Chapter Twelve
York
“Uh-oh. Trouble with the missus?” Dixon asked when I came through the back door and made a beeline for the liquor cabinet.
I was usually more of a beer guy when it came to casual drinking, especially outside of a party, so going right for the whiskey wasn’t common for me.
I poured three fingers and threw it back before turning to him, Velle, and Eddie.
“She’s been chased across half of the United States by guys who pretty seriously want her dead.”
The guys shared a look.
“That sounds about right,” Huck said, coming in from the laundry room. “What’d she get herself into?”
“That’s the thing. She has no idea. One day, she was a new mom just trying to figure shit out.
The next, she had guys stalking her. At first, it was just that—the stalking.
But then out of nowhere, it progressed to trying to run her off the road, poisoning, strangulation, and a nasty fight up in Georgia.
She’s still got the bruises on her ribs. ”
“What about the kid?” Huck asked, body tense. A family man himself, of course he was worried about Denali getting hurt.
“From what Runa has said, no one has put their hands on her. Yet.”
“But they did try to run her off the road. Presumably with the kid in the car.”
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t think we can assume men like this have any scruples. Garden-variety thugs.”
“Which means they’re working for someone else,” Huck said.
“That’s exactly my thought.”
“Where did it all start?”
“Philly, as far as I can tell.”
“I can reach out to the mother chapter. See what they know about any crews operating over there. Philly has some organized crime going on.”
“That’d be helpful. And I was wondering if you could send someone up that way to try to get some information once we know something.”
“We can do that. But I’d also suggest reaching out to Arty. He could listen for any chatter. Check around to see if there is some kind of bounty on her. That kind of thing.”
“Yeah, I can do that. I also have one more thing.”
“There always is with our women,” Huck agreed with a huff of a laugh.
“She was attacked at some rental in Georgia. I need someone to go up there and tell me if there are bodies. And if there are, I’m gonna need to handle that.”
“I’m up for a road trip,” Dixon said, shrugging.
“Alright. But I want you to take your brother. Need York and Velle here, holding down the fort.”
“Noa’s gonna want to go along for the ride,” Dixon said.
“Yeah, good. She’s got a level head. She’ll keep you two in check.”
We worked out the kinks of where and when they would go before Dixon took off to pack a bag. It wasn’t a long trip up to that part of Georgia, but knowing the Cider brothers, they’d probably dilly-dally on their way back, stopping to see some sights and shit.
Provided they didn’t find bodies.
I honestly didn’t think they would. A toilet tank lid was hard, but I doubted Runa had the strength with her sore ribs to really swing that with enough force to kill someone.
I just wanted to cross my Ts and dot my Is, so nothing legally came back to haunt her.
Once that was settled, I’d deal with the less than legal stuff. Because no one was going to hurt my kid. Or hurt her emotionally through hurting her mom. That was not gonna happen. I didn’t care if I had to go knock on the doors of my old mob contacts to get information.
Whatever it was gonna take.
“How’s she handling things?”
“Better now that she has somewhere safe to be. And after telling me all the shit. I want to get her a gun,” I told Huck.
“Yeah, it’s done. Take what you need.”
Then all I needed was to get my ass to a store with some good gun safes.
Grab a pocket knife. And any other self-defense tools I came across.
It never hurt to be overkill with that sort of thing.
She could stash them around the apartment, her car, in her bag.
The most important thing when it came to weapons was access. So the more, the better.
“So, she’s never gotten video or images of these fucks?” Velle asked.
“In the towns where the police even took a report, she didn’t get lucky with cameras. And I think she was too worried about getting away to think to take pictures.”
“No cameras at her places?”
“She did at the beginning but as they kept jumping places, there wasn’t money for it. She was struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. You should see the shoes she’s walking around in.”
“Sounds like maybe you need to add a couple more stores to your outing tomorrow,” Velle said with a shrug.
He was right.
I was kind of pissed at myself that I hadn’t considered that before. Of course she would need some new clothes and shoes. She seemed to have her collection of National Park shirts still, but not much else.
She might balk at a new wardrobe. I think she only accepted the apartment and all the things inside it because she saw them as things for Denali.
She couldn’t make that argument about new clothes for herself.
But maybe if I sprinkled in some new clothes for Denali too, I could get away with it without upsetting her.
As I brought another drink with me back out to the pool, I tried to convince myself that getting her some new things was just a way of paying her back for taking good care of our daughter on her own for so long.
But some part of me knew it was more than that. That there was still a spark between us, whether she wanted there to be or not. And that the more time I spent with her, the more I liked her as a person.
I just wanted her to have something nice, just for herself, for no reason other than she would feel good about it.
And luckily for me, she’d left a bag at the clubhouse with a change of clothes for both of them for the next time they came over for a pool day, so I had her sizes.
Now I just had to find a way to get them out of the apartment so I could put the clothes in her closet.
I made a plan to meet them in Miami to go to an indoor trampoline park, then made my way to their apartment building.
Once I saw them leave the complex, I texted her saying I would be fifteen minutes late, then hauled ass upstairs to put all the clothes away, along with a surprise toy for Denali, before locking back up and driving one of Che’s cars into Miami.
“How’s she settling in?” I asked as Runa and I stood back to watch Denali as she jumped around, laughing, squealing, and making a fast friend to play with.
“You’d think we’ve always been in that apartment.
She has all her toys organized. Has a bunch of her art on the fridge and taped to the back of her bedroom door.
She made a friend in the complex. He has one of these neat Ezyroller things that you move side-to-side to make it move. They took turns using it.”
“I’ll buy her one and send it to the apartment.”
“You don’t have to buy her everything.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“In that case, you better make a plan to come over when it arrives because I have absolutely no skills in putting things together. I am forever grateful I have a stuffed animal and figurine kid, not a playhouse kid.”
“I can do that.”
“You can also be in charge of teaching her how to ride a bike.”
“Why’s that?”
“I get too anxious just thinking about her falling off it. My stress would only rub off on her.”
“Has she never gotten hurt before?”
“Not much. She’s always been a careful kid. Maybe a scraped knee or palm here or there. But nothing bad.”
“All the stories you’ve told about your childhood are of you falling out of trees or off of horses. And your hiking stories are practically horror stories with how often you’ve done some field medicine because you were too far away from civilization to get actual medical care.”
“Sure. But it’s different when it’s your kid.”
“I can see that. I’m surprised you’re not freaking out about this,” I waved to our kid as she dropped backward, arms and legs spread, falling onto the mat, then flying back up with a giggle.
“Oh, trust me, I’m imagining all the ways this could go wrong. And I don’t just mean an astronomical medical bill.”
“You don’t have to worry about her medical bills.”
I could feel her gaze boring into my profile.
“What?” I asked.
“How much money do you have?”
“Enough.”
“Enough,” she scoffed. “Is that like when ultra-rich people claim they are ‘comfortable’?”
“Well, I can’t claim to be ultra-rich, but I have no overhead at the clubhouse.
So nearly everything I’ve earned since I joined the club has just been sitting in my bank account.
Well, that’s not true. A friend of the club talked me into investing some of it.
And that has been doing pretty well too. So, yeah, I’m comfortable.”
“Well, good. I like that for Denali. She deserves that.”
I just barely held myself back from telling her that she did too.
“I’m happy to give you guys anything you could need. After this, I’m going to drop in on a buddy of the club.”
“For what?”
“He’s a hacker. I’m going to have him do some looking around at organizations in Philly. See if anyone has any chatter about you. That kind of thing.”
“Oh, good.”
“And the Cider brothers are already on their way up to Georgia.”
“The Cider brothers?”
“Cayman and Dixon.”
“Wait,” she said, her smile spreading slowly.
“Yep. You heard that right. Crazy-ass parents.”
“And here I was, a little worried that Denny’s name was a bit too out there.”
“I like her name. Has she ever been?”
“To Denali? No. I haven’t actually taken her to any national parks. I’ve been a little too cognizant of how easily people can be killed in places like that and have it look like a complete accident.”
“Yeah, I never considered that. But you want to one day?”
“I want her to see them all. And more. Travel was such an important part of my life. I’d like it to be a part of hers too. Though, I don’t think my sweet little princess-dress-clad daughter is going to want to rough it in a tent somewhere.”
“Hey, you never know. She’s so young.”
“True. She’s been talking all about the jungle after watching that movie. She is very interested in petting a snake all of a sudden.”
“I can make that happen.”
“I don’t know if I can transition from her wanting to get a cute, fluffy kitten to having to thaw rats from the freezer for her to feed to her giant snake.”
“Or having to keep actual roaches in the house to feed to a lizard.”
Runa did a full-body shiver. “I rented an apartment once, sight unseen, and, yeah. Roaches. We slept in the car, and I demanded a refund. So gross. I do thorough bug checks everywhere now.”
“I once stayed in a motel while on a job and got bit to shit by bed bugs. I threw away everything I brought with me.”
“Mama, can we picnic?”
Runa winced. “I didn’t pack a picnic, munchkin.”
“We can get something take-out and have a picnic,” I suggested.
That got a cheer out of Denali and a smirk from Runa.
“What?” I asked.
“When’s the last time you sat cross-legged on the floor for an hour?” she asked.
“Been a while.”
“You’re about to become very aware of how old your knees and hips have gotten. Okay!” she said, clapping her hands for Denali. “Daddy’s first picnic!”
Fuck.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to that title.
But as I tried to get up off the ground later, I certainly made all those grunting sounds fathers were notorious for.