Chapter 3
3
ZARINA
I groaned as I rolled over, pulling the pillow over my face. The small crack in the blinds let in far too much sunlight, and it instantly put me in a bad mood and triggered the familiar throbbing in my temples that always followed a good night out.
My eyes shot open.
I didn’t have blinds in my room.
My room had thick layers of blackout curtains to ensure that I would never have to be assaulted by sunlight in such a way.
Propping myself up on my elbows, I looked around and tried to get my bearings.
Where the fuck was I?
There was a sleeping figure beside me, and memories of the night before came back in brief flashes in my mind. The reddy-pink scratch marks down his broad, tan back were evidence of what we had done.
Where was my bag?
Where were my clothes?
Another vague memory came to mind of him ripping open the back of my dress, and then I looked to the floor, where there were indeed red tatters of material strewn about.
“Fuck,” I whispered to myself.
I slipped out of the soft, white linen sheets and made my way to the set of drawers against the wall.
Digging through the first drawer, I sighed and shook my head at the shirts thrown inside of it, not folded or organised at all. I rifled through them and picked one I thought I could get away with using as a dress.
A big white shirt that said ‘Harley Davidson’ would have to do. It was a little frayed, had a few tasteful slits in the material, and it had a long hem.
I knew I could pull it off as intentionally casual rather than an obviously stolen walk-of-shame outfit.
Luckily, the rest of my things were still in a heap by the front door. I slipped on my shoes, put my bag over my shoulder, and checked my phone. It was nearly 9 a.m. and I had 10 missed calls from my sister.
I unlatched the door as quietly as I could and closed it behind me before ordering an Uber from wherever the fuck I was.
The sun was already nice and warm on my skin, and I sat in the stranger’s gutter to wait, turning my face to the sky to soak it all in.
Hopefully, the brutal rays of the Australian sun would cure my hangover and give me the energy that I would require to get through the day.
* * *
The driver dropped me at the front gate of Val and Ren’s house, and I stood there pressing the buzzer over and over again until it eventually opened.
The clanging and grating noise of the automatic heavy gate felt personally offensive, like my sister had woken in the early hours of the morning and loosened some bolts or something to make sure it would be as loud as possible.
I stomped my way up to the front door and flung it wide open, looking around and rubbing my temples.
God, I needed to stop going out on Saturday nights if this was to be my Sunday.
I kicked off my shoes and called out, “Hello?”
The sound of tiny footsteps pounding from the floor above let me know that the twin devils were indeed home.
A curly mop of light brown hair appeared through the baby gate at the top of the stairs, and her chubby legs worked to climb over the thing that was supposed to be a safety measure.
“Zaza!” she yelled.
Another mess of curls appeared, nearly bounding her sister out of the way to stick her fat cheeks against the bars.
“Hello my demons,” I cooed, running up the stairs to free them from their prison.
“They’re not demons,” Valerie scolded as she came out of the kids’ room.
“Of course they are,” I sang again, scooping up Eliza and blowing a raspberry on her cheek. She let out a high-pitched giggle and attempted to push me away. Evie pulled at the hem of my shirt, feeling left out, and I bent down to scoop her up too.
The twins were identical, of course, but the small birthmark under Eliza’s right eye made it easy to tell them apart. Also, Evie had always been a little taller, a little chunkier, and had a little more demon soul in her dark green eyes.
They had only just learned to walk and had been terrorizing their mother ever since. All the plastic gates and rubber cushioning that had consumed Valerie’s home since they learned to move independently had proven to be a necessity.
Though my sister would defend my nieces’ innocence until her last breath, they were, indeed, demons.
Even during the split second of attention I had given Eliza, Evie had pulled a laundry basket from the hall and yeeted it down the steps with a gleeful squeal.
“You’re late,” Val said, crossing her arms and leaning her head against the wall, choosing to ignore the now unfolded laundry.
The dark circles under her eyes were proof that the twins still weren’t sleeping through the night—and all around, she looked a mess.
“You look like shit, Val,” I said, looking her up and down.
“Thanks,” she huffed a laugh. “Though you don’t look much better. Something to do with why you’re so late?”
“I don’t know what your mummy is talking about,” I whispered to Eliza, rubbing her nose against mine. “Aunty Zaza is never late.”
“Aunty Zaza needs to get her shit together,” Val scolded.
“Okay, Mum ,” I rolled my eyes. “You’re the last one who should be giving this lecture.”
“Zarina,” she sighed. “I’m just… worried.”
“About what, Val? I’m having a good time. I’m young. It’s not like you never did anything crazy.”
“Yeah, but?—”
“Look,” I cut her off, putting Eliza down. “You go lay down and have a sleep. That’s why I’m here.”
She yawned at the same time I mentioned it, as if I had reminded her of the sleep deprivation.
“Where’s Ren?”
“With Toni,” she rubbed her eyes.
“Still tracking the source of the text?” I asked.
Antoni had received a text one day from a long-time supplier of his to organise a meet-up. But when they showed up to the meeting, they were met with a warehouse full of explosives.
Toni downplayed the incident a lot, but things had been tense since the assassination attempt. The most confusing part was that the supplier never sent the message.
The man had been a loyal supplier of the Santino Crime Family since my grandfather had been involved. And more importantly, he didn’t even have access to that phone number anymore.
The boys had done their due diligence, of course, and used whatever methods they leaned on to extract information from people—but they got nowhere.
The old man was innocent.
Which meant that no one knew who had tried to blow my brother to bits.
Of course, we all suspected the Redline Angels.
The local MC had been trying to tear us down since their little club was formed. They’d failed every single time, but now they had a new president, and maybe this guy actually had more than two brain cells to rub together.
But Valerie just shrugged, not offering any of the new information I knew she had. No one hid this stuff from Val, or Rome, or anyone else in the family.
Just me.
If I wanted to know what was going on in my family, I had to piece it together from bits and pieces that I overheard through eavesdropping.
Until recently, I hadn’t really cared that they kept this stuff from me. I didn’t even particularly want to know what kind of danger my siblings were putting themselves into. Maybe that made me an ignorant fool, but whatever.
I brushed it off and looked down at the girls.
“Shall we go cook some pancakes?” I asked them, holding out my hands for them to grip. “Aunty Zaza needs a hangover feed!”
“Zarina!” Val scolded.
“Bye, Mummy,” I encouraged the girls to wave goodbye to Valerie as I opened the baby gate wider and led them to the kitchen downstairs.
* * *
I’d not long finished scrubbing the dried pancake mixture off of chubby cheeks when the door flung open and Ren and Toni came inside, still deep in their hushed conversation.
Toni had that all too familiar look on his face, his Don face, the part he played whenever he was doing mafia Don stuff—whatever that was.
Well, maybe after all these years, it wasn’t a part he played anymore.
Maybe it was just a part of him now.
It was strange, especially after seeing how much he resisted his role at first.
Rome, his wife, definitely played a big part in him accepting it. I think he found it hard to see himself as this horrible monster after knowing her. Because how could he see himself as evil when the woman he loved was just like him?
The guys shot me a smile before the twins noticed their arrival and started demanding attention.
Ren hurried over and scooped up his daughters, planting a kiss on each of their cheeks. Toni held out a finger and let Eliza grab onto it momentarily. He was still a little scared of Evie though, and gave her a wide berth for fear of getting bitten (again).
That was about as far as his interaction with children went, usually.
I still remembered the first time he held one of them by the force of Valerie, and he looked like he was holding a very large egg that he was nervous to drop.
A quick knock on the door and then Sammy waltzed on in as well, greeting us with a simple jut of his chin and by tugging on each of the girls’ ears gently as he walked past.
They giggled and kicked against their dad so he would put them down. Then they were free to chase Uncle Thammy as he made his way to the fridge.
As usual, his hands were stained black with grease and oil, and his work boots weren’t much better.
“Val sleeping?” Ren asked, sitting down at the table and stretching out.
I nodded, shooing Sammy out from inside the fridge so I could grab out the pancake leftovers. They were luckily still warm, and I placed them on the table while Toni and Sam plopped into chairs as well.
I grabbed five mugs and lined them up on the kitchen counter, scooping spoonfuls of instant coffee and sugar into each one while the kettle boiled.
“We still have no idea who’s running it now anyway,” Ren said, shoving one of the miniature pancakes into his mouth.
“That’s what we need to find out. Once we know, I’ll be paying him a visit,” Toni nodded.
Valerie wandered into the room, still looking like a wreck and a little dazed, but significantly less tired than before.
She ran a hand along Ren’s back as she passed, flicking on the jug before realising I had a coffee sitting there for her already.
“You’re a gem,” she mumbled, taking the steaming mug into her hands like it was the most precious treasure she had ever beheld.
I placed the others in front of the boys, setting them down carefully one by one. Each of them mumbled a quick thanks, shooting me a smile that was accompanied by the worried creases in their brows.
“You’re so much like Mum,” Val chuckled.
I looked up at her with a frown.
“Ever the perfect housewife,” she clarified, sliding into the chair next to Ren.
I ignored the comment and took the last seat at the table, watching as the twins played on the floor with the saucepans and spoons.
“So, what about Old Matey? Have you reached out to him?” Sammy asked Toni.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Ren nodded, stifling a yawn of his own.
“No,” Toni took a sip of his coffee. “He likes to be left alone. He doesn’t want anything to do with the bullshit anymore.”
“Yeah, but?—”
“Who’s Old Matey?” I asked.
They all stopped and looked at me, almost as if they had forgotten I was there altogether.
“He’s the founder of the Redline Angels,” Sammy explained.
I nodded.
“Anyway,” Sam shook his head. “Uh, I forgot where I was going.”
“You know, Zar,” Toni smiled, “you really don’t have to be here for this boring conversation.”
“I don’t mind,” I shrugged, pulling my knees up.
They shared a look, but Toni smiled. “Okay.”
They continued their conversation, but I asked no more questions.At that moment, I did feel a little like my mother. She sat quietly, all hours of the night, serving food and drink but never saying a word.
It was not her business , she would tell me.
It’s nothing that we have to concern ourselves with , she would say.
So I sat, I refilled their coffee cups when they became empty, and when the sun started to set, I began cooking because I didn’t know what else to do.