“You ride out with us,” Tack declared.
“I ride out in five minutes. You don’t get an old lady here, I’m droppin’ the girls at Deb’s and I’m on it.”
“Copy that, High.”
High disconnected and stalked back into the living room.
His did this with his brain not functioning.
I’d do it every day it was so worth it to walk through fire for you.
He knew what she meant and it wasn’t having him back in her home, in her bed, in her arms.
It was having him back, having his daughters asleep in her guestroom, giving him a day like he had that day. Giving him everything he’d ever wanted.
He stopped in the living room, not able to look at the two beautiful daughters his woman sacrificed years to give to him. Instead, he dropped his head and lifted his hand to curl it around the back of his neck, shutting his eyes tight at pleasure that could now turn to pain if anything happened to her at hearing her words rattling his brain.
Valenzuela was a lunatic. Valenzuela was getting impatient.
And Valenzuela was not stupid.
High was the weak link. Pushed, High was probably the last brother of Chaos who would lose it, fuck everything and do anything, anything, to rescue his woman.
And when that was done, get his vengeance.
But it was more.
The motherfucker had lured his baby girl out of the house.
Fuck yeah.
High was the weak link.
Rescue.
Then vengeance.
“She didn’t mean anything.”
Cleo’s trembling words had High righting his head and dropping his hand to focus on his girls in Millie’s armchair, holding on to each other, Zadie with her face pressed into her sister’s chest, her body shaking with silent tears.
“She didn’t, Daddy,” Cleo kept on. “She told me last night when we were in bed that she thought Millie was cool. She wasn’t being bad. She was just being...” Her face and her voice said she knew the rest was lame. “Maybe not too smart.”
A stifled sob came from Zadie, which meant High’s legs moved him to their chair.
Cleo watched him do it, holding on to her sister. Zadie sensed him doing it and burrowed deeper into Cleo.
She was scared of her old man.
He hated that too.
Oh yeah.
Vengeance.
He crouched down in front of them.
“Look at me, Zade.”
It took her a beat but she did, doing it just twisting her neck a little so she could peek at him still pressed to her sister’s chest.
“We’ll talk ’bout you talkin’ to men you don’t know later, baby. Though that’s a lesson I think you already learned today and I know you didn’t mean to do anything bad. This isn’t on you, Zadie. What happened isn’t your fault. But right now what’s important is that I need you to tell me about the men who took Millie.”
She drew in a broken breath and High fought clenching his teeth because it felt like it took her a week to draw it in.
Then she stuttered, “I was... I was m-mean to her.”
Fuck.
“You got over that, Zade,” he reminded her. “This isn’t about that. That’s done. Now you gotta tell me about those men.”
“I didn’t know, they... they were b-bad men. Never, Daddy, never would I be that mean, going out so Millie would come out after me. She’s... Millie, she’s... I did. I did tell Clee-Clee she was cool. And I’ve been mean to her. I did bad things. I scared her about Chief. But now I like her. She’s nice. She has a super nice house. She has cute kitties she lets us play with. But even if I didn’t like her, I’d never be that mean.”
“Zade,” he said, forcing his voice to soft and lifting a hand to lay it on her back. “I know you didn’t mean anything. You’re not in trouble. But I gotta know about those men.”
“Y-you yelled at me,” she whispered.
His voice was firm, and with his patience slipping he couldn’t smooth the edge when he stated, “Zadie, this is not about you. There are gonna be times in your life, a lot of them, when it’s not about you. You gotta get used to that and do it now, darlin’, ’cause this is one of those times. A big one. Now you dig deep like I know you can and tell me about those men.”
“They... they were Mexican,” she said.
He was right.
Valenzuela.
“Older? Younger?” he asked.
“Younger than you,” she answered.
Valenzuela was close to his age.
That meant soldiers.
“Dressed nice?” he went on.
She nodded.
“The color of their SUV, you remember?” he pushed.
“B-black,” she said.
“Did you see the kind of SUV they were in?”
She shook her head.
“What’d they say to you?” he kept at his girl.
“Just that... that...” She pressed her lips together and when High was near to losing complete hold on his patience, she continued talking. “They were friends of yours and they had something in their car for you. A present. A surprise. Something special. They asked me to come get it and bring it to you. I know it was stupid,” she whispered the last, sounding beaten. “But I... I...” She shoved into her sister. “This is a nice neighborhood. Millie has a really pretty house. They seemed nice.” She took another broken breath. “I didn’t think they were bad.”
She just didn’t think. She knew better. Even High had drilled the don’t talk to strangers shit into her head since she could cogitate.