TWENTY-ONE
NOVA
The girls are cheeky today. I did not have this in mind when I gave them hairdryers and straighteners. I’m sitting in front of the mirror I dragged from my bedroom into the living room, Freyja in the middle of my spread legs as I show her how to use the hot iron on her hair by separating it and dragging it through the strands one layer at a time.
“How do you know how to do this?” she questions.
“YouTube,” I answer her, being honest. Once I determined they were getting one, I surfed the web until I found a woman giving tutorials. Chaney is sitting beside me, mimicking my moves on herself. She’s independent and wanted to do it for herself, which I’m grateful for because my hands and arms are already feeling weighed down from the continual movement. “I don’t know how women do this daily.”
“Because it makes them feel good about themselves,” she suggests. “That’s what I think, anyway. It’s why I’d do it.”
“I think it’s because it makes our hair look silky,” Chaney adds. “Look how smooth mine is, sister. I don’t have any frizziness.”
“That’s due to the serum I had y’all spray in your hair before we began,” I tell them. “At least, that’s what the woman said when I watched her video.”
For the next hour, I watch them explore their things and before I know it, they’re putting everything up and organizing their room. As I round the kitchen table, there’s a knock on my door. Expecting it to be our dinner arriving since this is the right time slot for our delivery, I walk over, and without looking through the peephole to see who’s on the other side, I swing it open.
Imagine my surprise to see Icer and Shade standing there, looking menacing. “Brothers. What are y’all doing here? It’s Christmas, shouldn’t you be at the clubhouse celebrating with the crew?”
“Did the obligation thing,” Icer answers my question. “We’re heading out to go hunting. Riptide said I had to wait until this afternoon to leave. Did that.”
“Okay, well, good luck,” I say, not understanding why they’re standing on my porch stoop.
“Need to see the note, Nova,” Shade exasperatingly says. “We wanna see if it holds some sort of clue that we could use.”
“Shit. With everything going on I forgot about it. I haven’t even read it yet,” I tell them.
“Now’s a good time to do that, Nova,” Icer scolds.
“Yeah, brother, it is,” I state, running my fingers through my beard, frustrated with myself for not making that a priority. “Head to my office and I’ll run to my room and grab it.”
Heading down the hallway, they split off into my office as I let the girls know that we have company. They both promise to stayin their room while I conduct business. I don’t want them to know what I came across, I don’t want them to blame themselves more than they already do for their father’s demented activities.
After pulling the note from the jeans I was wearing last night, I head back to the office with it clutched in my hands. I spread it out on the top of my desk and the three of us lean in so we can read it at the same time.
You have two things that belong to me. I want my girls back or I want to be compensated for you taking them from me. I had plans for them and you ruined that by sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. I was offered two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars for them individually. You can pay that and keep one for yourself or double that and keep them both. If you don’t comply with my demands, I will take them from you by force. The clock’s ticking. I need a decision and money in my account before the first of the year. If I don’t receive either of those things, I will take it as a declaration of war. You can find my bank details in my safe. It’s under my desk in the house. The code is 24 left, 15 right, and 69 left. Don’t try to be slick, I know where you live, where your club is, and I have the connections to have your little clubhouse raided to keep you occupied and detained while I take back what belongs to me.
-Jennings.
“There’s nothing here to give us a clue as to where he’s holed up,” I snap.
“Maybe not, but we need to get inside of that safe,” Shade determines. “There may be something in there that’ll lead us to him.”
“Snap a picture of that and send it to me,” Icer demands. “We’ll head there now and do some digging. Obviously, he has some hidden secrets in that fucked up place that weren’t found.”
“We’ll demolish it until we’ve exposed them all,” Shade says, digging his knuckles into his palm. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do some remodeling.”
I glance over at the duo like they’ve got a few screws loose. “It’s still a crime scene, guys. Don’t destroy everything, we may need to go back there at a later date and time if something else comes up we didn’t know about.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t leave any stone unturned,” Icer promises, a malicious grin on his face. “If there’s something there, hidden or not, we’ll find it.” They send me twin smirks before swiveling around on their heels and leaving me here with my jaw dropped.
“Jesus,” I grumble. “I think we’ve just released Hell upon Earth. Those two are going to destroy anything that gets in their path. I just hope they don’t get caught while doing it.”
Later that night, after we’ve eaten and cleaned up the kitchen, Chaney approached me. I should’ve known by that sly smile stretched across her face I was going to regret saying yes to what she requested—teaching her how to drive.
With one hand clutched to the oh-shit-bar to the point my knuckles have turned white, and the other dug into the dashboard as I hang on for dear life, I cry for mercy as Chaney drives through the pasture.
“Chaney! Slow down and watch the trees!” She’s getting a little too close to them for my comfort.
