At that, every set of eyes turned downcast in silent apology.
The Turks knew better than to come here. This was my club. I fucking owned it, but that didn’t excuse the behavior of my Dragons.
I thought about this situation, and the single sentence I thought so often came to mind.
What would Twitch do?
It was my mantra, how I lived my life, and so far, it had served me well.
“Who was it?” I took a step closer. “Which wise guy started it?”
After a long moment, one of them stepped forward. I didn’t hesitate. I lifted the gun and pulled the trigger, the echo of the shot sounding too loud in the almost empty building. I took no joy in watching the man fall to the ground in a lifeless heap.
I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “When are you fuckers gonna learn? Ling giveth.” My eyes snapped open once again and my face twisted in rage. “Ling taketh away.”
As I turned, I uttered, “Decide where your loyalties lie and decide quickly.” I was so angry. “Because Momma’s this close to drowning her young.”
An agitated sigh left me.
Sometimes, it was hard being queen.
I felt his presence, knowing he was on my ass, and the second I stepped outside, his strong arm came around my shoulders, pulling me to him. “Don’t sweat it.”
It was frustrating. I expected this position to give so much more than it took. No wonder none of my brothers objected to my takeover.
Five brothers, and none of them wanted the throne. I should’ve known.
On the other hand, I had their respect. I’d told them all straight up. They didn’t have to love me; they didn’t even have to like me, but they would respect me. Because I was the motherfucking queen of The Dragons, and that position demanded respect.
It was important to me.
I started from the bottom and quite literally fucked my way up to the top, but now that I was peering down from Mount Olympus, I realized something was missing.
A king.
Only one man had ever been worthy of the title, and he was gone. He was missing. It meant nothing without him.
It was supposed to be us, the two of us, doing this together.
Sure, I might’ve been queen, but without a worthy king, the empire gained meant squat.
I still mourned the asshole, but I did it silently, in private, away from prying eyes.
So when Van pulled me deeper into his side and muttered, “Come smoke a blunt with me. We’ll talk,” I nodded.
Because nothing made me feel worse than being alone, and tonight, I was lonely.
The second we stepped inside Van’s house, I kicked my shoes off and threw my purse down on the counter before walking over to one of the three sofas and throwing myself back on it. Looking up at the ceiling, I wondered what the hell I wanted in life.
I had it all.
The money. The power. The grandeur.
Why was I being such a pouty little bitch?
Van came over to me, sat on the floor in front of me, put a hand to my knee, and squeezed it in a show of silent support.
He was my champion. My biggest supporter.
Sometimes, it felt like he was my only supporter.
Without a word, he took the small tin from his pocket and started rolling. He lit the end of the joint, taking a hit before passing it to me. I took it, putting it to my lips, and breathed in the strong, pungent smoke. I took another hit, then another, until the joint was plucked from my fingers.
We sat in silence a long time before I spoke into the dimly lit area, my voice just above a whisper. “Do you ever think about what Cha did to us?”
Our father was abusive in every way, shape, and form.
He didn’t hesitate. “All the time.”
It was hard growing up in a Vietnamese family and being the last of six children. To make matters worse, I was a girl. My father didn’t care for that at all. He let me know every moment of my life. The stories he told would shape me into the woman I was today.
How, the moment he found out I was a girl, he threw my mother down the stairs, right there in the hospital. How he reveled in her bleeding.
Unfortunately, I survived. In fact, I survived multiple attempts at termination, all at my father’s hand, and when I was born, he vowed to be rid of me, sooner rather than later.
Being groomed for sex was confusing. I remember being confused, at five years old, wondering why my father was suddenly being so nice to me. Had I been but older, I would have realized it was a trap. Being so young and craving my father’s approval, I did whatever was asked of me because when I did, he was happy with me.
It was your classic case of training. A textbook case of conditioning.
The coward didn’t even do the things he did himself. He would have my brothers do those terrible things to me, and when I took the throne from my father, I was going to make my brothers pay for what they did to me.
It was one night when Van and I had gotten into a relatively animated argument that I called him a pedophile. I wasn’t prepared for the blow, and when Van slapped me, he did it hard enough that I saw stars.
Panting through the shock, he leant over me as I clutched my cheek, and spat, “You think you’re the only victim here?” Well, yes, I had. And I watched my brother’s chest heave with anger, with anxiety, as he blinked away tears at the memories. “You think we wanted to do those things?” He shook his head. “You were too young to remember. You have no idea what was done to us if we refused.” He looked blankly at the wall. “He never touched you. That didn’t stop him from touching us.” When he snapped out of his trance, he blinked a moment then snarled at me. “You fucking watch how you talk to me, Ling Ling.” When he walked away, leaving me on the floor, he uttered, “Don’t talk about shit you know nothing about.”
It was the severity of those words, the hidden pain in his voice, that made me see the truth for what it was. Van was right. I wasn’t the only victim of my father’s cruelty.
We didn’t speak about it often, but when we did, I felt myself expel the anger inside me, float a while with the lightness in the air, and tonight, I needed it.
He handed me the blunt and I took it, licking my lips and holding it between my fingers. “Do you remember what you did to me? What he made you do to me?”
I put the smoke to my lips and breathed it in, closing my eyes, basking in the warm glow of my high.
With his back to the sofa, Van nodded. His voice was whisper soft. “Yes.”
I took another hit and my mind turned heady. I didn’t mean to ask what I did. “Do you want to do it again?”
Complete honesty. “No, but I think about it sometimes.”
Same. And I was disgusted with myself.
And this was why we were as close as we were. Nobody understood. Only we comprehended the confusion child sex abuse caused, the puzzlement of being groomed by a family member and not knowing it was happening, and finally, the heartbreaking experience of occasionally experiencing pleasure at the hands of somebody you shouldn’t.
Of course, we weren’t to blame. We didn’t know any better. We were just kids, and the person we were meant to trust betrayed us. He betrayed us all.
No wonder we were as fucked up as we were.
“Do you want children?”
Van scoffed. “Fuck, no.”
Fair enough. Only one of my brothers had a child, and he stayed as far away from that child as possible, scared to mess him up as much as we had been.
“I do,” I revealed, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “I did anyways.”
He leant back and the back of his head touched my shoulder. “Then you’ll have kids, Ting-a-Ling. No biggie.”
I ran my fingers through his hair fondly, and we returned to a comfortable silence.
No. It wasn’t meant to be.
As much as it saddened me, children weren’t for me.
And I would just have to live with the bitte
r jealousy that she got the child that was by all intents and purposes, mine.
Chapter Four
Lexi
I was in the kitchen when someone knocked at the front door. Molly put down the wooden spoon she was using to stir the pasta sauce and wiped her hands on a tea towel. “I’ll get it.”
God, she was a good girl. I was grateful to have her in my home, in my life. I hoped she knew how much I appreciated her. Lord knows, I reminded her as often as I could.
The second I heard the door open, Molly uttered an amused, “Geez, you look like shit. Long flight?”