Zed, p.23
Zed, page 23
I threw my arms around his neck, and without missing a beat, he slipped his around my waist, returning the hug.
“Hey, sis.”
“Hi, Bumble. Thank you for coming.”
“Like I said before, you don’t have to thank me. It’s what family does, right? Now what’s really going on? I gather from that phone call that you didn’t just get me here to bring you an overnight bag, right? I mean, I brought the bag.” He motioned to the duffel at his feet. “I just grabbed some shit from the bathroom and your closet, but I don’t know how useful any of it will be.”
“That’s great. A fresh change of clothes is great.”
“Okay, but I’m guessing there was something else. I mean, we have four sisters. Surely one of them would be a better choice for your overnight needs, or Lottie, or one of your friends even? In the end, I called Connie on the way to your apartment to ask her what to pack anyways. Otherwise I would have grabbed a bag of crap.”
I nodded. “Let’s walk and talk. I know you have to get going, so I’ll try to make this as quick as possible.”
I picked up the bag and slung it over my shoulder. Next I bent from the waist so I could “see” into the back of the car. Of course, I couldn’t actually see shit due to the heavily tinted windows, but I gave a big wave and smiled in the general vicinity, hoping for the best before pivoting on my heel and striding across the parking lot.
Nate followed. “Okay, so what’s all this cloak-and-dagger business? What do you need?”
“Like I said on the phone, Xavier is awake now, and he’s filled me in on what happened to him. He got rolled by a dealer he owes money to.”
“You’re fucking shitting me. He’s an addict?”
“No, thank fuck. Although that would almost be simpler and preferable to what actually happened.”
“I feel like I’m going to regret being told this.”
“That may be, but I need to tell you anyway. He doesn’t use drugs, excluding weed—that boy loves to smoke. Nope, in a turn of events that wouldn’t be out of place in the movies, it seems that through some dude named Pixie—even the name makes me want to punch his face in—Xavier has been dealing.”
“Holy fuck!”
“Right? This kid knows how to get himself into shit, that’s for damn sure. As for getting himself out of it, he doesn’t seem to be quite as talented. And get this. Just as you think it can’t get any worse, it does. He’s been skimming for years. Some pencil dick with a grudge told Pixie, and that’s when all hell broke loose.”
“Okay, so what does any of this have to do with me?”
“Well, everything he told me was off the record. He’s not prepared to tell the police the truth about what happened, both because he doesn’t want to be charged with dealing, but also because he wants to avoid having this Pixie character after him for the money he owes, and for turning him in to the cops.
“Anyway, he may not be prepared to do anything about stopping this scumbag, but I sure as shit can’t walk around knowing what I know without trying to do something about it. And if I’m going to honor Xavier’s trust and his wishes, that ‘something’ isn’t going to be reporting it to the police, so….”
“So that’s where I come in, right?” He rubbed his lightly stubbled chin with one hand.
“Right. I thought between Dillon’s track and trace skills and your ‘hobbies,’ this would be the perfect pet project for you, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you mean.”
As much as we loved him, everyone in our family knew my brother was a complicated guy. He’d been adopted into our family when he was nine years old, and we’d loved him with our whole hearts since day one. In many ways, it hadn’t been hard to do, as he was an infinitely lovable person. On the other hand, he’d had an incredibly difficult start in life, and the shit he’d been through wasn’t something someone could just shake off as though it never happened, even when their life improved. Nine was plenty old enough to remember much of what he went through at the hands of his birth mother and her “friends,” and her ultimate betrayal in the end. Bumble bore the physical and emotional scars to prove it.
Twenty-one years and thousands of dollars in therapy later, and certain thought and behavioral patterns still persisted. Despite his substantial intellect and innate charm, Nate was slow to trust, sometimes short of temper, and he had a taste for violence that had never gone away. It was a badly kept but rarely acknowledged secret that he exercised his thirst illegally a few times a month. The exact details were foggy, and with two lawyers in the family, it was best kept that way.
Still, I knew if I wanted someone to meet with an “accident” in a dark alley late one night, Nate had the necessary contacts to make that happen.
“Okay, so tell me what you know.”
I told him everything Xavier had told me about Pixie and had no need to worry about him forgetting a detail. Whether due to the nature of his early life or just the way he was wired, he had the best memory of anyone I’d ever known. He was a machine.
When I’d finished, he leaned forward and gave me a hug.
“I can tell you’re happy, even under these stressful circumstances, and I love that. Don’t get me wrong, I think this thing with the kid and the tattooist is weird as shit, but it’s clearly working for you, so keep doing what you’re doing.”
I hugged him back hard. He was right, I was happy.
“And don’t worry about the other thing. It’s as good as done.” With Nate on the case, I knew it was.
“Sorry to interrupt, but Nate, man, I need to take a piss. Have I got time just to race inside to use the bathroom?”
“Jesus, dude, what are you, five years old? We’ve been in the car like half an hour. How the hell do you need to go already? Hurry up. We were just finishing up here, so we’re all going to be sitting in the limo literally waiting for you to pee.”
“Got it, man. Won’t be long. Hi, Octavia. Bye, Octavia.” He blew me a kiss and winked.
One-quarter of BR&ND, the advertising agency my brother co-owned, Raine Davies was ever the charmer, even after he’d just shared the intimate details of his imminent bladder movements.
33
Zed
I was kind of distracted as I walked back to the hospital, the events of the previous twenty-four hours swirling in my mind. Epic didn’t even begin to cover it, and I genuinely didn’t know what the outcome was going to be for anyone. The whole thing was complicated with a capital “What the fuck are we going to do now?”
Xavier’s mess was of most concern to me. I was sure that was Vivi’s focus too, and though I couldn’t for the life of me work out how her brother fit into that equation, I knew and trusted her enough to assume that there was a logical and reasonable explanation, and that she had things under control. On the other hand, if she thought I was going to just sit back and leave her to try to resolve things alone, then she didn’t know me at all.
I strolled through the lot, hands full with my coffee, Vivi’s sweet treats, and Xavier’s everything. As I headed for the spot where Vivi’s brother’s limo was parked, the world seemed to suddenly go in slow motion like in the movies. I stopped dead in my tracks and involuntarily lost my grip on everything I’d been holding in my hands. My coffee triple-somersaulted before splashing messily to the ground, the hot brown liquid splashing up the leg of my pants. The other packages suffered a similar fate, scattering across the tarmac.
I didn’t believe in ghosts, but yet there I was faced with a real-life one.
Before I knew it, and against everything my years of boxing training had taught me about restraint, control and channeling my emotions to avoid conflict, I lunged forward and threw the most powerful right hook of my entire life. Where my emotional training may have fallen short, my physical conditioning didn’t fail to deliver.
In fact, it was as though all my years of preparation had led to that moment. I put all the pain, passion, frustration, hurt, and anger of the previous nine years into that punch. In the split second I’d taken to make the decision to throw it, I knew it could well be the one chance I had. I’d intended to make it count.
My fist connected with flesh and bone with enough force to fell an elephant. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we’d both broken something, but I didn’t care about either. Sadly, after all these years, all I could think about was inflicting on him even a fraction of the pain I’d been carrying like a stone in the pit of my stomach for almost a decade. Okay, so it wasn’t the same type of pain, but it was all that was available to me at that point in time. Damned if I was going to waste it by overthinking the futility of it.
Raine went reeling, spinning a full 360 degrees before slumping backward against the limo. After that, the scene was a blur of Vivi’s screams and mine and Nate’s fists. Damn, that guy could throw a punch.
The first one had come nanoseconds after I’d hit Raine, and I had not preempted it. Having narrowly missed with the first blow, Nate was hell-bent on ensuring that the others connected. He fought like he meant it. In fact, more than me, he fought like he wanted to inflict real damage—like a street fighter.
Unlike me, he seemed to both be accustomed to and enjoying the bare-knuckled brawling. I hated it. It wasn’t what I was about, and it wasn’t why I’d taken up boxing in the first place. In fact, it was the exact opposite. I’d wanted a way to channel my emotions and prevent me from doing stupid ugly shit like this. To ensure I wasn’t one of the legions of ex-cons who were stuck in the cycle of re-offending. To help prevent the single biggest defining moment of my life from forever determining my future.
Within moments, more men had joined the fray, one seeming to be trying to halt the fight verbally while the other tried to restrain first Nate and then me. Neither of us was about to go down easy, so essentially he was kind of fighting both of us. I couldn’t work out if he was brave or stupid. Either way, he failed in his attempt to rein us in, if anything adding fuel to the fire of our fury.
I was out of control and I knew it, yet I felt powerless to pull myself back from the brink. It was as though the physical and emotional need to exorcise the demons that had lain dormant in me for so long far outweighed the rational knowledge that I was being stupid and reckless. I was jeopardizing my future to avenge my past. I was a fool, and I hated myself for it, but not even that thought was enough to make me stop.
Nor were Vivi’s increasingly desperate screams and cries. She seemed to oscillate between angry, upset, and fearful, cycling through the range of emotions before doubling back again. I was ashamed to admit to myself that at that moment, I didn’t care.
I knew she wasn’t in any physical danger. Neither Nate nor I would ever knowingly let her come to harm, though prior to that incident, I would’ve told myself that seeing the level of distress my actions were inflicting on her would’ve been enough to halt me in my tracks. Clearly I needed to reevaluate the picture I’d built of myself versus the harsh and brutish reality.
I didn’t know Nate personally, but what I did know spoke to a devoted older brother who’d move mountains to help his sister, anytime, anyplace, anywhere. He wasn’t about to let her get hurt while we brawled. Ironically, I had once thought of myself as that guy for my younger siblings, but not anymore. That bubble had burst years nine years earlier.
When Vivi actually put herself physically into the mix, grabbing first at her brother and then at me only to be shouted down by each of us in turn, I knew I’d sunk to new depths. Self-loathing didn’t even begin to cover it. At that point, it looked like it was going to be a fight till last man standing, or first man carted away in the back of a cop car.
“Stooooop!” It was a low and guttural sound, part man, part injured bear.
Nate and I stopped in our tracks. In the end, the man who had started the furor in the first place had been the one to end it.
Raine.
Though my initial punch had blindsided him, sending him reeling and wounded against the limo, he was now back in the game. He inserted himself between us, back to Nate, face to me, and yelled again.
“Nate, I said stop! Back the fuck off.”
“What? Are you fucking crazy, Raine? Or maybe you’re high or drunk as usual. Was that the reason for the unscheduled bathroom stop? Or did this animal give you a concussion? Some random psycho almost knocks you out for no fucking reason and you want me to back off? You’re stupider than I ever gave you credit for.”
If he thought he was helping the situation any, then he was the one who was crazy, high, or drunk. From where I was standing, every word he said only served to stir the pot. I felt the anger bristle off Raine toward Nate rather than me as he gave me a look that seemed to sit somewhere between curiosity, shock, and disbelief.
“He’s not some random psycho, you stupid fucking dipshit. He’s my brother, and I owe him my life. Now back the hell up before I have to make you!”
34
Vivi
Well, you could’ve heard a pin drop in Kentucky, we were all so still and quiet. The shock was palpable among all of us.
Raine Davies. Zed’s brother. The missing piece of the complicated emotional puzzle that was Zachary Elliot Davies. Raine was one of my brother’s closest friends since college, and his business partner in the award-winning advertising agency, BR&ND. As if the past twenty-four hours hadn’t been fucked up enough, now this bombshell. I really wasn’t sure how much more I could actually cope with.
Raine was the one to break the silence.
“Hit me again.” He squared up to his brother, seeming to offer him his chin.
“What?”
“You heard me. I said hit me again!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Just fucking hit me!” he screamed into Zed’s face, clearly trying to provoke him into action.
“I’m not going to hit you. I shouldn’t have hit you in the first place. I’m not about to repeat the mistake.” I could tell just by looking at him that the heat that had fueled Zed’s earlier temper had left his body. He wasn’t about to hit anybody any time soon.
“Why not? I deserve it. And more besides. Hit me, and don’t stop until I’m nothing but a bloody mess. Even then it wouldn’t be enough. Wouldn’t make up for what I took from you. From what I owe you.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Just. Fucking. Hit. Me.” He was screaming, and clearly distressed. He squared up to Zed again, that time shoving him hard in the chest repeatedly, punctuating each word. “Hit.” Shove. “Me.” Shove. “Zachy.”
Until that point, Zed had seemed resolute in his refusal to rise to the antagonism, bracing himself and taking every push like water off a duck’s back, but as the cutesy nickname left Raine’s lips, Zed lunged forward again, drawing back his fist. Raine’s face twisted into a perversely triumphant smile, which seemed to snap Zed back out of his blind fury. He dropped his hand limply to his side, but maintained his combative stance.
The rest of us stood still as we witnessed the spectacle, unsure what, if anything, to do to intervene. As I watched the two men facing off, nose-to-nose and toe-to-toe, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen the resemblance before. They were of a very similar height and build, had the same strong jaw and chiseled cheekbones, the same brow line, and most obviously the same startlingly blue eyes. They also shared the same thick blond hair, albeit Raine’s was longer, and today he wore it slicked back in a neat ponytail at the nape of his neck.
More than any of their shared physical characteristics though, they had the same vibe about them. Even having spent time with each man outside of the current extraordinarily fraught situation, I’d found them both to be unusually intense. The broodiness that Lottie had identified in Zed was clearly a shared genetic trait.
While I was struggling to think of a way to end the stalemate between the siblings, my ever-resourceful brother seemed to gather his wits and kick into gear in typical Nate fashion.
“Okay, Cain and Abel. As much as we’d all love to continue to watch this drama unfold, we have an awards ceremony to get to, but not before we get a clean shirt for Raine and fix up his busted face. There’s no way you’re getting up to collect our awards looking like that. Now let’s get moving before someone calls the fucking cops and we all end up in lockup for the night.”
He may have been an actual genius. It was just the right amount of funny and serious to kick everyone’s ass in gear, but also to take the sting out of the tension between the brothers. Each took a step back and had the decency to look contrite while the other two partners hurriedly started climbing into the car, nodding rueful hellos to me on their way past.
I made to leave too, having seen enough of what was quite clearly a private family drama. I began walking back toward the hospital.
“Octavia. Don’t go anywhere. You wanted to know all about me and my brother dearest? Well here it all is. You now have ringside seats to the shit fight that is my life. Get your popcorn and settle down for today’s special feature.”
It wasn’t the most appealing of invitations, but I didn’t feel in a position to decline.
“What the fuck are you doing here, man?” That was Zed to Raine.
“I could ask you the same question. I’m her brother’s best friend and business partner. Well, one of.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Yeah. So let me guess, you’re the broody, tatted-up guy she’s in love with?”
What?
“What?”
“Her brother was just telling us the details in the car on the way here.”
