She has no idea what to make of all this, and her grey eyes are guarded. “So, you’re all pissed.”
Ben’s voice is low, emerald eyes stony as he turns to face her. “You think we’re powerless, Sofia? That we have nothing to offer?”
She frowns, “No.”
Emma cocks her head. “You think you’re all alone?”
“No, I just…”
Gabriel bites off the rest of her sentence, “Think we’re all worthless. Just average people who can’t do what you do.”
She eyes him, shoulders slumping a little. “You don’t know what I do.”
“We had a plan!” I shout, losing my temper and pointing at her. “All of us!’
Ethan growls, “You put yourself in danger and didn’t allow us to back you up!”
Her eyes are darting around now, blinking rapidly. “The plan wouldn’t have worked. And I couldn’t take you with me.”
“How do you know that, Sofia?!” Emma demands. “You didn’t give us a chance.”
Gabriel’s voice slices through. “You think we’re beneath you.”
“I do not!” Sofia cries out.
Angrily he nods like it’s true. “That you’re better than us. Like you can save the world, but we’d just fuck it up. You know how that makes us feel?”
Ethan mutters, “Makes me feel like shit, how ‘bout you guys.”
Mutual agreement all around.
Sofia’s lips are lax and she backs away, running both hands through her hair. Grey eyes flash with fire as she zips her hand through the air around all of us. “Your plan had too many holes in it. There was no way we could trust them to help you and Tobias out, Hannah. My way would work like a charm, and nobody had to get hurt. Well, except for Vance.”
Ben demands, “Did you kill him?”
Her eyes go wide. “No! Of course I didn’t. He’s a putz but he’s not as snake-like as I thought he was. I just…well, I broke his hand. Just a little break.”
We blink at her and my brother struggles to hide his laugh. Ethan admonishes him immediately, “It’s not funny, Gabriel! Don’t let her charm you.”
Sofia side-eyeballs Ethan and crosses her arms, throwing her back against the wall to lean on it. “Like I’m some temptress, Ethan? Gawd. I hear you. If I were in your shoes, I’d feel the same way. But let me just paint this picture for you.” She pauses, meeting our eyes one at a time before she says, “I couldn’t take you with me. Any of you ever sneak into a house? NO. All six of us sneaking in unnoticed? NO. Would you have let me go if I told you I was going to? NO. I don’t think you’re beneath me! Ethan, should I start coding computers tonight?”
“What?”
“You think if there was a meltdown and we needed a hacker, who would we call…me?”
His head goes back like she punched him. Emma’s jaw tenses as she glances to her brother and exhales through her nose.
Beside me, Ben turns to look at the view again, and Gabriel starts picking at his jeans before he mutters, “Fuck.”
“You made your point,” I begrudgingly say. “What did you do? What happened?”
She holds her finger to her lips, ear cocked. We all listen, everyone stone silent. In the hallway approaching us are Tobias and Andy, their deep rumbling voices unmistakable.
“Good,” Sofia says, glancing to one of her chipped nails. “I didn’t want to tell the story more than once.” Meeting my eyes she smirks, “After all, one must be a little modest, even if one is a Cocker.”
Surprisingly Ben says, “Fuck that. Never be modest. Own what you can do. Just don’t be a dick about it.”
Nobody argues.
We all wait as the door opens.
Tobias and I lock eyes as he enters with Andy strolling in behind him, both of them agitated. “What the fuck did you do?” he demands as soon as he sees her.
She just smiles.
I Gotta Be Me - Sofia Sol
Guy’s got money. Being a snake must pay off.
I knew when I saw him in that cage he was slime. Not evil exactly. I’ve seen more than my fair share of demonic pricks in my life. But Vance is the kind who will take what he can get with the least amount of cost to him.
That he has the discipline to train for fights only shows that’s part of his life purpose. He can rise above the pettiness of his greed in order to mold his body and mind into a machine to reach his higher good.
We’re all on this planet for a reason. Given gifts we can use to better ourselves and feel what it’s like to be soul-satisfied. All of us. Every single last one. If you’ve forgotten, it’s just because life has beaten you down. You gotta fight to get back up. I’m telling you, it’s the only way. Fight like your life depends on it. If that doesn’t do it, fight like someone you love’s life depends on it.
Hell, do it for your dog.
Your cat.
Your child.
Someone else’s kid.
Your plant.
I don’t care.
Just fight.
My gift is elevating dicks like Vance so he’ll do the right thing. It’s complicated but what the Ciphers do is take down the abusers so the victims can get up and walk again. We can’t take the steps for them, it’s up to them to do that. And sometimes they lay down on the floor to be a doormat again because that’s all they know. But other times their world opens up and they’re able to achieve that soul-satisfaction I’m talking about. That feeling they have when they’re aligned with who they really are, who they’re meant to be.
Nobody is meant to be a place for someone else to wipe their feet.
No one.
And I won’t let my cousin Hannah get dirt on her. Not from these pieces of shits.
“Who the fuck are you?” Vance shouts as I stroll into his kitchen.
“Come to talk marriage with you, Vance.”
“What?” he hisses, reaching for a knife from one of the wood things that holds a lot of them, all shapes and sizes, tiny row of steak knives at the bottom. Forget what they’re called, because really, who fucking cares.
Before he sees my hand move I’ve whipped my own sharp blade out from my hip and zinged it through air. It stabs the wall inches from his head and stays there. He’s trained to fight, not throw knives like I just did.
His eyes go huge as fuck, looking from it back to my calm face. “Who are you?”
“Listen, you don’t wanna wake the married girlfriend, so let’s keep this quiet.”
He lunges for the collection of knives, but I grab onto the kitchen island to whip myself through the air and kick his hand away before he has the chance. Pretty sure I broke that hand. His reaction as he grabs the wrist and bends over in agony is a pretty good indication. He’s making some of the worst noises a human ear can take.
Never easy to watch suffering, at least not for me.
Men know how to shut it off.
I have too much estrogen flowing through my veins to never feel empathy. I feel it all the time. Yet I never let it stop me.
With a kick to his chest I push him away and grab the biggest knife he’s got, so quickly that he’s just blinking at me in utter shock.
“Never fought a woman before, huh?”
He mutters, “What the fuck?”
Pointing the knife at him with my hands steady and confident I show him I’m not kidding around here and I will use this if necessary.
His fingers are turning red from the blood. Soon that bruise will be black.
I did break it.
Good.
It’ll make this easier and I love easy.
“Here’s what you’re gonna do.” But as I begin to lay it out for him, a small white Maltese dog trots into the room. I tense up, knowing it could bark and wake up Carla and the baby. Grabbing the unwrapped beef jerky from my pocket I throw it and say in my sweetest, girly voice, “Hey Coby! Hey boy, hi sweetie!”
Vance stares at me like things just got mafia-weird. “How do you know my dog’s name?!”
“A lad
y never tells.”
Now Vance is terrified and I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t want to wake them up either because he has no idea what I’ll do. I’d never hurt them, but he doesn’t know that. And it’s to my advantage. I’ll use that terror and uncertainty to coerce him.
He says to his dog, “Good boy, Coby. Nice treat! Eat the treat!”
I sweetly add, “That’s right. Eat up.”
The fluff ball collapses on the floor to happily gnaw the jagged dried meat to oblivion. With those tiny teeth it’ll take him all night.
Vance starts to make a move so I advance, whipping the sharp blade through the air. He freezes and as I motion to the ground, he kneels like a good boy.
“Look if you want money, I’ve got a safe upstairs.”
“I don’t need your fucking cash. Do these jeans look cheap to you? They cost me over three hundred bucks. What I want is for you to make Carla an honest woman.” His confusion multiplies. “And you’re gonna come out and have a big publicity day saying you stole her from Tobias after your last fight.” Correcting myself I mutter, “I mean the one before that. Where you broke his leg. You’re going to say that you took the title and his wife. You got me? It’s going to make you look like a badass.”
Cocking his head like he’s trying to follow my logic but has no clue why I want this, he asks, “I don’t get it. That’s why you broke into my house?”
“Yep. Because you know what’s about to go down? Tobias is going to take away her card, put himself in jail and you will lose your family.”
“What the fuck!?” Vance starts to rise up but I swing the knife.
I whisper-yell, “Get back down!” In a place this size, nobody upstairs can hear us unless we start shouting or the dog barks. Falling to his knees Vance holds his hands up. “You love your kid?”
He blinks and shrugs, wary of me. “Yeah!”
“You want to visit them in Greece?”
Anger fires his eyes up and he hisses, “No!”
“Then you do it this way, because if you don’t make a stink about it and keep up the act that she and Tobias aren’t cousins, that they really are married, then she will be deported and her card revoked. But if you act like an asshole then they’ll think it was a love triangle and the government won’t blink an eye with the changing of hands. Him for you, she stays. Got me?”
Vance nods, still blown away even though he gets the sound logic. “You’re a friend of his?”
“I’m a righter of wrongs.” Backing up now that I believe he’s not a threat, I keep the knife at the ready by my side. “Knees hurting yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Stay there. One last thing. You’re going to come out and tell the Media the reason you’re coming out now is you don’t want him claiming the glory again. She chose you. She wants you. It was her who left two years ago to be with you. You’re going to say, I took his title and his wife.”
His eyes glitter. “Okay.” He likes the sound of that.
“The next fight you guys have will be the largest stadium in the world, sold out, am I right?”
He hisses with glee, “Yessssss!” envisioning all the money this public love triangle will bring him.
“My job is done. Oh, and I broke your security system. Gonna have to get those cameras repaired.” On a smirk I toss the knife into the sink and pause on my way out to say, “You’ll have more than enough money to fix them. Every fighter alive is gonna want a piece of that media pie. You’ll be challenged to so many battles you won’t even have time to heal. Except maybe that hand. Come up with a good excuse for that, would ya? You never saw me.” Picking up his dog I bring it to my face for nose-licks. “Good Coby. That’s a good boy.” I lock eyes with Vance just to show him I could come back and take this little tidbit with me. “I always wanted a pet.”
“Don’t!” he groans.
The thing is, I know from social media that he inherited this dog from his grandma when she passed. If I took it I’d be taking her memory with me.
I’d never be so cruel.
But Vance doesn’t need to know that.
Heheheh.
Setting Coby gently down I keep my eyes locked on Vance and warn him, voice eerie, “Don’t make me take your cute little doggie.”
And this is the part I love…vanishing like I was never here.
Jeezus - Tobias
As Sofia finishes her story, it’s a whole thirty seconds where nobody says anything. They’re all staring at me.
I finally uncross my arms and mutter, “Well, fuck.”
Here For You - Hannah
Rolling over and squinting at the shimmering morning light I gaze at Tobias’s back. He’s on the balcony, hands gripping the railing, lost in uneasy thought.
I glance to Sofia’s sleeping face on the pillow beside mine and see her relaxed and breathing evenly, mouth a little open on a snore.
Not a care in the world.
I don’t know how she does it.
Gabriel and Ben are passed out on the floor, with the extra pillows from the roof, the one extra blanket stretched over their torsos. Ben’s on his stomach. Gabriel’s got his arm above his head like he used to sleep when he was a child. On a grown man it’s kind of adorable.
Ethan and Emma went back to the Wyndham to wait, and Andy left for his own apartment since he lives in town and had to open the gym at six this morning for the die-hards.
Slipping silently off the bed I step over the empty pillow Tobias slept with on the floor, and join him in the fresh salty air, closing the door behind me so we can talk privately. His body jolts and he looks to see if I’m alone. Pulling me to him, he buries his face in my hair. “Haven’t slept.”
“Not at all?”
“What if he calls the cops on her?”
“We have to wait.”
Shaking his head he lets me go and stares at the view, only seeing uncertainty. His phone vibrates in his pocket. We all slept in our clothes. He sighs and digs it out. “It’s her.”
“Carla?”
He shows me the phone, her name glowing from it. Answering, he gives her a brief and guarded, “Yeah?” His lips tighten as he listens. I’m going out of my mind, impatiently waiting to hear why she’s calling him. The timing can’t be coincidental. “What do you mean, what did I do?” Meeting my eyes, he mutters, “Nothing. Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Carla. Why are you even calling me?”
I roll my eyes as he gives me a look that he hates all of this.
His gaze wavers to the water on a deep frown as he listens to her for a long time. “What do you want me to say? It wasn’t me. Did he give me credit because I fuckin’ doubt that since I was nowhere near him.” After a pause, Tobias grumbles, “There ya go. Just take the gift and enjoy it.” Another pause while I chew the cuticle on my thumbnail in anticipation. Tobias glances to me as he tells her. “Congratulations. Guess you got what you wanted. Have a nice fuckin’ day.” He hangs up.
“What?! What did she say?”
He blinks a few times as he slides his phone back into his pocket. His chest is rising with halting breaths. “She thought I broke his hand.”
“You said she would think that.”
“Yeah, but she can’t figure out why he wants to marry her all of a sudden.”
My eyes go wide. “So, he’s going through with it?”
Tobias slowly nods like he doesn’t want to get his hopes up. “She said, and I quote, ‘Vance came in this morning all worked up that you were coming off like the dutiful husband.’ Then she said he told her she was his woman and he needed to make her his wife.”
“I have to wake Sofia.”
“No, not yet.” Tobias pulls me close, breathing heavily. My arms wrap around him and squeeze as hard as my strength will allow. “Holy shit, baby. He didn’t even bring up the green card,” Tobias hoarsely whispers in my ear. “He’s sticking with the story he’s gonna tell the press. Fuckin’ smart move, and…holy shit. This is gonna happen. I’m fr
ee.”
He pulls away, face twisted with emotion.
I’d been so caught up in how this affected me I’d not realized how deeply helpless he’d been knowing he couldn’t send his cousin to immigration, nor ruin his reputation with a felony. Cupping his face I smile into his eyes. “You’re free. It’s over.”
He grimaces to hold back the volcano of feelings. He takes my wrists and pulls them around his neck, kissing me quickly and painfully, then pulling away to mutter, “I need to brush my teeth or I’d be…”
“Me too,” I laugh, keeping my mouth turned away.
Movement in our peripheral vision causes us to quickly look inside the hotel room. Ben’s standing up, watching us, and Gabriel is sitting on the floor, rubbing his eyes, also looking our way. I nod to them, telling them quietly that the worst is over.
Tobias and I go inside. Smiling like a man whose heavy chains have been removed, he says, “Vance is going through with it.”
Gabriel and Ben exhale relief.
“We should wake Sofia and tell her,” Ben says.
All of us are watching her snore.
Gabriel mutters, “Don’t think she’s stressing over it.”
He’s The Blue Ocean - Hannah
We’re out in the open having brunch in the restaurant downstairs. I said I was done hiding, so here we are with my family next to the lake, drinking mimosas while scarfing down some of the best omelets around.
Andy strolls in last, having left one of his employees in charge of the gym. He’s holding up his phone. “Okay, so it’s out.”
“They couldn’t have gathered Press already,” Ethan mutters, reaching for it and staring at the screen.
Emma tries to look over his shoulder but he purposefully holds it just out of view. “Ethan! We’re not ten. Give it to me.”
“No,” he mutters to her, then reads aloud to the group, “Former Heavyweight Champ has announced that he is the winner not of the title, but of the girl.” Making a face, he hands the phone to Tobias who lets me read the rest with him.
Cocky Senator's Daughter: Hannah Cocker (Cocker Brothers of Atlanta Book 8) Page 17
