42. Digger
42
DIGGER
“Where the fuck is my father?”
"Good morning to you, too." I lift my hands beside me, eyebrows raised at Maddie as she corrals me in the doorway to the main living area.
Her face is thunder, the tension in the room around her akin to a rising summer storm. “Don’t sass me with that aloof bullshit, Uncle ." She spits the name as though it's a curse. Some days, it feels as though it is. "I know who was here last night, and I know why. And now ,” she hollers. “My fuckin’ father is nowhere to be found. I’m asking you where the fuck he is.”
“What’s going on?” Rae says softly from behind me.
Maddie's gaze falls on her friend. "It ain't a coincidence, Rae, that the goddamn mafia showed up here last night, and now my dad has disappeared without telling anyone where he's gone."
"You think they took him?" Rae's sharp inhale is a thorn in my heart.
"Naw, baby." I twist a little to keep them both in sight and drop my initial playfulness. "It ain't like that."
“Then what is it like, Digger?” Rae’s eyes are wide, demanding an answer. Shit.
I glance at my niece and find her pinning me with a dead stare, daring me to lie my way out of this one. So much for a great start to the fucking morning. I should have locked myself and Rae in Tyke's room and buried my head under the covers with her like I wanted to.
“Look. You two can team up on me all you like, but I ain’t sayin’ what he’s doin’. It’s not your concern where he is, only why .”
“Then why is he out?” Maddie hisses through clenched teeth. “Alone.”
My brow dives. “What do you mean alone?”
Maddie jerks her head to the right, and I follow her directive to see Minion standing near the bar, hands to his hips and feet spread wide, engaged in what appears to be a terse conversation with Hammer.
"Excuse me." I cut across the room, wrinkling my nose at the smell of burned toast as I pass Harvey and pull up next to the officers. "What the fuck?" I whisper yell. "Why ain't you with him like I asked you to be?"
“You think it was a choice?” Minion growls back. “Fucker snuck out before anyone woke up this morning.”
"Shit." I cover my face with one hand—thumb and middle finger pressed on either side of my brow. "Don't suppose anyone aside from Turnip had the goddamn tracker on their phone?"
Hammer chews his bottom lip. “What do you think?”
“Fuck me.” I glance about the room, count the assholes in it, then return focus to the men before me. “Viking? Kane? Where are they?”
“Kane’s still sleepin’, as far as I know,” Minion states. “And Viking has gone to locate Tyke with Rigs.”
“I thought Rigs was stayin’ at a mutual’s house last night?” Dumbass thinks we don’t know about the girl he’s danced around since high school, but we do.
“He was,” Hammer says. “Until I woke him up.”
“They checkin’ in?”
“What do you think?” Minion barks. “We’re not fuckin’ useless.”
"Yeah. I know." I sigh and lace my hands behind my head. "I'm sorry. It's just… shit. Alone? He got a fuckin' death wish?"
Minion’s focus drifts over my shoulder. I know without needing to turn around who it is he looks at. “Don’t think so, Dig. It’s just personal.” He returns his gaze to me. “You know that.”
I do because I've been there myself. Made stupid choices from a mix of pride and anger. Got the goddamn scars to prove it.
"Where were they when you last heard from them?" I ask. "I'll gear up and head out, too."
“No.” Minion lifts an eyebrow. “You won’t.”
“Why the fuck not?” My goddamn brother is on a suicide mission, fueled by some irrational guilt at shit he ain't wholly responsible for, and he wants me just to sit around?
“Digger?” Rae’s careful question has me bite back the protest poised on the tip of my tongue. “What’s going on? I’m getting real worried.”
I turn to my woman, chest fucking ripping in two. I should be out there—protecting Tyke's back like always. But I see what Minion alluded to: Rae needs me here. Telling her nothing doesn't protect her from the truth; she knows this is to do with her, Terry, the whole fucking mess. All I do by keeping her in the dark is spare the details.
“Where is Tyke, Digger?” She repeats the question. Firmer.
She deserves more respect than blind ignorance, especially when it involves my brother, the other love she has.
Fuck. Of course. I asked last night what our partnership looks like going forward, how we work. This is how we work. Why make a promise with my brother to protect and care for this woman if all we planned to do was carry on business as usual and abandon her? The whole fucking reason why sharing her works is that while one of us takes care of business, the other can be here, with Rae, taking care of what's ours.
Rae is complex and, at times, a lot to handle. But that isn't a bad thing. It's just something two men can do better than one.
"Gut feelin' is that he's gone to see Terry," I cede. "I asked Minion to tail him today when I got the feelin' he might try to do this, but Tyke slipped out before anyone knew anythin'."
She sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh, my God. I fucking woke up when he got out of bed, Digger.” Tears line her lashes. “I thought he was using the bathroom. I just… I went back to sleep because I didn’t think?—”
“Rae?”
She jolts, snapping out of her spiral, gaze seeking mine.
I set my hands against her flushed face and duck to level our eyes. "It weren't your fault. Okay?"
“But—”
"Nothin'." I look over her shoulder and seek out Maddie. "It'll be okay. We got brothers out there for him. It'll be over before you know it, and he'll be back here, safe and sound."
Rae sighs, startling when Maddie slips an arm around her shoulders. "Come on." My niece levels me with a scathing glare, then adds, "Let's go somewhere quieter. The boys can take care of things.”
Minion's phone rings behind me as the girls head toward the sofas. I tear myself away from Rae's retreating form, shunting my hands in my pockets in tense silence while our enforcer grunts one-word answers for his side of the conversation.
“They’ve caught up,” Minion shares with me and Hammer once he pockets his phone. “As expected, Tyke’s bike is outside Terry’s residence. With Kane’s.” He shifts his attention to Maddie near the newly lit fire.
“The fuck is Kane doin’ there?” Has Tyke lost his goddamn mind taking his heir apparent along for the ride? I turn for the armory. “Fuck this. I’m ridin’ out.” Doesn’t matter how wrong it feels. Rae will understand.
She’s got to.
I get that she needs me. Fuck—I want to be her safe place while she waits for my brother to return. But the damn woman won’t have much of me left if I lose fifty percent of my family in one hit.
It took three and a half years to pull myself out of the dark when I returned from tour. I ain’t sure I got that much left in the tank anymore.
"He meant it when Minion told you to stay here." Hammer's firm touch on my shoulder stalls me. "Let me go. I'll set myself up nearby with the truck, so if they need help gettin' out of there, I'm close."
"No." I brush his hand off. "You've got a kid to think about. I've got no one relying on me."
“You sure about that?” He nods toward the girls.
Fuck it. Why do I still default to that? How hard-wired in me is it? To be so… isolated.
My jaw tics, over and over, faster and faster. “It’s my goddamn brother, Hammer.”
"Yeah, it is. And if God forbid it got to that, I know he'd want you here to take care of what he left behind. Maddie. Harvey." He swallows and wets his lips. "Rae."
“Fuckin’ hell.” My head swims. I back up a step to plant my ass on a barstool before I keel over.
What the fuck you done, Tyke?