The Love We Hate

CHAPTER 4

Danielle stormed out of Chip’s room. If she had been a fire-breathing dragon, she would have had enough rage to scorch the house to the ground. Not that it would have taken much to reduce the two-bedroom, paint-peeling piece of junk they had been forced to hide in for weeks, into a pile of nothing.

She stood in the tiny kitchen and tried to collect herself with deep, long breaths. Meditation wasn’t her thing, so she had absolutely no idea what kind of breathing she had to do to achieve mental clarity. Danielle just hoped forcing oxygen into her lungs would somehow just convince her body to relax and thoughts of murdering her own brother would evaporate.

After a few breaths, it didn’t look like her theory was working. Her hands clenched and flexed at her sides like a fighter ready to jump in the ring and rain down punches on her opponent.

Sadly, she couldn’t rain any form of beating on Chip no matter how her brain screamed he deserved it and more.

It was times like these when Danielle wished she had just left Chip with JC and made a run for it. She could have left the country. Hell, she could have left the continent and just found a really deep hole very far away in some third-world country to hide in for the rest of her life. It wouldn’t have been great, of course. But she would have been free from everything. Free to sleep without worrying if the gun was loaded and close enough. And most importantly, free from the shadow of the Marvick name and her brother.

Sometimes she allowed herself to dream of such a life no matter how much it was just an exercise in frustration and a fast track to depression.

The sound of someone entering the kitchen behind her snapped Danielle out of her thoughts like a switch. She had her hand on the gun before she even turned around to check who it was.

“Easy, child,” JC muttered in his usual calm voice. Like he was trying to calm an anxious, vicious dog. The way her nerves were fried with tension, Danielle thought; he probably wasn’t wrong to use that tone on her.

Even though Danielle had already confirmed with both sight and voice that it was just JC, it took her a few seconds to disengage her brain from survival instinct and acknowledge that there was no immediate threat to her life. Very slowly, she pulled her hand away from the gun and looked at the old man.

“Sorry,” she mumbled uncomfortably.

JC waved off her apology like he wouldn’t have expected less from her. With that, a small smile dared to tug at the corner of her lips. She exhaled a sigh and finally sat down.

“I didn’t know you were back already,” Danielle said conversationally after a beat had passed.

JC moved into the kitchen. He dropped a grocery bag by the small counter and then moved to grab a skillet from under the sink. “Couldn’t have heard me with all that shouting you and Chip were doing. Thank goodness we ain’t got nosy neighbors, or the two of you would have brought the police to our doorstep for disturbance.”

An icy shiver traveled the length of Danielle’s spine at the mention of the police. “s**t,” she murmured under her breath before biting her lip hard enough to almost break the skin. That was the very last thing they would need.

The old man looked at her for a moment. He arched his brow. “Same old arguments?”

Danielle scoffed before she could hold it back. Of course, it was the same old argument. For weeks Chip had been singing the same song like a broken record. “Chip wants to go after them even though he can barely stand on his feet for five whole minutes without help.”

“Revenge is a powerful emotion.”

“More like a deadly poison,” Danielle retorted.

JC nodded and got back to making their meal. He removed a packet of chicken breasts from the bag he had carried in and then grabbed the knife and chopping board. He waited until he had washed his hands and was slicing the meat in long thin strips before he spoke again.

“I got the information you asked for,” he said.

Danielle immediately sat up. “Yeah?”

Her enthusiasm didn’t go unnoticed. The old man glanced her way before returning his attention to the meat. Danielle self consciously pushed her hair out of her face and tried to school her features a little too late. Luckily, JC didn’t question her actions and just told her what he had found out for her.

“There were no casualties on their side. At least not the significant ones. Lorenzo lost some of his hired men, but his family made it out of that forest with barely a scratch.”

“And?” she asked impatiently. What JC was telling her, she had already put together on her own. She could also remember seeing the men watching them as they walked out of the forest with her brother’s bloody, wounded tail between his legs. She was more interested in any information about the man she had interacted with in the forest. The man she hadn’t killed.

She had already found a picture of him on the internet, standing in front of one of his restaurants. Which wasn’t hard to do once she searched for Lorenzo. The rest of the man’s crew was so connected to him the story on Trey had practically jumped at her before the search results had fully loaded on her phone. The article had said Trey was the owner of several successful restaurants and a pretty talented chef as well.

It was kind of hard for her to reconcile the man that went around with a gun in the forest, ready to shoot, with the restaurant owner. But it was one of the many interesting and puzzling details she had come to learn about the men that killed her family.

While her family knew nothing else but how to be dangerous criminals, Lorenzo and his men had built a normal life away from all guns and bullets. Danielle wondered if her family had done the same; would they still be alive? And would her brothers have been better people? Maybe even less cold hearted? She shook her head quickly to stop that train of thought. There was no way to ever know the answers to such questions, so it was pointless to torture herself with them.

After a beat, she shook her head again, with more force this time. Her mind was actively still wandering through her thoughts of what-ifs. Another exercise in wasted energy and frustration, she reminded herself.

A deep frown creased her forehead when her mind refused to let the thoughts go. Danielle realized that maybe she just found it hard to come to terms with the fact that the only family she had left was Chip. She never thought she would miss them or even mourn their loss. But it had sneaked up on her and she did. She missed her crazy brothers. Even her controlling father.

It had never been easy being Clement Marvick’s daughter and living in the shadow of her three scary elder brothers, but it had been her life for twenty-two years. There had been security and a sense of belonging amid the madness she had called her life. To have it all suddenly change was disorienting.

Completely lost in her thoughts, it took a moment for Danielle to realize that there was too much silence in the kitchen. Even the sound of meat being cut was gone. She immediately looked up and found JC watching her with a concerned frown creating a deep furrow between his brows.

“I’m getting worried about you, Miss Marvick,”

Danielle broke eye contact. “I’m fine. Just a little preoccupied.”

“Of course.” He didn’t look satisfied, but he thankfully let it go. Something she liked about the old man. He never pushed. “Anyway,” JC went on, “It appears that… Lorenzo’s guys clashed with Niko. You remember Niko, right?”

Danielle shuddered and made a face of disgust. “Who would forget?” Anyone who dabbled in the world of organized crime knew all the major rats in the game. Especially the filthy ones. It was the only way to stay alive. Know the people most likely to put a bullet in your back. Even though her father never let her get fully involved in the activities, she knew enough.

“How bad was it?” she asked.

“They took him out,” JC stated with a little smile.

Danielle blinked. Well, she hadn’t expected that. “Damn. They ain’t playing.” She paused, a frown forming between her brows once again as she thought of something. “JC? Do you think Lorenzo and his guys want to rule the entire scene?”

JC shrugged. “It’s possible, but I highly doubt it. Nothing would have stopped them from doing that years ago. I don’t think that is their end game.”

Then what was? Danielle wondered.

Seconds ticked by. JC didn’t say more. He was now slicing peppers and some onion and seemed content to concentrate on his task until she asked further questions. Which he obviously knew she would.

Danielle fidgeted with her fingers against her thigh for a moment, then finally blurted out, “What do you know about Trey?”

JC looked up. His brows arched in equal measures of concern and curiosity. “The restaurant guy?”

“Yeah.”

He seemed to debate with himself for almost a full minute. Danielle tried her best to school her features and not show just how desperately she wanted the information. She had a feeling she was failing miserably.

“Miss Marvick,” JC finally said in a quiet tone after shooting a cautious glance towards the tiny hallway that led to Chip’s room. “I don’t know why you are suddenly so curious about these guys.” He shook his head in disapproval. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Of course, it wasn’t a good idea, Daniel thought irately.