round up had headed over to the busiest bar in The Valley where we’d arranged for about ten chicks to be at, including Velvet. She’d staged an impromptu wet t-shirt competition and when the boys had turned up, Nash had revved them up to get involved and cause a scene, dragging as many of the bar’s customers into.
“Yeah, it worked. So many guys got into it that the bar owners called the cops who had to come and settle everyone down. The girls did a great job getting it all going, and it was fuckin’ funny watching the cops try to do their job while all the drunks ignored them. And it must have been a slow news day because Channel Ten arrived and filmed it all.”
“So now we wait and see where the dust settles,” I said.
“Yeah. I figure we’ve got eyes everywhere, watching all members’ families. We can’t do much more than that.”
I was silent for a moment, while I tried to get my thoughts in order so I could say what I needed to say. Eventually, I went with simple. “Thank you, brother.”
He knew what I meant and nodded. “I’m sorry about your family.”
“Yeah. My father was a prick, but my mother and brother didn’t deserve what happened to them.” It was odd to talk about the part of me I’d kept locked away from him for so long now.
“Fucking fathers,” he muttered. “We wouldn’t be here without the sons of bitches, but we’re sure as hell better off without ours, Griff.”
No truer words had been spoken about my father. And after all these years, it felt good to be able to talk about this with Scott.
Maybe my faith in family could be restored after all.
19
Sophia
I don’t know what made me do it, but after work that day, I found myself at the hospital my mother was at. Perhaps it was the good day I’d had that began with Griff being amazing this morning and ended with my boss being fired for being inappropriate with a number of the female staff. Regardless of the reason, I stepped through the door of her room at around five thirty and my past collided with my present in a way I could never have predicted.
She knew who I was the instant she saw me. How could she not? I was her spitting image, minus nineteen years. “Sophia,” she said softly, and I sucked in a breath at the sound of her voice. I’d recognise that voice anywhere.
With hesitation, I took the few steps to her bedside. I struggled with what to call her but in the end I went with the only name I knew her by. “Mum.”
She motioned to the chair next to her bed. “Sit, baby.”
I hated that word on her lips, but I silenced that thought. Sitting, I asked, “How are you feeling?”
She shrugged. “I’m okay. The docs are looking after me well.”
“That’s good.” God, this conversation was so stilted.
“I want to know about you, baby. How are you?”
My eyes widened. Did she mean in general? Or how had I been for the last twenty years? Her question threw me and I was lost for words.
“Sophia?” she nudged me.
Without warning, my emotions surged forward and took over, and as the words fell from my mouth, I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted to. Standing, I threw my words at her as if they were all the hurt she’d ever given me – the hurt I had desperately wanted to throw back at her my whole life. “If you’re asking me how I am today – now – I’m good. Amazing even. But if you, by any chance, want to know how I’ve been for the last twenty years – since you last saw me – I’ve been up and down, to hell and back. All because of you.” I stopped for a moment to catch my breath, and then continued. “I don’t know why I came here today, but perhaps it was to ask you for one thing. Please tell me how a mother can walk away from her daughter and her husband when he’s on life support, dying? Did you feel any guilt over that? Or did you just carry on with your life and build another family? Another family that you incidentally screwed over, too.”
She sat staring at me, blinking – blinking away the tears that she didn’t deserve to even have. “Baby - ”
“No! Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me that!” I yelled at her, my heart beating wildly, and my
body pulsing with adrenalin.
“You don’t understand…your father and I were over long before his accident.”
I stared at her. “And what about me? Were we over, too? How does a parent even get to decide something like that? I was nine. Nine!”
“I wasn’t mentally stable. It was better for you that I left. I did it for you.” Her eyes were pleading with me to understand, but this was something I would never understand.
I shook my head. “No. You left for yourself, and even if you left for me, you should have come back. You should have gotten the help you needed, after you made sure I was okay, and then you should have come back. That’s what a mother does. They don’t just abandon their child when shit gets too hard…oh, my God, I can’t even look at you right now.” I turned away from her, my mind and body a mess of emotions and thoughts and hate. The hate was consuming me so much I felt like I would vomit. Clutching my stomach, I focused on my breathing and willed myself not to throw up.
And then my phone rang.
I ignored it.
I also ignored the pleas of my mother.
My phone rang again.
And again.
And all the while, my mother sobbed in her bed.
She had no right to sob.
No fucking right.
My phone rang again.
Shit.
I snatched it out of my bag and answered it without even checking who it was. “Hello,” I snapped.
A pause. And then, “Sophia, are you okay?”
Griff.
A sense of calm washed over me at his voice.
“No, not really,” I answered him honestly, still clutching my stomach and praying the nausea away.
