Blood rushed in Kami’s ears and she could hear nothing over the beating of her own heart. Her temper was rising, but it was more than that. She was terrified, but right now she was also desperate. She had no other choice. She had to do something. She was being pushed into a corner and there was no place else to go and nothing else to do.
“You will give me the money that you owe to this family, or you will find yourself married off by Sunday night!” Papa said, his voice getting louder and louder as he switched to Spanish. “You will not disrespect me with your stealing. You are a member of this family and you will stop taking money that does not belong to you. The people in this family work. We work for the good of the family and to send the money home to those who could not come to enjoy the better life that you have here!”
“Better life?” Kami snapped. She could not take this anymore. “You must be joking! I am so busy trying to send money back to Mexico to people I don’t even know that I’m not allowed to enjoy my life at all! I’m like some indentured servant who has to work seven days a week but never sees any benefit! You think that paying for my health insurance is frivolous!” She held up her hand and brandished it at him like a weapon. “And yet that insurance is what will pay for me to have a real doctor stitch up the knife wound that you just gave me! I am an American citizen. I was born here. I deserve to go to school and build a career and have a life! I want a house and a car and I want to go on a vacation to the beach!”
“Those things are not important.” Papa waved his hand as though he dismissed her concerns entirely. “That is not what life is about. We are born, we live, we have children to carry on and care for us once we grow too old to work for ourselves. Then we are to help our families prosper!”
She was so angry! Why did he never seem to understand that what he was saying made absolutely no sense at all? “What does prosper mean to you, Papa? Does it mean live? Is that what prosper means? You just manage to live somewhere that is not Mexico? Because right now I cannot even imagine what you think is prospering. And I don’t care anymore. I’m done giving you anything! I am not subsidizing you and this family for one more second. If you think your children need Christmas presents and extra food, you buy it yourself! Stop sending so much money to your brother so he can buy liquor to drink his life away! Stop paying to feed your mother’s dogs and her cows. Stop paying for your aunt to sit on her fat ass! Make them work for themselves and pay for your own children! I’m your child. I am not the mother of my brothers and sisters! They are not my responsibility and I am done paying for them!”
The silence was terrible. Once Kami stopped talking the entire apartment went silent. It was like her brothers and sisters turned off the television and her mother had stopped cooking. The whole world was waiting to see what would happen.
Papa was a short man with a wiry build. His hair was still dark, but now shot through with gray. He had worked hard his whole life and yet it felt to Kami as though he had missed the entire point of the exercise. And now he was pissed off that Kami wasn’t willing to live the same life that he had.
“That is it!” Papa said in a voice that shook with anger. “You are getting married this Sunday after mass. We will get a license and the priest will perform the marriage ceremony. You need a man to take you in hand. That is what you need.”
“Too bad for you,” Kami retorted.
Papa frowned. “What? What are you talking about?”
“I’m already married.”
He did not speak. He simply stared.
“Yes. You heard me right. I’m already married. I’ve been married for over a year. And right now I’m done helping my family. I’m through giving up my own life. So I’m going to go and I’m going to join my husband. And you’re just going to have to make do without my paychecks. For good.”
Once the words were out, Kami felt the first of many misgivings. What was she supposed to do? Show up on the front doorstep of Devon’s University Park home and announce herself as the wife of Devon King seeking shelter because she had been kicked out of her parents’ home?
But she could not back down now. Not now. So she grabbed up a big bag that she had once used for her softball gear in high school. She began shoving her wadded up clothing into the bag. She would have to go the nearest emergency room and have her hand sewed up first anyway. Then maybe she could go to work a little early. What was it? Six o’clock? The coffee shop would open at five the next morning. Maybe Shawn would let her sleep inside. Maybe she could… Maybe it did not matter.
“Where do you think you are going?” Papa’s voice was hoarse with emotion. “You cannot leave. I forbid it.”
She didn’t even look at him. “I’m twenty-six years old, Papa. You cannot forbid me anything. I make more money than you do. Especially since you are determined not to be legal, not to pay taxes, and to try and skate by underneath the immigrations laws here in the US. So you can stay here and try to order me around as much as you want. But it’s not going to matter. I’m going to my husband and you can’t stop me.”
Chapter Nine
There was almost nothing worse than knowing you had completely blown it with someone and yet being unable to do anything about it. Devon paced the floors at his family home late into the night and into the wee hours of the morning. There was no doubt in his mind that he had screwed up. That was just a fact of life.
In his hand he held a very simple gold band. He had never expected to own anything like that, but then things changed and Devon met Kami. From the beginning Devon had known that things were going to be different with Kami. Now he had screwed things up and he didn’t’ know how to make it better.
All of a sudden Devon felt as though he could not spend one more second keeping this problem on the down low. He needed advice and there was only one person in the house who might be able to shed some clarity on the problem.
Devon flung open the door of his bedroom suite and exited into the hallway. It was less than half a dozen yards until he was standing at Orion’s bedroom doorway. Only a short time ago Orion had essentially destroyed his bedroom suite in a drunken binge. As Devon opened the door and pushed his way inside he was glad to note that the new furniture was not in pieces and the carpet did not look like some unruly big cat had gone after it with their claws.
“Orion?” Devon probably should have knocked, but his brother wasn’t really the sort to answer. “Orion, where are you?”
The bedroom and adjoining bath and dressing room were all empty. Then Devon realized that the French doors were open to the balcony outside. When Devon stepped out it was to find Orion perched on the balustrade overlooking the gardens in the well kept backyard. The rain had now turned completely to snow. It was drifting lazily from the sky as though Mother Nature could not actually commit to the notion of smothering Dallas with an honest-to-goodness snowstorm.
That meant the flakes were melting as soon as they touched the ground. It was cold, but not prohibitively so. Devon leaned against the balustrade not far from Orion’s position and waited. His older brother looked as though he had sunk deep in thought. There was no telling what that was about, but at least there were no bottles of Absinthe anywhere nearby. Not empty or full. It was a good sign.
“Why are we bothering with all of this?” Orion asked suddenly. His voice was low and soft as though he were perfectly aware that the overcast weather and snow falling from the sky would make their voices carry much farther than normal. “Why not just let Mother take over, cut our losses, move into our own places and get our own lives?”
“Because all of us value what Dad built,” Devon reminded Orion. He thought about the five of them, and even of Gemini King, the illegitimate oldest child. “We might care about it in our own individual ways. There might be some pieces of the family legacy that mean more to us than others. Like Jason and his obsession with getting control of the old ranch. But we all have a stake in this and none of us are willing to let our mother just stomp on that.”
“
What is wrong with her?” Orion whispered. He turned to look at Devon, his gaze haunted. “She’s like some strange force of nature. I don’t even know how to classify her. It’s like she just sucks everything dry. Anything she comes into contact with. It’s just ash within moments.”
Devon gazed at his eldest brother. Orion was the tallest, the broadest, the best looking, and by far the surliest of them all. He had always been the darling of the family, but also the one that had the most demanded of him. It had been a tough road. Not only that, but he had been their mother’s darling, and since the discovery of Gemini this had made him particularly sensitive to their mother’s emotional turmoil.
“You’ve always been the one that our mother goes to,” Devon reminded Orion. “She has her hooks in you. That’s something I think you have to deal with in your own way. It’s not something that the rest of us can help you with.”
“Meaning that I have to get that monkey off my back all on my own,” Orion joked. He slapped the thigh of his athletic pants in a poor imitation of good humor. “Yeah. I get it. But you guys don’t realize what Mother has had to go through.”
“Yeah, but you can’t have it both ways, Orion. You can’t say this afternoon that Mother is riding on the coattails of what our father accomplished and then five seconds later try to convince me that I need to feel sorry for poor Tisha Olivares-King because her husband cheated on her. She wasn’t faithful to him either.”
“Why did you come in here?” Orion stared up at the sky. The snowflakes coated his face and eyelashes. They created a lacy white blanket in his hair. The floodlights on the outside of the house left everything painted in shades of soft blue and orange. The snow falling seemed to intensify the colors and the light and the whole world looked softer and somehow more surreal.
“I came here because I needed someone to help me figure out what to do,” Devon began slowly. He was well aware that this was probably a really bad idea. It wasn’t like Devon and Orion had the best relationship. There was every possibility that Orion was going to run downstairs right now and try to destroy Devon’s life just to score points with their mother.
“All right then.” Orion spread his hands and shook his head. Wet snowflakes went flying. “Shoot.”
“I’m married.” Devon said it pretty much as simply as he possibly could.
Orion actually had to grab the balustrade to keep from toppling off into the yard two stories below. “I’m sorry. Did you say married?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit!” Orion’s shock was absolutely palpable. “How in the hell did you manage that without anyone knowing?”
“A marriage license and a ceremony in front of a circuit judge. No big deal. No mess. No fuss. No expense.” Why did this always shock people? Getting married was far easier than people might expect. It was the divorce that often took years to iron out.
Orion climbed down off the balustrade. Devon realized that his feet were bare. It did not seem to register with him. He crossed his arms over his chest and tugged at his lower lip. It only took him about five seconds to get his thoughts together. “That janitor woman. That’s who you married. Isn’t it?”
“Kami Delgado. Yes.”
“Good freaking Lord!” Orion’s eyes fluttered closed and then he shook his head in disbelief. “You must be out of your damn mind. I cannot imagine why you would do such a thing. Did you think for one minute what this could cost you? What about her? Did you think what it could cost her? Does she realize that your mother will die a grisly death before she acknowledges that kind of union?”
“I realize that it’s going to be complicated. Yes.” Devon wasn’t ready to think about just what that could entail. “I don’t think it’s going to be insurmountable. She’s a really wonderful person. Smart. Driven. The girl has a brain that would make you weep. Sometimes I can’t believe how fast her mind works. She’s working on an accounting degree.” Devon stopped talking when he realized that he was going on and on about Kami.
“Wow. So you really like the woman.” Orion paused for a moment. Devon was almost afraid to hear what was on his mind. The expression on his face did not suggest that he was going to like it. “I’m sorry. I know it’s rude. But I have to ask. Do you guys just have sex in your office? Because I’ve never seen you take anyone home. You live here with us. She probably lives where? With her parents? How the hell does this work?”
“It’s complicated,” Devon admitted. “I think you’ll just have to take my word on it. I’m not going to sit here and detail my sex life for you.” Or the lack of one because lately Kami hadn’t even been willing to continue their interludes in his office. She had been angry with him because she claimed he was too ashamed of her to acknowledge their relationship to his family.
“When are you going to tell Mother?” Orion wanted to know. He pushed past Devon back into his bedroom suite. “She’s going to figure it out before long, you know. Then it will be a disaster. Because that is how things work with Mother.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve figured that out at some point over the last several years. That’s why I’m trying to figure out the best time to tell her the news.” Devon followed Orion back into the bedroom. “It’s not like there’s any moment in time that she’s not nagging me about something else. Like this stupid plan of hers to set me up with Tansy Dunlop.”
“Which is basically an attempt at polygamy!” Orion howled with laughter for just a moment before abruptly stopping and shrugging his shoulders. “You really don’t have any options, Devon. I don’t think Mother is kidding when she talks about firing everyone in the building if she thinks you’re dating one of them. So maybe you’d better just escort Tansy to Mother’s party and make your excuses to your faux wife.”
“Faux wife?” Devon did not appreciate that. “That’s a great way to put it. Really.”
“You haven’t come out to the family,” Orion reminded him. “That means it isn’t real just yet. Even Jason came out to the family about his marriage to Skye. Edward admitted that he and Diana were basically running away together. And let’s not talk about Zane and Landry Fisher. So basically you’re the coward who has actually married some poor woman and yet won’t even bother to admit that to your family. Maybe you should ask yourself why that’s an acceptable situation to be in.”
“I want to protect her!” Devon burst out. Did Orion have no idea what it would be like for Kami in their family? “Our mother is a freaking barracuda! You can’t tell me that you believe she’s going to be reasonable about any of this!”
“Reasonable, no.” Orion gazed at Devon for a long moment of silence before speaking once again. “But you could be reasonable for her. You set a boundary. You keep it.”
“Yeah, how is that working out for you?” Devon shot back sarcastically. “So far our mother is running you around in circles assuming that she can get you to agree to whatever schemes she might decide suit her purposes for the moment. That’s a little scary, don’t you think?”
“You don’t know anything about me.” Orion sounded as sullen as a teenager. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything about it. You’re just poking at me because you don’t want to look at the mess you’ve made of your own life. That’s what I think.”
“You go ahead and think that then,” Devon snorted. He turned and headed for the door of the suite. “Maybe I’ll just tell Mother that I’m married and can’t have any part of the Tansy Dunlop scheme. Then she’ll just turn to you—her lap dog—and she will inform you that you’re going to be marrying Tansy in my stead.”
“Like. Hell.”
But as Devon left his brother’s room he could not help but think that they were both fooling themselves.
Chapter Ten
Kami paced back and forth in front of the University Park address where the King family had lived for decades. The rumors about town were that the family had moved to the University Park zip code from their ranch on the outskirts of the Dallas/Fort Worth ar
ea not long after Big Mac King had married Tisha Olivares. Kami had always listened wide eyed to her boss, Joe Flores, talk about how Mac King had moaned and groaned over how much Tisha had cost him during their marriage. The woman was never happy. The woman was never satisfied with the life he could provide for her. She wanted more. She wanted better. The way Joe had talked about Tisha Olivares-King, you would have thought she was the most spoiled princess in Texas.
And that was what Kami could look forward to in a mother-in-law.
She was shifting back and forth from foot to foot trying not to freak out. The notion of even walking up to the door and ringing the bell was almost overwhelming. Kami gazed up at the huge house and tried to adjust the strap of her duffle bag on her shoulder. The thing was heavy. She had been lugging it all over Dallas. At least that’s what it felt like. Thank goodness for the bus pass. She had been running all over the city looking for a place to stay.
Unfortunately for Kami, the coffee shop was deserted. Apparently the snow had chased the last few employees home early. There was a sign in the front window of the shop saying that they were closing at six instead of eight. Had they stayed open until eight, Kami would have been able to sneak in and just hang out there all night long. Now she was stuck trying to figure out where she might be able to gain refuge for the night. And that was why she was here.
Her phone display said ten o’clock. Devon wasn’t answering his phone. He hadn’t answered her texts. His car was in the driveway. That was enough. Right? She should be able to try and get refuge from her husband. Shouldn’t she?
Even the idea was about to make her break out in hives from the sheer force of her nerves. She had to steel herself even to walk up the driveway. It was a courtyard kind of place with a circle driveway that led into a side entry garage that had to have room for at least four or five cars, maybe more.
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 78