Mackie's Men (20 page)

Darryl got up and rinsed his cup, and addressed the room in general. “I think I’ll see if telling the old man that he gets nothing, and his snot nosed brats get nothing when I die, changes his plans. In fact, maybe I’ll tell him I’m leaving everything to the overseas relatives that hate his guts almost as much as I do. He can argue familial status then, but those people could buy and sell all of us and it wouldn’t put a dent in the checkbook.”

John left shortly after the coffee klatch broke up, and since Darryl had left the room to deal with his father, that left her and Liam sitting at the table. Liam put the furball on the floor and looked at her with a smile.

“I have the day off, so what would you like to do? I can imagine how strange this setup is, so maybe you just want to veg for the day and hang out. Or we can take the four-wheelers down to the trails and commune with nature. It’s too cold to skinny dip in the lake, but it’s a beautiful spot, very peaceful and private.” He stood to put his cup in the sink, and added, “I’m dying to know all about you, because you are a woman with secrets, and I like secrets, as long as I’m in on them. I have to make a call, but why don’t we meet back here in half an hour and you can tell me what we’re doing today?”

He gave her a smile, but it was the determined look in his eyes when he’d mentioned her secrets that bothered her. The man was no dummy. He’d probably ordered a full report on her the minute he’d remembered her name. She knew exactly what the records showed, and it was entirely statistics. High school and up into the past few years hiring out as security. She had a good reputation for doing her job, but personal matters were noticeably absent. Not that she had a private life to worry about, still, if she had one, she would do her damndest to keep it private
. Screw it, you don’t have to tell him a damn thing. It’s not like you had a choice back then, and now you have the choice to tell or not tell about Texas.

She washed the coffee carafe and put the cups in the dishwasher before deciding to explore the house a bit more. Maybe she would decide what she wanted to do for the day while she was snooping. She was used to men, but not in a situation like this was. Why did life have to be so complicated anyway?

Darryl was ready to pinch the old man’s head off at the neck, and he didn’t bother to involve the other men in this, it was time to demonstrate that he would back up his words. The man actually called him a few names and threatened his “fuck buddies” if he didn’t pony up some cash. By “some cash” he’d rattled off his needed amount of, “Two hundred thousand dollars, and you and your fuck buddies can carry on with whatever it is you do.”

Enough was enough, he would stop this today, and the old man could go straight to hell. He thought about texting Liam, but decided the man deserved to have Mackie to himself for a few hours, and his mission with the old fucker wouldn’t take much time. The Harley started and he felt the satisfaction of knowing the powerful bike was intimidating to his father. The man had always been deathly afraid of motorcycles after his best friend had been killed by a woman who’d been drinking and driving while he was driving past the side street that she pulled out from without seeing the biker. Darryl had been forbidden to purchase a bike until he was old enough to go on his own to buy one. This bike was purchased the summer his mother had died, and he kept it in perfect shape.

He pulled the bike into the circular driveway and was disappointed to see four vehicles in the parking area, but he wasn’t going to leave, no, this would be finished today. The front door was ajar and opened when he put his knuckles to the wood. He stepped inside of the door and waited for some sign that people were there.

A muffled sound from directly across the entrance hall gave him a direction to go and he slowly walked along the dirty area rug lining the wide passage. The voices from the other side of the door sounded angry, and he didn’t resist snooping by turning the door handle slowly and pushing it open just enough to see what was going on. He had expected the old guy to be fucking one of his pickups, but what he saw pissed him off.

Two men stood over his father, who was sitting in a chair tied to the legs and arms of the thing with silver Duct tape. He could see his father’s face, and even with the swollen face and bloody nose, he felt no pity for the man who should have been his best friend. He pushed the door just a little wider and saw Chrissy and another man, who must be her newest patsy, sitting on the couch, scowling at a barely awake DE, telling him to think of a way to get the money, or die.

He pulled the door back, almost shut, and turned to leave. Fuck it, the bastard was getting what he’d deserved, it was a shame he wasn’t the one to draw blood on the arrogant bastard, but he would be out of everyone’s misery by the time those men were finished.

He was seated on the bike when he felt a sense of, hell, it was a creepy feeling running on his spine. He would deny hearing his mother telling him to do the right thing, but he heard her soft voice asking him to do the right thing, “
For me
.” He looked around hoping to see another source the voice could be coming from, but no one was there, and he hung his head. He whispered in answer, “For you,” and stood away from the bike.

Luckily the seat slid back to show a small compartment that held a 1911, and a sheathed knife. He held the blade considering what his best options for saving the man he hated more than anything or anyone on the face of the earth.

His booted foot kicking the solid wood back on its hinges and the way he rolled into the room shooting his father’s assailants in the leg and gut respectively caused surprised screams from Chrissy, and the man next to her never knew what happened. Darryl ended up behind Chrissy and her man, holding his gun to the fucker’s neck. She was screaming bloody murder, and he laughed at her when the boyfriend grabbed her arm when she started to get up to run.

“Well, well, what do we have here? You boys should have had better taste than to hook up with her, but I saw her naked once, so I can see where you’d let a easy piece of ass lead you around by the dick, problem is, you’ll find out she isn’t worth the trouble you’re in now.” He tapped the muzzle on the guy’s temple. “You need to tell your boys to take a breath and not do anything stupid, you’re not a friend of mine, and your death won’t mean a thing to Chrissy here. A cunt like her deserves to be behind bars, don’t you think? While you boys are serving time, you can take comfort knowing that she’s learning to watch her ass in the women’s lock-up.”

They could hear sirens outside, and one of the men on the floor picked up the gun he’d dropped when he grabbed his thigh from Darryl’s shot. “I ain’t going back.” The dumbass held the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, but the angle he held it and the recoil sent the barrel up away from the killing zone and barely grazed his skull.

Darryl shook his head, “Real competent men you have there, slick, tell me, did you pick them out, or are they men Chrissy found to help? Did you ask them if she was a good fuck before you tossed your fate in with them?”

The man that he’d shot in the gut was moaning, and Darryl knew he was in pain, but that little devil inside of him was dancing with happiness to know he was the cause of that painful gasp and cry.

The police came rushing through the door with guns drawn and ordered Darryl to put the gun down and lie flat on the floor. He assumed the position, and waited for the cop to check his license and concealed carry permits. After that, he helped them piece things together, and saw his father loaded into the ambulance, before locking the place up for the night after the police had finished doing their thing, and the place emptied out.

He had another stop before he could go home, and hoped that his involvement in the whole thing was over with, but Karma is a bitch, and once he saw his half siblings, he knew he was sunk.

The boy answered the door and tried to slam it shut before Darryl could introduce himself. The size fourteen boot kept the door from shutting, and the kid still tried to hold the door closed. Darryl was out of sorts, and he put his voice of doom, as John called it, into telling the kid to knockoff the bullshit.

“You obviously know who I am, and I don’t have the interest or tolerance for this shit. Open the fucking door or I’ll do it for you.”

The kid denied knowing him, so Darryl pulled his cell phone out of its case and pretended to call his new friends at the cop shop.

“Hey, Officer Samson, I’m here at the house where the kids are, yeah, they won’t open the door to me or even talk, so I guess you’ll need to send social services out here as soon as possible.” He decided to goad the skinny kid and when Samson asked the kids’ ages, he turned his head and said, “I’m not exactly sure, the boy might be twelve, maybe thirteen, he’s acting pretty scared, and the girl is nowhere to be seen. She’s probably hiding in a closet or something. I’ll wait outside for you to get here, yeah, okay see you.”

Hearing the, “Sixteen, you asshole, I’m sixteen, and Ginny is fourteen, and I’m not afraid of you,” the kid yelled from the other side of the door made him shrug, and put the phone back into its case.

Darryl sat down on the step, and waited the boy out. He hadn’t called Samson, he dialed his own number and left the message. If the threat of social services didn’t rattle the brat’s cage enough to open the door and talk to him, then he really would make the call. A girl came around the side of the house and headed right for him, and from the looks of her, he’d have to guess that this was Ginny.

She was slender to the point of painfully thin, and her hair hung down to her elbows. What grabbed his attention were her eyes. He knew those eyes, he looked at them every morning in the mirror. Their paternal grandfather had the same green eyes, and even though he could see nothing else to show that she was related to him, they were proof enough.

Her opening salvo made it official. “It’s about time you showed up. You know, for a brother you really suck. We used to see pictures of you at our dad’s, and he would make us put them away so Chrissy wouldn’t see them and raise hell.” She came closer and sat next to him on the step.

Her next words shouldn’t have surprised him, but they did, and he looked at her with a small grin.

“So, since you’re here, and they’re not, I’m guessing the whole killing you for the wads of money didn’t work out like they planned.” She called over her shoulder for Eddy to come out and join them. “Come on, she can’t kill us for letting him in, he’s outside, and she didn’t say we couldn’t go outside, did she?”

She turned back to address him, and Darryl felt that frozen block in his heart melt a little more. She was a scrapper, and he liked her, and decided to get to know her and Eddy better, one way or the other. From the looks of this girl’s clothing, and lack of the normal teenaged girl actions, his idea of spoiled brats getting everything handed to them appeared to be mistaken.

“So, what went wrong? Did you lose all of your money in the stock market? Or didn’t you have any to begin with? You know Chrissy is going to be disappointed you are here and she isn’t, so how about you make it worth our while for all the hell we’ll catch when she drags in tonight, or in the morning? You buy pizza, and we’ll help you eat it.”

He laughed, and handed her his phone. “Make the call, but make sure it’s a large with lots of meat and cheese, and I don’t eat fungus, so save the mushrooms for you and Eddy.”

Eddy opened the door and rattled off the number to the place they knew of, and had enjoyed the pizza from before. Darryl glanced at the boy and knew these kids were far from spoiled. He was wearing a t-shirt that was too tight in the chest and arms. The boy had their father’s brown eyes, but he was as skinny as Ginny, possibly more so given that he was a few inches under six feet tall.

He had to tell them, “Your mom’s in jail, and your father is in the hospital by now, so I don’t think you have to worry about making her mad. He asked me to help you guys out for a few days, so here I am.”

Mackie fed the spoiled furball and made sure the litter box was clean before joining Liam who was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a long sleeved flannel covering his arms, and she almost laughed. She was wearing the identical outfit, right down to the hiking boots. She told him, “I think we know what we will be doing today, so there won’t be any argument from either of us. I’m ready when you are.” She walked over to him and nodded. “Yeah, it is spooky, but I seem to be getting used to the connection.” She was talking about the way one could look at the other and could almost read the other’s mind with some things. The first time she’d laid eyes on him, she felt a connection. It wouldn’t have stopped her from shooting him, but it would have saved his life. Again that first night with the men, she’d felt it when he looked at her while he was buried deep inside of John’s sexy ass. His look had given her that extra push while Darryl’s fingers manipulated her pussy into such an intense orgasm and Liam’s expression shoved that orgasm into hyperdrive. She knew his was just as intense at the time. The clothing choice was just another bit of proof to her, he shrugged and smiled before taking her arm and walking to the barn.