Page 81 of Vicious Vows

"Your brother is out of the hospital, we don't know where he is and your father is meeting up with Kumar right now. He's going to push the deal through on his own."

The pin dropped in my head as I listened to Yuri tell me what was going on. My father was doing the same thing I'd been planning on doing to him. He was pushing me out.

"Motherfucker!" I barked and banged my fist against the side of the door. "No, this shit isn't happening. This shit isn't fucking happening."

"It is boss. What do you want to do?"

"Get the car ready, we've got a meeting to break up."

* * *

The cool night air bites at the sweat pouring down my spine. My father isn't expecting me to show up, which means this could turn into a bloodbath and fast. Even though I should be focused on getting to this meeting and home in one piece, I can't stop thinking about the woman I left sleeping in my bed. I wish I could have just stayed in bed with Faye. Alas, my life isn't made for relaxing next to my woman all night.

Yuri moves fast, getting the people that we need together to go and stop the meeting, except we don't get far enough to do it.

"What the hell is that?" I ask as I watch a pair of headlights come swerving onto my property.

"Shit, I don't know," Yuri stepped in front of me before pulling out his weapon just in case whoever decided to pay me a visit didn't have the best intentions at heart.

I fight the urge to push him to the side. He's only doing what he's supposed to do. He's supposed to protect me. That's what I pay him for. The group of us stands still with held breath as the car that was just barreling towards us comes to a stop.

I groan in both relief and annoyance as Lionel hobbles out of the car. "What the hell are you doing here?" I grunt out before stepping out from behind Yuri and making my way toward my car.

"What do you mean, 'What am I doing here?' You think I'd miss this?"

"What are you talking about, 'miss this'? You're supposed to be in the hospital healing up," I remind him, raising an eyebrow in his direction.

"Yeah, resting. I can rest at home. Of course, after Kumar came to pay me a visit, I knew that you needed me out here more than I needed to be laying up in someone's hospital bed. Is it true? Was all the product swiped?" His eyes widen almost comically.

I keep on forgetting that he didn't know what happened while he was being shot at and almost killed. He had no idea of the shitstorm that we were in.

"Yeah, they got us for everything. It's all gone," I say.

"Fuck, do you have any leads yet?"

"No, I've got nothing. It's like all the merchandise just fucking vanished like a fart in the wind. No one knows shit. Then our father shows up and makes like he's going to take over. I can't let him do that, Lionel. It's going to fuck up everything that we worked for."

"That's just what he wants." Lionel shakes his head and winces a little bit as he tries to keep up with me.

"What do you mean?" I stop, giving him a chance to catch his breath.

"Our father is the last person on earth who wants you to take over. You're stepping in on his territory, and I'm pretty sure he's going to do whatever he has to in order to make sure that you don't succeed. It wouldn't surprise me if he were to sabotage one of our drops just to make sure our reputation was shit."

Of course, I didn't want to think that was possible, but I couldn't ignore the fact that the moment we were faced with this fucked-up situation, my father shows up. Could it really be that he's the one who set it up for us to be robbed in the first place?

"There's no way. Did you forget that you were the one shot in the stand off? Why the hell would he have his own son shot?" I ask Lionel, trying to get him to see that he was the casualty in all of this.

"Are you kidding me? You think he gives a damn about me? If it were you, I'd think twice about it, but I'm the expendable son."

"You're not fucking expendable." I rolled my eyes and tried to walk away from my brother. All of our lives, he's thought our father didn't love him as much as he loved me. That was hard to do since I knew for a fact my father didn't love me nearly as much as Lionel seemed to think he did. My father was all about the business; I was just as expendable as the next person.

"I may not be expendable to you, but to our father, I am. I know it, and so do you. That's why we need to make sure this deal with Kumar goes through. I'm tired of having to look over my shoulder every fifteen seconds, Dominic. You might have found your peace with the woman in your bed, but I've never been given the opportunity. This is my opportunity."

I can see the anger brewing in my brother's eyes, right along with the pain. Out of everyone, Lionel is the only one who's always been right at my side. It's only right that I give him a chance at even a sliver of happiness.

"I'm ready to go, just tell me where you need me." Lionel stood tall as if to make me believe he were stronger than he really is.

Everything in my body is telling me to leave Lionel here. The last thing I need is for him to wind up hurt even more than he is right now, but the selfish part of me knows that no one is going to have my back better than him. He's the only person I can trust. Yuri might be doing all the right things, but I can't dismiss the idea that he might be one of the people working to take me down.

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