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Spencer throws Zander in the back, shuts the door, and strides back to the passenger side to sit up front.
Zander and his bullshit took just long enough that the last of the cops pull out of the lot as we all settle into the car, so we don’t have to wait around to see them go. I shot off a text to Kratos, letting him know we need a clean-up team for the guy I took out earlier. He doesn’t respond, but I know it will be handled. It always is.
We pull out of the lot, and I jump on the highway. I'm not sure if I can remember the last time I was so excited to go home. I could probably sleep for a few days at his point.
“Explain.” Spencer says after a while of driving, Zander has been quiet for the most part, probably sulking. I look back at him in the rearview mirror and see that he’s passed out, with his fucking shirt pulled up over his nose. I let out a huff before returning my focus to the road and explaining to Spencer what he missed.
“Why the fuck do you think I would care?” Spencer grumbles at me after I finish my explanation, but the look on his face says it all. He does, in fact, care.
“Let’s not pretend we don’t know each other, brother. I saw the way you looked at her.” I give him a pointed look as we finally pull into the long winding drive to my parents' house.
“I didn’t look at her in any special way, jackass.” He says under his breath, but his words lack any real bite.
“Sure. And Zander didn’t fall asleep sniffing his shirt because of her.” I say as we pull into the garage, and I push the button to close the door behind us. Spencer whips around in his seat, throwing an evil look at Zander before hopping out of the car and heading inside without a word.
Yeah, he doesn’t care at all.
I wack Zander’s leg, he grumbles incoherently but sits up, and that’s enough for me. He can either get out of the car or sleep here for the rest of the day. It makes no difference to me.
* * *
We gothrough the garage and into the side door that takes us directly to the house. I didn’t look at the time before we came in, but I know it has to be early morning. We each kick off our shoes right by the door, my mother is very particular about no shoes in the house, and we move through the house as quietly as possible so as not to wake her and my father.
I’m hit with the smell of fresh coffee on our way through the kitchen. After such a long night, it smells delicious, and I’m half tempted to go and have a cup. However, I decide against it in favor of just going to my room to sleep. It’s not until my father comes around the corner a second after we enter that I realize something’s going on.
“There you three are. I wondered where you had gotten off to for so long, just assumed you were out partying again.” My father greets us with a chuckle as he walks to the coffee machine and fills his thermos, dressed in full uniform.
I’m almost a carbon copy of my father, and I look even more like him if you look at his pictures from when he was my age. We have the same dark brown hair, stiff jaw, and overall build. I’ve bulked up a bit in the last few years, making me larger than him, but it's not surprising as he’s getting older.
One thing that sets us apart is our eyes. Whereas his are green, and my mother's are blue, I have one blue eye and one green. The best of them both, as my mother always says. I’m also completely covered in tattoos from the neck down, while my father has always despised them. His hair is cut short, almost in a military-type cut, and while my hair isn’t long, I make sure to keep it longer than his. I don’t dislike my father; I just don’t want to be him. No matter how much he wishes I would follow in his footsteps, I can't. Life as a cop was never something I wanted, let alone the chief of police.
I should have realized something was off when I smelt the coffee. Nobody would usually be up drinking coffee at this time. Clearly, I’m beyond exhausted if I’m missing simple shit.
“What’s going on?” I ask because something must be happening if he’s up and headed to work at this hour. Ignoring his comment about us being out at a party, I’m far past the age where I feel the need to explain myself to him. Of course, the less he knows, the better, so if he wants to believe we were out partying, it just makes explaining our absence easier.
“The boys down at the station just called and said they brought in a group of girls. It appears they were all victims of sex trafficking.” He tells us without looking away from his coffee as he mixes in his sugar and puts the lid on. “They got the guy in charge, and I need to go in for his questioning.”
He turns to face us after he’s finished with his coffee, and we all just kind of nod along with what he says, giving off an air of indifference. The boys at the station know better than to mention we were there and our involvement with it. Thankfully they also seem to have enough brain cells, not to mention the man who tried to run either.
Our parents are all under the impression we’re spoiled college students, so that’s what we let them believe. Not that it’s hard because gang involvement or not, we are still college students with lots of money. That’s just not all we are.
My mother comes flying around the corner a moment later, dressed to the nines in one of her lawyer skirt suits, a warm smile breaking out over her face when she sees us.
My mother is a beauty who doesn’t look a day over thirty even though she’s pushing fifty. She's tall and curvy with lean muscle from years of yoga and pilates. The perfect suburban housewife with a brain, unlike so many of her annoying friends. Her dark auburn hair is pulled up into a bun that helps her look more sophisticated, and her face has minimal makeup, just enough to highlight her blue eyes. The smile she gives us takes her right out of lawyer mode and back to loving mother. It’s like she can’t help it.
She walks over to us, planting a kiss on each of our cheeks as she goes. She’s always taken Zander and Spencer in without question and treated them like her own. I think she always wanted more kids, but when she chased her dream to be the best lawyer in the city, she put having kids on hold and instead just took over taking care of them.
“Good to see you boys, though I do wish you wouldn’t be out so late.” She gives us all a stern look, but the smile on her face lets me know she’s just giving us a hard time and isn’t actually upset.
“Sorry, Mrs. Spade, time just got away from us tonight. You must know how it is, a beauty like you. I’m sure you were the life of the party in college.” I cut a glare at Zander as he gives my mom his most flirtatious smile. When he notices, he just shoots me a wink, and I let out a huff, rolling my eyes.
Zander has always been the king of buttering her up, and while it has gotten us out of a few sticky situations over the years, I don’t have to like it.
“Are you going with dad?” I ask her to pull her attention away from him.
“Of course I am, sweetheart. Those poor girls will need all the help they can get. Starting with finding them all homes or, at the very least, a place to stay for now.” The slight pink of her cheeks lets me know Zander’s teasing hit home but other than that, she's back to business.
Mother reached her dreams of being the city's best lawyer a few years ago, and now she’s the district attorney. Since then, she has been able to do much more pro bono work, which she’s always loved. She helps mainly with younger kids, so the fact that she will be helping with this isn't surprising.
