Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Lance
My body feels like a beehive of energy. After the most boring weekend ever, I’m finally getting a chance to see her. Fuck. Why am I excited about this? Honey Badger never made me feel this way. Weird. Well not weird in a bad way, just different from what I’m used to.
Once I drop off the other kids, and it’s just Champ in the car with me, we fall into a comfortable silence. No generic conversations and vague answers. I almost forget he’s there, but then I hear him singing along to one of Honey Badger’s first hits. Two worlds colliding.
Nessie is all smiles when I pick her up, but she punches my arm. If I was wearing a suit, I would’ve had more protection, but I’m not, so there’s nothing to cushion the tiny attack.
“How the hell do you know everyone in my family?” Her hair is down today, long and curly. Her nose is all scrunched up, and she’s wearing a melodramatic scowl. I would rather take over Alana’s ‘Fuck You’ face any day. I’ve never seen Nessie this annoyed.
“Ow!” I rub my arm. “It’s gonna be hard to protect you if I have a broken arm.” I back the car out of the parking spot and head back home. No, to her place. Not home. Shit.
“Answer the question. Do you work for them? Like all of them?”
I pinch my lips together as I try to come up with the right words. “It just sort of happened. I met Thiago about ten years ago through Alana.” Of course, we were all different people back then. “Uri’s dad needed a favor, and that’s how we met him. Duncan reached out to Alana right after she bought Mastodon because he was worried about Waverly. And your family sort of came along with the package.” I shrug. “I can’t really pinpoint a moment when it happened. It just did.”
“Do you have any idea how unnerving it is to go home, and everyone’s more excited to see your date than you?”
“Date?” Champ and I say in unison.
She instantly blushes, and I find myself dying as I wait to hear how she explains it from here.
“Um, well, bodyguard sounds so formal. I don’t know what to call you. You’re just Lance in my head.”
Just Lance. Ouch. Yep, didn’t expect it to sting as much as it did. “Oh, okay.”
She’s silent for a few minutes until we reach the street she lives on. “So Alana’s been involved since I left?”
“No, she was friends with Thiago. She only got wrapped into your family’s world after Maria was born.” It’s hard to know exactly what to say about Alana and her past. I was with her most of the time, and I still don’t have all the information to fill the plot holes.
“So, she’s more into the Cartel side?”
I shake my head as we pull into the parking garage. I scan all the entrances and exits, check for movement and if anything feels off. “Not really. She was always doing her own thing and liked hanging out with Thiago.”
“I’ve known him my whole life and that seems pretty hard to believe,” she states as I open the car door to walk around to open hers.
“It’s not like I’m in the inner sanctum. I still have no idea what’s holding four different crime families from organizations together. Is it bribery? Blackmail? A late night shady dealing gone wrong? Pact with a demon?”
“The last one. His name is Ganothor, and he’s big and hairy and is often mistaken for Bigfoot, hence my obsession,” Izzy says with a straight face. “He gives piggyback rides.”
I laugh.
“Makes a good PB and J sandwich once you take out the dead rat.”
Now my laughter is echoing through the parking lot. Somehow hearing my own laughter twice makes it much funnier to me.
Champ slides out from the back of the car. “What’s so funny?”
“Lance thinks the Four Families are being held together by a blood oath with a demon.”
He slings his backpack over his shoulder. “Sounds about right. Isn’t his name Anthorgana?”
“Ganothor,” his mom corrects.
“Yeah, that guy. He’s great.”
Honestly, I’ve seen a lot of weird shit. I’m not even sure if they’re making fun of me until they burst into laughter while I check the entryway to their apartment for threats.
Their mockery follows me all the way home. Shit, to their home.
Champ takes his bag to his bedroom, and Izzy turns around and leans in for a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s worse than a demon…it’s the Grandmas.”
“Was not expecting that.”
She bounces on her toes and flaps her hands like she fanning away the heat of hot tea. “So, all Four Grandmas immigrated to America in the sixties, but none of them spoke English. Well, Nana did, but her accent was so thick no one could understand her. Anyway, they all met in a Catholic church basement and became friends. Not just friends, but sisters. Pillars in each other’s lives.
“Rumor has it Thiago’s granddad and my grandpa were going to war, but Nonna locked Grandpa in a room for hours, and when he came out, he wasn’t in a “let’s go to war” mood. Abuela did the same thing.
“They were around for every major deal because they didn’t speak English, so no one was worried about them. Over the years, they hung out in their special grandma room, listening to ABBA and keeping an eye on everything. But when Babushka died the day before I left for Alabama, all three surviving grandmas walked across the altar, pressed play on a VCR, and smirked as everyone in the church heard Babushka say, ‘Thank you for coming today. Which one of us died first? Was it that old bat Nonna?’”
My gasp escapes before I can stop it. “Wait, they spoke English?”
She gives me a satisfied grin. “Yep.”
“For how long?”
“Years! Since the 1990s. They had every major family member completely fooled. Their reputations would have been destroyed if it got out. How can you possibly be a criminal threat if you were conned by your own mom for decades?”
Wow…talk about a thin alliance, it’s literally being held together by male ego. “What did your family do?”
“They laughed. A con artist respects a good con. It was the best prank ever pulled. Thing is, Joey knew Nonna spoke English because he lived with her. Joey’s rep as a secret keeper is well-earned.”
She imitates her cousin perfectly, complete with voice change and frown. “They lived here for fifty years. You don’t think they picked up ANY English? Of course you need to stick together. You’re too stupid to live on your own.”
So, the most powerful crime organization got pranked by their grandmas. Somehow, I think the demon is more believable.