23. Zeiden
TWENTY-THREE
zeiden
“There’s enough here. We can call it an elite show. Invite repeat customers and a few strategic names.”
Rylee sat on Cass’s lap.
“Fine, fine. But what’s the plan? A show will get whoever we want here. Always does. The snag is, once it gets out customers go missing, I don’t see that being great.”
I sat down, pulling my Daisy into my own lap. The plan made sense. However, I didn’t like it much. But logic and feelings shouldn’t be mixed.
Probably.
“Well, the goal is to make sure the good senator won’t turn down the invitation. Dove, I’ll need your help with that. Rarely do we offer handwritten notes, but as you are his daughter…”
Daisy sat a bit straighter.
“Whatever you think will help. But what will you do with him?”
The plan in my head had been for his death all along. The reality was that Daisy might have something to say about it. That just hadn’t occurred to me until now.
I sucked on my bottom lip, playing at the shadow of hair growing.
“You see, Daisy, there’s a lot of reason behind this, but your father needs to die,” X filled in for me.
Daisy was quiet, and that in and of itself should have been worrisome. Maybe not. But the way her eyes swept over the room, flicking over me and X and Cas, it was hard to read her. Hard to understand all her looks still. But the read I’d gotten since I’d stolen her out of her little tower was that she was tired of blindly following. And here she would never blindly make another choice. I studied her as she continued to study everything around her, including Rylee and Cali. Either way, she was hard to read.
“So the plan is to get him, my dad, to this show and kill him?”
I blew out a breath.
“In a nutshell.”
I waited for a scream or a no. I felt like I had a good handle on how a normal person might respond to knowing someone they knew would be dying. But she didn’t do much. In fact, she snuggled into me, pulling her feet up next to us on the couch.
“And I really get to keep you?”
She pulled my arm into her, hugging it.
“Yes…”
And now we were back to unreadable territory. Mostly because when the hell had I ever been here before? The answer was never.
“Okay. Any chance you could get me a ring or something that would really piss off my dad, assuming I get to see him before his great and terrible demise?”
“Shut up! Little girl is just trying to get a ring out of it? Fuck me, Zeid. Get the little flower a fucking ring and then let’s go bury daddy dearest.”
Daisy sat forward and turned her attention to X.
“Excuse me, X. I am not just trying to get a ring out of it. He asked me to marry him, and I’m sorry if I think the best form of revenge is showing my dad just how badly he failed. Marriage is all I was ever worth to him. But anyway, are we going to bury him?”
Cali spoke up this time.
“Probably not. Bodies that are buried have a way of getting found. Maybe I can help the guys out a bit with the autopsy report. I still have a few friends at the morgue.”
I wrapped Daisy back into my arms and went to speak, but she started shaking her head like she was ready to let it fly off.
“No. I don’t really care. It’s just, if he does get buried, or heck, even if my mom still pretends like he’ll be buried in the family plot, I want to plant daisies over his dead body. Sort of like my last little goodbye to a man that ruined my life.”
Silence followed.
“Someone say something. I think I just heard a spider fart,” she said, deadpan.
That was all any of us needed. Who knows who started laughing first or who finished it, but at the end of the day, our dark work hadn’t felt light like this ever.
“Yeah, we’re keeping you,” Rylee said and jumped off Cas’s lap to come hug Daisy.
“Great, now that it’s settled that?—”
“Wait,” I cut Cas off because if I didn’t get this out now I just wouldn’t. “Anyone up for a quick little wedding?”
“Wedding?” Daisy’s voice squeaked, drawing my attention away from my brothers to her.
“Yes. How else will I be able to ensure that you are protected on every front? All of the power of the Spectors is behind you, but other than just the threat of murder, I will take away all his chances to have you.”
Her eyes were wide and her face slightly less pink than a moment ago.
“And is that not what you wanted?” The thought was last minute, because now that I saw her reaction it occurred to me maybe a wedding was never in the cards. “I was thinking of just us and an officiate? Nothing large.”
And when her posture dropped a bit and she blew out a breath, I realized that had been pretty close to spot on. Look at me learning her already.
“Oh, okay. Yeah… I… well, I guess I hadn't quite realized just what that word would bring back for me. The idea of a huge wedding with thousands of people watching you despite not even knowing your birthday let alone your name, well it just is too much.”
And now it was my turn to panic.
“I don’t like people.”
My damn palms were sweating at this point. Fuck me. I couldn’t explain it. Years of taking out my anger, fears, and demons with my fists and with guns suddenly seemed to amount to nothing.
“I should have known, that’s…”
I heard her pause or maybe I just couldn’t hear her at all as I went right back to the chaos of my life. People. Too many fucking people. Always. The Spectors thought it would be funny to fuck with the quiet kid. Once mom died, I was alone and without a soul to give two shits about me.
My dad was a worthless shit and that was the day I decided he was going to die. My normal hiding spot, inside one of our empty fucking cupboards had always been my safety. I could get away from Dad and whoever came over to trash an already trashed dump of a home. So many people. So many Spectors. Too many volatile tempers. I’d have died that night had it not been for Xander and Caspian. They’d always quietly watched out for me, but we’d never been real close because I’d never understood what a friendship was. No one was ever my friend. But that day? That day changed my life forever.
“Hey, there big guy. Do not go there.” X’s hand landed on my shoulder just hard enough to bring me back.
“Yeah, this guy doesn’t do crowds. Shit, we didn’t think he’d do a wedding. But if he wants one, we do it. To be fair, sparky here’s been dragging her feet on a wedding too. We were thinking something small. Maybe we just do it all up together? Just the six of us.”
The idea of marrying Daisy never, not even once, seemed scary.
Her warm tiny hand slid into mine. Her touch was magic when I’d spent an entire lifetime avoiding it all. I was still working on coming down from my spiral of hell. I still wasn’t focusing on much as I tried to shake away those memories. The blood had been my therapy that night, but without Cas and Xander? That night would have had a very different ending, one that I wouldn’t have walked away from whole or alive.
The warm breath against my neck added heat back into my body as she got closer to me.
“Good. Sounds like we are on the same page. That, and I really like the idea of sharing something like this with your family. Sign me up for a double wedding. Courthouse. Vegas. I don’t care. Just as long as it’s with you.”
My lungs appreciated the next calm breath I took. I pulled her hand, grabbing her arm close to me.
“Maybe someday you tell me what that haunted look was?” she asked me quietly. All I could do was swallow and nod.
“Yeah.”
I was finally focusing and seeing the room again. Cas and X still watched me like I was going to retreat back to my rooms and not come out, again.
“Alright, maybe we need to tell our origin story highlights so that Zeid here doesn’t go all hermit on us. It’s been a while and all, but well, Daisy, you need to be aware. Then maybe we go head to the gym?”
I shifted on the couch, grabbing Daisy so tightly there was a small little nag of concern she might not be able to breathe. The calming stroke along my neck said otherwise, so I just held her.
“Okay, so Cas and I were neighbors to Zeid, but he was that strong silent guy as a kid. Anyway, we had each other's backs. Zeid was always real good with a blade and even better at striking when no one was expecting it. I think we’d each saved one or the other’s backs through elementary school and up into middle school. By high school we were pretty much untouchable. That being said, I think we owe that to Zeid.” X pushed me aside and wedged himself next to me, like he had when we were kids. Like he had when he knew I needed something but couldn’t say what any of it was.
“This fucker here tried to take on ten—or was it twelve?—full grown Spectors.” Cas smiled at me as I looked over at him.
“Twelve. It was twenty-four feet. Twelve pairs of really worn shitkickers.”
Fuck. I still remembered the view from the floor as someone pushed my head into the threadbare carpet that reeked of shit, beer, sweat, and years of neglect. Mom was better off dead. I remembered that.
“Yeah well. They tried to mess with Zeid. Tried to take him out of the picture like that was going to stop Cas and I. Nah. Zeid though, he’d gotten a few good cuts in. One guy bleeding out. Another unable to do anything but crawl away. Another guy missing an eye. God, remember finding the eye later?”
X laughed at the memory. The bastard was a sick SOB.
“Yeah. We remember. You literally asked the guy if he could see himself dying and if it seemed like an out of head experience,” I said.
Cas glared at X and finished the story.
“Long story short, we watched everything in that neighborhood and we saw the trouble. We followed men that were no longer fit to wear the Spectors’ mark and we made sure to fix that. We’d come in fully armed and ready for a fight, but it hadn’t spared Zeid all the pain. Still, he distracted them while we paid each and every one of them what they were due. Zeid had a few broken ribs. The first of a bunch of broken noses. What else, brother?”
I cleared my throat.
“All of it healed, that’s all I need to remember. You got there in time.”
No one was going to talk about what could have happened.
“Yeah, well, my boy here is the reason we all went into hiding. We grabbed Miss Winnie and hopped around in a few motels until we stumbled on these warehouses. Taking down the dozen or so asshats that night turned the tides. No one would come after a bunch of kids that had taken down the second and a whole slew of lowlifes,” X said, looking away like he was almost remembering it like a dream rather than a nightmare.
“Right. Let me finish this little shit-tale for you all. A few more years of picking off men one by one. Selling some of my art to cover up our crimes but finding some pretty strange buyers out there along with the extra profits we got from drugs and cash we could get off the old guys, and we came out on top. Taking down our leader was easy by the time we’d gotten to him.” Cas smiled, something rare, but he smiled as he told the rest of the story.
Rylee leaned into Cas, holding him like he was the only one in the world, and in her mind, I suspected he was. But for me? I turned to Daisy.
“I… so… yeah. No crowds. Any other requests?”
She was silent. Her teeth worried her lower lip as she stood and seemed to take a step and then stop, then turn to maybe sit, but finally she reached for me and crawled into my lap.
“No. No other requests. None other than please don’t hide your past from me. Please don’t ever hide from me.”