7. Chapter Seven

7

Chapter Seven

Kieran

W e’re all congregating in the garage where I’m tuning my 2023 Yamaha R1. My eyes keep flicking over to my phone. She hasn’t texted me back. When I got home from collecting a few debts this morning and didn’t see them on the couch I decided to come out here to mess with my bike for a little bit. It wasn’t long until the other five found me out here and now we’re all sitting around and talking about any and every thing. All of our phones go off twice at the same time. We all look at each other before grabbing them. Pulling up the first notification to come through it’s a group text with the guard station at the top of the property.

G.S Matthews: A 2020 black Chevrolet Traverse just left the property. Vehicle was searched. Nothing of concern was found. Driver’s name was Brittany Mitchell. Please note she is not expecting to return.

What the fuck? Where is she going? Where is Rhett? Hearing a chorus of curses as we all collectively rush to the other text, it’s Brittany in a group chat with all six of us and her.

Brittany: I have left the property and have no intentions of returning. Feelings have been made clear today, and that’s fine. It’s your house and you guys deserve to be comfortable and fully trust who is in it. That being said, Rhett woke up and his migraine is gone. He’s in bed with Clara. The after effects can take awhile to subside but he should be fine in a few days. Clara, Rhett, and I will continue to meet up and see each other outside of the estate. You can run me off your property but try as you may, you cannot run me out of their lives. Thank you for letting me stay the night. -Brittany

*Brittany has removed herself from chat*

My eyes wheel around to all of them. My entire body tightens as rage fills me. I have to keep a lid on it though. They don’t know anything happened with us. They have no idea that she’s been running through my mind since the moment my eyes met hers.

Trying my hardest to be casual and disinterested, “Who pissed her off?” Rowan and Mac both look everywhere but at me. Forcing a laugh that I don’t feel I press, “Okay so Mac and Rowan. What’d you two do? Clara’s going to lose her shit on you both.”

Rowan huffs out an annoyed breath, “Okay, but she was trying to tell me stuff about Bear. Stuff I didn’t know. Which pissed me off. She was there when I wasn’t. I should have been there. I should have saved them, not her.”

Declan rolls his eyes, “You’re being a whiny bitch. You need to be thanking her. They’d still be with Preston, or dead if it wasn’t for her. But could you do that? No, you practically pissed on Clara and Rhett to mark your territory like a mongrel dog. And if that wasn’t enough you insinuated she needed to be watched if she was with Rhett alone.”

My brows hit my hairline, “You what? Dude that’s not fucking cool. That’s Clara’s best friend and you’re making your life so much harder by fighting with her instead of embracing her as one of us. Good luck talking to Clara. I’ll make sure there’s nice flowers at your funeral.”

He rolls his eyes, “Fuck off, she just got under my skin. I’ll make it right later.” He looks over to Mac, “What’d you do?”

Mac refuses to look at any of us keeping his eyes on the ground, “I—um— I may have threatened her.”

“WHAT?!” all of us yell at the same time. My fingers itch to grab my knife and shove it into his shoulder. I’ll put him on the fucking butchers hook for this.

Woah, where did that come from?

Mac’s my brother and my best friend. Family over everything. So why is my urge to shoot his fucking kneecaps out so strong right now?

Rowan roars out what I’m thinking, “You did what now? Explain right fucking now, Mac. If Clara finds out about this I’ll skin you alive.”

Mac rolls his eyes and looks at me. Once he realizes I’m also glaring daggers at him he starts talking. “She made a comment about how we act like she’s going to sneak Rhett out of here and flee the country. So I just let her know what would happen if she ever did try to take him without our permission.”

“You threatened to kill her? Are you fucking stupid? ”

I don’t realize I’m yelling as loud as I am until Clara busts through the door. “Are you talking about Britt? I’m sorry. That’s a stupid question. You guys aren’t talking about my best friend. There’s no way you’re talking about my best friend. Not the woman who cleaned my cuts and took care of my bruises during the time I got beat almost on a daily basis. The woman who has supported me and my son no matter what. I know I didn’t just hear MacQuillian say he threatened to murder the woman who helped me escape the seventh circle of Hell. Who has her own trauma that could rival the worst of a fucking true crime documentary.” She’s shouting so loud my ears ring, my heart beats in my temples, and my hand comes up to massage it. But my brain catches on that last sentence. A bone deep need to know her better, to find out what happened, forms. Clara must catch the move because her voice comes out quieter when she speaks again.

“Sorry Kieran, I didn’t mean to be that loud. I’m just worried about her. She’s left, she wont pick up her phone, and all I got was a text saying her feelings were hurt and something came up. She said she’ll reach out to me when she’s ready. We’ve never needed a break from each other before.” Her voice is unnaturally high like she’s panicking and about to cry. Before her sentence is complete Rowan has her in his arms and all of my brothers are avoiding looking at her, except me.

“She doesn’t need a break from you and Rhett. It’s from us. She loves you. She just needs a minute to process what Rowan and Mac said.”

Her eyes dart to Roe in a menacing glare. Well as menacing as she can muster up, “What did you say to her?”

He just shakes his head, “Well talk about it in a little while Pretty Girl, let’s go see if Bear is up to play.”

Rowan and Clara leave the garage, and I go back to ignoring everyone and focusing on what I’m doing. Once everyone catches my drift and leaves I grab my phone to shoot off a quick text to her.

Kieran: I just heard what happened. I’m sorry my brothers are idiots. Let me know you’re okay. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to, but I need to know you’re okay.

Right as I set my phone down on the cement ground it pings, grabbing it up, a smile takes over my face. She responded.

Brittany: It’s okay. I’m safe at home. Thank you for checking in on me, Mystery Man.

Kieran: Any time, Brave Girl. Down to snuggle tonight? I’ll come to you?

Brittany: It’s too soon. I need to be alone. Just give me some time, and then you can text me.

Understanding what she means, and not wanting to push her I send her a black heart emoji and finally set my phone down to finish up with my bike.

* * *

It’s been a few days since Britt left, and she’s not answering my messages except to tell me she’s alive and not ready. Rowan and Mac have both reached out to her but she hasn’t responded. She’s talking to Clara and face timing Rhett as far as I’ve been told, and everyone else has seemed to put the incident from a few days ago behind them. Well everyone but Clara, Dec, and I. My brain can’t even compute why they acted like that, we were raised better and they know it. Da would have gone toe to toe with them about it if he was here.

Rhett found me working out about an hour ago, so now I’m in my nephews room playing superheroes. I’m powerless to those puppy eyes and that pout. It’s how I stay the favorite, Rhett has me wrapped, he’s not even sorry about it. It just is the way it is. We’re setting up a new game, checking to make sure Gotham city is set up perfectly when his iPad starts ringing.

“Oh that’s Auntie!” He jumps up and runs to answer the face time. “Hi, Auntie.” He’s smiling ear to ear when he answers.

Her voice fills the room, and my chest with contentment, “Hey, baby! What are you doing? I miss you so much”

“Playing with Uncle Kie. Look!”

He shoves the iPad in my face, giving me a front row view of her gorgeous face. Her Strawberry blonde hair is thrown up in a messy bun on top of her head, pieces falling out and framing her delicate face. Her eyes, as stunning as always, look tired. Deep dark bags sitting below them. Giving her a reassuring smile, I stop gawking at her, “Hey, Brave Girl.”

She gives me a small smile, “Mystery Man. You’re looking good.”

My lips tip up in a lazy smirk, “I’d look even better if the girl with the pretty gray eyes that I’ve been texting would give me some attention.”

She laughs loudly, “Yeah, I’m sure you’re real put out over there.” My face breaks into a genuine smile. Her spunk makes me even more desperate to talk to her.

“Maybe she’ll take pity on me, she’s really killing me over here. But enough about me. How have you been?” Bear moves over to my lap looking at Britt like she hung the moon.

Same kid, same.

“Everything’s been great over here, better now that I called to talk to my sweet boy, and got a little extra surprise.” She tosses me a playful wink.

“We’re full of surprises over here, aren’t we Rhett?” Because I’m tickling his sides his agreement is more of a screech. Sensing that our time is over because Bear is grabbing for the iPad, I cut this short much to my dismay. “Well I’ll let you talk to Little Bear. He can’t stop talking about how much he misses you.”

“Yeah okay. Goodbye, Kieran.” She seems disappointed, but that doesn’t seem right, I must be projecting my own feelings here.

“Goodbye, Britt.” Standing up I kiss the top of Rhett’s head before ruffling his hair, waving to her on the iPad, and walking out. I’m going to be so fucking busy tomorrow. I’ve got things to prepare anyway. I’ll just do them now with this conversation on repeat in my head.

* * *

Rolling up my sleeves my patience is wearing extremely thin. “Come on Joe, stop playing with me. You either have my money or you don’t. Which one is it?”

Joe’s in his mid thirties, has a nasty gambling habit, and owes my family almost a million dollars. He’s had months to get it together but did he? No. I came to check on him and he was packing up his things to flee. So now he’s strapped to his kitchen chair with a split lip and bruised ribs.

“Come on Kieran, you know I wouldn’t run out on you. I just need a little longer.” He tries to plead with me.

This time I actually laugh out loud. “Be serious, dude. I caught you trying to sneak out. The only question here is am I taking a finger or are you paying up?”

“You know I don’t have a million to just give you.” He practically whimpers in fear.

Pulling my bolt cutters out of my book bag my eyes look into his, “Of course you don’t, because you either drank it, snorted it, or gambled it away. So I’m going to take your finger and you’re going to get me my money in the next thirty-six hours.” Without giving him time to respond I close the tool around his ring finger and shut the cutters.