Chapter 149
Chapter 149
A few minutes later I got a reply,
"Sorry baby! I'd like nothing better than to come and finish! Go & eat. I had to run out for a bit. You're under 3x security. You're safe. I'll be back as soon as possible. This phone almost out of juice so use my reg. number. We'll grab your reg phone tomorrow from the farm."
"stupid iPhone. LOL. <3 U. IDK your reg number off by heart so text it to me. Be safe!"
He replied with a happy face and x's and o's and his other number. Sheesh, how long would he have left me there? I had to give him a break; he obviously had a million things on his mind. I found my way downstairs and decided to pop one of Rosita's frozen lasagnas in the oven. I drank a tall glass of water and then went back upstairs to get a shower.
Azriel hadn't turned up by the time the lasagna was ready and it was big enough to feed a dozen so I cut off a piece for me, wrapped up a piece for Azriel for later, tossed a big salad and served two bowls out, then put the rest of the lasagna and salad in the fridge in the security team's break room and stepped out to the patio where that guy Dex was standing, talking on a cell. When he saw me, he put it back to his waistband, "Everything okay, Miss Dawson?" "Sorry to bug you..." I started.Belongs © to NôvelDrama.Org.
He waved his hand, "It's what I'm here for. What do you need?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to tell you and the other guys that I put a lasagna and salad in the fridge in the err staff room."
His eyes lit up, "Thanks, that's awesome," he said.
The other guy who'd been at the gate when we came in was approaching and had heard and his face lit up and I decided then that I'd continually put food into the staff room fridge for these guys who were working so hard to keep us safe. It couldn't be easy being in their shoes after knowing two guys were killed while on that same job the other night.
After I ate and watched TV for a bit I was pretty tired. It was around 9:00 so I decided to crash early. I texted Azriel from the flip phone, "I'm going to bed. Hope you're okay. Love you. Xo"
I got an almost instant, "I'm fine. See you soon. Love you. xxx" back from him.
Azriel's POV
My plan was to go home, make love to my girl, sleep for a few hours, and then find out how Uncle was doing. Instead, I had to meet with my PI and my brother, to get more intel on where things were at.
On my way to get Dare from the hospital, I got a returned call back from a connection that helped me get Claire's father moved. He was safe. For how long, I didn't know. Did he deserve it? Of course not. But he was her father and I didn't want her to have to deal with his death on top of everything else so he was on simmer for the time being.
Turned out that Dare talked to Uncle, who'd woken up. Uncle had Jimmy doing double duty for insight with his enemies related to the group Romero was part of; he wasn't really stepping out on us. Uncle wasn't coherent enough to get too into detail so we had to guess at a few things. We guessed the thing with my weapons happened because it'd fallen in his lap while he'd been wearing a wire for the other guys when he was found shot so we assumed he'd been dodgy with me because of the wire. The whole wire thing made sense, too. Jimmy had really been keeping his distance the last few days before he was shot. They'd probably told him to leave me a sitting duck. It seemed like he'd been on his way here, probably to help or warn me, when things went screwy. If that's what he intended it didn't happen because he'd been shot instead. Dare and I planned to talk to our sister and we hoped it'd bring her a little bit of peace that her husband had been loyal, too loyal. f*****g Uncle.
She wouldn't be best pleased with Uncle for putting her husband in that position, getting him killed. None of us were pleased with him after the things we'd found out.
My Uncle was in deeper with drugs than we'd imagined. And it was that depth that had created the whole rift with Juan Carlos Castillo in the first place Many lives had been unnecessarily lost as a result of Uncle moving in on Castillo's territory. But Romero didn't have the clout alone needed to take Uncle out so at first, he participated in recruiting Earl and they tried to use Claire as a bargaining chip. Not only did Uncle refuse to back off but as a result, I'd killed Castillo and worked with Castillo's arch nemesis to wipe out the Castillo cartel. This had, of course, trickled back home with Romero getting desperate to hang onto his business but without the strength of his uncle he had started trying to expand his team, to swell his ranks, bringing in new guys, careless and or inexperienced guys, making alliances. The whole thing had been a gaggle f**k. Stuff we'd agreed to with Castillo down south had less to do with what we thought we were working toward and more to do with Uncle's drug deals. Now Romero and most of his crew were gone. Castillo was gone. And Uncle was in a hospital bed showing signs of improvement. Big moves almost always result in a trickle effect and I wanted to do some serious damage control.
Uncle had plans to move to the islands, yeah, but retirement wasn't looking like it'd factor into those plans. He had plans to have me and Dare look after business here while he expanded some seedy business to do with women, drugs, and guns into Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Uncle didn't want to retire; he wanted more power, more control, and it was out of hand. One of his enemies was doing well in that part of the world and Uncle wanted to take it all away from the guy.
Clearly it was out of hand if he had this secret life. Here it was about construction, the bookie business, loans, and that trickled down into a few other areas, like stolen goods, s*x, a little weed. And yeah, some was illegal but where he'd sunk to seemed to me and to my brother to be worse than that, much worse than that. We knew sometimes we had to dabble in those areas but Uncle wasn't dabbling, he was deep sea diving in the cesspool.
What I now had to decide was, how was I getting out without making an enemy of my uncle? I called Dex to check on things at home and the fuckin' guy was talking with his mouth full.
"Can't understand what you're saying man. What are you doing? Blowing someone? Spit or swallow man."
"Sorry, Azriel. Your girl put dinner out for everyone. Everything's cool here. No problems at all."
I hung up, shaking my head. Then I got a text from Claire that instead of crashing early it looked like Tessa's boys were being dropped off at our place for a few hours. Tessa was overwhelmed and her mother in law couldn't watch the kids tonight. Luc was at the hospital with a bit of spotting so Rosita was with her. I shook my head. Feeding my men, babysitting my nephews? My heart swelled for her. I needed to give her a good life. I needed to keep myself in the right headspace to be good for her. And for that, I needed out of this life.
Claire's POV
I'd gotten the call just before I fell asleep but I told Rosita I'd happily keep the boys overnight if she wanted me to. But she said Tessa didn't want that. They knew Azriel's house was extra secured so they wanted them here but it was just for a few hours. She had Bianca's Aunt Joanne dropped them off on her way to work (she was a nurse at a hospital on the nightshift) and was going to have Rosita pick them up in a bit. I put movies on and built Lego structures with them. I let Antonio, the older of the two, play on Azriel's laptop on a kids' game website and Lucas was content in my lap with a pop-up book. The time went by quickly and I gave them a bubble bath and put them in their PJs and around 11:00. Rosita got there to pick them up. They were quiet and subdued, not like the typical active baby and toddler. They must've sensed something was amiss. They didn't really know me and it was probably way past their usual bedtimes, too.
Apparently Tom had woken up and Lisa was by his side. Luc was being put on bed rest. As I was helping Rosita put the boys into their car seats in her van, I saw Azriel's car pull in and Dario's car behind him.
When Dario got out of the car, he pointed at me accusingly, "You! Follow me. We need to have a conversation."
My brows shot up in surprise. I glanced at Azriel. He narrowed his eyes at me. He motioned toward his brother with a hard expression on his face so I said bye to Rosita and followed.
Dario marched downstairs and directly to the games room and the Ms. Pacman machine. He was giving me an incredulous look and pointing at the high score list and my #2 spot.
I started to laugh, feeling immense relief. Mr. Angry Intense brother was back but this time, it was funny. I stepped up beside him. I was only a few hundred points shy of his high score. I'd beat out everyone else, taking the previous spot #2, which had said Marco. Spot #3 had said Polo. And now those were spots 3 and 4.
Azriel was behind me, "Dex ratted you out. Dex was coming down the stairs.
"See if I feed you dinner again!" I harrumphed.
Dario waved his index finger accusingly at me while Dex laughed and pouted at me simultaneously.
"I'm hot on your heels, boy!" I teased Dario and took off up the stairs behind Azriel as he called out, Claire, c'mere here baby." I saw Dex challenge Dario to foosball and I followed Azriel the rest of the way upstairs.
He pulled me close once we got to the kitchen, How are you?" he whispered in my ear.
"I'm okay. How 'bout you?"
"I'm good. I just want to tell you a few things, then I'll order us some dinner. Chinese okay?"
"I ate already but I saved you some food." "Dare wants Chinese. We have to work late and sort some s**t out. You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah,"
"What'd you make me for dinner?"
"I made one of Rosita's lasagnas. You can eat it for lunch tomorrow, maybe?"
"Sounds good, babe, even if your lasagna's better. You gonna cook me dinner every night?" He was nibbling on my earlobe and sending shivers up and down my spine.
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