Beard Up(18)

When my parents were being investigated too closely by the FBI, as well as local police, to get the attention shifted away from them, they set one of their own soldiers on my sister and had him rough her up. They didn't care how he did it, but the soldier decided to take it a little further than just ‘roughing her up.'

He had done some digging and had found out that one of Audrey's co-workers, a club member's wife, was having trouble at the time. He'd used her as cover for what he'd done, deflecting what his true intentions were.

My parents hadn't cared. It hadn't bothered them at all. It actually had worked in their favor, and it even got the local police to back off of them long enough for them to establish some boundaries between them.

Meanwhile, my sister couldn't even go out of her house without having a panic attack.

Which was why I'd moved her a little closer to me. Though she didn't know it was me behind it nor did she know she was closer to me. All she knew was that she was offered a damn good job two towns over from my new home in Mooresville, Alabama. She loved it here, and the small town offered her the security that she needed to move on with her life.

Though my parents had been pissed off at first, they now didn't even notice that she was no longer there.

Not that I wanted them anywhere near her.

I'd learned of their dubious machinations while I was recovering from nearly dying in that fire, and what I'd learned … I shook my head. What I'd learned was that they were lucky I'd been too weak to even lift a pencil. That, and they hadn't come anywhere near me. Otherwise, if I could have lifted a fuckin' pencil, I would've stabbed it straight into their cold, dead hearts.

"This is crazy, you know," Ellen said to me from my side.

I looked down at her.

"How do you figure?" I asked.

"They're so close to us. How do they not see you?"

They were close, but the excitement of the fans around us had them paying attention to only what was in front and beside them, not what was behind them.

"The excitement of the game?" I offered.

I didn't know. It'd been a skill of mine since I was younger. I was always able to blend in, even when I became bigger and less easy to conceal.


      ///
       
         
       
        

Ellen gave me a doubtful look.

"How did you know what seats to get?" she continued to pester me.

I gritted my teeth. "Found the tickets on her counter."

"You were in her house?" Ellen whispered, eyes wide.

I nodded. "I'm in her house all the time."

"Ghost … " she hesitated. "I know I don't know all of it, and I realize you held some back because I was there, but maybe it's time you tell us what in the hell is going on."

"I told you most of it," I finally admitted. "But everything else? That you can't know. You can't know because if you knew, it'd put you in danger, and I'm not going to do that to any of you."

My words were almost sub-vocal, but she heard anyway.

And she chose to leave it be.

Thank fuck.

A loud crack had my head turning to see who'd hit the ball, causing my head to whip around so fast that my head spun.

I saw the ball and knew it was headed straight toward us. Her.

I only had a split second to react. One moment in time where I either did something or not.

And there was no way in hell I was letting that ball come anywhere near my woman.

I reached out and forward, spread my fingers wide, making as big of a target as I could as I leaned over the man that was between me and Mina-her date who I despised, who I did not want anywhere near my woman, and who I wanted to choke on a hot dog-and stopped the ball with my arm.

The foul ball hit the muscle just over my tattoo-the one I got the day my skin was healthy enough to take one after that day-and I grunted in pain.

The ball rolled down my arm and into Mina's lap, and she caught it with her hands that had been enfolded in her lap nearly the entire game, almost instinctively.

It missed hitting her temple by the width of my arm.

She inhaled sharply, and her head turned so she could get a look at the man who'd just saved her life, and her lips formed into the cutest little O that I'd ever seen.

Though, that was saying something because she had made that expression frequently since the day I first met her.

The past slammed into me like a freight train.





***


I walked down the steps of the front porch, and the hot, humid summer air slapped me in the face like a still-damp towel straight from the dryer.

I was already sweating, and I hadn't even done anything but walk outside.

Wonderful.