Page 8 of Bane's Beginning

“Don’t know him,” he said, shrugging me off.

It’s not that I didn’t think he was lying, it just felt like he didn’t even try to know who I was asking for.

“Are you sure? Maybe you’d know if you looked at the picture,” I sassed to the man about two times the size of me.

“Not how shit works around here,” he grumbled. “I don’t know how the fuck you got in here, but the way you’re asking questions tells me that you don’t belong and you shouldn’t be digging around.”

I huffed. Who the fuck did this man think he was? I was about to rip him a new asshole when the woman standing next to him grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Sorry about him,” she said, giving me a reassuring smile. “He’s just upset because one of the dogs ate all the cake I made before he could have some.”

We both laughed. She seemed nice in a genuine sense. Though, I wouldn’t have gotten those vibes from her before she spoke. She looked like every other rich kid back home in California.

“We do have some rules here, but if you describe who you’re looking for, maybe we can help.”

“Sure. He’s about six-foot-something, buff, Black, walks around like he’s better than everyone else, with a massive chip on hisshoulder,” I said, doing an impeccable job at describing my brother, or so I thought.

The girl laughed at me. “Honey, you just described half the men in here. The other half are just white.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. I don’t get nervous but they were staring me down and a few other people around me were too. “Um. He also has a huge tattoo of the Navy SEAL emblem on his chest. The words, ‘death before dishonor’ on his right arm.”

The men around us stood up a bit straighter. Her eyes widened in slight shock as she shouted, “Babe! Come here.”

The look on her face made me start to worry that something bad had happened to him, but then a man rounded the corner and I knew instantly that he was my brother.

“Why are you screaming at me, woman?”

I was a little taken aback by the term of endearment the pregnant lady used to call my brother over. I couldn’t stop looking at her stomach, and I’m sure that others could see the look of disdain on my face.

“Someone’s looking for you,” she said as she pointed in my direction.

“Thea?”

He froze, and then every ounce of color drained from his face.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

The wrath in his words was not lost on me, but I was angrier. I took a look at his patch and it read Ares and the word Enforcer, whatever the hell that meant.

“I could ask you the same fucking question. Aren’t you supposed to be overseas fighting some war? What the hell are you doing in some shitty small town?” I spit back at him.

“Don’t fucking worry about it. Turn your ass around and get the hell back to California before I drag you there myself.”

“I told you that I can’t stay there and you wouldn’t listen,” I said. I noticed the party was getting quieter and a small crowd was gathering around us. No doubt they were worried about the way he was talking to me and what he was going to do. My brother may be an asshole, but I’m his little sister, which means I can take whatever he wants to dish out and give it back to him just as hard.

“You’re damn straight I won't listen. I don’t give a fuck about your stupid ass schoolgirl problems,” he spewed. “You’re not throwing your life away because you don’t have any friends. Now go back to school. It’s what they would have wanted. You never should have come here, Thea.”

“Are you serious right now? You think I’m just going to leave,” I laughed right in his face. He should have known better than to throw what our parents would have wanted in my face. I knew more than he did what they would have wanted and it was for us to stick together. Not for him to abandon me.

“For god knows how long, you’ve lied to me about being in the military. For what? To come play Jax Teller in the middle of fucking New Mexico? Yeah, I’ve watched Sons of Anarchy. What, you’re some kind of criminal now?”

The idea made me want to gag. It’s not like I had a thing against bikers, it was the idea that my brother was a part of some type of criminal organization. I’ve had dealings with criminals like them. It was why I had to always look behind my back and be careful who I trusted. “I always knew you were an asshole, but this,” I looked around the bar and let my eyes catch the girl's pregnant stomach again, “takes the fucking cake.”

I clapped my hands a few times directly in his face. He looked at the woman and the realization lit up on his face.

“Fuck, Thea,” he said, sighing. “It’s not what you think. I was going to tell you.”

His voice got small, and I hoped he felt even smaller. If he was really having a child with this woman then it was really true. It wasn’t because of his job that he pushed me away, nor was it to keep me safe, it was because he just didn’t want me around.