Chapter 31 #2
Vinnie nodded almost respectfully. “Mr. Knightsbridge, please pass my well wishes on to your mother. It’s been too long since we caught up.
” Andrew’s expression remained neutral, though the green in his eyes flared.
“As for your question, I’ve used Mr. Fix-It before myself, and we have a cordial working relationship.
Not that anyone has been able to get a hold of him in quite some time, but old loyalties remain. ”
This was all too much for me. I felt a little wobbly as I tried to collate this new player in a game I wasn’t even sure of the rules.
“Why. Are. You. Here?” Connor bit out tersely. “If you knew about Eve, and the lack of a baby, then what the fuck do you want? We have to deal with our current crisis, and this is a wasteful interruption.”
“I’m here to warn you, and suggest you don’t parade her around quite so publicly,” Vinnie said, serious once more, in another of his rapid personality changes.
“This is not over. From what I can tell, the death of the last hitman just opened up the floor for whomever wants to pick up the bounty on Eve’s and Abraham’s heads.
Of course, the father can’t be found, while the daughter…
” He waved his hand over us. “Ripe for the picking.”
“Are you picking up the bounty?” Ethan asked, his voice lower than I’d ever heard it before.
That set Vinnie off into chuckles again.
Damn, he laughed a lot for a hardened criminal.
It was unnerving. “Oh, son, you always were the funniest of my family.” That laughter ended immediately, and it was eerie how quickly he could change moods.
“If I wanted your little Evelyn dead, she would already be six feet under and rotting.”
With that, he gave us all a brief wave and wandered off, no sign of a car or any of his men in sight. I sensed they were out there though, keeping an eye on the situation.
“I’ve known a lot of people with Antisocial Personality Disorder,” Haze said when Vinnie was out of sight, “but your father bothers me the most.”
Connor released a low rumble of annoyance. “Yeah, he’s an asshole, but he doesn’t hurt family. Not unless you really betray him, which we are far from. He’s not the threat we need to worry about. It’s the hit that’s apparently still on Eve’s head, which has been opened up with the death of Harold.”
“Just what every girl wants to hear after mean girls, getting shot at, no sleep, and apparently a fat ass,” I muttered, so low no one could have heard.
Only, these guys appeared to have superhuman hearing, as I was now the recipient of five angry glares raining down on me. “Who the fuck said you had a fat ass?” Brodie demanded, and I could see in his face the scary man who’d killed a guy with his Oscar.
Speaking of, what even happened to the dead guy? Maybe that wasn’t something I had to worry about, with all of them having “people” to clean that shit up. What even was my life that I was growing numb to these realities.
“Just your co-star and her model friend,” I said, waving my hand. “And to be fair, compared to them, I am rather plain and shapely.”
Brodie got his phone out before Haze could growl a bunch of expletives. “Yeah,” he snapped, when someone answered on the other end. “Kitty Rose is blacklisted from any movie I’m involved in, starting immediately.” He listened and then snarled. “I don’t fucking care. End her career today.”
When he hung up, his breaths were heavy and frustrated, but his eyes softened when he met my gaze.
“Baby, you’re the hottest woman I’ve ever seen in my damn life.
Your curves are the stuff of dreams, your face is beauty personified, and I would rather fuck a garden hose than ever touch any of those fake bitches. ”
Connor rumbled his agreement. “It was jealously, pure and simple. They’ll never have what you do, and their only way to not feel like the pathetic bitches they are is to try and run you down.
Just know, they’re out there fucking directors and modeling agents who don’t even know their damn names.
They don’t have love. They don’t have a family like ours, and they never will. ”
“Tell me their full names,” Andrew said, his expression dark. “I’m sure the FBI will want to look into their activities.”
Haze spouted off both their full names immediately, as if he’d already started the process of looking into them, and I wondered if he might have watched video footage of the Oscars while they waited for me to return.
I let out a low chuckle, and I sighed as the pressure in my chest, that had been there since I’d heard their horrible comments, eased up under the unwavering support of the men standing around me. I might not look like those stars, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t deserving of love.
Whatever I’d done right in my life, or maybe whatever my father did wrong, led me to this house. To this house and more love than I knew what the hell to do with.
Now we just had to ensure that a hit man didn’t steal it all away from us.