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The second of relief I had at knowing she was with her father evaporated.
“You're gonna have to fucking start from the beginning,” I bit off, looking at Richard Lyon who seemed tense, but not completely freaked out like most would be cuffed in my shed.
“I don't see how it's any of your business,” he started, his tone cold. “Low life gun runners. She's none of your concern.”
“I made her my concern when I offered her protection from V. When I helped her work through the shit you let her go through, you sonovabitch. When I killed one of V's lackeys after watching Summer beat the shit out of him. She's. My. Fucking. Concern.”
Richard's head tilted, watching me, his brows drawing low. “Summer would never beat anyone. She was raised better than that. She's not base like you.”
“Watched it my damn self,” Cash pitched in. “She's got a mean right hook. She also told us that when we catch the other guy who used to slice her up, that we should use knives on him.”
“No, she wouldn't...”
“Then when she was done beating him,” I added, enjoying his look of outrage, “she told me to have fun killing him.” I watched him a beat, then laughed humorlessly. “What's the matter? Bother you that she's more like you than you planned?”
“I don't beat and kill people.”
“Not personally, no. But you have it done. You've got blood on your hands just like me. Just like your daughter.” That was a direct hit. His breath hissed out of his mouth.
“She only has blood on her hands because of you. You filthy little...”
He lost the rest of his sentence. Mainly because my fist collided with his mouth.
“How the fuck d'ya get him?” I asked, looking over at Wolf.
Last I'd heard, his home was like a fortress.
“V got his men,” Wolf shrugged.
I turned back to Richard. “I don't give a fuck how much money you lose, but you're going to call V and you're going to tell him that you're going to give into the demands.”
“Her.”
“What?” I growled, my hands itching to hit him again.
“V isn't a him. V is a her,” Richard clarified.
I caught Cash's surprised face, then he shook his head. “No, man. Don't fuckin' lie to us. I met V.”
Richard's head turned, looking pleased that he knew more than we did. “No. You met Daniel. Daniel pretends to be V in public. But he isn't V.”
“Then who the fuck is?” I exploded, getting closer to the chair.
Richard's head tilted up toward me, a look of distaste covering his features. “My wife.”
Alright. Of all the things he could have said, that might have been the only one that could have made me step away from him. Lose the urge to beat him into little meaty pieces. Because I needed answers.
“The fuck?” I asked, moving to lean against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest.
“V is Vanessa Lyon. She came from the ghetto and try as I might, I could never rid that street persona from her. And believe me, I tried,” he said in an odd tone, a tone that made me think there was a fair amount of street underneath his suit as well. “Then I found out that she was acting as a pimp. Had herself a barn of whores. I couldn't let that be a part of my daughter's life. So I let her go.”
“And she built her own criminal empire to rival yours.”
“Her's is built on blood,” Richard said, seeming to be insulted by being compared to her. “Rivers and rivers of blood. She's... unhinged.”
“No, really?” I ground out. “How could you tell? Because she had her own fucking daughter branded, sliced up, beat, and threatened to be raped?” At my words, Richard paled. Though I knew from Summer's own mouth that he had known she was being tortured. “Yeah. Your fucking containers of coke worth your daughter suffering like that?”
Richard's face fell to look at his lap. “You don't understand.”
“Then enlighten us,” Cash offered, looking like he was losing patience.
“I can't give in to her. Not even for Summer.”
“Why the fuck not?” Wolf exploded. Exploded. The sound of his voice loud enough for the walls to vibrate. Cash's body got tense, ready if needed, to try to grab Wolf and hold him back.
“There's no one to hold her back,” Richard said, sounding worried. “Without me, without me standing up to her... there's no telling what she would do. She's dangerous. More than me,” he looked up, staring me in the eye. “More than you.”
“You have no fucking idea how dangerous I am,” I countered.
“Oh, I know,” he said in a tone that suggested he did. A tone that said he knew about every life my hands had taken. Every body I had broken. “But she's bigger. She's richer. And she's out of her mind.”
“What the...” Cash started, but Richard went on talking.
“That's her baby. You get that, right? She carried her. She sang her to sleep as an infant. She was a good mother for those three years she was with us. She loved Summer. And yet she is holding her. Beating her. Starving her. Because nothing is more important to her than power. I can't let her have that power. It would be catastrophic.”
Unfortunately, that made it's own kind of sick sense.
I'd been around long enough to see crime lords get too big for their britches. Get too powerful. And with power came the urge to stay in power. Which, he was right, led to rivers of blood. Often for no good reason. And it always took a bigger, badder fuck to take them down. Or the cops. But the cops weren't touching V. So she either had deep pockets or she had something else on them.
She was dangerous.
“There has to be someone who can stand up to her. Someone she's afraid of. Other than you,” Cash clarified.
“Not who would get involved over one girl,” Richard said, shaking his head. Like he had already maybe went through the channels. Like, maybe, he had been trying to get her back all along.
