Chapter Forty-One
The Calm Before the Storm
Sammy
Henny left before lunch and returned with a duffle bag full of clothes just before three.
“You’re staying here for a while?”
He raised his brows, slung the bag onto a kitchen chair and sighed.
“Octavia was given four to six weeks.”
“Was she? Did she thank them?” I couldn’t help myself; I had an opinion about doctors and their timelines.
Henny stared at me like he wasn’t sure if he was going to laugh or cuss me out.
“Doctors don’t give people anything when it comes to terminal illness. They have their mortal estimates. Nothing more, nothing less. They aren’t God, it says in the bible only He knows the time and hour.”
His jaw relaxed and he nodded, “I’ve heard that one before, or something similar.”
“Can I ask a favor, even though it isn’t my business?”
He stopped pulling the zipper and glanced up at me, before shrugging and pulling it the rest of the way open, “Shoot.”
“When it happens, take note of the date. Rumi will. When the anniversary of that day draws near in the coming years, do pleasant things. Make sure it's a stress-free time, distract her if you can. Don’t let her cement that date in the forefront of her mind. It will always be locked away there, but it doesn’t have to haunt her the way it did my parents when Ruby went.”
“That's… a good idea.” Henny hesitantly decided, before adding, “I appreciate that, Sammy. I appreciate you being here for Rumi, even if I didn’t show it the right way at first.”
“We were all stressed, Henny. Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you and Menace got to work things out.”
He stopped digging in his bag, but kept his eyes glued to it.
“You were listening?”
“To some of it. I wish he would have told you who that bartender was. I wish I could go down there and beat it out of them.”
He laughed. “Beat it out of them? Random bartenders? You sound like my brother.”
I snorted and shook my head, “I couldn’t do that to innocent people, but I’d give anything to know.”
He sighed and nodded, “Yeah–”
The door banged and his attention lifted in time to see his daughter just before she flung her arms around him.
“I’m so glad you’re ready with boots on and everything, just like you promised!”
I could tell by his face he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but he hugged her tightly and grunted in the affirmative.
“Let me toss my bag in my room and get Mommy’s hairbrush and toothbrush for when she wakes up.” Rumi didn’t wait for an answer, she stomped upstairs, leaving Henny to groan and rub the bridge of his nose.
“I can’t believe she stayed quiet about all of this,” he lamented, staring up after Rumi.
“Maybe she knew you’d be better at it, Henny.”
His gaze shot to mine, but he only swallowed and nodded.
His phone chimed, and Henny fumbled around pulling it out of his pocket.
“Hel–”
I could hear my father’s voice sounding off before Henny got his greeting out, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“Jesus Christ, Zig. When the fuck–?” He looked upstairs and then behind me as Menace mounted the basement steps.
Henny canted his head toward the front door of the cabin and Menace trailed after him.
“Be right back.” He looked dead at me as he said it, silently commanding me to stay put.
A few moments later, he returned with the phone in hand and looked toward the Rumi at the top of the stairs, “Your dad wants you to get your mother’s phone.”
“Oh,” Rumi gasped, spinning around and darting back into the room.
“Is it charged?” Menace questioned, standing in front of the door.
She glanced down and bobbed her head, “Thirty percent.”
She held up the charging cord in the other hand, and Menace stepped aside.
He shot his arm out and pinned her to his side just as she tried to pass.
“I love you, Rumor Remington. You’re my favorite niece. Don’t you never forget that.”
“I’m your only niece, crazy.” She laughed, returning the hug, before she shoved him away.
He turned around, and I noticed Henny’s phone in his hand. “That don’t mean you ain’t the best damn one a person couldn’t ask for, you hear me?”
She laughed and called back, “Love you, too.”
It should have been endearing, but instead, it left me with the sickest feeling in my gut.
“Wh-what’s going on?” I studied his face for clues, but he glanced around the kitchen, his gaze coming to my forehead as he drifted down to plant a kiss to my crown.
“Explain everything in a minute, I need to piss.”
I squinted, and whirled in my chair, but he dipped into the bathroom, and I heard it lock behind him. I’d known of women who ran water from the faucet while they used the restroom, but I’d never heard of a man doing it. I broke out in goosebumps.
When the water shut off a few minutes later, tears pricked my eyes. My hand trembled as I stared at him in the bathroom doorway.
“What the fuck did you just do?” I barely heard my own voice.
I’d never smoked a day in my life, nor had I ever suffered from childhood asthma or any other respiratory condition, but I swear to fuck, it suddenly felt like every breath became more of a struggle than the last when he cocked his head in that sympathetic way.
I started to shake my head, and those hard-fought breaths were being expelled with force, edging on a sob as he calmly sat down beside me and gathered my hands. It felt like someone had hurled us into a visiting room from a prison movie the way he kept them on the table instead of drawing me close, and I lost my battle with the tears.
“I never dreamed I’d meet someone like you.” His voice was gravelly and thick with emotion. “I never deserved to meet someone like you. God knows I didn’t.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I begged him.
“The Irish mob has your brother, Samantha.”
My head dropped onto the table and the sobs tore from me.
“Stop that. Stop. I’m gonna fix it. We don’t have long, beautiful. Let me look at you.” He lifted my head and pushed the hair back behind my ear on either side while I tried to make sense of his words.
Sauce was gone. The mob had Sauce, and he had to look at me because he didn’t have time? The mob had my brother–
And he wanted to do this shit now?
“Now?” I shouted my last thought at him. “You want to call the police now? Of all the time you had to do that… Now?”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Sammy,” He came out of his chair and hovered over me, blowing in my face until I sucked in a wild breath. “Stop. Babe, I called the head of the mob.”
I was being thrown through a cyclone of devastation. That’s what this was. One horror after another was whirling past and around me. I was losing my brother, and him.
“Wh–Why would you do that?” I demanded.
“He promised to set Sauce free, if I turned myself over to him.”
I swung for his face before he finished his sentence, but he was expecting it. He caught my wrist, pinned it between us and smashed a kiss to my lips that left me melting into it.
“Are you telling me that Henny knows about this? Does the club know about this?” I shouted, as soon as his mouth left mine. I was furious at all of them, at the situation, and the circumstance that had played out in all of this.
Mostly, I was just furious that our time together had run out when I least expected it.
“They’re gonna kill you both.” I shook my head and tried to find the words to convince him, “Run with me.”
“I can’t do that. You won’t do that. You won’t leave your brother to pay for my sins.”
“I– No, I wouldn’t do that.”
“I’d never ask you to, nor would I ask it of him. If there is a chance Sean Morgan will do as he promised, and hand him over, we have to take it. I sent Henny with Octavia’s phone so he could call your dad to come get you two.”
Wheels sounded in the driveway outside, and my heart took its bittersweet time ripping in two. I clung to him, the world spinning around me as I gasped for air.
“Take the phone, Samantha. Take it and go downstairs. If you hear them leave, call Ziggy.”
I shook my head and clung to him, unable to see through my tears.
He smashed a kiss to my mouth, held my face and softly whispered, “You’re the only ol’ lady I ever claimed, the only woman I ever loved. Please, honor me and take your ass downstairs to safety. Now.”
He gently extended his arms, sending me back a step or two.
I don’t know how I made it to the basement, but I found the door, and collapsed on the fourth or fifth step, where I tried to quiet myself while I wanted to die inside.
The cabin door banged, and his voice traveled as he called, “It’s me, Menace. I’m unarmed.”