I winced at the pain and truth in his voice. “He’s only away for four more weeks. Then he’s back for at least six.” Leaning over I hugged my brother. I loved Arron. He was all I had besides my father. Our parents had been foster children and met at a group home event. When my mother died eight years ago from a brain tumor, my dad fell apart and sank all his energy into his work, rising in the army ranks and taking any deployment they offered. We had a nanny until I turned eighteen. Then I took over and it became just me and Arron most of the time. “He cares. I care.” I kissed his forehead. “Wanna tell me now why you got into a fight?”
Arron’s face turned bright red and he groaned. “I can’t stand these rich kids. There’s these two Silverman guys, who think their shit doesn’t stink.” His shoulders dropped. “I ignore them most of the time, but um…er… fuck, they saw you this morning when you dropped me off to school and I forgot my bag and you came back and got out of the car. One of them took a frigging photo of you, and well, let’s just say he wasn’t being very respectful.”
Reaching over I hugged my brother again. “I love you Arron. Thanks for being protective, but I’m a big girl. I can handle a little boy.” I winked at him. “I’m my father’s daughter after all.” Our dad had drilled into us from an early age that we needed to learn how to protect ourselves. I’d taken self-defense class every year from age eight and Arron was an awesome boxer, but he’d never used his skills outside of the ring until today. I even did some boxing classes myself and loved it. Boxing was my relax time. It was also something that helped me to meet and make new friends wherever we moved.
Arron laughed and relaxed back against the chair. “Do you think if dad hears about this he’ll stop Micky teaching me? He’s one of the things I actually like about moving down here. He reckons I should enter some comps. He says I have a killer right hook.”
Even though my brother held an icepack over his nose, I could see the smile on his face as he talked of his new boxing coach Mitchel, Micky. Arron’s old coach had referred him to Micky and I couldn’t deny that Arron did love his new coach and had improved in leaps and bounds.
“Nah, I won’t tell him. I’d be more worried about Micky finding out you got into a fight. You know his rule. No fighting unless it’s in the ring.”
Arron went white, his eyes went wide and I saw fear. “You don’t think he’d stop training me?”
I shook my head. “Nah. Don’t worry I’ll talk to him.” Arron visibly relaxed. I’d do anything for my brother and he knew he could always count on me. If boxing made Arron happy, I’d do anything to make sure Micky understood what had happened and didn’t kick him out of his program.
Getting comfortable in the chair for what, by the looks of the packed emergency room, was going to be a long wait, I grabbed my iPad, opened my Kindle app, and started reading.
Ryder
This day couldn’t get any fucking worse. My cousin Richard rang me this morning to tell me that Bailey, his soul mate and wife was in labor. That meant Aunt Gillian would be in a mood making sure everything went perfectly for her daughter-in law. If any of us Silvermans had a choice, we would stay away from the maternity ward until the baby was born, but we didn’t. We all would go and show our support. My mother would be the one who had to help deal and listen to Gillian complain why even the tiniest thing didn’t go as planned or she wanted.
The second thing to go wrong with my day was that I was called into work because three people had overdosed and died all in one night and in different places in the city, but all from what looked to be the same drug. My boss thought I’d be perfect for the case as I’d helped Richard, who had had the problem of people OD’ing in his clubs.
Now instead of waiting in maternity with the rest of my family, I was standing out the front of the emergency doors at Brisbane hospital with my brother Oakley and cousin Andrew.
Glaring at my brother and cousin, I slowly counted backwards from ten to calm myself before speaking to the two idiots before me. “Tell me again why the fuck I’m taking you two to the emergency room and not calling mum and Aunty Gillian?”
Oakley, my brother winced at my demanding tone, and my cousin Andrew stepped back before we stepped into the emergency department. “He’s in there bro, and the kid is fucking crazy. I mean look what he did to us.”
I was looking, and I was finding it hard not to have a little respect for this kid that they were talking about. My brother had a black eye, he was limping and I’d have bet my next pay check his arm was broken. Andrew didn’t look like he’d fared much better than Oakley. He may even look worse with two black eyes. My brother and cousin had training too, so I knew they were no lightweights. I’d spoken to Philip, their security, on the drive to the hospital and asked why he didn’t step in and help my brother and cousin. He’d told me the guy who’d fought them was just a seventeen year old kid, a boy the same age as them. Philip hadn’t said why this kid had beat the shit out of my brother and cousin and that alone had me suspicious.