The Squad

Now I know I haven’t done anything to get Kat’s ass in a dither, so one of these boys had fucked up. I love a good show, and I’m bored as fuck since our little run last night. “Break out the popcorn, Hank; what’s got you all in a huff?” I turned to the women, which included my mother, Char, and Tina. Wait, where the hell are their husbands and Cy? Probably got high and drowned their asses.

“Dana-Sue, what’s that look for?” Law walked to his woman and took his kid. There was a lot of that going on in the room, kids being passed off to men. I’d already given away the triplets, and Cody was somewhere with the other kids, so for once, I was childfree.

Brandon’s woman didn’t look too pleased when she passed him their little bundle of joy. But Tyler was the man of the hour. He just crooked his finger at his woman and called her back to him after she passed their kid to him and started to walk away. “What’s your problem?” I don’t know if it was the look he gave her, the way he was standing like a military commander or what, but she started to get twitchy.

“Spit it out and kill the attitude.”

“Illyana’s dad.” All the men turned to look at Brandon.

“Bruh, didn’t you tell her?” Law asked him, as he looked sheepishly around the room.

“I was waiting for the right time.”

All hell broke loose. The men were asking the women how they knew about the senator coming here, and the women were arguing that they should’ve been told, and Hank, well, he was still looking at that damn laptop with a stupid ass grin on his face. Crazy fuck!

Jason

While the rest of them were arguing, I made my way over to Roxana. She and I seemed to be the only ones not involved in the brawl. “Let’s get out of here.” I took her hand and led her from the room before she could argue with me. My mind is still tripping over all the shit that’s going on around here. Kids are playing spy games, the women are making an end-run around their husbands, and I’m seeing a whole new side to my sister.

I’m surprised Gideon hadn’t reined her in as yet because I’ve never known him to let her get involved in shit, but here we are with her and her friends getting involved in shit, and he’s not saying a word. I can’t spend too much time worrying about Ash, though; she’s safe and is always going to be. It’s this one that has me worried. I see a lot of me in her, and that scares me more than a little bit.

I know how it is to feel like it’s you against the world, like you have no one, and no one understands. I also remember how hard it was for me to let anyone in, but I’m not about to give her the same luxury. It took my family a while to break down most of my walls, but I don’t want that for her. If I could, I would get her from the place she is now to a much happier one because I know from my own life experience that it’s possible.

I don’t want her to go through the same long drawn out bullshit fight to realizing that she deserves to be happy just like everyone else no matter the circumstances of her past. But what I see in her tells me that that’s easier said than done. I’m going to have to drag everything out of her every step of the way. I think I’m almost looking forward to that war.

I’ve already been in touch with Track to see if there’s any way to backtrack from where we found her to see if we can pick up where she originated from. It was a long shot, but it didn’t hurt to try though he didn’t seem too optimistic about the results. As far as what Mancini had on her, there’s nothing after age eight or nine. She’d essentially gone off-grid for damn near fifteen years, including the time she’s been living on the street.

“So, did you tell them the name of the town you came from?” I felt bad asking her that when I already knew the answer. Mancini’s setup had taken care of that, and though I didn’t let on how grateful I was that I could see and hear her when she was away from me, I think he knew. I’d damn near panicked when the women took her out of the room earlier. Not sure what that was about since it’s all new to me. But knowing that he had eyes and ears all over the place went a long way to making me feel at ease.