Alex perks up at that, like he’d been curious this whole time but didn’t know how to broach the topic. We do keep what it takes to become crew very much on the need to know, not because we are trying to hide some rite, but because for us, it’s an individual process.
“So, your members have to kill to be in the crew?” he asks.
I do my best to not bite of his head at the inquiry; it’s not his fault that’s the assumption, though I’d have though that after seeing Skelli he’d realize that not all our members are even the type to be able to do the whole “blood” thing.
I just shake my head and rolls my eyes.
“Not everything said is meant literally, even in the crew. But everyone who is crew has bled for us in some way or another, and we have bled for them. And the only way to leave the crew is through blood.”
“You can't run a family and a crew,” he says, like it’s simple logic and as such must be a well-known fact. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from exploding and take a few breaths.
I’m sure that Alonzo is trying to sound reasonable, but he is shit at keeping that patronizing tone out of his voice, and that is something he’s going to have to work on when dealing with me. I’ve lived my whole life respecting two men, and if he wants to earn a place with Bones and Cobra, he’s gonna have to try a different approach. Even Cobra doesn’t talk to me like that, never has.
I decide to try humor. “Are you saying a woman can't have a successful career too?”
It only seems to tickle Cobra and Bones, and maybe Tony who looks like he’s fighting an even bigger smile, I continue.
“Seriously though, I didn't ask to be the next head of your family and I have my own thing going for me. Why on God’s green earth would I choose to give up the family I know for the one I found out existed today?”
Alonzo, or Father or whatever I should call him, looks at Cobra instead of me, digging his proverbial grave with me when he acts like I haven’t actually spoken and talks to Cobra.
“This is why you shouldn't have hidden her from me. Eight years gone...She wouldn't be afraid of a family she doesn't know because she would know them, there would be no ties to these trashy people, but firm ties and understandings of how the family works. Why didn't you at least explain anything to her?”
He looks like he wants to pull out his hair, and I find just that notion hilarious, because he looks like a guy who never lets a hair be out of place.
He continues, “She is like an insolent child, thinking that she gets a choice in this when there is no choice. Conti blood has always led the Conti, this isn't some option. But no, you hid her away and erased her from my sights and pumped her full of this fabricated world where there are no rules, just utter chaos. Why would you even think,” he doesn’t finish as Cobra interrupts him. Cobra looks like he’s ready to punch the man in the face, which is unusual.
“Because Lene wanted it so. She expressly told me to keep her hidden until you found her. She was confident that you would, at some point. But Lene didn't want Priest to know anything about family life, she wanted Priest to make her own path, and wanted her to know her worth in your world.”
Cobra looks at me as he finishes that statement, like a reminder of everything my mother ever taught me. Mom had always told me to know my worth, would call me her priceless gem, a treasure of unfathomable wealth.
Cobra looks away from me, back to Alonzo, face blank, “Sure it's nice to have a doll of a wife, as the Boss, but it is not a great time being that wife. Lene knew all too well how lonely and how frightening it was to be the wife of the boss. Why do you think she ran to me in the first place?”
Everyone lets out a sudden breath at that revelation, Bones and I share a look that conveys the betrayal both of us feel with this information. I can’t help the gutted sound of my own voice when I’m able to open my mouth.
“Jesus Christ, more fucking lies?”
Cobra stands, looking slightly ashamed, before looking me in the face. He’s a handsome man, his hair always kept long on top, beard and mustache always well-trimmed, and while some found his eyes lacking emotion, I’ve always been able to read what was in those depths. I knew Cobra had loved my mother like I knew the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it’s just one of my universal truths.
Just as I had always known that my mother was too blind to notice his love for her, notice that he did things for her that he wouldn’t even think to do for anyone else.
“It's not a lie Priest. You have always known that I loved your mother, love her. What does it matter that,”
I cut him off before he can even finish that thought, “That you were her dirty little secret? That she nearly broke you when she died but kept that side of your relationship hidden? It fucking matters, Cobra! I fucking hate lies, was taught to despise them by a woman who appears to have lived and died by them!”
Not understanding that this has nothing to do with him, Alonzo tries to defend the dead, “That isn't fair Elda-I mean Priest,”
“Life isn't fucking fair. I love my mother, but how dare she. You don't know what she was like raising me, you don't get to speak on things you have no understanding on. I was raised to believe that lies were worse than any other sort of disrespect, worse than any crime. I was also taught to love openly, yet she kept Cobra as some secret to be left in the dark. Like he wasn’t worthy of being acknowledged? The man helped fucking raise me! I was taught to never treat someone we love like that.”
Cobra looks at me with a pleadingly before saying, “What good would it have done for her to acknowledge that she loved me and that I loved her? Priest.” He cuts himself off as I turn from him and start riffling through a set of cabinets to the side of the kitchen area.
“What are you looking for?” he asks.
I ignore him and look at Bones.
Bones looks just as outraged as me, he knew that Cobra had loved mom but hadn’t realized the depths of the lies around us.
“Where in the fuck did you hide my torch?” I ask.
Cobra looks at me, with eyes wide with terror, as he should.
“Please!Please-please-please, not my ca-” he begins, but Bones pulls out the hand held torch from a cabinet that I wouldn’t have been able to reach without help or a foot stool, staring down Cobra as he does it, his face pulled taught. His deep brown skin is pulled taught over he clenches his teeth.
“Here,” is all Bones says.
The look of betrayal on Cobra’s face is nearly comical, his jaw is slack, and his eyebrows are nearly at his hairline.
“You're really gonna help her?” Cobra asks.
“You should have known to tell her the truth. I am not going to stop her from exacting justice. You know the rules,” Bones stares at him, his face still taught from clenched teeth.
The mafia men are watching this exchang, obviously confused as to what the hell is going on. That is until I light the torch, then some sort of clarity floods their eyes.
Alonzo is at a loss for words and looks at me with an emotion that passes too quickly for me to read. But this isn’t about them, this isn’t about what they think of me.
Before Alonzo can say anything, Cobra starts trying to talk me out of what I’m about to do.
“Please, Priest, I know you're mad, but do you have to take it out on my baby? Shit, you can wipe the floor clean with me in the ring and I won't fight it at all.”
I roll my eyes because he should know better, “I am punishing you for lying to me. This is not a bargain, or a negotiation. You have had years to tell me the truth, but you chose to cover it up. Why would I take you to the ring? I know you. You don't give a fuck about taking your licks, have no issue with it. Why would I exchange this punishment for something that doesn't matter to you at all?”
Alonzo’s face goes back to being utterly confused, “You are going to punish him?”
I don’t fight the eye roll as I answer, “This has nothing to do with you. Cobra knows that the people who lie
in this crew get punished the same as him. I have no patience for lies.”
Bones places one of his large hands on my shoulder, heat radiating from his palm. He feels like he’s hot enough to start a damn fire with his hands.
“Mind if I help?”
Cobra makes an audible gulp and his eyes are back to being wide and terrified. You’d think I was threating his dick with how scared he is, but no, there is one thing Cobra loves more than any body part.
“Bones! Seriously!”
I don’t have to look up at Bones to know that he’s glaring at Cobra when he speaks. “You know better. You know that lies are the fastest way of ending up on her shit list and this time I agree completely. I won’t help dig you out of the hole you decided to bury yourself in.”
I lead Bones outside, leaving everyone else still in the warehouse, the mafia men trying to figure out what in the hell is going on, Cobra trying to decide if he’s going to be able to handle watching what I’m about to do.
I can hear the others trying to decide if they should follow when I pull a cigarette from my cargo pants. Gotta love multiple pockets, right?
I usually don’t smoke, but on average I don’t have this much stress in a single day either so I feel no remorse for my lungs when I inhale the nicotine. It’s been a rough fucking day. I know that it’s not just the cigarette in my mouth, showing just how fuckin’ stressed I am. My pacing is a good indicator, Rosary following at my heels like the little duck dog she is.
Occasionally I’ll stop and look at Bones who’s standing there watching me, and looking at him and Rose are the only things keeping me calm enough not to just release the pent up scream of my frustration.
The morning light gleams off the 1968 428 Cobra Jet painted a pure white, and it takes me by surprise that it’s already early enough that I’m seeing the first rays of dawn. The Cobra Jet is the only thing in the world Cobra had loved as much as Mom, and in a short while, it would serve as a physical reminder of why withholding information from me was always a bad idea.
I’d been willing to forgive his involvement in Mom’s concealment from my father, because that was her wish and I myself am not too sure if I’m even remotely interested in being a mafia princess.
But this, this lie was something Cobra knew would change my whole world, surprisingly more than finding out my father was alive and looking for me, for years.
Mom had preached that no one should ever be ashamed or hide who they love, because your love should be big enough to face any challenge if it’s real. That all consensual love was something to be proud of, no matter what.
Bones is standing there watching me seemingly unravel, something he’s probably only witnessed once before, when Mom died. I notice he’s constantly flexing his hands, like he’s holding himself back from just stopping my incessant pacing. He occasionally runs his hands through his curly hair, at a loss for what to say when finally, looking at the white car he speaks.
“Have you decided what it’s gonna say?”
I hum at him for a moment before responding, still toing and froing. “Oh I’m toying with putting ‘rat bastard’ or ‘Pants on fire’.” I can’t help the small chuckle that follows just saying that.
Bones chokes on a laugh and asks, “Aren’t those a little—?”
“Childish?” I shrug, “I’m feeling childish, so I wouldn’t be surprised. Well, what’s your suggestion?”
Bones carefully considers the car, and then he smiles, those blinding white teeth stark against the deep brown of his skin, so close to Mom’s that people used to think he was her child and I was the friend. Had too much Alonzo in my blood to give me that milk chocolate brown.
“I don’t know...maybe ‘Even the Boss answers for his lies’ or something. As many words that get the point across so that everyone gets that he got caught lying to you. He might be leader but he makes mistakes too and we move forward because we are a unit.”
I nod as I finally stop pacing, take a long drag on my cigarette. I consider the little hand torch, note that my nail polish has begun to chip, the low cut coffin nails no longer perfect in their bright gold paint.
“That could work. He’s gonna have to drive it around for a minimum of two weeks too. The whole town is going to know, they don’t need the details because they won’t really get it, but they need to understand that while to them their word means next to nothing,” another pull on my cigarette, “here, you break the trust, you will repent, and will be held accountable.”
Bones tips his head back, looks at the sunrise, with a smirk on his face. “Is it kinda wrong that I want to record it so I can show Angel?”
At that a soft smile spreads the corners of my mouth, because I know Angel. “Oh god, she’ll kill you if you don’t record it.”
He laughs. “Too true.”
I look at the car seriously; she’s a thing of beauty. “I’m even sad to have to do this to the Cobra, it’s not like the car lies to me, but that’s just how it works some times.”
Bones keeps that slight smile of his as he pats me on the shoulder. “Just remember Priest, he is on our side and we both know he’d do anything for you.”
I nod and blow out another puff of smoke. I don’t tell him that knowing Cobra would do anything for me is why this betrayal hurts so much, because it’s not just his lie, it’s Mom’s. The hypocrisy of it all. I know he’d have laid his life down for mine or Mom’s in a heartbeat, and always believed Mom was just oblivious.
I don’t tell Bones that I’m just as pissed, if not more so at Mom than Cobra, because as a stripper she’d always been looked down and thought of as lesser, its why she said love, real love, was so precious, and worth more than money. Yet she hid that. It pisses me off.
“Yet here he is, back there,” I say, waving an arm at the warehouse behind us, “with the man that is supposed to be my dad, and sure, it's obviously tense, but Cobra just seems ready to hand me over to a man I know nothing about. Something I know is against every fiber of his being, even if he knew the man well.”
I go to run my hands through my hair, so used to having it down that I get even more flustered when I encounter the damn ponytail, and I none too ceremoniously rip the damn thing out of my hair, my agitation peaking again.
“Fuck Bones, we know Cobra! When was the last time he ceded anything he deemed of value to anyone? Not fucking ever is the real answer. He's too much of a control freak to trust anyone enough to just hand over something important to him. So why now? Because, what? Mom told him to? Mom apparently told him to do a whole lot of things and instead of demanding the respect he's deserved as the only real father I've known, as a man who could have been doing a million other things, he let my mother dictate his life. That hurts me, because he’s letting her hurt him.”
Bones face flashes with an emotion I’m not sure how to name. Bones pushes off of the wall he’s leaning against and pats Rosary’s head before snatching the cigarette from my mouth, taking a drag of his own before throwing it to the ground and stepping on it.
I open my mouth to rip him a new one he knows I won’t light another cigarette, but he crowds my space, and before I can take a step back he has his hand at the back of my neck and leans his extra-large frame to my above average one, and kisses me.
This is not a quick kiss of hesitation, but then again Bone’s never hesitated at telling me how important I am to him, I just never thought it was more than the friendship we’d shared. No, there is no hesitation or tentativeness, this is a kiss of languid sensuality, a kiss of promises.
I kiss him back.
When air is a necessity again, Bones slowly untangles our lips but doesn’t release his hold on my neck. My hands have decided to clutch the dark fabric of his shirt, and he’s tilted his head back, looking up at the sky.
I say nothing, because I’m trying to calm my racing pulse and figure out which way is up and which way is down, but Bones breaks the short silence.
“If you think for one second, I am going to
let Cobra ‘hand you over’ to anyone ever, you are the least observant person I know. Priest, you are larger than the crew for me, you always have been. It doesn’t matter what Lene had set into motion. Where you go I go, like a damn shadow.”
At his words the world fully snaps back together, and a weight of guilt fills my chest. My head hangs forward, and I touch my now tender lips.
“Why… Why did you do…Angel is gonna—” I can’t decide where to start, which point to pick, because there is so much wrong with this situation.
I love Angel. I love Angel with Bones, so why did I just kiss him back? I’m not a cheater, I didn’t think Bones was either.
Bones starts laughing, from deep in his chest, and it kind of pisses me off, and when I snap my face up to look at him, he’s already looking at me, an amused expression on his face.
“Priest, Angel has been in love with you since you nearly killed her pimp. She knows that I’ve loved you since forever. She would be slapping me on the back and kissing me congratulations for “growing a set” as she’s been telling me to do for years.”
I know my face is twisted into a look of confusion, Bones must have lost his damn mind. Sure, Angel has had girlfriends before, Bones has always been okay with her being polyamorous, as he loves to say, his love for her isn’t contingent on forcing her to be monogamous to him, he loves her in whatever way she wants to be loved.
“Angel doesn’t love—” he cuts me off.
“Angel has always been poly and bisexual Priest, you know that. And while I’ve technically never been poly, that’s only because I didn’t think I could have you. I’ve never hidden that from Angel, hell one of the first things we ever bonded over was our love for you,” he says.
“Are you shitting me right now? Seriously?”
“As serious as Cobra during a chest match.” That gets me to choke out a laugh. “You can ask Angel whenever you want, but she’s not going to be mad or think you are trying to steal me from her or whatever.”
He looks back up at the sky as I try to figure out what I should say, if anything at all. I have no idea how I feel about the situation.
Lost Girl Page 7