Page 42 of Griz's Edge

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

GRIZ

“What do we know so far?”

The question is asked no sooner than the door closes, and we’re all locked in the room we hold church in. Blow doesn’t wait around or waste any time bullshitting when it comes to shit like this.

Lately, it seems like things are happening far too much when it comes to the ol’ ladies. First, the shit with Storm’s biological father and his will, all that leaving us to deal with the Crimson Blood Clan. Then there’s what we had to deal with Meadow’s past. The strings of the past and present are constantly tied in ways I’ll never understand.

Then there’s what those Crimson bastards did to Chelsea. Lucky nearly lost his mind thinking he was going to lose her. Lastly, Shiner’s ol’ lady Olive, her sister had been one twisted bitch to let what happened to her happen.

To make matters worse, we’ve now got to deal with the shitstorm surrounding my ol’ lady. My brothers don’t even know the half of it.

“Need to fill y’all in on a few other things before that question gets answered,” I say, glancing around the table.

“What?” Nines demands.

“You all know I asked Keys to step up a security system at Marley’s house ‘cause of the break-in. Someone had tossed her living room and wrote ‘Leave Bitch’ on her bedroom mirror. Nothing else was messed with. I found this strange and asked her about it.”

“What did Marley have to say about it?” Shiner asks.

“Marley’s not like the other ol’ ladies. She isn’t the type to stand back and let someone else take the reins,” I inform them and lean back in my chair. “Y’all know Marley’s a process server, and I told y’all she does skip tracing. She worked with two men who were bounty hunters before moving here. She called them to ask ‘em about a group. She wanted to make sure she wasn’t missing any intel regarding them, she hadn’t thought she was, but to be safe, I told her she needed to make the call and find out, just to be on the safe side.”

“Wanna elaborate?” Blow grunts.

“No need to elaborate. The one that had caused her trouble is out of the picture, and I mean that as in he’s dead. The rest of the group scattered,” I explain and keep going. “Anyway, Marley has this box that I noticed she cleaned up the contents of first in straightening her living room. While she’d been on the phone with Gravel and Bash, I opened it and looked. Was filled with old ass letters from a stalker her mother had.”

“Her mom kept stuff from a stalker?” Shiner quips, tapping his fingers on the table.

“Don’t know the full story there . . .” I didn’t, and I won’t lie saying I do, “but what I know is, Marley confronted her parents about it, and it didn’t go well, they freaked on her. She hasn’t really spoken to them much since, and that happened in the time frame of the past three weeks.”

“I’d suggest talking to her old man,” Sniper says.

“You know his number?” Blow asks.

“Yep.” Sniper nods.

“You give him a call.”

“Give it to me, and I’ll call him.” No way was Marley’s dad hearing this shit from anyone else but me. “I was already gonna be giving the man a call for Marley anyway. Evidently, he threatened to sic her brother and sister on her if she didn’t call him tonight.”

“So, you’re just going to make the call for her?” Lucky laughs, shaking his head. “Bet that’s going to go wonderfully for you.”

“I’m still looking through things,” Keys finally says, jumping in before I can answer Lucky. “I won’t know much more than Griz does until I do a full dive. But what I looked into so far, Griz has already told you I was able to figure out. From the little bit, I found out for Griz when he asked me to look into her, I didn’t go deep into her, but I found she’s a damn smart-ass bitch who knows how to take care of herself. Reason she moved here other than for her grandma is because of the group Griz mentioned. And he’s right, I can confirm the one who made her a target is dead. Other than that, I still need to look more into what’s going on to know who could be targeting her now. She hasn’t made any enemies here that we know of.”

“I’ll talk more with Marley. She didn’t tell Adams and Ratford about her house being broken into. I told her over the weekend that I’d help her look into the stalker thing. I also talked to her today about everything, that she works with me and not try to do shit on her own. She agreed.”

All of my brothers look at me as if I’d grown two heads, but I didn’t care. I’d work with my woman if it meant she didn’t go off on her own looking for answers that could end up getting her killed.

“Gotta say, brother, you’re better than me to work with your woman. If it were Storm, her ass would be locked away,” Blow remarks with a snort.

“You know Storm wouldn’t let you do that.” I chuckle.

We all know that Storm and the others would kick all our asses if we tried to hold them back from something they wanted to do. The difference between them and Marley is that they won’t intentionally put themselves in harm’s way.

Marley will.

My brothers go over a few more things, and Sniper gives me Marley’s dad’s number and his name. I didn’t know who the guy was, but I was about to make a call that I’m sure is going to piss Marley off.

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