Chapter Thirteen
Lou and Terry and the Sucker Punch
MARK
Fiona: Where r u?!
There was no way I was about to tell Fiona I was sitting in my truck outside the hospital looking at two thugs who may be planning on kidnapping or killing my father as soon as he emerged.
I ignored her text.
It was 12:30 and we still hadn’t seen any signs of our old man or the transfer vehicle. Jake had just returned from a little recon mission where he’d gone through the back of the hospital and confirmed that our father was still there. As is typical in healthcare, things weren’t running on time.
The goons—I was trying out different terms to refer to them and I may have found a winner—were back in the black sedan and Jake and I were doing our damn best not to be noticed.
My phone chimed again.
Fiona: Where the hell r u?!
“You gonna answer that?” Jake asked me, leaning forward in his seat and looking as restless as I was.
“No.”
Before I could move a muscle, he’d snatched my phone and put a hand over my face to push me away from him.
“Fiona,” he said with a smirk as I grabbed my phone back and punched him in the arm.
“Next time it will be your pretty little face,” I warned him.
My phone chimed yet again and Jake smothered a laugh.
Fiona: Mark, if you don’t tell me where you are I will publish this picture on Instagram, Twitter, and my Facebook page.
What followed this was something I had difficulty wrapping my brain around. It was a photo from when I was about 12 and Jake was maybe 16. He was standing shirtless, flexing his bicep on one arm while choking the crap out of me with his other arm. I was maybe 80 pounds soaking wet and was wearing my damn glasses and a bow tie. How in the hell did she get this picture?
And then I remembered who I was dealing with.
Mark: Let’s not do anything rash, Shortcake. I’m at the hospital.
Fiona: Perfect. On my way.
Fuck!
Mark: DO NOT COME HERE!
Fiona: Don’t you shouty caps me! I can go where I want!
If the goons didn’t get to me first, this girl was going to be the death of me.
Mark: Seriously, Fiona. The bad dudes are here. Stay away and keep my mom away!
Fiona: Shit. Okay.
I could breathe again.
Fiona: R u okay?
Mark: We’re fine. Just watching right now. Nothing has happened.
Fiona: Should I call the police?
Mark: No! What is it with you and the police? Is this a fetish thing?
Fiona: What? Please speak English.
Mark: No cops. Dad is being transferred to rehab. Do NOT tell my mom.
Fiona: She’s at work anyway. Had a lovely time at the spa.
Jesus H. Christ.
Mark: We’re gonna follow the rehab transfer to make sure he gets there safe. Will text you later.
Fiona: Stay safe. Later.
I read her last text and then noticed that Jake was staring at me with a shit-eating grin. “Do you realize your face went through about thirty emotions in the last five minutes and at one point you actually growled?”
“No I didn’t.”
He nodded with that stupid-ass grin still glued to his face. “You’ve got it bad, little brother.”
“Whatever. She just drives me crazy,” I lied.
He put on a mock frustrated face and balled his fists. “Oooh, that little minx, she just drives me so crazy I’m gonna fuck the hell out of her.”
What an asshole. “You know, Jake, all I can think of right now is how jealous I am of all the people who’ve never met you.”
He laughed, completely unoffended. Douchebag.
“Oh shit,” he said, his expression sobering. “Here comes the transfer.” He pointed out the windshield to a vehicle that resembled a combination of an ambulance and a van. On its side were the words “Guilford County.” This vehicle was either taking someone to rehab or to prison. Either would be fitting.
I looked to the sedan and saw that the driver had opened his door.
Jake and I both opened ours, but we hadn’t yet determined exactly what we were going to do.
“I’m thinking you may have been right about those brass knuckles, little brother,” he said quietly.
My heart was beating a mile a minute as the vehicle came to a stop and the transfer driver got out. He was not a big guy—by any means.
Just then, the double automatic doors of the hospital parted and there was our old man on a stretcher, looking not a whole lot better than the last time I’d seen him. A lone woman in scrubs was pushing the stretcher. Shit. We needed more people around, preferably ones with muscles and weapons.
“Is that him?” asked Jake, his voice surprised. I forgot he hadn’t seen our father in fifteen years.
“Yup.”
“He looks so…” Jake started.
“Old, I know,” I said.
“I was gonna say small, but yeah. Holy shit.”
“Speaking of holy shit, here we go,” I said as I gestured to the sedan where both men had now emerged and were heading slowly toward the transfer vehicle.
We let them get a head start and then fell in behind them, careful to keep a good distance.
They were about twenty feet from the vehicle when the one with the goatee shouted, “Yo, Jim! Fancy seeing you here. Haven’t seen you since Vegas.”
We picked up our pace and closed the distance a bit. I could see my father turn his head to them and then mouth the word “Fuck.”
The orderly and the driver seemed to hesitate, not quite sure if this was a friendly meeting or not.
That would be a firm “not.”
“Lou, Terry, hey,” said the old man, feigning cheerfulness. “Uh, you can see I’m not really up for visitors right now.”
“Yeah, what happened, man?” said Lou or Terry, whichever one had the Sox hat on. At this point, they were about five feet from the stretcher. The driver and orderly, seemingly having decided this was an exchange of friendly pleasantries, went about their business and began loading our father into the back of the vehicle.
“Oh, you know…” said the old man, nervous as shit.
“Oh yeah,” said the thug with the goatee. “I think I heard something about that. You should be more careful who you hang out with, Jim. Maybe you should spend more time at home—with your pretty wife.”
“Oh shit,” said Jake at my side.
“Yeah, maybe,” was all the old douchebag said. Son of a bitch!
“We’ll stop by your house next week and check on her for you—see how she’s doing while you’re healing up. Sound good?”
“Uh…” said my piece-of-shit father.
“It’s all set then, next Saturday. Later, Jim.”
And they walked away, right past us and back to the sedan. Jake and I pretended to be in conversation as they passed and the doors of the transfer vehicle slammed shut with a bang.
It was official. Our old man was the shittiest husband and father in the world and we were all up shit’s creek without a paddle.
It turned out I didn’t get a chance to text Fiona to update her—she wasn’t patient enough to wait. By the middle of the afternoon, she’d found Jake’s number and we both had three new texts along with a renewed threat to post more incriminating photos if I didn’t “call her ass immediately.”
I also had an apology text from Laney.
And another from Nate.
Exactly when had Shortcake become an integral player in this debacle? How had she wormed her way into this so deeply that she now required regular “briefing”?
Still, not wanting to subject myself to widespread ridicule over social media, I dialed the little harpy’s number while my brother made himself at home in my kitchen and grabbed a soda from the fridge.
“The bad guys know about your mom,” she said as soon as she picked up th
e call. “She didn’t want me to tell you and I’ve been going back and forth about this for hours, but I’m so worried for her, I just had to tell you. And now I’m probably going to hell, or at least Karma is going to have it out for me. I’ll probably break my leg or lose my job—of course, that’s probably going to happen anyway, but whatever. Anyway, I’m prepared to suffer the consequences if it means we can protect your mom. I was thinking I could hire a bodyguard for her or, you know, buy an attack dog. Although what we’d do with the dog when this is over, I don’t really know. My building doesn’t allow dogs over thirty pounds and I doubt we could find a good attack dog that small. And now that I think about it, I’m not sure I’d want an aggressive dog as a pet anyway. You think we should go with the bodyguard instead? Maybe I could find a hot guy close to her age and it could be like that movie, The Bodyguard, except he and your mom would stay together in the end. Oh, and nobody would die,” she finished on a breathless gasp.
“Shortcake!” I finally shouted when she stopped for a beat.
“Yeah?”
“Shut it!” I said, trying to get a moment to take it all in. She was like a forest fire—once she got going it was fucking hell to stop her.
“Rude!” she responded but did, in fact, shut it.
“I know they know about my mom. The question is, how do you know?” I mentally braced for an answer I knew I wouldn’t like.
“They sent her a threatening letter. Can we please call the cops now?”
Shit.
“Hold tight. Where are you?”
“My place.”
“Where’s that?”
She gave me the address and I told her I was heading right over.
“Just call up and I’ll buzz you in when you get here. In the meantime, I’ll call my parents’ driver and ask him if he knows any hot older bodyguards. Drivers usually know these things, don’t they?”
I couldn’t take it—I hung up on her.
I put my phone on mute in case she called back and then relayed all the details to Jake.
Let me rephrase—I relayed all the pertinent details to Jake. I left the crazy where it was—in a high-rise building downtown.
“I’m heading over to Fiona’s to find out as much as I can. I’ll drop you off at Mom’s and you see if you can find this letter.”
“Shit. Okay,” he said and we both headed back out. “You know, Florida is much less dramatic than North Carolina.”
“I’m thinking after this shit blows over I might need a vacation—you’d best prepare for a houseguest.”
I parked on the street a block down from the high-rise. Damn, this girl was money incarnate. I work in the business and I know how much condos go for in a building like this.
Way out of my league, just like her.
Wait, no. I didn’t want to be “in her league” anyway. That’s the kind of thing relationship people think. I don’t date—I fuck and run. So who cares how much money a chick has? It’s never been an issue when she’s under me. Not that Fiona was going to be under me, or over me, or against the wall, or on the kitchen table—hey, with all those fuck-me heels she wears, who can blame my male brain for wandering there from time to time? Or all the time. Dammit.
I buzzed her.
No response.
I buzzed her again.
Still no response.
I called her on my phone.
After five rings, she finally picked up.
“Yes?”
“Buzz me up, Shortcake. I’m getting strange looks out here.”
Indeed, there was a guy who watched me buzzing repeatedly and felt it necessary to comment, “Damn, man, you must have pissed her right the fuck off.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want to talk to me? Because it sure didn’t seem like it when you hung up on me!” she shouted.
“It was just a bad connection,” I blatantly lied.
She muttered something unintelligible and then I heard the buzzer go off. I was no moron—I grabbed that door as fast as humanly possible since I was certain there would be no second chances, regardless of loan sharks and goons and my little spitfire’s need to be a do-gooder.
The entire lobby area was decorated and designed in a very clean, modern style. A bit minimalist for my taste, but then again, it seemed that rich people often paid more for less. I found the elevator and, I must admit, I was a tiny bit disappointed to see she did not live in the penthouse, but on the floor below. If she’d had an entire penthouse to herself, it would have made it that much easier to dismiss her completely as a spoiled little rich girl who was just dabbling in my family’s drama for entertainment. Not that a condo on the fourteenth floor of this building would be anything to sneeze at.
I imagined Fiona in my mother’s dilapidated house and felt a twinge of both humiliation and anger that I couldn’t quite reconcile. Fiona was simultaneously too good for the abysmal place and not good enough for it—or my mother, or me, or Jake for that matter. It made no sense, but the familiar feeling of never being good enough produced an amazing amount of resentment that built over time like an unnoticed thorny weed and often stung innocent passersby. It was yet to be determined if Fiona fell into that category or not. She’d never struck me as innocent at any rate.
The elevator took me up to her floor and I found her door, which was propped open a few inches. I took this as an invitation and entered her condo, ready for her verbal attack and the possibility of physical assault as well.
I took in the place. Yup, money.
The apartment and its furnishings weren’t particularly stuffy or ostentatious, it was just that everything in there was expensive. Expensive in the way where it doesn’t scream it cost a mint but it would probably automatically repel dusty cargo pants or beer in a can. The owner of said items would find himself mysteriously thrust into the hallway with no clear understanding of how he’d gotten there while the couch pillows inside would wipe their imaginary hands and say, “Well, now that that’s done let’s get back to being splendidly rich.”
I was so distracted in my perusal of the condo that I didn’t see Fiona at first. Then I wondered how I couldn’t have spotted her right off. She was, for once, not wearing heels. In fact, she was barefoot. She was also dressed in form-fitting jeans and a simple wide-neck white t-shirt—which, let’s face it, probably cost as much as the couch I’d bought my mom. Her hair floated about her face as usual and I realized she wasn’t wearing any make-up.
My Shortcake stood in the threshold of the kitchen with a wounded look on her face and red puffy eyes. She’d been crying. The mere thought that either I or my situation was the cause of the tears had me wanting to take back every negative, sarcastic, insulting thing I’d ever thought about her or said to her. My gut roiled at the same time it was hit with the biggest sucker punch I’d ever felt or imagined. Because despite all my big talk, my history, and common sense in general, she was my Shortcake.
She was mine.
What on God’s green earth was I going to do with this revelation? It turns out that standing there like a big fucking jackass was the only move I had.
Brilliant.
Chapter Fourteen
We Do Live in a Democracy, After All
FIONA
In my defense, I didn’t really think he’d show up after he hung up on me like an asshole. But by the time I realized he was indeed downstairs and wasn’t going away, I refused to primp or even apply so much as a swipe of lip balm, and I just buzzed him up. So what if I looked like a twelve-year-old homeless person? Oh, wait, that thought was too depressing—I’d totally want to embrace a twelve-year-old homeless girl and adopt her. So what if I looked like a very short crack whore? That was better. Mark would just have to take me as I was. No, I didn’t mean take me, I meant put up with me. That’s what I meant. Wait, did I just compare myself to a crack whore? Get it together, Fiona!
When the door swung open and Mark stepped inside, my breath hitched a bit. He was dressed in a very form-fitting olive
green long-sleeved thermal, an old pair of jeans that were worn in all the right places, and work boots. He had that creased brow and a day or two of scruff on his face, and my lady bits decided they liked this look very much. A fire started down below from just the kindling of his scruff and the spark from his sheer hotness. How had I thought all of…that…was excessive? He was fucking sexy as hell!
He looked like he’d just walked off a runway and I looked like I’d just walked out of a crack den. This was completely counter to the familiar order of things in my little world. I was runway! He was gym rat material—rude and conceited. Right?
Oh, of course not. I’d known for at least a week that he was more than that. Much more.
His eyes finally found me and Uterus spoke up. “Fallopian Tubes, Vagina, and I have all voted and the results are in—JUMP HIM!”
Well, crap. I could usually reason with Fallopian Tubes and Uterus, but Vagina? There was no swaying her. In fact, she and Inner Fashion Maven were often in cahoots as they shared a mutual hatred of Guilt and a mutual affection for hot sex. Thank God Clit hadn’t weighed in or I’d already be across the room and climbing Mark like the human mountain he was. Everest be damned! It was Beckett I would conquer!
Shut. The Fuck. Up.
I had to gather my wits. This was not about crack whores, female anatomy, or mountains that needed scaling. This was about a very real threat to good people and I needed to clear my freaking head.
“Shortcake,” was all he said as his shoulders dropped and he lost any sense of defensiveness he’d entered my condo with. “What’s all this?”
I was confused. “Um, my condo?” I asked more than said.
“No, that’s not what I mean. The tears, Shortcake?” He approached slowly, his thigh muscles straining his jeans.
Panty Dropper, party of one!
“Don’t call me that,” I said with only half the indignation I’d meant to use.
The Spark (Carolina Connections Book 2) Page 11