Chapter 6

Edmond was happy for the time that he got to spend with his brothers. But he also wanted to go back home, find Mac, and take her back to bed. They’d had so much fun. Not funny fun but seriously good fun over the last few days that he couldn’t help but find himself singing. He tried very hard not to do it around his brothers.

“You’re being foolish again. And if you don’t wipe that sappy smile off your face, I’m going to beat you until you’re nothing left but a pile of fur.” Edmond looked at his brother, Devlin, but didn’t ask what was on his mind. “Just don’t. All right? I don’t want to hear how you’re in so much love that you can’t leave the house and that spending time with us isn’t working out for you.”

“What’s up your ass? He’s here, isn’t he?” It wasn’t him that asked but he was glad that Ivan had. “You’ve been picking and bitching since I picked you up. Tell us, or I’m really going to beat you until you’re not even good enough for a pillow.”

“Where is Lica? Tell me that.” Edmond thought that there was more going on than him just being a prick right now. “When Brandy calls, we all jump to her bidding. Well, I’ve decided that I’m going to walk to my own drummer. You fuckers can do what she wants, but I’m going to branch out on my own and make my own cash.”

“If you don’t tell me what’s wrong with you, I’m going to tell Brandy what you said. And you’ll make her cry. Again. She’s breeding, and you’ve made her cry three times in the last week. I don’t know how much more that Lica can take of you doing that, but I’m willing to just skip over the part where you explain and beat the shit out of you because I can.” Guy stood up and towered over Ayden. “Spill it, or I’m going to spill you all over this nice clean floor.”

“I don’t fucking want to meet my mate. All right? Look at him. He’s sitting there wishing that he was anywhere but with me. Us.” Everyone turned to look at him, and he shrugged. “Don’t give me that shit. I saw the way you looked at Mac when she dropped you off. You’d rather be with her.”

“You’re making it so that none of us want to be with you. What the fuck, Ayden? Do you need a vacation? Lica said that you were working yourself too hard.” Ayden asked him why they were talking about him. “Because, shithead, we’re worried about you. I’m seriously thinking of taking you to see a head doctor to see if you’ve gotten a knot in your noodle. Tell us, or I’m going to leave. I don’t need this kind of shit going on when I just want to chill out and spend some time with you guys. Do you remember why Lica isn’t here? This is the day that Brandy has her ultrasound. He told us that last week and the week before how he wasn’t going to miss that and wanted us to change—you’re the one who told him it would be fine. That he’d better be bringing us back some pictures of the little guy.”

“I forgot.” They all snorted at Ayden, and then he looked around the table. Edmond thought that there was still more to whatever was up his ass and was, like the others, just grateful to be with his brothers. “What do you have to say for yourself? Mac going to be carting your ass around all the time too?” He’d been wrong in thinking that Ayden was in a better mood now.

“No.” He had to count to ten twice before he trusted himself to speak. “I also told you that she was going to go and pick up her new car today. Since mine was here first, she’s going to go there, and one of the drivers on the lot is going to bring my car back here. So that I could be here with you, whiney ass.”

Ayden stood up so quickly that he felt his wolf race over his skin. He could feel him there as if he was ready for whatever his brother did. Edmond stood up, too, slower and put both his hands up to make sure that Ayden didn’t try and hurt him. He knew that in the mood he was in right now, he would tear him apart. Not kill him, but to hurt him badly.

“Sit down and cool the fuck off before I toss the lot of you out of here on your fucking ears. You’re scaring the kids here. And you’re not doing so good with my fear either. Sit the fuck down.” Ayden sat down. Hard, like the woman standing there, he didn’t know her name had a bit of alpha in her. “Now, order or don’t, but you’re not going to take up my best table with your bickering like five-year-olds. I have two at home right now, and I believe they have better manners than you do.”

They each mumbled that they were sorry, and she didn’t seem to like that either. Smacking the back of Ayden’s head, he really was the cause of all this. She pointed her pen at them as she dressed them down. Christ, he wondered if Brandy or Mac had taken lessons from her.

“Now, this is the way it’s going to be. You’re going to order something to eat before I drag you out of here, and you’re going to eat it, every morsel. I don’t care if you have to puke it down in the bathroom but I don’t want to have to buss this table only to find out that you’ve made a mess under the table as well.” She hit Ayden again. “You’re lucky to have family here with you, moron. You have been bitching a great deal. Now order. And so help me, if you don’t leave me a reasonable tip, I’m going to hunt each of you down and make you eat it. Are we clear on that?”

They each gave her their order, and she took it, even going so far as to ask them questions that would need to be asked, like what sort of dressing did they want. Was there something that they wanted on the side? By the time she walked away, they were all sitting up a little straighter and making sure that they were as polite as they could be. She was fucking scary.

When she brought their drinks, each of them helping her steady the tray that looked as heavy as she was, she told them her name was Summer and that she was sorry for busting their chops. Instead of them telling her that it was all right, Ayden stood up. None of them moved when he told her how sorry he was and put money in her apron. That seemed to have pissed her off more than them bitching.

“I don’t want your money, dipshit. I didn’t do anything to deserve it. Just sit down and tip me at the end like you’re supposed to.” She shoved the money, which looked like a hundred-dollar bill, into Ayden’s shirt pocket before she left them again.

No one said anything for several minutes. Edmond thought that they were waiting on Ayden. He was older than his other brothers by about a year, but he didn’t want to set him off again. Waiting for him to raise his head seemed impossibly long, but when he did, he had tears in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry.” None of them told him that it was all right. It wasn’t, but he was their brother, and they’d do anything for any one of them. He knew that he would. “I’ve been house hunting like the rest of you were, and I was hit on with every person that, Christ, guys, men were hitting on me. I don’t have a problem with how they hang, but he’d embarrassed me so badly that I left the house I was looking at for fear of what he’d do to me. It’s the money. They don’t want us. They want what they think we have being related to Brandy.”

“Gee, thanks.” Everyone laughed at him but for Ayden. “Look, I know what you mean. It’s like…I told you guys about Mac’s grandma, didn’t I? All she cares about is how much she can get out of Mac and me before she keels over. That’s in her mind, too. That we’re going to somehow have this amazing bank account with a lot of zeros in it and that’s going to be their ticket. To what? I have no idea, but it’s out there, and I’m afraid of it. I think that from now on, we go in packs to look around. I’ll be willing to lend you Mac, too. You know that she’ll not put up with anything. She told me the other day that she only tolerates me so that she can have normal brothers. She actually thinks that you guys are normal. I have no idea where she gets that information but there you have it.”

“The other day, I was met at my office with my cleaning lady’s daughter, naked, guys. She was standing there like she had better things to do than to hang out with me, but she was willing to do all the stuff I wanted. Stuff? Christ, that was scary as fuck.” Guy looked around the room and told them that they should watch their language with the kids being around. They all agreed, and Guy continued. “I had to call the police to get her out of my office. Of course, I was so taken aback that I couldn’t look them in the face. Or I don’t know, they were embarrassed for me. But I don’t want that kind of life either.”

By the time their food came, they were all in a much better mood. Especially Ayden. He’d had a rough time of it lately. In working with Brandy, being her undercover man, so to speak, he’d been at a restaurant that had been—even to think about it made him a little ill—they were serving human meat instead of the things that were being bought for the restaurant, which they were selling off for more cash. Ayden hadn’t been able to eat anything that might bleed onto his plate, and red meat was out of the question. Edmond didn’t blame him one bit for that, either.

The rest of them, including him worked for Brandy and Lica too. A couple of days ago he’d been sent some paperwork on nine buildings in the next town over. He was to go there and inspect them. For wall standability. If they had electric as well as what the voltage that it could take. He’d never known that there was so much that a person had to look at to simply purchase a building. It had made him a little more aware of the buildings that he went into as well, like the one that were sitting in now. There was so much going on with it that he would have recommended tearing it down. But he loved the old place. It had a lot of good memories for him.

After their food mess was taken away, he sat with his brothers until Lica came in with Brandy. She was getting so big—not that he’d say that to her. But she seemed to shine with her new status as being a mom soon. When she told them that she was leaving, they all moved over for her to be with them as they went over the pictures.

“He’s a boy, just as Mac told me. I’m so excited.” She pointed out things on the pictures that he wouldn’t have been able to tell you what they were. But she was excited and it made them so as well. When Summer came back, she asked if she could see the pictures too and was excited with them. “I’ve got a bit to go yet. But you can’t believe how excited I am right now.”

“I have me two-five year olds at home with my husband. Every day, I look at them and think to myself, I made that. I have trouble wrapping my head around that at times, too.” Summer handed the pictures back to Brandy and smiled at the table. “I’m glad to see that the five of you have gotten your crap together. I’m sorry for yelling at you before, but you were making a huge ruckus when there was no need for it.”

As they left, he had to laugh a little to himself when he noticed that they hadn’t stiffed her at all on the tip. There was at least five hundred dollars there as well as a couple of twenties. It made him feel good that he was a part of a great family.

Once he was outside, he turned to face the sun and let it warm him to his bones. It was chilly out. They’d been remarking on that for days now. The trees were nearly all turned now. The sound of them crunching under his feet made him happy. Also, for the first time in their lives, they were going to have a big family holiday. Thanksgiving and Christmas were holidays that he’d never looked forward to before. However, this year? He was about as excited as he’d ever been.

“What are your plans for the day?” He smiled at Ayden and told him that he was free if he was. “I am. I want to make it up to you, too, for making fun of you being in love. I’m jealous, I think. That you have something so wonderful, more than I could hope for in a mate, and I’m sitting on the sidelines just waiting for it to happen to me.” He looked hurt before turning away.

“What is it? Tell me so that I can help you out of the jam or whatever it is that you need for me to do.” He told him it was nothing and started away. The two of them were still standing in front of the little diner as they spoke. “It is something. Tell me before I have to wrap you up in my web and figure it out on my own. It would be a good deal less funny to me if you were just to tell me.”

“All right. When that woman, Summer, came to the table and yelled at us, all I could think about was having her in my bed. Not very smart of my first thought about her, but that’s what I wanted. Then she said she had two kids at home. Again, my heart was singing when I realized I actually knew that I was not going to be a good dad to them. But she has a husband.” It took him all of three seconds to realize what his brother was saying. He asked him if what he thought was true. “Yes. But she’s also married with those two children. And I know that I can go in there, kill off her husband so that I can be there for her. Seems to take away from the fact that we’re mates. Don’t you think?”

“Then we’ll ask her if she’s happy.” Ayden just stared at him. “All right. As soon as I said it, I knew that it was wrong. But there is something that we’re missing here. Maybe they really aren’t happy.”

“Stop it, goof. She’s married and therefore—” Edmond turned to see what his brother was looking at. It was Summer.

“Did either one of you idiots drive here?” Ayden said that he did. “Good. Please, I need for you to—” She let out several calming breaths. It didn’t seem to make her any less intense, but he wanted to help her as she struggled with it. “I need a ride to my house. I’ve already called the police so I would like to…I need to get there before the police. They won’t allow me in if they’re there first.”

“Your husband or your children?” She didn’t voice her answer but did nod at him. As they made their way to the parking lot, she didn’t seem to mind him going along, so Edmond got into the back seat. Whatever was going on, he was going to be there for his brother.

“I need for you all to meet me at Fourteen Zero Seven, Chestnut Street. I don’t know what’s going on, but something has our waitress stressed out.” He put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze. The other brothers, including Mac and Brandy, said that they were on their way. “Good. Thank you. The police are on their way, so if one of you could go in and check on the husband and children, again, I don’t know what’s going on, I’ll be ever so grateful.”

Each of them said that they were on their way again. Ayden was asking questions of Summer, if she knew what was going on or did someone call her. Anything to get information without shaking her. He could tell that Ayden wanted to shake the need out of her, but he was talking to her as calmly as he supposed that he could.

“My neighbor called telling me that there was screaming coming from my place. She didn’t know if it was the girls or not playing in the backyard. She just wanted them to stop.” Summer was soft but continued. “She actually has asked me not to let the herd, my children, out when she’s trying to have a card party. Stupid woman. Doesn’t she understand that, firstly, they’re not cows, so there is no herd. Secondly, they’re playing as children do.”

“What made it different this time for her to call you?” Summer looked at him like she’d never seen him before. “It’s all right if you don’t know. We’ll be there for you anyway.”

“Selma, Selma and Harley, short for Harlequin, said that they didn’t want to stay with their dad today. That the last time he was watching them, he’d not fed them, nor had he let them out of their room. I thought that I could trust him.” She looked out the window of the car as they drove by several houses on her street. “That’s a lie. I was desperate, and I needed to work. So I called and asked him, and he said he’d do that. But I had to pay him. Pay him? Like they’re not his children as well.”

As soon as they pulled into the driveway, Summer was out and running to the house. It was Brandy that caught her, telling her that she couldn’t go in and that it was going to be a police crime scene. The harder she fought with Brandy, the more Brandy was determined not to allow her in.

“My daughters are in there, you fucking bitch. Let me pass.” Brandy told Summer that the girls were fine, but she’d told them not to move. “What do you mean, not to move? If they’re fine, then they need to come out here and come to me. Where is their father? Gilbert? Where is he?”

“Dead.”

~*~

Mac kept an eye on Summer. Mac had only been back for about half an hour when the all-help message had hit her. Running to the house, their house closer than anyone else’s, she was there in time to see that the little ones were all right, but Gilbert was dying. He’d not yet taken his last breath.

“Are you sure that they’re all right?” She told the woman, for about the fifth time that they were, that no one would harm them while she was there. “That other woman, she told me that Gilbert was dead. How does she know that? I’d very much like to beat her right now, but I don’t think it would do any of us any good.”

“I know how you feel. She makes me want to punch her in her face several times a day.” That was untrue, but it made Summer smile a little. “When I got here, I only live about two houses down from here on the next street over. He was still alive. It was doubtful to me that he’d had long to go, but I asked him who had killed him. The little girls, who are a great deal more calm than their mom is right now told me what happened. I can tell you what they said to me, but the police asked me not to. Until they can talk to the girls.”

“No, don’t. I think that it would tear me apart to know that they had seen him killed. I also have a feeling that it had a great deal to do with the way he lives when not at the house. He’s my ex-husband, by the way. I only tell men that we’re married because it keeps other men from hitting on me. Not that anyone would want to take on a mentally unstable mom of two because of the things that Gilbert did to the three of us.”

“Harley is the calmest. She’s the one that spoke to me. Selma was there as well, standing in the living room with her sister. They’re beautiful, by the way.” Summer thanked her. “Is that enough for now, or are you going to need more to be this calm?”

“I don’t know, to be honest.” When Summer looked around, so did Mac. “That man there, the one that you told me was your husband, is he all right? Today, when they were all in the restaurant, he seemed a bit on edge. I might have taken my bad mood out on the five of them.”

“He’s all right now. I think that he’d like to come over and sit with you. I know that it would calm you both down.” She only nodded, and she asked Ayden to come and be with Summer. “I’m going to check on things for you both. As soon as I know anything, I’ll let you guys know. But I swear on my love for Edmond, your children are perfectly fine.”

The police were waiting for the coroner’s office to come and get what they could from the crime scene. Mac, along with Edmond, knew what had happened in the house. The moment that she walked through the door, everything, even to the smallest detail, was there for her to see. Edmond too.

Gilbert had been sitting on the couch having a nap, and the girls were locked into their bedroom. Not on his side but on their own. That was going to take some explaining to Summer when she was able to see them. Why would they have their father locked out of their rooms? Since she’d never touched the girls, she couldn’t tell yet. But she did know what had happened to Gilbert.

There were three men in the living room when shots were fired. The men were there to talk to Gilbert about his recent dips into their territory. Selling drugs in someone else’s established market was a big no-no, she knew. But he was doing more than that, and the men were there to talk to him about it.

Gilbert was running drugs through Summer’s house, using a post office box that he’d set up as her place to get mail as a drop point. Also, he would run his stable of women for prostitution while using his ex-wife’s computer. Summer was unaware of it, but her daughters knew.

The girls were afraid to tell their mom for fear of their father. He’d threatened them with certain death and worse yet to sell them off to the highest bidder. Mac had a feeling that he’d do it too. The man was forever out for himself and didn’t give a shit about the two little ones that used to depend on him when they were little. Not anymore. Not for a long time, either.

Officer Capshaw came to find her when she was standing at the door waiting for him. He only shook his head when he came out of the house. Behind him, she could see the little girls. They were being helped by a female officer out of their clothing and into a scrub shirt that was way too large for them.

As soon as they were dressed, they ran out of the house to their mom. Mac felt their love all the way across the yard to where she was standing. She looked at Capshaw when he cleared his throat.

“I’m not even going to ask you how you knew to look for the other men. You were right. They’re all dead. Gilbert got off a few shots of his own. I will have nightmares for the rest of my life when I think about how close those bullets going through the door got to those little ones.” He eyed her with a frown on his face. “How did you know that this was going on in the first place?”

She told him that Ayden and Edmond were at the restaurant when Summer needed help. He nodded and then asked about the girls. Shaking her head, she told him she wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“I’m sure you do, but I’m going to leave that alone. For now. So long as nothing comes back to bite me in the balls about it.” She assured him, like assuring the mom, told him that he was not going to be bitten by any of it. “Gilbert has a list of crimes that are longer than I am standing up. I guess the Feds were looking for him about a month ago, and he sort of skipped around until they left him here. I’m not saying that there would be fewer deaths had they really looked. There are three men off the lists of most wanted right now, and I’m happy with the results.”

“I think that a great many people will be.” He nodded and watched with her the reunion between a mother and her kids. “She’s Ayden’s mate. Or his? I’m not sure how they say that. The girls couldn’t be any safer so long as he has breath in his body. Not to mention, they’ll grow up not to be so terrified of every little thing. You know all of us well enough that we’ll keep the three of them safe as well.”

“You keep saying that. Like you know there is going to be trouble. Do you?” She told him that she didn’t, not anymore. “I’m not sure what that means either but I’m too overwhelmed right now to chase you down about it. Just tell me when something like this is going to happen, and I’ll be as happy as I’ve ever been.”

After talking, she made her way to Edmond. He was standing guard over the little family, and she was glad that someone was. Once one of the officers came to talk to Ayden and Summer, Edmond followed her to the furthest away car.

“It’s all gone.” She nodded at him, and he smiled at her. “I have to tell you, I’m sort of sad about that. It was neat knowing that I could use my green spider shit and wrap people up. It was like it was there for us to use just the one time then it just faded away. I even asked Lica about the stuff we shared with him. He didn’t know what I was talking about. Is that the way it was supposed to work, you think?”

“Yeah, I do.” Mac looked up at the man of her dreams. “You know what happened in there, don’t you? What I had to do?” He nodded and kissed her on the mouth.

“How do you feel about being able to save a life the way that I had. There were shots fired directly at the officer that day, right into his head. Had I not been there to wrap him up in that vine stuff, he would have surely died. The same way with Harlequin, too, I’m guessing.”

She smiled at him when he asked her if she’d killed Gilbert. “Yes. He was holding his daughter hostage when I arrived. The bad guys had already been shot up and left. Gilbert thought that I was the police coming in. He wasn’t going to jail, he told me. To which I thought was a wonderful idea. So he fired right into her head. Once I got her wrapped up and put into the bedroom with her sister who was still alive as well, I took care of him.” Edmond asked her if she thought he should know how she’d done that. “No. Let’s just say what they saw in there is nothing at all as to what the living room looked like when she was finished with him.”

“And the girls?” She told him that Selma had been lying in her doorway with a bullet to her head, and she’d been able to heal her quickly. But it had taken her a bit longer, and that was why Harley had been hurt, too. “Do you think that there will be any kind of payback? For keeping the girls alive? I mean, they, whoever it was that gave us this, they’re not going to make us choose someone else to die because of what we’d done here today?”

“No. I believe, and this is really hard to believe that you and I were chosen to do this deed for the families of those saved. At some point? I don’t know. Maybe we’ll be around long enough to see what purpose they were to serve because we saved them both.