Page 245 of Restless
CJ’s “fuck” was the last thing she heard before she sank into unconsciousness.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Bailey:Please attend my office’s Christmas party tonight.
Jamming a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, Mortician read and re-read Bailey’s text. He was at a bar near where the motel Meggie once stayed at had stood. It had been demolished about three years ago. With no clear use for the land, Mort considered purchasing it to add to his portfolio. So far, his bids fell through.
For the time being, it didn’t matter one way or the other. Left up to him, he’d sit on his money. He hated the idea of bankruptcy. Maybe, his frugality edged into stinginess.
Fuck, no maybe in it. Hewasa stingy motherfucker.
He’d lived through some very lean times. When he was seventeen, he’d spent a summer at the club. He’d gotten drunk, fought a stupid motherfucker, and been arrested. Sharper only bailed out Mort because it would make him look bad. As damage control, the press painted Mortician as a juvenile delinquent bad seed, a blight upon the great and holy Reverend Banks.
K-P and Big Joe rode to Cali, along with Outlaw, as a favor to Mort’s godmother. Or was it his godfather? Neither of who he’d ever met.
K-P, Big Joe, Outlaw, and Mort’s fairy godmotherfucker changed the trajectory of his life. He might’ve straightened up, though he doubted it. His father was a cold-blooded, miserable fuckhead who corrupted or destroyed everybody that crossed his path.
Mort had left Cali, riding bitch with Outlaw, and not having a fucking nickel to his name.
Puffing on his cigarette and blowing out smoke, Mort smiled at the memory. He’d been like a duck out of fucking water at the club. He’d also been the only black person in a club where Lowman lurked in the shadows.
Grim, Mortician tamped out his cigarette in the ashtray in front of him. He sat in a corner at a small table. The place was quiet and nearly deserted with only one other patron and the bartender.
Logan Donovan had been a power hungry, insane fuckhead. He’d beenlow. But his genes were fucking strong. Those motherfuckers thrived in Johnnie and Ryan.
“Hypocritical motherfucker,” he mumbled to himself.
Didn’t Sharper’s genes abound in him and Digger? His father’s tightfistedness infused Mort and the penchant for harsh criticism lived in his brother.
He hoped they had some of their mother’s fairness and awareness. She’d known what a motherfucker Sharper was. Years before she was killed in that car crash, she’d changed the terms of her will.
His mother’s money had helped his father become the world famous preacher with a megachurch. It wasn’t until after he’d killed Sharper did Mortician discover his father’s treachery.
The safe filled with cash wasn’t the only money his mother left him and his brother. Sharper had been the executor of her estate until her boys turned thirty. He received a quarterly fee. If one of them predeceased the other, then the surviving son received everything.
Mortician finally understood why Sharper had lured Digger away, although Mortician had already been over thirty by then. Sharper’s attorneys filed motions with the court claiming Mortician couldn’t be found.
It was a tangled fucking web that almost cost so many innocent lives—Bailey, Meggie, Mort, Digger…
Harley.
Once he found out the house he grew up in had been in his mother’s family, Mort decided to rebuild after all the dust settled and him and Digger received their inheritances frombothestates.
Digger still didn’t know what the fuck to do with money. Fortunately, he gave most of their quarterly payments to Bunny. She didn’t save as frantically as Mort but she didn’t spend as recklessly as Digger. Besides,Meggie’s investments supplemented that fool, which he knew, so his resentment of her was all the more annoying.
When Mort received his quarterly payment, he gave half to Bailey for her to do whatever the fuck she pleased. But he didn’t have a respectable career. He only had wealth.
Bailey:I love you so much. Please answer me.
The message fired his screen, brightening the darkness that swallowed him.
This was the first time in weeks she’d said those words to him. For that matter, she hadn’t sent him an invitation to anywhere, not even to fucking hell, in days.
He almost responded to her immediately. But she’d hurt him deeply. Shit he once overlooked now remained uppermost in his mind. Never mind her protecting Harley so fiercely. Her daughter, her decision.
However, Harley was his, too, and he was also entitled to his opinion about her behavior. Maybe, if he was a deadbeat, bitch-ass motherfucker they’d both have the right to disparage him. He wasn’t. Even if everybody hadn’t told him what a good husband and father he was in recent weeks, he’d just have to sit and reminisce to remind himself.
In the midst of debating if he should answer Bailey,I’m the Manby Aloe Blacc blasted from his pocket.
