When people weren’t straight up and clear with me, it irritated thefuckout of me.
And on top of all of that, we had more people this year not paying their debts than ever before. If we didn’t up the stakes, we weren’t going to get the payments we needed, and that justwasn’t acceptable.
Loans weren’t a big part of our business, but having the interest from giving them out did give us quite a bit of leeway in regards to other transactions we were doing, not to mention that doing this, reminding people who Malachi and his sons were, kept us right were we needed to be on this criminal hierarchy Jeremy had been kind enough to tell Emily about a few months ago.
I checked my own watch, confirming the date. “How are Greyson and Azrael holding up?”
Malachi nodded, tying on his own apron. “Good, I’ll be rejoining them soon. I think they’re closing in on Louis.”
Good. As much as I didn’t understand Greyson, I spoke to Jack about his views on Emily, him being the only other one, besides Jeremy, who had talked to her at this point, and he liked her.
She didn’t want to be a part of this world, not like Rae was, but she had a strong mind, a good will. She had been handling the Louis situation fine, as far as I knew, and I hoped, for Greyson’s sake, that she didn’t crack.
He actually loved her. Just as Jack loved Rae, and while I always knew Greyson would fall in love, he believed in that kind of bullshit, I never thought Jack would.
I don’t know, maybe there was something to this whole ‘love’ thing. I just didn’t care enough to look into it. Jack always believed he was most like Azrael, yet he went off and fell for a target, and while Rae was a good addition to The Family, Azrael and I never would have done what he had done.
I suppose we all had our own outlook on who stood where in our own Hierarchy, but one thing Jack and I could agree on was that Azrael was the worst of us and Greyson was the best.
“You accepted Emily into The Family quicker than you did Rae, why?” I asked out of pure curiosity.
Malachi shrugged as he walked over to the cart along the other wall, lined with tools, some still bloodied from earlier clients. “I saw her and knew that she was a perfect fit for him.”
“And Rae?”
He was quiet. He was always quiet when it came to her. Jack had told me that Malachi and her mother had had an affair for many years, that she had gotten into the program because of that, but that she had found something out about us that had sent things into motion that we couldn’t stop. Secrets we weren’t permitted to know yet. We believe that Azrael knows those secrets, but he hasn’t even told Rae and Jack yet, and if Malachi knew, he certainly wouldn’t give anything away.
It was frustrating to say the least, but in Azrael’s words ‘the time would come’. Whatever the fuck that meant.
For now, we went on with our lives and our jobs. Malachi kept his secrets, Azrael kept his, and we waited. I knew how frustrated Rae was though. She had said as much the last time we had talked. Her father was still in the wind, getting away with everything he had done to her until ‘the time was right’. Jack hated that it was still a loose end. He loathed loose ends.
We all did.
“She earned it like everyone else did,” he finally said, and that was that.
I nodded, checked my watch again and released a breath. “Mother dearest should be escorting him down soon.”
“Good.”
3
Olivia
March 26th, 2022
“No, mom, I don’t have any plans for the birthday I had a week and a half ago. If you want to plan something, why don’t you come down here and plan it?”
She released a breath as if I had suggested that she go out in the 100-degree weather and pull weeds. “Sweetheart, you know how hard it is for me to drive long distances.”
We were an hour and a half away from each other on a bad day.
I held up a dress in front of me as I stood in front of the mirror only to shake my head and toss it to the bed. “I told you that I’m not a big birthday person. I don’t need some big event. I don’t need anything.” It would have been nice if Steven had remembered that I had even had a birthday, but it was fine. 23 wasn’t that big of a deal. He had forgotten my 21sttoo, but again, it wasn’tthatbig of a deal. I had already been drinking a little before then, 21 just meant it was legal. He apologized and weplanned on doing something later. “Besides, I have work to do.”
Later never came, but it was okay, we both had busy lives, and I completely understood a birthday—a few birthdays slipping through the cracks. It happened.
“Oh, thatcoffee shop,” she muttered. “I don’t see why you need to work there. You own a third of the company and you got that inheritance from your great aunt when you turned 18. You don’t have to work for the rest of your life.”
I rolled my eyes. I was also a five-time published author of some really successful psychological thrillers, but she didn’t like to imagine that I had made a name for myself without the ‘Lemont’ family fortune.
