CHAPTER TEN

 

 

“What the HELL?” I shouted at my mom, while Dak and Cy got to their feet.

“You set us up?” Alta clenched her fists. I’d never seen her so angry. In fact, I’d never seen her angry, so this was a first.

Louis was tending to his father’s ribs while the twins re-set Cy’s nose. They didn’t seem as angry as us, but then again, they hadn’t been tied up and blindfolded. All they’d had to do was use the van to barge through the wall.

Gin Bombay wiped the tears from her eyes and sat up on the bed, regaining her composure.

“We told the guys we should’ve handled whoever came through that door. But no. They were worried for our safety.”

That sounded a little familiar.

“Dak was sure the boys would come in first. Then we heard you two outside and realized you were doing the recon,” Mom continued.

“Nicely done, by the way,” Liv said.

“But the guys thought they had this,” Gin erupted into giggles again. “I wish I’d taken a video of that! My baby girl taking on two grown men!”

Dak wheezed as he sat down on a bed that had obviously seen better days, on a bedspread that was possibly made up of bacteria. “You broke my ribs!”

Cy started laughing through a bloody nose. “I’m really out of practice,” He said. “Congratulations!”

“On what?” I snapped. “Being made a fool of by my mother?”

“Sorry about that,” Mom said. “We just needed to see if you were up to the task, before we…” her voice trailed off.

“Before we what?” I grumbled. “Looked ridiculous in front of our family?”

“You didn’t look ridiculous. In fact,” Mom stood up and came over to me. “You handled everything that blew up with perfect sense.”

“That’s what we wanted to see,” Dak said before gasping and grabbing his ribs.

“I don’t get it,” Louis said. “You guys were bored?”

“Or masochists,” Jackson offered.

“Or both?” Woody folded his arms over his shoulders.

Liv shook her head. “No, we wanted to see if you could handle things, because we are going back into business.”

If you’d punched us in our six faces, you wouldn’t have been able to wipe the looks of shock we had.

Cy helped Dak to his feet. “We’d better get out of here before anyone comes running. Let’s meet up for breakfast down the street at that family restaurant.”

The six of us climbed into our van and Monty was able to back it out of the room. We were already down the road before we saw the four adults get into both of the cars and follow us. No one came out of the other two hotel rooms to see what was going on.

 

 

 

“So,” I said as I skewered a pancake ten minutes later, “You took care of Hamilton?”

My mother looked around before nodding. “Contact poison on the steering wheel.” She nodded at the boys. “Good thing you wore gloves when you grabbed the Vic.”

My jaw dropped open, “You could’ve killed them!”

Liv shook her head. “We were watching and had the antidote on us. You weren’t in any danger.”

Only in this family did talk like that sound normal.

“Who was he?” Monty asked, his eyes on the van outside where the very man we were discussing was rotting away.

“Serial Killer,” Liv said quietly. “You wouldn’t have liked him.”

“I have…” I looked at the others. “We have so many questions. I don’t know where to begin?”

Cy and Mom exchanged glances and he gave an imperceptible nod.

“Originally,” Gin Bombay said. “Liv, Dak and I came up with this to make sure you wouldn’t be tempted to try and follow in our footsteps.”

Alta looked as confused as the rest of us were. “But at the motel, you said you wanted to get back into the business.”

Liv nodded. “Like Gin said, we were afraid you would want to become assassins too. You seemed a bit lost after graduation. So, our original plan was to show you just how hard this job really was. But…” Her voice trailed off.

“The truth is,” Mom said as wiped her hands on a napkin. “We were bored. Really bored. No one was enjoying retirement. This kind of work was ingrained in our very DNA. We bounced it off Cy and Missi, and the whole thing turned into a way to see if you guys would want to join us.”

“Why didn’t you just ask us?” Louis looked directly at his father, who was struggling a little with his broken ribs. To his credit, Uncle Dak didn’t complain. Not even once.

He shrugged painfully. “We weren’t sure how you’d feel about it. Running the test would tell us if you could or even wanted to do this.”

Missi walked through the door and over to us.

“Sorry I’m late. It’s all taken care of,” She said to her cousins before sitting down next to her sons.

“What’s taken care of?” Monty asked his mom.

“The hotel. There’s a construction team working on it right now.”

“Fixing it up?” Alta asked. “Because it’ll take a miracle to make that place work again.”

Missi shook her head. “No. Knocking it down. We bought it a few months ago. Unfortunately, the place came with a few regulars who showed up late last night, demanding their rooms. You met them, I believe.”

“So, now you own a vacant lot?” Jackson shook his head. “This is crazy.”

Missi sighed. “It is. Getting back into the business after all this time is crazy. But we wanted to know how you felt about things. We got Mary and Dela involved and they got you involved. And here we are!”

“You tricked us, Mom,” Monty said as he and his twin folded their arms over their chests simultaneously.

She gave them a look we couldn’t interpret. “You two were having problems. Like a couple of old ladies, bickering all the time. You needed this. And I think it will be better for you.”

The boys looked at each other. Jackson asked, “How did you know we’d accept?”

“We didn’t. But, you are Bombays,” Mom shrugged. “We thought it was probably in your DNA too.”

I thought of pointing out that their DNA really was our DNA, but decided against it.

“Who’s going to take the place of the Council?” Woody asked. “It won’t interfere with our shop, will it?”

“We are. We will still help out and be involved, but you are the next generation – we’re passing the torch to you.”