Chapter 20
Twenty
I’d kick a kid in the face for a Dr Pepper.
—Dru’s secret thoughts
DRU
“Long time no see!”
I looked over at Aella and smiled. “Hey, stranger.”
It’d neither been a long time, nor had she been a stranger.
We’d seen each other every day for the last week, practically.
Yesterday was the first time that we hadn’t, but I’d still seen half of the Truth Tellers MC when they’d come over for a beer after we’d gotten home from visiting my brother.
“How are the kiddos?”
“They’re good.” She smiled. “Fussy this morning. Glad that Chevy was able to stay home with them. I think they caught a cold. Since they were both under the weather, Chevy said that he was going to pull out the Christmas decorations and put the tree up.”
“That’s so sweet,” I said, then frowned. “You know, I can’t believe it’s already mid-November. I usually put my tree up on the first of the month, but it’s been so hectic that I haven’t even thought about it.” I paused as a thought occurred to me. “Question.”
Aella looked up at me with wide eyes. “Answer.”
I smiled. “Is Finnian okay with decorations? Will he freak out if I put some up? He’s not going to be here for the next couple of days.
He was called away to go help Gunner with some computer mechanics with his next job in West Texas.
I could decorate his house, but I don’t want to get him upset if it’ll hurt his heart. ”
“He decorates every year. Some guy comes out and puts the lights up because the homeowner’s association for the place that he lives in requires it.
But he bucks back and goes with colored.
The HOA hates it, but all it says in their bylaws is that it has to be done by the third weekend in November.
I know this only because he bitches about it every year.
He hates that they make him color inside lines.
He puts décor up in the house, too, because we usually have all of our get-togethers there during the winter since he has so much indoor space. ”
“Good.” I smiled, but it slipped off my face when I said, “He wants me to stay at his place. He gave me a key, and the alarm codes, but I seriously don’t want to overstep. Do you think I should stay?”
“I think you should stay.” She nodded. “I think you’d like it much better than where you’re staying now.
Plus, a little birdie told me that Apollo already wants you to move in with him.
He told Chevy that he had already run the idea past you.
He asked him if it was too early. Chevy said no.
I said yes. Finnian went with no, and had planned to beg you when he got back if you hadn’t already caved. ”
I melted. “It’s too early.”
“I know.” I smiled. “You’re a smart girl who likes to be cautious. I told him that. He said that you were cautious with other people, not him. Then he left with a ‘you’ll see’ in his eyes.”
I snorted out a laugh. “Let’s get to work.”
The day was exhausting.
I’d gotten used to having days off, and a lot of those days had been spent lazing around.
Needless to say, when the coffee order came in around four with a note that read “you look tired,” I couldn’t disagree.
I was really freakin’ tired.
The last thing that I wanted to deal with was seeing my mom and sister walking up to the nurses’ station with a look of determination on their faces.
“I can’t do this right now,” I said with my hands full of IV bags that I needed to go drop off in a patient’s room. “You need to leave, and we can have this out when I’m not at work.”
Mom opened her mouth and then closed it. “But you’re not answering her calls.”
“I’m at work, Mother,” I reminded her. “Of course I’m not answering any personal phone calls.”
I hadn’t even answered any of Finnian’s.
I’d been so damn busy that I hadn’t had a chance to call him back, let alone take my lunch or pee.
My bladder was currently screaming at me, but I had two fresh-from-surgery patients that needed to be taken care of before I could take that bathroom break.
“We’re just asking…”
“Ladies,” I heard said from behind them. “It’s time to leave.”
The security guard that emerged had me smiling.
I turned around and left them to it, but I did check my watch when a text came through.
Finnian:
Sorry I didn’t get them before they got up there. I’ll do better next time.
He really was the best.
His stalkery best.
The man was a genius with computers, which I was slowly starting to really comprehend. He’d said he was. He’d made jokes about hacking into places. He’d hacked into American Airlines for Christ’s sake.
But what kind of eye did the man have to have on the pulse to know that my family had shown up here?
That thought stuck with me the rest of the night.
And when the coffee came around three in the morning, I couldn’t help but send him a text message in thanks.
Me:
I don’t know what kind of stalkerish tendencies you have, but my belly likes them. Next time, get me a pumpkin muffin to go with it.
Finnian didn’t reply.
But the pumpkin muffin came when the end of my shift hit.
It was sitting on the dash of my car, and I had to wonder who it was that’d delivered it, and how they’d gotten into my truck without messing anything up.
I called him the moment my butt hit my seat and the truck was started.
“Hey,” he drawled, sounding sleepy.
“Did you ever go to sleep last night?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he admitted. “I figured if I got it done fast, I could come home fast.” He hesitated. “I want to run something by you when I get home.”
I sighed. “Thanks for the muffin.”
“You’re welcome,” he murmured. “I had a locksmith open it up. You need a new car, babe.”
I thought about the mountain of debt I had and cringed. “I know. But I don’t have the credit limit to allow for it.”
“Hmmmm,” he hummed. “Anyway, about what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“I kind of figured that would be something that you would talk to me about when you got home, not over an unsecure line,” I teased.
He chuckled. “I don’t do anything half-ass, Silla. You know that.”
Meaning, the line was well secure, and I didn’t need to worry about what we were about to talk about.
“Okay,” I said as I put my phone in the holder and started out of the lot.
I waved at a few nurses who were waiting to cross the street, and only started going again once they were safely past.
“I wanted to talk to you about…”
He trailed off when there was honking on my end. “What’s going on?”
I looked around to see the chaos in the street. “A protest. Blocking the street.”
“What are they protesting?” he wondered.
I looked around to read the signs as I came to a stop, exhaustion weighing me down. “Um, it looks like a protest about the city of Dallas being assholes and not letting food trucks park on a corner where they are.”
“Interesting,” he said. “Take a left here.”
I didn’t question him and his stalkery ways, I just took a left and started driving slowly down a back alley.
“When you get to the T in the road, take a right.”
I did, my eyes widening as I said, “This is getting pretty narrow.”
“Keep going. It widens out after the dumpster.”
He was right, it widened out after the dumpster that was so full it was spilling over.
“Hang a left, and then an immediate right, and you’ll be on the road you need,” he said.
He was right.
A few minutes later, I was back on the road heading toward home.
“Thanks,” I breathed. “I’m tired.”
“Eat your muffin and listen.”
I unwrapped my muffin and started to eat it as I listened to him talk.
“Okay, so don’t interrupt.”
I didn’t, causing him to say, “Hello?”
“You told me not to interrupt,” I teased, spraying pumpkin muffin on my steering wheel.
I wiped it off with my hand as he sighed. “Anyway, I think I’m going to break your brother out of prison.”
There was a long moment of silence on my end and then, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
“No interrupting,” he reminded me.
I closed my mouth, chewing through a muffin that now tasted like ash in my throat.
That didn’t stop me from taking another bite, however.
“I’ve been looking into his case, and I think that he was robbed,” he said. “I know that there should’ve been several other reasons that he shouldn’t have had to serve a lifetime sentence, but it’s looking like the justice system is keeping him there for another reason.”
I didn’t know if I was supposed to say “what reason would that be?” or not, so I kept my mouth chewing, even though I barely tasted the food.
“Did you know that your brother was part of The Seven?”
I didn’t know what “The Seven” was, so of course I didn’t know what that was.
“I know you didn’t.” He laughed. “Anyway, so your brother is part of The Seven. It’s an organization. Not a crime family, per se, but a sort of hierarchy of men that kind of, sort of, run the area.”
“My brother is someone who would run an area?” I asked.
“Have you heard of Sascha Semyonov?”
My belly clenched as I pulled onto the highway. “Yes.”
Everyone had heard of him.
He was a badass.
A criminal one, but still a badass.
I wouldn’t want to get anywhere near the man, even if he did seem somewhat friendly.
I’d met him two times. Once at the hospital when his daughter was born, and once when they brought her in for pneumonia when she was sick.
Both times, he was highly intense and scary as fuck. That didn’t stop me from going all gooey seeing him be so sweet and focused on his daughter.
“Your brother is kind of like what Sascha Semyonov is. Though, he wasn’t as out and open about it as Semyonov.”
I started to slow down, but the car behind me honked, and I resumed my speed.
“You’re telling me that my brother runs a criminal empire?”
“Not in so many words,” he said. “He’s just a guy that kept the area he was in under control. He did illegal things, sure. But not in a danger to women kind of way. In a danger to men kind of way. If that makes any sense.”
“Just spit it out,” I grumbled as I flipped on my turn signal and headed toward the big McMansion that Finnian owned. “You’re talking around in circles, and I haven’t had enough coffee or sleep to deal with the hesitation.”
Finnian chuckled. “You said you weren’t going to interrupt.”
I growled, causing him to laugh.
Before I got to the gate, it opened for me. “Thanks.”
“Welcome,” he answered. “What did you know about the neighborhood you lived in?”
I thought back to it. “The one where I lived with him? Or the one where I lived with my parents?”
“They’re the same,” he pointed out.
“They’re like eight blocks from each other,” I corrected.
He sighed. “Gangs were a huge problem in your area. I don’t know if you knew that.”
I shivered. “They were, but something happened in eleventh grade, and there was no more crime. The streets were awesome after that. I remember only because I used to be able to go on walks by myself.”
“Romeo made the streets safe for you, Silla.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You came home one day with a broken arm because a fight broke out during two rival gangs. You also were missing your backpack, remember?”
Of course I remembered. “Duh.”
I didn’t bother to ask how he knew all of that. My big stalker knew how to find out information that even I didn’t remember half the time.
“Romeo got pissed, and he started to clean the area up. He got rid of the gangs. Started making it safe for families. You remember when he got your backpack back?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He just walked in with it one day like nothing had happened.”
“What about that dog he found? The one y’all couldn’t keep because you were deathly allergic?”
I blinked. “Oh.”
“Rescued him from a dog fighting ring that was taking place in your neighborhood. He kicked everyone out of the area that was bringing it down. Then he ruled the entire place with an iron fist,” he said. “Until he was taken to jail because of his wife being a complete dumbass.”
“Oh,” I repeated.
Now that I thought about it, crime had picked up back in my parents’ neighborhood with him gone.
“I had no clue.”
“I don’t think he wanted you to,” he said. “But I think his involvement in illegal activities was the reason that the book was thrown at him.”
“Oh,” I said again.
I sounded like a broken record.
“Anyway, I don’t think that any appeal in the world is going to get him out before they want him out,” he said. “So I’m thinking that…” The garage door opened up for me as I rounded the corner that would lead to Finnian’s place. “Park in the garage.”
I rolled my eyes but did as he said.
The doors rolled down behind me, and I got out with him still on the phone.
The door locks clicked open, and I walked inside, smiling when I saw the coffee pot dripping with coffee into one of my favorite mugs.
The man knew me well.
“I’m thinking that I’m going to break him out,” he said. “I got him a new identity. I have an entire life for him to live somewhere else. I just need your permission.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Will they be able to track it back to you?”
His voice went soft as he said, “No.”
His absolute sureness in that single word had me saying, “As long as it doesn’t ever hurt or touch you, then yes. A thousand times yes. But I will not trade him for you. I’m not willing to do that.”
He growled. “That’s good to know.”
I picked up my coffee and went to the sink to dump some of it out so I could get my copious amounts of cream in it before saying, “I’ll always choose you, Finnian.”
He grumbled something under his breath before he said, “I wish I wasn’t hours away from you right now.”
I closed the fridge and filled my coffee up with as much creamer as I could get into it before replacing it and saying, “Finnian?”
“Yeah?”
I took a hesitant sip and said, “Where’s all your Christmas stuff?”