The Square (Shape of Love Book 2)

by JA Huss

  Well. There you have it. Russell Watson is calling to cash in his favor.

  Didn’t take him long, did it?

  “What do you propose we do?” Alec asks.

  “We all saw your brother,” Charlie says.

  “And we weren’t there to extract him,” Brenden adds.

  “So what’s the fucking deal, Alec, mate?” Theo asks. “What the hell is going on?”

  Apparently, the whole family is gathered round for this conversation.

  Alec looks at me because I am the only one who can answer this question. Except I don’t really remember and that’s a lame excuse the Watson crew won’t accept the way Danny and Alec did.

  Danny comes to my rescue. “We have a problem with Lars.”

  “What kind of problem?” Russell asks.

  “He tried to kill me,” Alec says. “Actually, he destroyed my house several months back. Came in with a tactical assault and then things got messy—”

  “Then things got messy?” Russell says.

  “—and we wound up tumbling over a waterfall. Then… I don’t know. I woke up some time later—maybe weeks later, maybe months, I’m not really sure—and I was at the estate. Being held… not quite prisoner, but unable to leave, either. So, that’s a bit of what’s that. If it helps, I was already planning to handle it. We were planning to.”

  Silence from all eight of us. We make an octagon now, I realize. Then, like she planned it this way just to remind me that the shape of us has changed, Eliza says, “Andra, dear. Please stop jumping around. Mummy is having an important conversation.”

  “But I want to talk to that man Danny…”

  I think someone physically removes her from the room because her voice fades away.

  I glance at Alec and find that same, pained expression on his face. It’s not simply feelings.

  It’s love.

  We so far away from the triangle right now, I might be sick.

  We aren’t even a square.

  We are… whatever the fuck it is you call a shape with nine sides. I have no idea, I just know… it’s complicated.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - DANNY

  “Why would Lars try to kill you, then?” Russell asks.

  Christine goes stiff in my arms.

  This shit is getting complicated. More complicated.

  “Well,” Alec says, threading his fingers into his already mussed-up hair.

  I like him like this, I realize. Messy and disheveled. Probably not the best time to reflect on how goddamn sexy Alec is, but there you have it.

  “Well, what?” Charlie asks. “Fucking spit it out, mate. There’s no room for heavily guarded secrets. We helped you, now you need to tell us exactly what’s what.”

  “It was me,” Christine says.

  “Christine,” Alec interjects.

  “No,” she continues, disconnecting herself from my embrace. “They need to know. It’s not fair. There’s a little girl involved now and… and it’s just not fair.”

  I know this is hard for her. Hell, just seeing her in that back garden yesterday told me everything. The look of longing on her face was unmistakable. She was jealous. That’s the life she never had. That’s the child she never had. And whether she wants to admit it or not, she won’t be able to live with herself if she’s the reason it all gets ripped away from Andra.

  Oh, I have no illusions about Eliza. Christine and Eliza, that’s never going to resolve into anything more than hate and anger.

  But Andra is another story.

  Christine is, and always has been, one of the most ruthless people I’ve ever met. I’ve known that since she admitted, without a second thought, that she wanted to poke the pretty out of an innocent blue beetle when she was ten years old.

  I’ve come to terms with who she is because it fits with who I am. Who Alec is too. She’s damaged and hard. I’d even go so far as to call her cruel. Maybe even savage. At least to her enemies and targets.

  She has come to terms with who she is too, I’m sure of it.

  But she would not wish her life on anyone, especially a child.

  And she proves me right when she says, “This is all my fault,” and proceeds to catch the Watsons up—completely—on what happened.

  She explains, and Alec and I let her. We remain quiet as she recounts waking up in that apartment. The ambush at my garage—did I really have a custom bike business? I can barely remember that life back in the city with Brasil. Can barely recall the four years of separation.

  She tells them about the ambush at the glass house next and how Lars and she were presumably working together. How she was confused and had to make a decision on who to trust.

  How she chose me.

  How Alec and Lars ended up going over that waterfall.

  Eliza huffs out a sigh of disgust at this point.

  But Alec says, “Don’t,” in a harsh enough voice that Eliza shuts her trap and lets Christine continue.

  But there’s not much to say after that. Christine throws up her hands. “I don’t remember much more. I think that concussion I got after falling off the roof was worse than I figured. I just don’t know why I would do all that. And why, for fuck’s sake, I’d take up with Lars to bring Alec down.”

  “I do,” Eliza snarls. “You were jealous—”

  “That’s enough,” Charlie interjects. “Shut up, Eliza.”

  “We taking her side now, luv?”

  “I was there, remember?” Charlie says. “I was with her after she lost the baby.”

  And this is, I suppose, where gaps get filled in.

  “Oh, shit,” I say.

  So does Alec.

  Apparently, he had no clue either.

  And suddenly a few pieces of this puzzle make more sense. Charlie and Christine, at least, make sense.

  He was there when the two of us weren’t.

  Everyone takes a moment to let this solidify.

  We weren’t there.

  Finally, Russell takes over. “So… we’re in agreement, then, mates? Because I don’t want to step on any toes but seems to me that Lars is a loose end who requires tying off.”

  More silence as Alec considers what his answer will be.

  On the surface it’s easy. Hell, just an hour ago he was going to sneak out and take care of business with Lars himself.

  But now there’s a bigger plan of action in play. Now the Watsons are involved. If they go in with us—to make sure, to see that it’s done—there’s no room for second-guessing. There’s no last-minute, Let’s make up and be brothers again.

  There is only one way this ends and that’s with Lars dead.

  Everyone knows that this is Alec’s call. Even Russell. Because he gives him whole seconds to decide, and object, before he says, “Good. Then it’s settled. I’m sending Brenden and Charlie to pick you all up. Danny will get a text when they arrive. Change your mind before you get in the car… we’re still cool as long as you understand that we’ll take care of business on our end and there will be no further contact with anyone in our crew.”

  He pauses. Just so we’re all clear that Andra’s last name is Watson and this decision includes her.

  “But get in that car and we’re working together. You cross us, in any way, van den Berg, and we’ll hunt you all down after we’re done with Lars. Not even Charlie could save you then.”

  Alec opens his mouth to say something. I know him well enough to predict it’s gonna start an argument about who’s in charge and who’ll be hunting down whom, so I interject and say, “We got it,” then walk over to the phone and end the call.

  “Alec,” Christine says.

  He looks at her, squinting his eyes.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Yes,” he says, cutting her off. “I do. I choose you, Christine. I choose Danny. I choose…” He lets out a long breath of air. I don’t hold it against him. This is his brother we’re talking about. And with this final declaration, his brother is dead to him. “I choose us.�
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  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - ALEC

  Once upon a time, Christine said something to me. It was a private moment. We were sitting on a dock somewhere… Antigua? Anguilla? Angola? Don’t recall.

  All I remember is that we had done something. Something typically dangerous and dramatic and altogether impossible, in the course of which an item was probably stolen and someone was maybe killed. It’s better than fifty-fifty odds that was the case. And in this quiet moment after the fact, Christine admitted to me that sometimes she dreamed of a different life.

  I asked her, “What kind of life, nunu?”

  She said, “I don’t know. One where I go to a cubicle, or maybe a small office, and am, like, a personal assistant or something.”

  I laughed. I laughed so hard. She slapped me on the shoulder, telling me to stop. But it just seemed ludicrous to me. Because there is no way that Christine would ever be satisfied with a life like that. Something as boring and tedious as the kind of lives that others have. But I also laughed because I couldn’t imagine why, of all the dreams a person might dream, that is the one she chose for herself.

  I can now.

  Sitting in the back of the SUV, staring out the window as the city streets of London become country roads to… wherever, I understand. Perhaps it’s the pastoral placidity of it all, but something docile and domesticated doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world at present. I’m sure that paying bills and showing up at some office on time, lest one be reprimanded for tardiness, would get wearisome. But I’m also sure that in a scenario like that, the chances of having to formulate a plan to kill your baby brother before he tries to kill you and possibly the people you love—for the second time—is greatly diminished.

  We’re not heading to Eliza’s, it would appear. We’re being shuttled in the opposite direction to Theo’s house. This is where the Watsons have convened to work out, with the three of us, exactly what happens next.

  No one has spoken since the car pulled up and we got inside. Not a word. Danny looked at Charlie with a bit of a scowl. Christine looked at me with something akin to longing. And Brenden looked at his phone, playing some type of escape room game.

  And now we find ourselves pulling up to the cottage. It’s quaint and sweet. Just like Eliza’s. The Watson brood have always been somewhat frugal with their money. I know they earn a fair amount of it, doing what they do, but for them, it has always seemed that just somewhat better than where they’re from has been good enough. That placid, docile life that Christine once mused about… the Watsons seem to have discovered it.

  The SUV rolls to a stop and we all step out. There is the slightest chill in the air, but it is an otherwise lovely day. In some respects. In other respects, it is a horribly ominous one. I don’t imagine the two are separable.

  Entering through the main door, I hear the sound of tiny feet galumphing down the stairs. The child called Andra sees the five of us and immediately runs over to…

  Danny.

  She tugs at his hand and says, “Hopscotch,” as she jumps up and down. She has quite a great deal of energy, this one. A restless and demanding spirit.

  She probably gets it from her mother.

  In any case…

  Theo descends the stairs after her, and Russell and Eliza enter from another room. Eight of us stand looking at each other somewhat awkwardly while one of us continues to enjoin that hopscotch be commenced directly. Danny appears both distracted and flattered. It is a charming look on him that I can’t help but smile at.

  “Andra, come here,” Eliza commands, and the little girl obliges. She joins her mother, as do Brenden and Charlie. And the tableau is now made unmistakably manifest. On one side of an imaginary dividing line are me, Christine, and Danny. An unlikely trio that, at a glance, would not be easily recognized as a family. And other the other side, five Watsons who it would be impossible not to observe as one. In the middle: A small Watson-Berg. Or possibly van der Watson. Whatever one might call her, she is the lone, unifying element that causes us all to be here now.

  Eliza’s eyes drift across the three of us. I see no judgement, exactly, but there is an unmissable assessing. “You look rested,” she says to me. “Got a shave, did you?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “And you all had a good evening? Comfy? Happily reunited?”

  “Lize,” Russell interrupts, but she goes on.

  “Nobody creeping around your place in the middle of the night, were they?”

  “Lize, come on,” he says again.

  “Mummy, this is boring,” the child says, looking up at her mother.

  “Why don’t you go practice in Uncle Theo’s foam pit, love?”

  The child’s eyes go wide. “Really, really, really?”

  Her mother nods her head. “Just don’t jump from too high.”

  The little one doesn’t respond, just goes tearing off to the rear of the house somewhere.

  “You’re letting her fuck around in a foam pit without supervision? OK…” Christine says, nodding her head after Andra is away from earshot. Eliza’s jaw tightens in a way I have seen many times before and she bites at her bottom lip.

  Russell, as is his role, steps around to the front of the brood and says, “Here’s where we’re at: Nobody wants to be here, but here we be, so let’s just discuss what needs to happen so we can never speak again, shall we?”

  I internalize a laugh because it is now painfully obvious to me that the probability of us never speaking again is slim indeed. It would seem that some vengeful god plans to keep thrusting us into each other’s paths until whatever cosmic debt we all owe is paid. But, perhaps, just maybe, what’s going to happen next will be the thing that pays it off once and for all. I fokken doubt it, but I’m a goddamn optimist.

  “Right,” I say, stepping forward. “Before anyone says anything else, I just want to offer this: All of you”—I point my finger at the Watsons, en masse—“don’t have to be part of anything. You came along to help retrieve me, and I appreciate it, and if you like, your work with this is done. This is our concern. Christine’s, Danny’s, and mine. It has nothing to do with you. So I am right now offering you the chance to step away. You offered the same to us, an opportunity to step away and let you handle whatever this perceived threat is. But it’s not yours to handle. So I’m suggesting that all six of you get on a plane—I’ll arrange one—and have it take you anywhere in the world. Anywhere you want to go. Perhaps Nara would be a good place to lie low for a while…” I look at Eliza, who glares at me. “And once we have seen to it that all concerns related to me, or us, or you have been dealt with, you can return. Or stay. Or do whatever you like. The point is, I’m offering. I encourage you to consider seriously.”

  I don’t know what I expect. Eliza wouldn’t take me up on this exact offer once before, so I have no idea why I think she might now. Except I do. It’s the same reason they all might.

  The child.

  Before, the child was just an idea. Something as yet not fully formed. Not a walking, talking person who also has to share in the burden of being part of a world in which this type of thing is what passes for normal. Now, seeing the way they clearly love her—and seeing that she is a curious, special, odd, and wonderful little being—perhaps they will all think differently.

  I think they must be mulling it over sincerely, because the looks on their faces suggest that it’s at least worth their proper consideration. Or that’s what I think their looks convey. I realize that what their looks actually convey is disbelief because after about three seconds they all burst into laughter simultaneously.

  “Fuckin’ hell, mate!” Russell says. “Are you taking the piss? Is he taking the piss?” He turns around and presents his rhetorical question to the group. “Mate, let’s be clear about something…” He steps in closer than I would encourage him to. I have a history with his sister and his niece is my child, but if he violates my personal space, I may not be responsible for what happens after.

/>   He continues talking. “I ain’t never liked you, mate. I ain’t never trusted you. And you’re off your fuckin’ trolley if you think I’m going to trust your poncy South African arse now. The only reason you’re even here is because she asked for you to be.” He points at Eliza, who looks away. I can feel heat behind my neck. Palpable heat. And I turn to see that it’s coming from Christine’s glare.

  Regular little Days of Our fokken Lives we’ve got happening here. Eish, man.

  “Look, bruv,” he goes on, pointing a finger at me, which I do everything in my power not to snap in half, “I woke up yesterday morning, drank my tea, and set about having a normal day. Me and the lads were planning to go over the details of a job at a jeweler’s in Oxford, maybe play some footie, and visit with me mum for an hour or two, when you lot showed up.” The finger passes across Danny and Christine as well. “And suddenly, we’s been thrust into a scenario where men with guns shot at us, and me sister and niece don’t feel safe in their own home at night. And if you think for a moment that we’s the type of people who’d just hand over the resolution to a situation like this to the very wanker who put us in said situation, then mate, you don’t fuckin’ remember us terribly well.”

  I can feel his breath on my face. His tension. His anger. His fear. That’s what anger is, after all. It’s just a reconfiguring of fear. Or sadness. Or some other vulnerable emotion that one doesn’t want to feel. Anger is the mind’s brilliant way of interceding and overpowering the weaker feelings.

  Ironically, of course, anger can also make you weak because it shows you for who you are. A person. Like other people. As my father once told me, if you are unfrightened, the other oke will be forced to take up that fear in compensation and you will be made powerful by his absorption of what you cast off.

  When the world is off its axis and others fear losing control… that is when I am at my most powerful. Because I breathe into myself and become greater than I am.

  Death thrives on fear. Death is not welcome here.

  And just like that, I remember this, and I feel like myself again. All it took was to look in the eyes of someone who believes they have something to lose and counter that look with the belief that I do not. There is nothing that can be taken from me. I will not allow it. And so, Russell’s anger has brought me back into balance.