32. Olly
Olly
Twofer
“I don’t under–” The girl rubs a hand over the side of her face and grimaces.
“What the hell is going on?” She tries to sit up, but stops again when she finds weight sitting against her chest and her left hand cuffed to an anchor point in the floor.
She rattles metal against metal as though needing confirmation that her eyes aren’t playing tricks on her, and when her gaze stops on the vest I strapped to her body, her breath explodes out on gasp.
“What the fuck? Oh my God.” She looks to her left to find the other bitch just three feet away. “What the fuck?”
“Tut, tut, tut.” I stalk a line in front of her and shake my head. “You’re still a child. Didn’t your mommy ever teach you not to cuss?”
“My mommy taught me lots of stuff,” she rages. “She taught me how to stab a man when he fucks me up, and my aunt taught me how to shoot him in the head. I come from a long line of psychos, which means this–” she rattles the cuffs with a violent shake, “is basically the last thing you’ll do.”
She still carries the arrogance of a child. Ignorance, because she refuses to acknowledge the predicament she’s truly in. Each time she turns and catches a glimpse of the unconscious cop, her facade slips. Cops are supposed to be safe. They’re supposed to be the hero, and hers is sleeping.
“We’re having a little party, young Evie. Soon, the rest of the family will arrive, and we can begin.”
“Whose family? My family?”
“No, sweet girl. Our family. They called us a family, didn’t they?
” I look from her to Tate. “They used to make us call all the men ‘Uncle,’ and all the kids our cousins.” I stop and meet her eyes.
“You do that too, don’t you? You call those other assholes in the gym your cousins, and you call the Kincaids your uncles. ”
“They are my uncles. My mom married a Kincaid, she gave birth to two more Kincaids, and my last name is Kincaid. That makes the other Kincaids my uncles.”
“No…” I saunter forward and crouch down so we’re on the same level.
“Your last name is Frankston. And because the blood that runs in your veins is Frankston – though you’re the very reason Sean is now incarcerated – somehow, you end up with his fortune.
” I tilt my head to the side and study the little bitch.
“How is that fair? How do you end up with billions of dollars in the bank, when all I get is a cardboard bed in the streets?”
“What?” She lets her attitude slip. “What are you talking about? I don’t have billions. My bank account literally contains three hundred and twenty-three dollars. I checked this morning.”
“Your little piggy bank might have a couple hundred, but your name is worth billions. You know this, little girl. Don’t play dumb.”
“Well… no.” Her eyes continue to flip to her should-be hero as Tate groans and fights to surface. “My biological father’s money has been sitting in a women’s shelter,” she argues. “My mom gave his money to all of the women. To help the women. Anyone that needs a bed…”
“And yet, I needed a bed,” I hiss. “ I needed a home. I needed shelter and food. But I got nothing while everyone else got the world!”
“I don’t know…” Her eyes flicker to my hair. To my face. To my eyes. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why you’re mad at me.”
“Oh, sweet girl. Don’t be so self-centered. I’m not mad at you in particular. I’m mad at a lot of people. You’re just the innocent bystander that always gets fucked up.”
“He said that we’ll be heading out late–”
“Oh good.” I stand and turn to the two new voices that head toward us.
Evie is intrigued, despite knowing she’s stuck, and that makes me happy in ways that make my heart flutter. She’s strong, and it makes me giddy knowing that kind of strength flows in her blood.
“Ladies.” I catch the women’s attention as soon as they step through the door.
Zoey and Stella Hayes are older than me, but they still look good.
They’ve had money and luxury their entire lives.
They’ve had the best skincare products, the best surgeries, the best hair stylists and shoppers.
They’ve had the best of the best, and apart from the occasional party, they’ve stayed far from the product they helped their father sell.
All in all, they look great for chicks their age, and because they’re so used to a certain lifestyle, the minute Hayes was taken out and their banks dried up, they became my perfect lackeys.
“You’re here just in time.” I wave a hand toward the girl on the floor. “Girls, this is your cousin, Evelyn. Evelyn, meet Zoey and Stella.”
“I don’t know them,” Evie glowers. “They don’t get mad that a girl is cuffed to the damn floor, or at the fact there’s an unconscious woman beside me, or that I wear a vest that weighs a ton and beeps sometimes.
” Her voice cracks on her final words. “Which means they’re not my people.
Fuck off. Or better yet, uncuff me, and we’ll spar. Then we’ll see who’s tough.”
“Nah.” I wave the women over and grin when they sidle up under my arms and make me look like a boss. I press a kiss to Zoey’s forehead, and when she purrs, I do the same for Stella. “This is Evelyn Kincaid, but she was born Katie Frankston.”
Zoey gasps and looks up to me. “Frankston? Like… no way?”
“ Like… Yeah !” I mock her. “Now we’re just waiting for the rest. We’re gonna recreate a meeting between parents, and since those parents are now all fucked up, we declare ourselves the next generation of fucking gangsters.
We rule ourselves, we create our own laws, and we do not fall as easily as the men before us.
” I shake my head in disappointment. “Fuckin’ pussies were taken down by the most ridiculous shit.
Come on.” I pull the sisters away from our newest visitors and release them when we reach a countertop full of equipment.
Zoey and Stella wear tight jean cutoffs and soft blouses to fight the chill in the breeze. It’s not truly cold, but in here, in this club where much of my world began and ended, the concrete floors are cold when you’re wearing booty shorts and a thick layer of fear.
“Let’s get this set up.” I hand a dummy remote-controlled explosive to Stella. “Here you go. I need you to carry this over to the girl, but don’t trip, and absolutely do not drop it. We’re all fucked if you do.”
Her eyes widen. “What does it do?”
“It’s a computer thing,” I brush her off with a lie and wave her away. “But it’s expensive, so don’t drop it. Set it just far enough away she can’t touch it.”
“What?” Evie’s eyes widen the closer Stella comes.
“No. No-no-no-no-no.” She’s not as stupid as her Hayes counterpart.
She doesn’t know it’s inactive, but she knows it’s not a computer thing , so as Stella comes closer, she kicks her long legs out and tries to send the contraption flying.
“You stupid ass bitch. Get that shit away from me!”
“Don’t be such a little brat.” Slowly, Stella crouches down so her long hair rests against her back.
She sets the explosive down by the girl, but it’s obnoxious and unnecessary.
Give the world one thing to concentrate on, and draw their eyes away from what’s important.
“Don’t touch this,” Stella murmurs to the girl. “It was expensive.”
Evie looks the woman straight in the eyes. “Fuck off.”
“Evelyn…” I saunter forward and shake my head. “You’ve got an attitude problem.”
“No,” she argues. “I like my attitude. The fact you don’t like it means you have an attitude problem. Let me out of this thing.”
“No, I don’t think I will.” Reaching back, I take out my Griffin Industries cell and chuckle at the logo.
It’s ironic, really. To be employed by the Griffin, to be assigned to guard his woman when he’s otherwise busy.
I’ve walked this town, and no one knew who I was.
I walked into the gym, and no one had any clue how close our ties run.
I worked for Griffin for more than a decade, and he had no clue we’d been in the same room as children, and the funniest yet, he taught me everything I know about this ‘computer stuff’.
Nightmares and a coincidence. That’s literally all it took – coincidence.
Theo Griffin says the word is a fallacy, but it’s really not.
Two boys find their way into the same alleyway, and when one of them refuses to speak in the daytime, but can’t stop his subconscious from throwing nightmares at him, the name Bishop slips out and changes my trajectory.
If I can’t get my hands on the money I’m entitled to – by blood – then I’ll claim my seat in Griffin’s office and finish what he began. I’ve been a fixture in that place for so long, Annaliese won’t question it. And she’s the only person I need to convince.
The boss has gone on an extended vacation with his lady. I’ll be taking over until they return.
I shake my head and swipe my screen open to make the call.
There’s no game if no one knows where we are.