25. Cairo
TWENTY-FIVE
cairo
I want the video Matteo holds of Judah Wildes.
She could’ve had anything she wanted, but she chose her innocence instead.
I can’t pin Bay Astor down entirely; the woman is always shocking the fuck out of me with her recklessness and the wild nature that’s laced in her DNA.
She’s not Vivian.
Not any other girl I’ve fucked with or ever had any correspondence with can compete with Bay. She keeps me on my toes, I never know what she’s thinking, and I give Reeve and Torin props for even trying.
Meanwhile, with everything that’s going on, it’s taken its toll. Bay looks like she’s walked across a desert with no food or water, but she’ll eat well tonight.
However, I can’t say I’m thrilled at how defeated she’s looked lately.
My mother is known for her elaborate dinners and has been talking about Bay’s arrival for the last few days now. But I’m second-guessing agreeing with my father to bring her here so soon.
She and Torin are not on good terms. Reeve is heartbroken and spiraling. And Bay is sinking.
But that doesn’t stop my sisters—Carina and Luisa—from talking her ear off.
“Can you teach me how to drive a stick?” my youngest sister, Luisa, asks with enthusiasm in her eyes and tone. “Cairo says you race. And Daddy doesn’t own one, and I’ve always wanted to learn.”
“Since when?” I ask, twirling my fork in my mother’s latest pasta dish of cream sauce, scallops, and fresh parmesan cheese. “The only thing you know how to drive is your credit card through the reader.”
Luisa flicks her content hazel eyes at me, unaffected by my words, as always. “I wouldn’t talk, brother. That Gucci shirt that you have on speaks otherwise.”
“I’ve owned it for years.”
“And maybe Bay can teach you, too. Didn’t you wreck Torin’s motorcycle a few years back?”
Leave it to my sisters to remember everything.
“Clutch was stuck,” I deadpan, shoving food in my mouth and savoring the creamy sauce.
“That’s what they all say,” Bay sasses back, which is the first full sentence she’s formed since meeting my father.
I was fully expecting her to say no, but my father has been pressed with wanting to meet ever since Roger Astor died. He was afraid Emilio would use it to his advantage and use her grief as a weapon.
“I know how to drive a stick.”
Bay picks at her food. “I’ll have to see that for myself.”
I lightly nudge her with my elbow. “Don’t be a dick.”
“Don’t be in denial.”
“How are your sisters?” my eldest sibling, Carina, inquires. “Ellie is so sweet.”
I feel Bay go still, and I know then Ozzy hasn’t told her yet.
When Torin called Child Protective Services on the Astor family, my father and mother took the girls in, thanks to Ozzy’s heads-up.
Torin hasn’t figured that out yet, not that he’s asked.
Carina meets my eyes when Bay doesn’t answer, sending a silent message of apology because she assumed Bay was well aware.
So that leaves me to fill in the blanks.
“When Torin took your sisters,” I explain, dropping my fork along the edge of my large bowl. “Ozzy told my father. He brought them here and kept them out of the foster system.”
“I can assure you,” Mom chimes in right after. “I took very good care of them. They had their own room, ate three meals a day, and Mae enjoyed playing in the pool out back.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” Carina quips softly. “But Ellie and I played with all my makeup. I didn’t allow her to wear it at school, just around the house. I didn’t want that to be a problem for you when she returned home.”
“I bought Mae a few Barbies,” Luisa conveys slowly, careful around the tension filling the air. “She made me google a few because she said they needed friends. However, I didn’t want to randomly send them and cause any issues for you since we know you have a lot on your plate.”
“We tried not to spoil them too much, my dear.” Bay’s attention falls on my mother on the other side of the table across from my dad. “It’s been a long time since I had a daughter that young who just wanted to play make-believe.”
“They’re so sweet.” That comes from Carina. “I adore them both. You should be extremely proud of them.”
“May I be excused?” Bay breaks through, jarring me for a second that she just asked for permission to do something.
“Of course,” Dad replies instantaneously. “If you need some air, just go through the family room and beyond the French doors.”
Bay pushes her chair back, trying to do it slowly and lady-like, but the chair still scrapes across the hardwood floors as though she can’t get out of here fast enough.
I can see her attempting to jump the stone wall around the property to bail, but I don’t need her breaking her fucking neck.
When her body disappears, I meet Ozzy’s dark blues; however, I don’t expect him to follow her.
It’ll be left up to me.
And when my father’s movements catch my attention, he jerks his head and orders me to see if she’s alright.
Rising from my chair, I toss my napkin to the dinner table and amble in the direction Bay disappeared, feeling my family’s heavy gaze on me as I leave.
I find Bay pacing back and forth outside the white double doors my father instructed her to with her arms crossed along her chest. She couldn’t appear more troubled if she tried.
The moment my ass open one set of doors, Bay’s blues cut into me, her nostrils flaring.
And here we fucking go.
I’m surprised she has the audacity to wait until I close it to yell at me.
“What are you doing?” she clips out, still marching back and forth as if she can’t stand still.
“I came to see if you were—” She points to the house, fury burning in her eyes as she glares at me.
“No, what is your game ? Why did your family take my sisters in? Are you all trying to be nice to me so I’d side with you?”
“No.” I watch her keep a safe distance away from the pool for obvious reasons. “My father didn’t want your sisters to end up in shitty places like I had before I was adopted.”
“I don’t believe you,” she immediately spits out. “This is a ploy. I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t expect you to,” I counter back gently because she has no reason to. I’ve made it very fucking clear I didn’t want her around, and now my family is protecting hers. “However, my father was always friends with yours. They’d spoken before Roger had his?—”
“I don’t care.” She immediately halts and spins around, her dark hair hitting her in the face, but it doesn’t stop her from raising her chin and catching my eyes. “He’s not here. He’s not running anything because he can’t. He’s dead. I’m the one who has to make all the decisions for my family. I’m the one who has to make sure they’re taken care of.”
I nod. “I know.”
“You don’t know. I’ve been forced into a marriage to a man who won’t even speak a whole sentence to me. Fuck that I don’t know him or what he’s fully capable of, but I got a pretty good idea when Reeve told me he barged into my house to murder my father.”
“Bay—”
“Please stop playing with me,” she practically begs, wrapping her arms tighter around her body. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t—” I move for her, and she takes a well-needed step back.
It’s her voice cracking that severs something inside me.
She doesn’t have faith in me.
She shouldn’t.
I’ve done nothing but tell her to back the fuck off, and look where she is now. Even though I didn’t do anything, I’m still linked to the men she was involved with.
However, the reason why she’s here has nothing to do with them now.
I’ll handle Reeve and Torin. I just need her to be on board.
“What are you scared of?” Bay doesn’t look at me. She’s too lost in her own head. Too overwhelmed by everything that’s happening. “What did he do?”
Her blue eyes pilot back to me, but she doesn’t utter a single word to help me here.
Slowly, I take one small step, and she doesn’t counter it. “I know you, Bay Astor. I know how strong and resilient you are. I know more than you think I do. So, what the fuck happened?—”
“ Nothing happened,” she spits out. “Just my father dying and my sisters being here. What did you think that was going to do?”
“Honestly, shit,” I reply wholeheartedly. “That wasn’t my idea. My father was afraid Emilio would use you because you are so blinded with grief and what you’ve got going on. You can believe what you want, but Roger and my father were friends. Why do you think Wharf Bay has always stayed out of the civil war between South Shore and The Landings?”
“Then you know I’m not staying here.
“I do.” She’s not stupid. Bay recognizes all my intel comes from Ozzy.
“So, why am I here?”
“Because you are South Shore.”
She slowly begins to rock her head back and forth. “No. It’s not the same. He’s—it’s gone. Everything is just…” Her jaw trembles, but she refuses to show me she’s capable of crying.
Bay Astor is a warrior. She’s a prideful, little thing who refuses to allow anything or anyone on the outside in.
However, what she doesn’t know is that, if she would’ve let Torin and Reeve in for a little bit longer, she would have.
“I’m not falling for this,” she objects rigidly. “I appreciate what your family has done, but it changes nothing. You don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you. Keep me out of your plan of fucking me over?—”
“I don’t plan on it.” A scoff runs through her whole body, clearly still on the other side of the fence siding with us. “There’s no gain from it, Bay.”
“There would be plenty of gain from it,” she retorts. “My death would soothe Torin?—”
“Your death would kill Torin,” I interject right before she glowers at me. “You can look at me like that and call it whatever you want, Little T, but listen to me and listen to me good…you are South Shore. You are my ticket to peace for my family. You are the answer to all my fucking prayers for ending a reign of terror that’s only going to get worse. Because, my sweet little South Shore princess, Emilio will kill you. Especially when you don’t fall in line with all his plans.”
“I won’t be here,” she mutters, holding my stare with glossy blues.
“And you don’t think he’ll look for you?”
“I’ll change my name. All of ours.”
“And that may work,” I reply. “But what if it doesn’t? I’ve been around him for most of my life, and I know that motherfucker has put several hits out on Torin.” She twirls around to leave, but my hand catches her bicep, and I pull her back into her spot.
Bay will hear this.
She has to.
She needs to know what she’s fully up against at all fucking times.
“You know he’s deaf in one ear?”
“Let me go,” she orders through her teeth, pulling on her arm to give me the decision to do this the easy way or the hard way.
I’m picking the hard way.
“That’s a fuck no in Emilio’s eyes,” I tack on. “He raised that idiot. He killed your fucking mother for not wanting to be with him.”
“I know what he did.”
“Then let’s be fucking real here,” I grind out. “He’s not Father of the Year. You really think he gives a shit about you? He wants that fifth seat. You’re heir to that fifth seat by being Penn Northcott’s granddaughter.”
“I’m not taking?—”
“ Yes , you are.” Bay’s eyes sharpen and she scowls at me like I have a right to tell her she’s going to do anything. I don’t. But, as much as I’m not a fan on it, she is the missing piece to solving this war. “You’re gonna run, Little T? You’re gonna let this man run you out of town? Your father built South Shore. This is your legacy. Take it and own the shit.”
“Shut the fuck up,” she rages, yanking again on her arm. “You don’t know shit about me or my family. Did you forget what I’m up against? Your brother believes I killed his brother.”
“I’ll handle that.”
Bay wrenches her limb so forcefully that, I’m afraid if I don’t let go she’ll hurt herself.
So, I do.
“You haven’t,” she rebukes sharply. “So, get it through your thick head, Sinatra. I’m not fucking staying here.”
I bump her chest with mine, irritation filling it because I don’t understand what sort of simple stupid she thinks I am, but I have all my fucking research done. “Fall in line, or we all go down. All of us. Emilio won’t hesitate taking down Wallace, and you’ll be going to war, Little T. But this time, he’ll be dead.”
A fat tear hits her cheek, but she doesn’t leave. I have her attention by mentioning Wallace, and I’m completely mindful that not only did I hit the mark, but I’m not going to have much more of her time.
“We didn’t start on the right foot,” I digress simply, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Most of that is my fault. I’ll own up to being a complete asshole and letting you get to me. But I need you to push Emilio into believing you want to know where you are from, not who you grew up to be. You have to take the seat. The more time that goes by, allows Emilio to believe Ozzy is failing. That marrying you instead of throwing Ramsey in was a mistake.”
“Cairo.” My name off her lips is one of desperation and sadness. “I have my sisters.”
“I know that.” And I hate the words that form from my rational mind, but I force them out anyway. “But they’re already gone if you don’t move up and suit up.”
“I’ll protect them.”
Ozzy’s voice protrudes suddenly over the running waterfall on the other side of the pool, but I don’t bother to look over my shoulder at him. If he wants Bay to see he’s serious, he needs to know what moves he has to make.
And that’s physically being seen.
“And I’ll have your back,” I offer, receiving her watchful and cautious eyes again. “What do you want me to say, Bay? I’m running out of words.”
“Well, you won’t get them from Ozzy,” she drones, not removing any of the space between us.
Meanwhile, I can’t help the smirk that forms on my lips. “Yeah, well…we’re all a work in progress, aren’t we?”
She doesn’t answer that question, her mind filled with possibilities and nightmares all clashing together in one go.
“Bay.”
She maneuvers her attention to Ozzy, who appears at our side, and I’ll give this silent asshole credit, it’s taking a lot for him to do what he’s doing now.
“What?” she presses, forcing him to speak. Since Bay hasn’t been around him as much as we all have, she needs words over actions right now. And I’ve been trying to explain that to Ozzy. He may talk to us, and I say lightly, but she’s a woman who needs reassurance when she hasn’t seen all the background moves he’s making and has made.
“Please.”
Bay erases space and puts some between us. “I have pasta to eat. Are we done?”
I bow my head because any more of this conversation is going to push her away.
She needs time to think, process, and make a decision.
Pivoting, she walks back toward the house and gets back inside, leaving me with my brother who only watches her every move.
“She’s terrified,” I tell him. “You need to be at the house more.”
“Wallace has it covered when he’s there,” Ozzy mutters. “I don’t want to step on his toes.”
Because he might kick him out.
“Where is he?”
“Gone,” my brother replies. “Out on a run to make them money so they can head out.”
“I need to speak with him.”
Ozzy nods. “I can ask.”
“We need to get that video. I need Torin to get on board. Reeve needs to come back.”
“I’ve already begun working on it.”
I lightly smack the back of his shoulder. “Good man. It’s time to start taking these motherfuckers down.”