Perfect except you don’t want a wife.
True but it seems I’ve got one, anyway. I won’t send her anywhere near her father. Even if he wasn’t directly responsible for her injuries, they happened under his watch, just as bad in my book.
And I don’t want to send her anywhere near my toxic brother. If he ever tries to lay a finger on her, I’ll break them, slice them, hammer their joints until they’re pulverised, and bite them off for good luck.
My eyes open and drift back to the screen. I’m going to be in my brother’s house later today. Better come prepared.
I copy some tantalising snippets over to my phone and run them through, nodding appreciatively as I play out the shortened form. It’s probably a bad idea—they’re the most common type of idea I have in the small morning hours—but it’s done. I can re-examine it later when I might have managed a couple of hours’ sleep.
These restless nights will be my undoing.
I crawl back to bed and finally get to sleep as the sun is lightening the horizon. It seems only seconds pass before my alarm blares me into wakefulness again.
Breakfast is a cup of coffee and I’m in and out of the kitchen before Agnes, my cook, even arrives for work. The ride to the airport is uneventful, skipping ahead of most of the morning traffic, so it takes less than the usual hour.
On the plane, it occurs to me that Crimson will wake in a strange bed in a strange apartment in a strange city and I haven’t left her set up to succeed in her new place. I text Warren, my bodyguard, and let him know he’s got a new assignment.
I’d text my cook but, after checking my watch, I presume she’ll already have met her. That, plus Agnes doesn’t like mobile phones so any message would sit all day, unread.
One flight to Christchurch later, and my mood takes another dive mid-morning as the car pulls into the driveway of my father’s home. The small, detached bungalow is clean, and the lawn tidy, something not reflected in other homes along the street. Azalea is trying.
My low mood is a familiar feeling from long years of school holidays and alternate weekends; sometimes so alternate months stretched out between.
“Come in,” my stepmother Azalea says as she opens the door, feigning surprise. I glance over her shoulder as I give her a hug, noticing that Thaddius is already swaying.
When I was younger, his vices were women and drugs but now they’re morphed to booze and cards. God knows how he stays on top of his work, but he does, at least until recently. If not, someone would have taken him out long ago. Addicts and drunkards are a liability.
“Hey, Dad,” I say, giving his shoulder a squeeze. He nods and tries to excuse himself, but I steer him towards his office instead. “Just have a few things to go over with you.”
“Sing out if you need anything,” my stepmother says, eyes narrowing in concern as we sweep past her.
“What’s this about?” His speech has the mushy consonants and outdrawn vowels of inebriation.
I refuse the seat he offers me, wanting to keep the two inches I have on him in height. “You know. We discussed it yesterday.”
It’s hard to know if a blackout swallowed the conversation or he’s faking it, but his face doesn’t show any sign of recognition.
“I need you to sign some paperwork. Then I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Get away.” He fumbles for his seat and falls into it, landing heavily to his right side. He appears two decades older than he is. Past retirement instead of dancing on the far edge of middle age. “I’m not signing anything you put in front of me.”
“It’s the only way you’ll get the loan you asked for.”
His face puckers into the deep lines that have worn a permanent place in his ravaged skin. Redness attacks his nose and the edges of the puffy sacks under his eyes, themselves yellowing as if with jaundice.
His expression catches between rage and shame. It would be disturbing if it wasn’t so familiar. Once again, I thank my mother’s sense for getting me far away from this man.
I missed having a fulltime father at school when almost everyone else had one, but this? This I’m glad I didn’t have to live with. A man who can’t keep control of his urges but expects everyone else to fall into line.
“I can take care of business,” he mumbles.
“You’ve lost the eastern suburbs. The blood caste gang didn’t even have a sniff at them until you started messing your supply chain about. Now we’ve got turf wars happening in patches we’ve controlled for decades.”
He waves a hand. “That’s nothing. Just scuffles. I’m sorting it.”
“They took over three months ago. Any chance you had to sort it is long gone.”
That makes him stand straighter. “Don’t talk rubbish. Those gangs don’t know the slightest thing about running a business. Once they use up their current haul, there’s no way anyone would guarantee a steady supply. All we need to do is wait them out.”
