Thatch was firing up their computer then. Even it was old enough that it wouldn’t even update anymore. She’d have to have one of the boys work on getting them one of those as well. Laying little Renee on the floor with her sister to nap, she checked on Eddie and went to the computer with Thatch. She fell in love with the very first thing he pulled up.
“We’d have to go and check it out, you know.” She nodded, but still liked it. “For all we know, it could be as hard as my head, and about as useless too.”
Meggie smacked him on the shoulder. “You know you’re useful to me, you old poop. I love it when Rogen calls you that for some reason. It suits you.” Thatch admitted that he liked it as well, but not to tell Rogen that. “Oh no, I won’t. She is such a hoot, don’t you think?”
“I do. Anna is too, I’m thinking. I heard Rogen telling Thatcher the other day that she thought that Anna could whoop her butt if it came to it. Something about street smarts or something. You think she’s right? Not that I want them to tussle over anything—they scare me a bit.” Meggie told him that they both scared her a little. “But they love us, so I’m thinking that we don’t have much to worry about with them.”
“We should make a day of going shopping, Thatch. Just you and me, running around town, and then having us a nice supper there while we’re at it.” He said that he loved that idea. “Then tomorrow, let’s do it. This thing with that young hooligan will be finished, and we’re going to be safe from him coming here. There is that thing with the other places, but we’re not involved in that, are we?”
“Just Rogen on that. She sure is happy that Anna was helping her with this stuff. Said it might have taken her a day or two longer to figure it out, but she’d have gotten there.” They were both laughing when the phone rang. “I’ll be getting it. Why, if it’s one of them robot calls I’m not going to be too happy with them.”
She could have corrected him, but she didn’t get the chance. Whoever it was or whatever they had to tell him, Meggie could tell that he was upset about it. When he held out the phone for her to take, she shook her head.
“You have to take it, Meggie love. He’s a wanting to talk to you.” She said no. “Please, darling. I’ll be right here with you. I promise you. Come on now. It’s your brother Jake.”
That was all it took for her to be all fired up. Taking the phone from her husband, she put it to her ear. She could hear people in the background talking about money and fines. Whatever Jake had gotten himself into, she was having no part of it. He’d not hurt her like that again. When she said hello she could hear the relief in Jakes voice.
“Oh, Meggie. I’m so glad that I caught you at home. I need for you to sell whatever you have and come bring me some cash. Don’t fuck around on me with this—just do what I tell you. It’s a lot of money, so you’ll have to maybe sell off your house or something to gather it up. I’ll meet you at the plane with the cash” She asked him what was going on. “I got myself in over my head. Just like Mom used to tell you about me. She usually bailed me out, but now that she’s gone and you got all her shit, then you can do it for me. I’ll need you to hurry, however. Don’t lollygag around on this. I need about a hundred thousand to get me in the black again, then more for a bit of walking around cash. A man like me cannot be without funds. So you remember that when you start bitching about how you can’t get it for me.”
“Why don’t you get a job, Jake? I keep my nose clean, unlike you. I work my but off all the time.” Jake said that he was clean right now. “Right now? You make it sound like you weren’t this morning.”
“Don’t be preaching to me, Meggie. We both know that you fucked me up by telling Mom that she needed to keep better records of shit that she lent me. And that shouldn’t have been part of the things that she didn’t leave me either. That was my inheritance. Nothing to do with me not paying her back.” Meggie told him that he’d never paid her back. “So? It’s not like she wasn’t good for it. And besides, the house is sold now, so I can’t even say that they can use that to get me out of this mess. I blame you for this too. You should have shared with me no matter what her will said.”
Meggie thought about what he was saying to her and why she was letting him. Then she thought of her daughters in law and how they would have handled this. Nodding her head, she came to a decision that she knew was a step in the right direction in dealing with her brother. Cut him off and out of her life once and for all.
“I tell you what, Jake. I’ll come to where you are and work on what you’re telling me.” She thought that was vague enough that he’d think that she was helping him out. “It will take me a couple of days to make the arrangements.”
“No, that won’t work. You have to get your ass in gear now, Meggie. No stalling on this. Now that you’ve seen the way things should have been all along, you’ll need to bring me half of everything that you got from the will, including any profit you got when you sold Mom’s house. In cash. No checks. I don’t trust you enough to not put a stop on the check. Cash, all of it.”
“Yes, half of everything that I ended up with as an inheritance. I can do that.” She started calculating in her head, and realized this was going to be better than she thought it would be. “I’ll even bring out the paperwork on what things cost, all right? That way you will know that I didn’t cheat you, as you said that I did.”
“I have to say, Meggie, it certainly took you long enough to get your head out of your ass. Christ, it’s been too long in coming. I should charge you for that too, but I’ll be generous to you this one time. You should also remember that I’m older than you, and that I should be able to get a part of what you got. I might just have to hit you up for that later.” She didn’t say anything, but let him ramble on. “All right. Today or else. I swear, Meggie, I’m not going to put up with your fucking bullshit anymore.”
“Oh, you won’t have to.” She smiled and looked at Thatch as she hung up on Jake while he was still talking. “I need to make arrangements to go to Jake. I’m going to end this once and for all. I was thinking that I’d just take Rogen and Anna with me, but I think we should make this a trip for us all. What do you think?”
“Do you know where he is?” The phone rang in that moment, and she knew that it was going to be her brother. Thatch was laughing as she answered.
“You’re still the biggest dumbass that ever lived, Meggie. Get a pen and paper. Or a crayon—I guess you have those brats still around.” She told him she was ready and wrote down the address that he gave her. “Don’t forget it. I don’t want to have to listen to you whine about shit either. Cash, Meggie. Don’t make me have to take you to task for this. You know that I can and will hurt you.”
“So you think. Goodbye, Jake.” She hung up the phone and went to find her mate. Did Jake actually think that the boys had never grown up? It would be just like him to think that if he didn’t have anything to do with it, the world did not go on.
Reaching out to her family, she asked if they’d accompany her on a trip. Everyone was willing to go—most of them had dealt with Jake for her before. Well, today she was going to stand up on her own two feet, and make sure that the fucking bastard got what was coming to him.
For the last several years, since he’d learned that he was getting nothing from their mom’s estate, he’d been hounding her about money. She never gave in to him, knowing, she supposed, that it would never end if she did. He’d drain her and her family dry if she gave him one nickel.
Going through her files, she was glad now that she’d kept all the paperwork together on the selling of the estate. Bills that the money was used for, and how much she and the family had had to pay out of pocket for what the sale of the house didn’t cover. She would never have thought in a million years that a funeral could cost so much.
The house had sold for a good bit of money, but Mom had taken a loan against the house in order to put in a new furnace, as well as a new
roof. It had made proceeds from the sale of the house more, but she’d had to pay that loan off before she was able to get the money from the sale. That had barely covered the funeral. There was just enough, with them adding in a bit of their own, to get a nice marker for Mom and Dad. Something that they’d never been able to afford before.
She laughed when she figured out how much money she’d had to pay to cover all the expenses of the funeral. Even as cheaply as they’d gone, they’d had to come up with about four hundred dollars more to cover it all. In her estimations, Jake owed her about two hundred dollars. That would be what he would have gotten as half the money—him owing her.
She was startled to see Rogen in the living room with Thatch when she entered. She’d been there, it looked like, since she’d gotten off the phone with Jake. Rogen asked her to have a seat. Smiling, she sat down.
“I heard about your brother a few weeks ago. I wanted to tell you about him before you went out there.” Meggie asked if it was bad. “Yes.”
“Oh. I knew that he wasn’t a nice person. He wasn’t as a child. As he got older, he seemed to think that the world revolved around him and his demands. What has he gotten into?”
“If you go out there—and I don’t believe that you should—he will drag you into what he has going on.” Meggie wouldn’t go if this woman thought that she shouldn’t. “I’ll go. I think you should let the professionals handle this.”
“Is it that bad?” Rogen only nodded. “Are you not telling me because you don’t think that I can handle it, or because you simply don’t want me to know?”
“He’s part of a racketeering outfit that is trafficking young women, as young as ten, around the world. The reason he wants you to come out there today is because he is going to sell you off, then use that money to invest in another load of girls that he’s kidnapped.” Meggie didn’t even ask her if she was sure. She’d learned that if Rogen told you something, it was as sure as it could be. “Will you let me handle this?”
“Yes. But, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be there after he’s arrested. I’m assuming that you’ll do that rather than kill him off.” Rogen said that she wasn’t sure what would have to happen to him if he didn’t come in willingly. “He won’t. All right. I’ll stay here and play with my grandbabies. You let me know only if he’s dead or alive, and I’ll decide what to do then.”
“I love you, Meggie. I want you to know that.”
The hug was just what she needed to break the dam of tears. As she sobbed about how mean he’d been to her as a child, Rogen held her. It was the most comforting thing that she’d had in a long while.
~*~
Jake couldn’t believe that he and his sister were from the same gene pool. She was about as stupid as stupid could be. Smiling, he wondered how much he’d get for her, and would bet that she’d let herself go. But so long as she was worth the one hundred thousand that he needed, he didn’t care what she looked like.
The schedule that she’d given him for the arrival of the plane was right on time. As he waited for her to come up the long carpeted area from the disembarking zone, Jake thought about her as a child. She’d forever been under his feet and in his business. He thought that was why he hated her so much. Meggie told on him every time he had a little fun.
As people started moving off the plane, he watched the two young women as they walked toward him like they owned the place. There were a couple of men with them, big men that he recognized right away were tigers. There wasn’t any possible way that either of these women was his sister. She’d never looked that good on her best days.
“Mr. Jake Simons?” He nodded, and one of them smiled at him. “We’re here in place of Meggie Robinson. She just couldn’t make it.”
Christ, he thought, he was going to make a killing off two women. They were stunners, and the fact that both of them were cats would only make men want them all the more. As he looked them up and down, he felt rather than saw the two men with them move around him. When Jake reached out to touch one of the women’s cheeks, he cried out in pain when he was suddenly in a neck hold.
“I might have not mentioned that you’re not to touch us, but this was so much more fun for me.” She nodded behind him, and he found himself free, but still on the nasty carpet of the airport. “I’m Rogen Robinson. This is my sister-in-law Anna. You might remember your nephews, Morgan and Thatcher. Thatcher is my mate and husband. Morgan is the same to Anna.”
“There isn’t any way that you’re related to me.” She said she felt the same way about him. There was something there, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but he let it go for now. “She was coming here to bring me cash. Do you have it? I hope to Christ so. I don’t have time for this bullshit.”
“Cash? No, I’m afraid not. What she said she’d bring you is an accounting of the money. Half of everything that she ended up with as an inheritance, I believe is what she told you.” Again, something wasn’t right, but he wanted this done now so he could get to the auction house sooner rather than later. It mattered little to him how much the inheritance was now. He had this bitch to sell, and he was going to be on easy street for some time now. “I’ve made arrangements for us to get together in a meeting room here. That way things can be settled and I can go back home on the next flight.”
Like hell she was. The men could—he had no use for them. Jake wasn’t even afraid of them trying to hurt him. He was their flesh and blood, and there were rules about that. Smiling now that things were going to go his way for a change, he followed them to the room that had a reserved sign on it. Pulling that off as she entered, he was nearly giddy as he sat down in one of the chairs.
“Now. Here we go. This is the cost of the funeral, as well as the head stone—” He cut her off, telling her that he wasn’t paying anything on that half assed funeral. “Shut the fuck up, and don’t interrupt me again or you will face the consequences. As I was saying, here is the cost of the funeral, headstone, as well as the cost of the gravesite opening and closing. As well as the flowers and the cost of the services. Half assed or not, nothing is cheap in any of this.”
“Are you finished now? I can speak?” Rogen nodded, and he wanted to slap the shit out of her. But damaging either one of them now would show up when he put her before the people he’d had lined up for his sister. “I’m not paying anything on that funeral. She was to bring me cash for what she made from the sale of the house, and half of everything else that she got and I didn’t.”
“That’s what we’re here for. You still owe her two hundred bucks. Like you didn’t trust her, she doesn’t trust you either, so we’ll take that in—”
“Listen, bitch, you will get this straight, or I’m going to kick the shit—”
Again he was in a head lock, but it wasn’t the men that were holding him, but Anna, the other woman. Christ, she was so tiny that he’d never dream that she could hold him, much less hold him this tightly. Struggling only made her tighten her grip about his neck. Jake was beginning to see stars when he was finally freed.
Thatcher and Morgan hadn’t moved. In fact, it looked to him like they were bored out of their minds. He laughed when he pointed to them. They both looked up when he said their names.
“You’re so fucking lazy that you’d allow your wives to try and hurt me? What sort of pussies did my sister raise? I swear to Christ, I’m going to take her on when I finally get to see her again.” Anna said that he wasn’t. Jake looked at her. “I’m not what?”
“Going to see her again. Not as long as I live you won’t. I wanted to kill you as soon as we stepped off the plane, but I was told that I had to behave. This is me behaving and not killing your fucking ass right now.” Jake glanced at the men when Anna jerked his head around to face her. “When I’m speaking, you will look at me, dumbass. Now, fork over your part of the money or I’m going to take it from you. Cash or ass, I don’t care, but I’m going t
o take something back to Meggie.”
This wasn’t going at all like he wanted it to, and that too he was going to blame on his sister. Meggie had been a pain in his ass since the day she’d been born. He was going to get back at her if it was the last thing he did.
Just as he was opening his mouth to demand to talk to his sister, several armed men came into the room. Military. It was the first thing that popped into his head, and it stayed there when they drew their weapons and put them at their sides. They made no bones about the fact that they were there for him, and he felt his balls curl up around his neck, so much so that he had to clear his throat twice before he was able to speak. But Rogen beat him to it.
“The auction house that you were planning to attend is, even as we speak, being raided. All the bidders there are being arrested, and even the ones that you have in your computer are being picked up at their homes or places of business. You made it very easy for me to figure out who else would be in on your plans.” He asked her what she was talking about. “The auction house where you would auction off the children and young women that you kidnapped all over the United States. You can imagine how their families are feeling about you right now. And the men that you brought into the place. Everyone is celebrating.”
“I have no idea what you’re taking about.” Thatcher got up and handed him a tablet looking thing. Right there on the screen was exactly what Rogen had told him. The place was overrun with not just police, but every agency that he’d been trying to avoid since he’d left home. “I don’t know why you’d think that I’d have anything to do with something as barbaric as this.”
Morgan: Robinson Destruction – Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance Page 10
