Chapter 2

Beatrice didn't care for the things that had been set up for them when they arrived. First and foremost, the family hadn't sent a private jet for them when she knew that they had one. Then there was the fact that their tickets weren't first class. Who would do that to people they invited to their home. Even bullying the man and woman that had been in the seats hadn't gotten her anywhere near the first seats. He'd paid for them, he told her. Like that made a big difference to her.

July, of course, was being a total sap and not wanting her to make a scene. Of course, she had to explain to her, once again, that saps finished last, and if you didn't make your mark in the world, then no one was going to take you seriously. It was a lesson that she'd been taught by her late husband, bless his soul.

The house was much nicer than she thought that it should have been. They were bragging she worked out in her head and that bothered her to no end. Trying to outshine her would get them nowhere quickly. Stupid people. Even though they were all dressed in jeans—she hated that kind of lowlife style, they looked expensive. Like they'd just come from some kind of beauty salon to make them look so special. But they were going to see that she wasn't easy to impress or fool. So when she was offered a seat, she turned her nose up at the man.

"Where is the boy? The one that everyone is expecting me to raise as my own." No one said anything to her but a kid did stand up. The child looked just like his mother. "You're scrawny, aren't you? And you don't look the least bit like my sister. Probably because she had some kind of sexual fling, and you're the result. I wouldn't put it past her. Olivia was never worth the spit that made her. Now she has a bunch of curs that she's expecting me to raise."

The girls stood up, but they didn't say a word. It was the man that spoke and his words sparked a fire in her that she actually was excited about. But no one told her to mind her words, and got away with it. Drawing back her hand to hit him, he pulled a gun from his back and put it down at his side, like he was testing her or something. Again, the excitement was there. Beatrice wasn't the least bit afraid of him shooting her. It was him thinking that he could, to her of all people, that pissed her off.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you that you don't draw a gun or your pecker unless you plan on using it?" He pulled the gun up enough to put his second hand on it. However, before she could comment on him being a pussy, he racked the slide and then put it at her forehead this time. "What do you plan on doing? Killing me? Not fucking likely."

"We need to calm down." She'd not heard anyone else come into the room and turned to look at the newcomer who was interrupting her playtime. "My name is Caleb Anderson. This is my wife, Tabby. What do you mean by coming here and making accusations like that to Olivia's children? Not to mention your own sister. None, that's what. You'll sit down and shut up, or I'll have you on the next plane out of here. You're here because of my generosity and I have no trouble whatsoever in doing what is necessary to make sure you never see the kids again."

"Were you under the assumption that I wanted to see them anyway? I was summoned here because my sister died. If that wasn't bad enough, you didn't send me first-class tickets like you should have. Nor a plane like I asked for to get me here in time to be at her funeral. Christ, what a shitshow this has been. Now you expect me to, no doubt, take these kids with me so that they have a mother figure too—do I look stupid to you? I'm not." One of the girls asked why she'd made the trip here if she didn't want to take them home with her. "I'll take him in. I'm sure that there is some money around that can be used to keep him in clothing and shit. And I could use a good worker to clean up after myself and my own child. My sister might have been an idiot, but she knew how to take care of her children. How much is the policy for that I'm getting? I'm sure that it's for a goodly amount." The girls laughed. Beatrice wanted to slap the lot of them, but the gun was still out—not pointed at her any longer, but close enough that he'd use it on her if she tried to hurt them.

"She left it to Luke to be able to use when she passed away. No one can touch it but him when he's twenty-one." The girl laughed. "I guess it sucks to be you, don't you think? We'll have jobs, of course, and keep him in clothing like we are now. I couldn't care less if you took him or not. I'll raise him on my own if you don't. I believe we'd all like that better anyway."

Beatrice wanted to slap that smug look off her face so badly that her jaws hurt she was grinding her teeth so hard. When the man finally stepped back but did not put his gun away, she nearly moved to do it. However, the girl moved out of the room. That was when she smelled the food that was cooking. She'd refused to eat the food on the plane, not that any had been offered and now she was expected to eat with all of them.

Dinner wasn't the quiet affair that she wanted. They all spoke over each other, laughing and having a good time while she was seething about it all. They had obviously never heard the saying that children should never be heard when seen. Or something like that.

When a bowl of what she thought was mashed potatoes was passed to her, she told the man, she'd never caught his name, so she called him Gunner, asked her if she wanted some.

"Well?" He shoved the bowl at her then, and she had no choice but to take it. "You bastard. I'm used to being served my meals, not someone shoving food at me and expecting me to shovel food onto my own plate. Just give me some and move on."

"Fine." Instead of serving her, he passed the bowl around her to the person on her other side. Which happened to be Caleb something. She was so pissed that she could feel her blood pressure rising up, and when the kid laughed, she aimed all her anger at him.

"You'd better be enjoying yourself now, young man. When I get you home, you're going to learn your place and it will not be eating with the good people that I know, including myself. Why, as much as I've seen of you already, you'll be better off eating in the yard with the dogs. You're an ill-mannered little shit, and if I have to beat you, you're going to learn how to behave yourself." Jerking the next food that was being passed around, she ended up having green beans spilled on her new dress. Before she could think about what she was doing, she slapped Gunner in the face, flipping him backwards in his chair.

She was satisfied for all of a minute when Tabby came up from her chair and punched her in the face. Even as she was flying backward, Beatrice knew that she might well have bitten off more than she could chew with that woman. She was meaner and quicker than she was.

Waking up, Beatrice knew that she was in a hospital. Yelling for someone to come to her, her head felt like it was going to explode right off her shoulders. When July entered the little room she was in, she asked her what had happened.

"You mean the part where you ended up in here, Momma? Well, you hit Doctor Watson, and when he fell backwards, Ms. Anderson hit you. She hit you hard enough that you hit your head twice on the floor. You have a concussion as well as fifteen stitches in the back of your head from the floor." She said that she was suing. "They all thought you might say that, Momma, but since you hit first, the police are saying it was justified for you to be hit back. Also, Doctor Watson is pressing—"

"Wait a minute. Who the hell is Doctor Watson? And what the hell does he have to do with anything?" July explained to her that he was the man whose house they'd been in and the man that she'd hit. "You mean Gunner? He owns that house? I won't believe that. Not even if there was proof. I'm supposing that he could afford something like that, being a doctor, but what I want to find out is what he's doing with my nieces there? Huh? Do you know that?"

July shrugged, something that she knew that she hated, but her head was splitting right now, and she couldn't think beyond getting out of there. Asking her daughter to go and get her some medications for her head, she showed her the button she needed to push. Pissed off more than she'd been in a long time, she felt her head pound all the harder and her belly churn up like it did when she drank some milk.

The alarm on something was going off over her shoulder, but she suddenly couldn't turn to scream at someone to turn it off. It was all she could do not to puke all over herself. But that happened, too, as she couldn't stop herself from being sick.

Two nurses rushed into the room and started telling her that she needed to calm down before she had a heart attack. They were standing too close to her, leaning over her and talking to her like she was an errant child. Her head popped, and just like that, Beatrice felt it pop behind her eyes and couldn't see for several seconds. The first nurse told her she had to remain calm.

"I've had plenty of heart attacks, and it's not done one thing to me. Back off. I know what it is that I have to do." She wasn't in the mood to do her breathing right then and was shocked to feel a pinch at her arm and the sudden rush of lightheadedness wash over her. "What have you done to me? Damn it."

Waking up the next time, she knew that something had happened. Not only was she in a room now but there were all kinds of machines all around her. Reaching up to jerk the nose cannula out of her nose, she felt the straps that were holding her down. Damn it all to fuck and back, what the hell were they—

"You've had a heart attack." Turning her head was difficult, but she finally made it work for her. She'd never been this exhausted before just moving around, but she looked at the girl sitting in the chair next to the bed. "I'm Serenity, Mother's oldest and not Burts child. I'm not going to bother with telling you what everyone calls me. You'll just call me what you want anyway. I remember you now. You've not changed a bit since I was a little girl. Have you? But you've had a heart attack. It did some damage, but not a great deal. But you'll have to be careful from now on that you don't get stressed. Also, take your medications. I'm assuming you think that you're above such things."

She couldn't speak, she discovered, and that had her trying to reach her mouth again. Jerking on the straps that weren't just on her arms but her legs too, Serenity smiled at her and told her that she was cuffed to the bed because she kept pulling out the things that were keeping her alive. Beatrice knew that she was above such things as medication.

"As I've said, you had a heart attack. Your left side is weaker than your right because you're partially paralyzed. By that, I mean that you will have to be in a wheelchair as well as someone to care for you while you undergo exercises that will at least bring yourself up to functioning." She laughed. "However, I can guess that you're not going to do anything of the sort and will still be a bitch when you are in a nursing home. That's entirely up to you, I suppose. Your daughter has gone home to rest. Not that you care about her all that much either, do you?"

"No." Her mouth felt heavy like she wasn't able to speak properly. When Serenity wiped her mouth, she was embarrassed to see that she'd been drooling. Christ, she was going to be impaired from this to the point that she was going to have to do just what the younger woman had told her. Telling her no again, the girl just laughed.

"No? Well, I guess that was expected as well. You won't get better unless you make yourself do what you're told. I actually hope that you don't. I've never liked you since I was a little girl, and you slapped me when I asked my mom for a glass of milk. Yes, I remember you very well. Plus, knowing that you're going to be in a nursing home thrills me to no end. Also, and this is the best news ever, you aren't going to be taking my little brother anywhere. We'll raise him ourselves." She couldn't make herself tell the bitch that she wasn't going to be doing any such thing because her mouth and face wouldn't work the way that she wanted it to.

All the while she was trying her best to get words out, she had missed the girl leaving. Damn it all the fuck. What was wrong with people nowadays? Stupid, that was it. They were all stupid.

She didn't know if the girl was telling the truth or not but thought maybe she was in deeper shit than she'd been before. Her body betrayed her like everyone else had. Beatrice realized that she should have been taking her medication instead of doing what she wanted. Of course there was no way that she was going to admit to that. Wondering where her daughter was—thinking that if she had to suffer, so did she—exhaustion slid over her, and it was too difficult to make herself stay awake.

When she woke again, feeling overwhelmed by memories of her childhood of all things. But with a hard jerk on her arm, she realized that she was still chained like a dog. Looking around while pressing buttons on the call button to get the nurse to come in here and release her, Beatrice turned the television on and off several times and had the volume so loud that it hurt her already pounding head. Finally, someone came into the room to help her.

"Mrs. Miller, what can I do for you? I know that you're not speaking well, so if you'd just let me ask you questions, with you blinking once for yes and two for no, we'll see if we can do anything for you." She blinked twice, not wanting to look like an old fool. "All right, you don't want to do it that way. I'm going to assume then. You need pain medication, I'm betting. I'll be right back with something for you."

Beatrice blinked so many times to tell her that she didn't want anything like that she felt as if her eyeballs were going to pop right out of her head. By the time the nurse returned, Beatrice was half sick with pain again. Glad for the medications now, she was drifting off when she remembered what it was that she'd wanted. She wanted someone to get the police. It was high time someone taught those bastards who did this to her a lesson.

~*~

"I took July to the airport. She's not going to return to take care of her mother. She did leave her banking and attorney information with me but she won't be back. And since the judge gave her power of attorney over her mother because of the heart attack, she said that she was going to live the life that she wished she'd had. I don't know what that means for the girl, but I wish her luck." Daniel laughed a little before he continued. "She also signed the paperwork for her mother that gives up any custody of Luke and his sister so that they can be adopted by their sisters. I think they'll do a great job in keeping him safe."

"I agree." They were sitting in the living room, just having a nice rest after the week that they'd had. Cassie had been to the cemetery twice more since arriving but had only been by the grave of her brother once. She found that she could live with that because it was close to where she was now.

Cassie didn't want to draw attention to the fact that she was there to see him. But with the pictures that someone had taken from her apartment, she had been able to grieve a little more since she'd been here. Having all the people around her was better than she'd ever expected. Family was a good thing, she thought.

"I'd like to speak to you about some things if you'd not mind. I know you've been through a great deal…what I mean is, I would…Would you have dinner with me?" The question startled her some, and she didn't answer him. Or couldn't, she didn't know which before he spoke again. "I've been thinking about you for a few days now and wondered if you'd like to have dinner with me. Just the two of us."

"Won't people see me? I mean, I'm always worried that someone will see me and everyone will be killed." He said that if she wore her glasses, she looked enough like Sen that she could pass as her sister, too. "I've noticed that. I wonder if that was why they picked your house for me to hide out."

"I volunteered. I found out that you had survived, for which I'm so grateful for that I said you could hide out here. With all the women here and you, you've blended in very well." She asked him about Sen. "What about her?"

"I thought that the two of you were seeing each other." He smiled at her and told her that they weren't. "Does Sen know this? I like her and don't want to step on anyone's toes right now. I have enough going on at the moment."

"I'm sure. When we first started out living here together, I was kind of hoping for some companionship with her. But it was too much like…she seems like my sister. Or something like that. The rest of them do as well. Like we're related in some close way." Daniel laughed again, telling her how he felt about the other woman. "We get along great. I think it has to do with the fact that we've been living in close quarters for so long that we've developed into sisters and brothers more than anything romantic."

"I'm not sure about…I've been married before. My husband was killed out of the country. I don't have any family left." He smiled and said that he only had family because Caleb had given him one. "Yes, I heard about that too. That you were all conceived during the raping of your mothers. I'm sorry about that. I'm not sure why you'd want to date me, I guess."

He laughed a little, and she smiled. It was wonderful to catch him off guard like that. And his laughter, like hers, was rusty sounding, even to her own ears. When he put out his hand, she didn't hesitate to take it with her own.

"I think that you're beautiful. Smart and fun to be around. I would imagine that you're still having nightmares about what has happened to you. I know that I would as well. But you're soldiering through it, as my boss would say. And I'd consider myself a lucky man if you were to go out to dinner with me." Before she could give it a great deal of thought, she told him that she'd enjoy that. "Great. That's wonderful. Yes, we'll have dinner tonight. Unless you have other plans."

"I don't, actually. None at all." She was embarrassed then when he kissed her hand. Cassie wasn't used to people enjoying her company. She thought that it had a great deal to do with the fact that she never allowed anyone into her life that could feel close. "I don't have a lot of clothing here. I've been borrowing clothing from the others. Their taste is a lot different than what I usually wear, but it's growing on me."

"It looks fantastic on you. I'm sure that if you were to ask them, they're enjoying sharing as well." She nodded and turned to look at the sliding door that led out onto the decking. "That would be one of my brothers. I forgot that they were coming over to update you on some things that they'd been able to find out."

It was her that got up to open the door. When Joey Phillips, another brother to Daniel, came through the door, he kissed her on the cheek and smiled. As they made their way to the kitchen, he had some vegetables that were from the greenhouse in town, she was putting them away when Joey started speaking. She stopped him before he could start.

"I don't know that I've ever thought of this before now. But could this house be bugged? I happened to think about that while in the shower this morning. How we just talk freely here." Joey laughed and asked if Daniel explained to her about his abilities. "No. I mean, are you some kind of wizard or something?"

"I can't have electronics around me. That's the reason that I don't wear a watch or have a cell phone. I can be around landlines and things that are directly plugged in but all the other stuff, it simply turns off when I enter a room. Every day I walk through the house and the bedrooms included just to switch things off if there is anything. Another reason that I keep you close is so that no one can bug you, either. I've seen that happen a few times." She asked him about televisions. "If I'm far enough away from it…most of the reason that I've never gotten into the habit of watching it, I have to be too far away to hear or see what is going on. So I've never bothered."

"That's both brilliant and sad. You can't watch things that are around. I haven't been that keen on things on television either but I've found a couple of old reruns that I'm enjoying watching. I'm sorry but also happy to know that I'm safer while around you." She kissed him on the cheek before sitting down with Joey. "What do you have to tell me, kind sir? I know that you work for the Feds. So do I."

"The president sent a few pictures to me this morning. He wants you to look them over and tell me if you recognize anyone in them." She took the handful of pictures and started sorting through them as he continued. "I have a weapon for you too. He wants to make sure that whenever you go out and are just here in the house that you're armed. He also gave permits to carry to the family that Daniel has here. The older ones, at least."

Cassie put the pictures into two groups. People that she recognized and those that she didn't. It was sad to her that she knew more of the bad guys than she did regular people. She paused on one particular picture and put it aside to finish up the others. Joey asked her about it.

"I think I know this man but not as someone that was in a wanted poster. These men I know, and while I have seen their records, I do believe that most, if not all, of them are dead." She handed him the good pile. "These I don't know at all. Should I?"

"No, you might later when and if you go back to work, but you've never had to deal with them. Wilhem told me that you were special forces with your brother. That the two of you were great at working through a hotspot without any issues." She said that she and Bradley were working for an underground group to get people out of countries that they might have burned bridges with. "Yeah, that's what he said. You've never lost a person nor—" She picked up the picture again.

"It's the driver. The one that picked Bradley and me up when we were shot. He was the man driving the van that day." She handed the photo to Daniel. "You were there too. Do you remember his face? It's the long scar that made me remember him."

"I never saw anyone but Bradley when we were in the van. Then, after we found out that you were shot, I was too busy with the both of you to look around too much. But if you say it's him, I trust you. You were in the front seat with him. Did he act odd when you got in?" She closed her eyes, thinking about the chain of events that day.

"He was annoyed that I had gotten the door open. I was thinking when I reached for the door that he was unlocking it for me but he was pushing the button down just as I got the door opened. I didn't think much of it at the time. He was also armed. The drivers are never armed when they're driving the getaway vehicle." It was Daniel who asked her why not. "They didn't want the driver to do anything else but drive the vehicle when they were picking up. Just to concentrate on getting us away, in this situation, rather than dividing their time between shooting and driving. They figured that there would be enough armed personnel in the car before…he had a Glock in his ankle holster. Also, a knife…it was lying on the dashboard with a towel-like thing over it."

She looked at Joey when he whistled. Cassie asked him what he knew. He shook his head and got up to get something out of the refrigerator. She noticed that they all did that, got into each other cabinets and refrigerators when they were over. While she wasn't used to it, she did like that they were all so comfortable with each other that they were good about stocking them so that people could feel at home.

"No one knows who he is. After dropping you and Brandley off with Daniel that day, he hung around a lot longer than anyone thought that he should have. When Wilhem showed up, the man disappeared. Along with the van too that he'd been driving. Four days later, it was found burnt on the inside with a body in the back. Without a name, it's been difficult to figure out who he is. But we're thinking, at least Wilhem and I are thinking that it was his body. His face had been smashed in as well as his hands and feet burnt too badly to get fingerprints or dental records. He's an unknown. And since you and Bradley had supposedly died, he was taken care of." She looked at the picture again, thinking about anything else that she could tell them about the man. "He had a gold tooth. It wasn't in the front but one of his eye teeth. On his right side as he was turning to me. I remember thinking, what would happen to it if he was killed."