Page 7 of Demitrius

Demi had already broken one phone, so he gently put hers back on the counter. Having her sit down, he got her a glass of water and set it in front of her. Sitting in the other chair, he waited for her to explain, but all she did was stare off into the room.

“How long has she been calling here?” She told him since they’d moved in. “We’ll get your phone number changed in the morning. Do you know how she got your number? I’m assuming that Samuel gave it to her when she called him. Isn’t she his sister or something?”

“Yes, sister. And I never thought of Samuel giving it to her. She never said, and since he’s in jail, it just never occurred to me that he’d ever had it.” She looked at him now. “Why are you here?”

“I was dropping off the boys when they told me that you were crying. I came to see what was going on.” She nodded and got up to go to the sink. Dumping out the water he’d given her, she poured them both a glass of tea, then put some ice in the glass. “Why didn’t you tell one of us you were being threatened?” She put the tea away and handed him one of the glasses before sitting down again.

“Why would I think that you’d care about me and Georgie? She’s not related to you. I’m not either. You care for the boys, however, but I want you to know that I’m going to make sure that she can’t get them. I’ve been reading how to go about that on the internet.” He snorted at her and he couldsee that pissed her off. “I’m not stupid, you know. I know that I have to put out a restraining order against her. I’m not sure how to go about it, but I’m learning.”

“In the meantime, what will you do if she comes here with a gun? Then demands you hand them over?” Mandy told him she didn’t know yet but was working on it. “I’m going to help you. I don’t want anything to happen to you or those boys. You’ve done a good job of keeping them safe, but this might well be over my head as well.”

“She said that if she has to, she’s going to kill me to get them. For the money, Demi. Not because she wants them around. Why would someone take children out of a good environment and put them into a dangerous situation? Because we both know that’s what it’s going to be.” Demi pulled her into his arms and held her while she cried. It tore at him in ways that it never had before, to have a woman crying about something. “I’ll be just fine. You and your family have done enough for me and the boys. I’ll take care of it.”

“Bull shit.” He heard a sharp intake of breath and turned to find the boys in the room with them. “How about you guys get cleaned up, and we’ll head to my brother’s house. We need to figure out what’s going on here.”

“Is Aunt Mandy going to be all right? She looks all pinched up again.” Demi looked down at the beautiful woman in his arms. “You didn’t make her pinched, did you, Mr. Demi?”

“Not this time. Come on. We’ll head to my brother’s house when you’re finished getting cleaned up, and I’ll order us some pizza or something.” The kids sounded like that was a good idea. He didn’t know if it was the drive to his brothers or pizza yet, but he was willing to bet it was the food. What kid didn’t like pizza? He turned to Mandy again. “Come on. We’ll put our heads together and figure this out. There is no point in you taking this on without help. Between the dozen or so of us, we should be able to figure out a way to keep you guys safe. Because I don’t trust her any more than I do her brother.”

After calling his brothers and telling them what was going on, they decided that meeting at a pizza place would be faster. Taking the kids to Adornetto’s was going to be fun, but the conversation was going to be hard. But he felt like they should know, too, as they had to keep an eye on for themselves. This Georgie person barked up the wrong tree when she messed with his family.

They were the first to arrive and asked to be seated in the middle of the place. It was the biggest table they had, and it just so happened to be close to the kitchens. He ordered ten pizzas, hoping that would be enough to start with, and he also ordered enough salads for the table. He’d take home what they didn’t eat tonight.

Bringing out large pitchers of soda and teas when everyone arrived in groups made it so that they could get their drinks poured without having to wait. He was glad when the boys asked for milk with their pizza, and the two of them shared a salad again. He loved these kids.

After Mandy told them everything that had been going on, he put in his two cents about how she had threatened Mandy too. His brothers looked angry, but it was the women that he was the most afraid of. They looked like they could have called on the U.S. Army to get this woman taken care of, and to be honest, he wasn’t sure that they might not try that. Especially Shipley.

“Do you know where she lives? Or if she really is coming here?” She said that she thought that she lived in Kentucky, but she didn’t know if she was really coming or not. But she couldn’t discount the fact that she knew just where she lived. “Did she say she did? Or maybe suggested that she knew where you lived?”

“She gave me my address and how long I’ve been living there. I’m fearful that somehow Samuel is telling her things that will cause me more trouble. I just don’t know what to do. I know that I can’t do this on my own, whatever she has planned, but I also know that you guys have no reason whatsoever to keep me safe.”

“You’re our friend. And you work for us. Of course, we’re going to help you.” Demi thought that sounded lame, but he didn’t tell Shipley that. “Besides, it’s been a good long time since we’ve had to kick some ass.”

It was suggested by Locke that she stay with him for the next few days. But he said that he hadmore room and said that he’d be able to keep an eye on them at his house. Besides, he told them that he had a gated driveway as well as a fenced-in yard. It would be more difficult for anyone to get past those barriers since they were already in place.

“I do have a place to stay, you know. And a back yard.” Demi didn’t want to piss her off so he asked her if she’d seen his home. “No. Why would I have? No, we’ll stay at home and keep a better eye out for her.”

“I would rather you didn’t, Mandy.” Shipley laid her gun on the table after looking around. “I’m armed all the time, as is Locke and Jack. Even being in this small town can be dangerous. What would you do if she were to come into your home with her own weapon? I’m sorry to say that it would be over before it started. She’s already said that she’s not above killing you for them. Yes, I know you don’t know if that’s true or not, but think of how Samuel killed his wife. She’d been used to his beatings, and it got her killed. Please stay with Demi. We’ll all feel better about you being safe.”

She looked pinched again. Demi thought that was a good word for someone who looked not quite angry but upset all the same. When she asked the boys what they wanted to do, he was both surprised and impressed. They put their heads together and spoke to each other. When they turned to him after a few minutes, Demi felt proud of them.

“You won’t hurt her. You’ve never hurt us, but we don’t know about our aunt.” He told them that he’d rather die than to hurt any of them. “All right, then we’ll stay, but we want you to make sure that Aunt Mandy gets to work and stuff with you. We don’t want her hurt either.”

“Deal.” They shook on it, and he was glad to see the gun was no longer on the table. Ordering another round of pizzas, he was happy to see that everyone was enjoying themselves, including Mandy.

~*~

Mandy didn’t want to stay at Demi’s house. She knew that it was the best possible place for her to stay without living with one of the others. Besides, the boys loved the man, and she thought that he was all right. Taking in a deep breath, she let it out slowly before correcting herself. She was in love with Demi.

It had happened so slowly that she didn’t know really when it had happened. He didn’t really have a great deal to do with her when he came to her house. But he did love the boys. And through them, she’d been able to see a part of him that others hadn’t. Demi was a good man.

He never treated her with anything but respect. When he’d been to the house, he was polite and kind. Staying for dinner when invited and even cleaning up after they were finished. The boys would tell her some of the things that he’d teach them. Like how to be nice to someone when they were mean to you. How to open the door to a place and allow older people and women to go in first. Apparently, this had been a fun lesson for them as they got their cheeks pinched on occasion and told what wonderful little men they were. They were learning lessons that their own father should have been teaching them, but didn’t get, not from Samuel.

The man was a monster. She had night terrors where she would wake up nearly screaming, seeing him beating poor Besty to death. Threatening her and his own children with the next beating. The way he stood over his own wife, her sister, and had beaten her with the ball bat that only that afternoon they’d been playing with in the yard. Who knew that something so innocent, like a child’s toy, could be used for such violence.

Shivering, she put the last of her clothing in the closet before closing the doors. She was putting her things in the dresser when Teddy came to see her. He got up on her bed and watched her for several minutes before speaking.

“Mr. Demi told us to call him just plain Demi. Is that all right?” She said it was all right with her so long as he was fine by it. “Okay. Also, he said not to tell anyone that we’ve moved into his house. He said that he’d make sure that everyone in town knew it too. Do you think that my dad is the one that got that woman to say she was going to kill you? I don’t want you to die, Aunt Mandy. You’re all me and Martin got in the world.”

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