12. Ryanne “Shorty” Larwick

12

RYANNE "SHORTY" LARWICK

I wandered around the burnt-out space while Khadri spoke with Boswell. Apparently, they'd given Boss the case. I knew what was going to happen. They were going to find whoever Sloan hired to start the fire, and they were going to make him suffer.

The truth was, I felt a little sorry for the person.

I was using the tip of my shoes to dig through a lump on the floor in what Khadri said used to be the main bar when something caught my attention. I grabbed a piece of wood from the floor and found it looked to be some kind of I.D card.

"Um—Khadri?" I called, using my bare hand to clear the much away. "I think I found something!"

Their heavy footsteps stormed through the space and soon, their powerful presence was hunching down beside me. Shifting a little, I handed it to Khadri.

"Is he one of yours?" I asked.

Khadri shook his head.

I glanced over to Boss who took the card from Khadri to take a picture of it before handing it back.

"He isn't one of—wait a second—" Boss scrolled his phone. "He isn't one of Sloan's thugs either. Apparently, he's a part of a local gang. They're up and coming, but still dangerous. I think he did this for the money—and has no idea what he stepped into."

"That won't save him." Khadri stood.

"I'll send you the location." Boss promised.

"That's not a good idea, is it?" I asked. "How is this going to end well?"

Boss ignored me.

I have to go back to the station." Boss spoke. "Are you going to be good?"

"I'll be fine."

"Moros—I'm serious." I spoke up again.

The anger about the place burning was still fresh. It emanated off Khadri like a beacon in the night. I couldn't blame him but even I knew going into something so dangerous just so angry was never a good course of action.

"He'll be fine because I'm going with him." I told Boss.

"No." Khadri barked.

"Someone has to keep you in check." I lifted my chin. "And I know the rule, stay close to you, let you do the talking. Does that cover it?"

Khadri sighed his frustration then turned to look at Boss who shrugged.

"Don't look at me," he said. "I got no say here."

Khadri's muscular shoulders rose and fell before he turned for the door.

I winked at Boss and jogged after Khadri.

Where we wound up was unexpected. It seemed like a nice part of town, with quaint little shops and diners. Health-conscious people jogged to and fro with their high breed dogs and others popped in and out of juice bars.

I leaned forward to get a better look then tilted my head.

"Are you sure about this?" I asked.

"We're about to find out." Khadri spoke.

The truck was barely off before he was climbing out and making his way to the back of the truck. I scrambled out just in time to see him pulling a shotgun from what looked like a toolbox strapped down into the bed of the truck.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed, holding up my palms. "No! Bad God of Doom! Bad!"

He frowned at me, stepped around my body and stormed off toward the one place on the entire street that looked like something out of the ghettos.

The building was strangely standing on its own with black walls covered in what looked to be professional graffiti.

It was the kind of graffiti someone had paid to have added to the wall.

But that didn't stop Khadri.

"I'm looking for Anthony James." Khadri shouted through the door.

No one spoke—I didn't think anyone looked up.

This is one of those places, I see.

I shifted my frame behind Khadri as he lifted his arm, pumped the gun and I covered my ears. Still, I could hear the loud boom and the sharp shatter of glass.

"Uh!" Khadri spoke. "Put it down or get a new hole to breathe out of."

There was a clatter before he fired again, and someone screamed in pain.

"What I want is simple—" He spoke again. "Anthony James."

When I peered around his body, a slender man at the end of the bar yanked a shanking man from one of the stools and shoved him forward.

"You're doing this to me?" The man from the ID card asked the skinny man.

"Listen, I told you," The skinny man replied. "I opened this place to have somewhere to drink. I don't want no smoke. This is how I feed my kids, man. And somehow you pissed off the God of impending doom. You're on your own."

Khadri towered over the man on the floor, caught him by the back of his shirt and dragged him, kicking and screaming out the door.

Awkwardly, I offered the few others in the room, including the bartender who was bleeding from a busted up hand, a small smile and a wave before stepping outside again.

Khadri tossed the screaming man into the bed of the truck, closed the covering over him and motioned for me to get into the truck.

"Kidnapping is a felony, you know?" I asked as he pulled the truck from the curb.

"You could have gone home." He didn't even glance at me. "You had that option."

"I didn't know you were going to kidnap a man!"

"I didn't go there to kidnap him." Khadri's voice was hard. "I went there to kill him. But I'm going to give him a chance he didn't give me. I'm going to give him a bit of a reprieve before I put a bullet between his eyes."

"Khadri you can't?—"

"Don't tell me what I can't do," he snapped at a redlight. "You don't know how these men operate. They take as much rope as you'll give them and they keep coming. If I let him go, when he comes back, anything that happens becomes my fault. Do you understand?"

His eyes scared me.

But I understood what he meant.

"But maybe hand him over to Boss when you're done."

"We'll see." He muttered turning to face forward again.

It was less than an hour later when Anthony broke. I stood outside the door listening to his cries of pain. I didn't want to see what was happening. The truth was, I was already having trouble sleeping at nights, witnessing torture would no doubt make it worse.

As I fondled the pendant sitting on my chest, wondered what he thought he was accomplishing by not just telling Khadri what he needed to know.

He stepped through the door on phone with Boss, asking for someone to come get Anthony.

"Is he alive?" Boss' voice was crisp over the line.

"Depends on who you ask." Khadri hung up.

I was losing myself in the midst of all of this. But then again, as I sat on the deck of the pool wit my feet in the water, I ached to go for a swim.

Still, I remained there, swaying my legs back and forth, loving the coolness and the soft resistance that forced me to add a little muscle in the movements.

I didn't see Anthony after Khadri had dragged him into that room. But he was moaning in pain when Khadri left him and while I wanted to ask about what had happened, I didn't.

Did that make me a coward?

Complicit?

Evil?

I sighed.

"Today was a lot for you, I can tell." Pasha's voice was soft, empathetic.

Turning, she was extending a can of beer to me.

I looked up to see she was dressed as she always was—to the nines, looking like the best thing to grace any magazine cover.

"A peace offering." She tried again to hand me the beer.

I smiled, accepted and pried it open.

She hiked up her pencil skirt and sat with her legs in the water beside me.

"Did he scare you?" Pasha asked.

I nodded after another swallow of cold beer.

"Good." Pasha replied.

"How is this good? How is any of this good? It's just a building, Pash."

"To you." Pasha lifted her gaze to the darkening sky. "Aside from the money, Khadri has nothing from his parents. No legacy, no history—nothing. And for a while, it hurt. He joined the military looking for a family—a kinship that he never had with anyone outside of it. And what he found was darkness and more demons."

I drank more of the beer as she finally opened hers and drank long from the can.

"When he came back, he could have taken any number of paths." Pasha continued. "He could have let the dark break him."

"You think he's not broken now?" I was incredulous.

"Depends on who you ask." Pasha replied in an as-a-matter-of-factly voice. "But he could have let the things he's experience keep him always in that broken head. He could have gone astray and turned to crimes like so many others who come back and not get the help they needed. Instead, he channeled his pain and his energy into creating Musk. Into building it until it's this tower of elegance in the city. A money-making machine. And then this idiot comes and lights all those dreams and hopes on fire."

I hung my head.

"That's the equivalent—Musk is Khadri's Daisy."

"Daisy?" I asked.

"John Wick's dog?" Pasha asked as if I'd just asked the dumbest question ever.

"John Wick?" I arched a brow. "Is that another one of his military buddies?"

Pasha turned to look at me as if I'd sprouted horns.

"Really?" She asked.

I blinked.

"You don't know who John Wick is?"

I shook my head.

Pasha sighed and shook her head. "Moros needs to do a better job in picking his girls."

"Now, you listen to me?—!"

Pasha laughed.

She tossed her head back, her tightly held ponytail brushing down almost to her ass and laughed.

Hell, even her laughter was sexy.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"I'm not—" She panted. "Listen, John Wick is a Keanu Reeves character."

I couldn't remember the last time I watched a movie.

"He was a hitman who did this task to get out of the life for the woman he loves." Pasha explained, excitedly. "Then a few years after he's settled into his life, his wife dies—cancer or some shit."

"Of course."

"Before she die, she set it up that they bring him this dog she'd adopted for him so he wouldn't be alone." Pasha paused to roll her eyes to the sky thoughtfully then to look at me again. "I think it was a beagle named Daisy—not important."

I wondered where this was going.

"After she passes, a group of idiots tries buying his car. He declines. They follow him home, tries to kill him and winds up killing his dog."

"Poor Daisy."

"Yeah. This movie is basically about a man merc-ing a bunch of stupid punks because they killed his dog."

"They deserve it." I finished my beer and set the can beside my ass on the deck. "And you think this is what's happening with Khadri? He's avenging Daisy."

"Pretty much."

I sighed.

Silence rang around us except for the soft music through the leaves of the trees to the right of the property.

"He's a good man, Rya." Pasha explained. "He's just been through some things and trusting people isn't high on his list right now. I don't know if it'll ever be."

"Why didn't the two of you—well, you know?"

Pasha chuckled then sipped.

"It never really crossed my mind." Pasha replied softly. "The moment he stepped into my life I became his Nong. "

"Nong? I-I'm sorry. I don't know what?—"

"It's how you address someone who's younger than you in Thailand." Pasha explained. "I'm his Nong —his little sister."

"You call him Phi…"

"Yeah—"

"How you address someone who's older than you?"

"Bingo!" Pasha cheered. "As much as you don't want to see his dark side, I can guarantee you that showing it to you is his greatest shame. He likes you. I can tell. No matter how badly he tries hiding it, I can still tell. And because of that, having you see him like this, hurts. But he can't help it. When you're safe and gone back to your life, he's going to be left with nothing. And that's going to break him."

"Maybe the people at the homes were right." I hung my head.

"About what?"

"I'm a jinx." I admitted. "You got anymore beers out here?"

Pasha shook her head.

"You're not a jinx." Pasha assured me. "You're not cursed."

"What would you call it?"

"Life?" Pasha shrugged. "It's a little more—well, fast and furious than most but it's still life, lifing. But it won't always be this hard."

"Can you give me a date when life is supposed to start playing fair?"

Pasha chuckled.

"Hate to break it to you, Phi." She lifted her beer to her red lips. "It doesn't."

I grunted.

"You two should come inside." Khadri called from the back door. "We found something."

When we were settled in the living room, Tex on the big screen to the side and a picture of an elderly man hugging an elderly woman sat on the screen.

"Who are they?" Pasha asked.

"Um—Shorty, you should sit." Tex drawled.

I quirked a brow. "This really is a thing now, right?"

Tex winked at me.

I blushed.

"Hey!" Khadri called.

"Cool it, Doom." Tex smirked. "I'm not after your girl."

I blushed harder.

"You asked a question, Shorty." Tex was all business again. "This is Morgana and Theodore Larwick."

I blinked and exchanged a look with Pasha.

"I'm s-sorry—what?"

"These are your grandparents." Khadri explained.

"I heard you the first fucking time!" I barked, fighting back the tears. "They're dead, right? There's no way they're alive and didn't want me."

"I'm sorry, love." Tex's voice was sad. "They're alive."

I hung my head as my legs began shaking. Falling backward, Pasha moved quick as lightening to catch me. When Khadri approached her, she eased me into his chest. He carried me to the sofa.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Really?" I managed.

"Look, Ryanne," Tex said. "I know this is a lot. But there has to be some kind of explanation. They live in Jamaica—and from what I can see, they've never been to Canada."

"Then how did my father get here?" I wanted to know.

"Right." Khadri whispered, his beard comforting against my forehead. "We're still finding things out. Now, your grandfather doesn't seem to have a passport which means even if they wanted to, he couldn't come into the country."

"I have to speak with them." Ryanne told me.

"I know, Shorty." Khadri eased back to tip my chin up. "We're going to have to go to them."

"That's out of the question." I muttered.

I couldn't even fathom how much a last-minute ticket to Jamaica would cost—and then add food, travel on the island and accommodation.

"It feels like I'm taking one step forward, ten steps back." I turned to push my face into his neck. "Could you just?—"

I remembered we weren't alone and sat away from him.

"So, what now?" I asked. "I can't get on a plane. I don't even have a job."

"How about you not worry about it?" Khadri asked. "I got this."

He leaned in to whisper into my ear.

"You can add it to your tab."

Shaking my head, I smacked his thigh.

"I'm serious." I pointed out.

But a look into his eyes told me, so was he.

"This will give me an excuse to see you in a swimsuit." Khadri whispered to me. "Correction—a bikini, if you will."

"You can't mean—" I paused to look around.

Pasha and Tex were watching us intently.

"Um—" Pasha blushed. "It was naughty, wasn't it? What he said."

She fanned herself dramatically with her fingers.

"I need you to focus." Tex told her. "The jet will be ready at Armada Air Field tomorrow at nine at night. It's going to be about six hours, so you can sleep on board. I'll have information for accommodations and the like when you board."

"Wait—wait." I held up a hand to pause things while closing my eyes for a second. "What just happened?"

Pasha leaned over to brace a palm to my thigh closest to her.

"I guess you're going bikini shopping," Pasha said. "I know what he likes—I'll take you."

My cheeks flushed.

"You're just as bad as him!" I pointed to Khadri while looking toward Tex for help.

"Don't look at me." He smirked, typing away. "I take every chance I get to see my lady in a bikini. So, I can't even blame Moros."

"Tex, you—!" I tried to chastise him.

"Toodles!" Tex waved.

The screen went black.

"Toodles?" Pasha and I chorused.

"If you're going shopping, do it now." Khadri stood, pulling out his wallet.

He handed me a black card with gold lettering and shoved his wallet back into his pocket. He also handed me his cell phone.

"Get what you need—including the bikini." He leaned down to stare into my eyes. "My favourite colour is red and the tinier the better."

"Why don't I just walk around naked?" I rolled my eyes.

Khadri stopped, licked his lips then sighed.

"Even better." He cooed. "But then what would I?—"

"I can't take your credit card." I blurted out before he could say something else to make me blush more.

When I tried handing it back, Pasha yanked it from my fingers.

"Yes, you can!" She cheered, taking my hand and tugging me after her. "Let's go! We have a lot to do and very little time to do it in!"

She paused to kiss his right cheek as he stuck his left to me.

Without thinking, I kissed it before Pasha was yanking me after her again.

"Love you!" She hollered over a shoulder. "Byeeee!"