Page 21 of Tav

“Why do they say that?”

Turning to look at my sister, she has her inquisitive dog look on her face, brows pulled in, head tilted.

“I have no idea sis, all I know is that they use it, therefore so will I. I want the kids to know I’m cool,”

Jules snorts obnoxiously, but says nothing else. He doesn’t need to because I can see Gus winding up.

“Do you really think you can handle this? A woman with four kids? What if their father wants back on the scene? What then? Can you be the bigger man and let him see his kids?”

“I don’t imagine that will be a problem because he’ll be dead soon,” I mutter under my breath, but Dayz not only has the nose of a bloodhound but also the hearing of a bat.

“Why will he be dead?”

“Oh no reason,” I smile at her, but she’s not even looking in my direction, so it’s a waste of time.

“That brings me to another point. The woman is a murderer, Tav!” Gus cries.

I stare at him. Then stare some more, hoping that he notices the irony in that statement. Nope.

“And?”

“So you’re saying you’re happy to tie yourself to a murderer?”

I go to answer, but Jules beats me to it. “Are you being serious?”

“Of course I’m being fucking serious! Our little brother has claimed a woman, a woman who has been giving him the runaround for months now. A woman who has four children, recently killed a man, her cousin no less, and her family work with Hammer. What if she’s lying? What if she’s a spy? What about this situation is no one understanding?”

“August, I love you. You acted like both mom and dad to us when they died, but you are not my father. You are my brother and I will not think twice about knocking you the fuck out if you keep talking about Blanche that way. You don’t know her. You don’t know where she comes from or what she’s been through. I never once questioned when you married Ana, even though she’s Bratva and we knew nothing about her. So I expect the same courtesy.” My jaw clenches as I make sure my words are well measured, so he gets the point. Any big show of emotion will convince Gus that he’s right and I can’t handle what I’ve gottenmyself into. I can handle it and so much more because she is worth it. Blanche is worth it.

Gus closes his eyes, does that counting thing he does, runs his hands through his hair and lets out a long breath. “OK. I’ll back off. I just, I don’t want to see you hurt, Tav.”

“I know, big brother, I know.”

“OK.” He nods once, then looks down at his papers, effectively shutting down that conversation and moving on. “Jules, I will need a report on the house you kitted out recently. The mom was certain someone had been hanging around the yard. We have any leads on that?”

“Yeah, it was the ex husband wanting to catch glimpses of the kids. Police are involved.”

Gus nods before moving on to the next item. “Dayz, how you getting on with building a profile on that Officer Martin? I don’t like the way he manhandled Mama Debs. I want everything on him.”

“Yeah, he’s an interesting one. I’ve gathered a lot of good shit, but I think there’s still more. I’ll give a report at the clubhouse, so I’ll fill you in then.”

“Good. Tav, I’m not assigning you to anything personally at the moment,” He raises his hand when I open my mouth, “Not saying you can’t handle it, but you need to spend time with our new family members so I’m giving you that instead of coordinating our teams out of hours. Got it?”

I smile at my brother’s serious face across the desk. He said “our new family” instead of “your new family”. Whether or not he wants to admit it, he’s given me his blessing.

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Right. Our FBI contact has requested our help. Dayz will coordinate comms and I’ll send out Alvez’s team. Anyone got any issues with that?”

We all shake our heads. Alvez is solid and we trust him. Tombs Security is Gus’s brainchild. After the death of our parents, he gave up his degree in architecture to switch to Security Management. He waited until Jules finished college then both came back to Rose Grove to set up Tombs Security. It slowly grew over time until Gus and Jules were working all the hours God gave them. Alvez was their first ever hire. After that came a few veterans looking for work and then me and Dayz joined the business when we finished college. Dayz before me because she’s a friggin genius and I’m just me.

“Alvez’s team is the best we’ve got,” Jules agrees.

“Good, that’s settled. Now get out of my office and go do shit.”

Standing, I smirk at my brother, then tip over all his pen holders on his desk. I do this every meeting we have and you’d think he would have given up by now, but no. Gus likes things his way and this extends to his wanky pen holders and all.

“Tav?”

---