“Watch your mouth Josh.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah but you almost slipped and you know who has their ears pricked.” I inclined my head in the direction of our two little angels.
“I can’t believe we’re wearing this sh…stuff bro.” Josh pulled on the feather boa around his neck. I would laugh at him if I weren’t in the same predicament.
The wives had gone on one of their shopping marathons with Nessa. This could take a whole day but they promised that they’d be good which is what they’ve done a hundred times before but always broke their promises. I watched as our little girls poured us tea and chattered away at each other. Amara was mine and Selah was Josh’s; born one day apart three years ago, the two girls looked uncannily alike for cousins. Somehow we’d lucked out and there were no pregnancies while we were in school. There were more than a few scares but those always turned out to be false alarms. I was never too sure if I was pleased or disappointed after each one but it had worked out in the end.
We’d gone away on vacation after school, kind of a get out of jail free type thing. School was over and we were respectable college grads, it was time to unwind and relax. I don’t know if there was something in the water in Turkey or if the girls had planned this shit but three months later the house was filled with the sounds of morning sickness and quite frankly, bitching.
We were back home getting our lives sorted out, things hadn’t changed all that much except that we’d fixed up our floors a little to reflect adulthood instead of the teenagers we’d been when we left. Mom and dad were only too happy to have us back in the nest and life was settling into a routine. Then we’d jumped from college grads to dads in the twinkling of an eye.
Somewhere along the way the girls had decided to open a business together. Nessa was some up and coming hot shot designer and the three of them had some kind of business proposal put together even before we’d finished school. Carrie was going to do marketing and Kadyn was the numbers man.
Josh and I had completely changed our majors after we decided that we wanted to do something in the security field. We set up a nationwide database for victims of stalking which we got off the ground our last year in school. With James spearheading the security detail we searched the nation for men and women interested in offering security and workshops for women and men who were living in fear for their lives. Since the law seemed to move slowly even four years later we decided to take the initiative.
Now there were four states where we had safe houses set up along with workshops where victims were taught how to protect themselves and how to live their lives without fear. Josh had found a way to improve the tracking devices that we’d been using on the girls for years. The shit was so good the federal patent office had come calling. We had lawyers on payroll whose only job was trying to fight legislature to get the lax laws changed.
When we’d first set up the database I had no idea of the number of young girls that were being subjected to this horror. Families being held hostage in their own homes who had their hands tied by laws that seemed more interested in protecting the rights of the perpetrator than the victim. It was our aim to arm these people with everything they needed to take their lives back. Having seen the effects of that shit first hand I had a pretty good idea what was needed, and Kadyn was instrumental in a lot of the procedures we implemented. We had a few offers to work with law enforcement but decided against it. Their hands were too often tied by bureaucracy and bullshit, which defeats the whole purpose of what we were trying to do.
I got a great sense of enjoyment out of the fact that we’d used Bruno’s money to finance a lot of this because the shit was expensive. When we found a candidate it was up to the vetting team to decide the threat level and what was needed. Each of them was then outfitted with all the necessary equipment needed for their safety. A team was dispatched to secure their residence at our expense if they couldn’t afford it and the women were tagged along with other security measures as needed.
Everything was done to catch the perp in the act so that he could be brought to justice. We didn’t always stop there because as in a lot of cases these creeps got out of jail and went back to their crap. In those cases we set up security for the victim and if need be there were what I like to call enforcers to make sure they got the message. In essence we were helping the over worked local police who were sometimes less enthusiastic about our involvement than others. I didn’t really care about them or what they thought. As long as I could help people in need I was good. I never forgot my wife’s years of horror or Carrie’s near rape and murder. I was proud of my brother and myself that we’d made this our life’s work for all that it had started from a dark place.