Page 42 of Reckless Forever
I went to my phone and hacked into the security system I had installed at Santos’ house. He had the password changed twelve hours ago, but he can’t lock me out of a system I created. I watched him as he had a meeting with his team and recorded it so Jax could translate it for me later.
We went down a tunnel, and her eyes widened. This was a safe house that Pops had built years ago when we were at war with the Rockwells, and we never got rid of it. It was underground, and nothing or no one could infiltrate it without dying first.
Our fleet came to a stop, and we all got out. No sooner than the doors of the last truck opened did my nieces and nephews, who I had banned, run up to me.
I don’t know how Trouble and Jax do it. Here, a nigga was thinking about murder, and I had to step away from that to kiss foreheads, hug kids, and blow bubbles for Cupcake.
“These are my nieces and nephews. Cupcake and Jonah are my godchildren. No, I don’t like Jonah.” I introduced them to Ivy as she laughed when JoJo kicked me in the shin after I said that. He was extra bad, even worse than Blade.
“They’re gorgeous,” she said as she touched a bow on Juree’s head.
I carried Juree and held Cupcake’s hand as we walked into the house, and the security brought everyone’s things in.
“Let’s go talk,” Trouble said after he got everyone situated. It was never like us to go into a situation like this without a plan. But we needed one now, especially since we were going up against the Cartel. I sat the kids down and then went to the table.
“You gonna be okay right here?” I asked Ivy before I went into the room with my brothers.
“Negro, we don’t bite,” Kennedy said as she rolled her eyes and threw some chips into her mouth.
“Stranger danger, she don’t know y’all.” I shot back as I waited for Ivy to answer me.
“I’m fine.” She smiled and shook her head.
Before I could even close the door all the way, I heard Rainstorm’s nice ass saying, “It’s so nice to meet you, we’ve heard so many good things.” I shook my head. Sis had good energy all the time. That might be what Ivy needs to make her comfortable.
That was one thing about my family that I respected. We might have made some fucked up calls, but we backed each other right or wrong. As long as I said Ivy was family, there wasn’t a soul around me that would treat her differently.
I closed the door behind me and looked at the faces of Trouble and Jax. Both of them were waiting for my move. I didn’t keep them waiting for too long.
“I’m shutting that nigga’s compound down and killing everything walking.”
That was my solution. They both just smirked at me. Involving my parents was never going to be taken lightly. I don’t give a fuck if they didn’t live there. A nigga couldn’t even disrespect the house Meena grew up in. It was a death sentence. He should have let my girl move to the States in peace, because she was home now.
CHAPTER 12
Ivy
I sat at the counter of the safe house and didn’t know what to do with myself. It was the first time since I had known Judah that we had some kind of discourse. I hated that he felt I had lied to him, but my situation was too delicate to reveal outright. I know Padrino’s stance. He wants to keep me safe and tucked away so nothing happens to me. But I’m grown, and I miss the life I had before all of this happened.
His sisters-in-law were doing their best to make me feel comfortable, but all I could do was be in my head about how the last two hours had ruined the whole week that I had here. There was so much to unpack. The disappointment in his eyes when he thought I had lied to him, his anger when he came into the room that shook me a bit, and then there was the protection that he had for me when it came to his brother. He could say what he wanted to say, but Trouble was intense. They all had this menacing energy, but Trouble’s was louder than anything I had seen in person.
He claimed that Trouble was the nicest guy I’d ever want to meet, but in those circumstances, as a first impression, I wasn’t so sure. In contrast, his wife seemed like a ball of sunshine. Her energy reminded me, for some reason, of someone playinga harp, and I know she probably got under his skin sometimes. When he wanted to be mad, she just smiled at him through his anger.
Kennedy seemed like she was the “straight no chaser” one. And I could see the closeness that Judah spoke of. She barely looked at him the entire time they were in the house. Like she didn’t want to be accused of ganging up on him.
Both Storm and Kennedy were gorgeous, though, and they each had beautiful kids. As I looked around at all that was going on, through the chaos, I realized that this was something that I wanted for myself. Maybe not to be in an underground bunker, but the rest of it. Wife, living a soft life, crazy husband, beautiful, healthy children.
“Are you okay? I know that it was a lot back there. I would also like to apologize for my husband’s actions.” Storm smiled as she handed me a bottle of water. I took it from her.
“It’s fine, Judah says this is a regular Thursday for them.” I shrugged.
“It is. But they’re all bosses in their own right. Trouble is just used to being the older sibling, and sometimes he has to scale it back and let them tweak out the same way he did,” she chuckled as she sipped from her bottle.
I nodded, understanding what she meant. I didn’t have any siblings, but I could imagine what it would be like.
Scaring us all, one of the baby girls started crying at the top of her lungs, and Kennedy went over to get her.
“Blade! Why would you give my baby a hot Cheeto? Stormy, I’m about to whoop your sons’ ass!” I heard her scream.
