Page 33 of Legacy of Smoke
“Fuck no.”
“Okay.” I hung up the phone and grabbed a heavy frying pan from the kitchen. I snuck out the back door and worked around the house until I arrived on the other side of the driveway.
Austin had the hood of my truck popped. His sleeves were rolled up, and I glanced at the bare skin there.
Bare, as in, no tattoos.
“What the fuck are you doing to my car?”
“Oh, Poppy, I didn’t see you come out.” He smiled like he knew me. Intimately.
But the cut over one eye and the slightly bruised swelling around it told me the truth. “Nice try, Andrew.”
He opened his mouth and tried to continue his farce. “Austin.”
That was a dumb thing to do. I traded the frying pad for the baseball bat I’d forgotten to put back in my truck. “How did you know where I live?”
His smile dropped and the face he wore now wasn’t pretty. “Jewel said Lily’s here. Send her out.”
Even if she were here, there would be no way I’d do anything this jerk asked for. I lifted the bat.
“What are you doing?” Andrew edged away from my truck.
“That’s my line, and your nice SUV is going to look like shit once I use this baseball bat on it. Won’t it? But that’s better than your face, right? Which will it be? Broken glass or broken face?”
Damn, I sounded just like my dad, and it was awesome. Too bad no one else got to hear me being all bad ass.
“Nice try. Put the bat down. Let’s talk.” He took a step closer. His grin was too plastic. I preferred Austin’s crooked one.
“No. You’re trespassing.”
He took another step closer.
I swung at the closest taillight. Andrew rushed me, and I used the back swing to clock him in the gut. Then I backed up into the street where I’d have more maneuvering room. A rumble of bikes, plural, broke the night’s silence.
Soon, over ten bikers rolled up on the scene. Andrew had recovered from the air being knocked out of him and wasbitching to anyone who’d listen. Which was an audience of exactly zero. My neighbors saw me, saw the bikers, the guns they carried, and locked themselves inside before pulling their curtains shut.
“What do you want to do, Poppy?” Jackson straddled his bike. His sergeant at arms, a man aptly nicknamed “Bear,” aimed a gun at Andrew’s head. Austin wasn’t with them and neither was Sprout.
“I wanna fuck him up.”
“Please no, it was only a simple misunderstanding. You’re mad at the wrong guy. I’m not like my brother. He’s the bad guy.” Andrew eyed the bikers and cringed.
“Shut up. That won’t work on me. See, I can tell the difference in you two.” I pointed the bat at him. “My daddy didn’t raise a fool.” I swung at the unmolested taillight, and the resulting thunk and tinkle of debris sounded so good.
Andrew swallowed. “But you’re only Lily’s half-sister…”
Someone snickered behind me.
“Do I look like Jewel?” I asked.
His eyes grew a little wider.
“That’s right, I don’t. I look like my mother. Who is the crazy woman who married Pinner Albert. You remember him, right? He sliced some guy to pieces, literalpieces, because they fucked with Lily.” I held his eyes and continued. “You fucked with Lily.” Then, I smashed the bat into the rear fender. “Now, come closer, so I can do this to your head. Please?” I wiggled my fingers, inviting him to try my patience.
A dark stain spread across Andrew’s crotch and crept down his leg as the piss leaked out.
“Fucking coward,” Jackson muttered. “Good thing the gene pool dumped the garbage into this one, not Smoke.” He dismounted, pulling his own gun. “You are going to stay awayfromallof ours. That includes Poppy here. Understand? PoppyAlbert.” He stressed my father’s last name.
