Making Plans Part I
Gulliver was sitting with his back against a tree, January between his thighs and his chin on her shoulder while Glenn and Ford had the kids running around chasing a soccer ball and Ernst was playing referee.
Thisbe was sitting with her grandfather a few feet away as they waited for the staff to bring their food for their picnic.
“What is on your mind?” he asked quietly next to her ear.
“I’m angry.” She shot an annoyed glance at the men sitting not far from them. “I thought they had restraining orders. Aren’t they too close to us?”
“They are. My legal team is working on it. Take deep breaths and don’t let them get to you.”
“I want to go over there and beat them into the fucking ground.”
“Well,” he whispered as he nipped her ear, “be careful what you wish for because I might be sending Glenn to pick them up when he’s done his other job for me tonight and if that happens, I’m not letting those two fuckers walk. They’ll go missing in a way nobody will ever find or be able to pin on us. If that happens, I could happily give you some time with them.”
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< Making Plans Part I
She turned her head a fraction and met his eyes in surprised disbelief, “what?”
“Thisbe is never to know of course. She’s definitely not cut out for the life of the family. Our family, my grandfather’s family, always felt very strongly women had no business in the business. Kaylee will be the first female ever trained in our ways or our business,” he paused, “unless her mother is trained first.”
“You would let me in on the violent side of family business?”
He inhaled sharply and gave a single nod as he looked towards where the kids were playing. “I keep thinking that you are going to want to know what she is going to need to be put through. You’re strong, January. I made a mistake back then, thinking you were too delicate, too soft to know the things which I was part of. I should have told you the truth from the beginning and I should have shown you firsthand what I, we, get up to.” He nodded to his grandfather, “he is quite possibly one of the brutal, violent men I’ve ever met.”
“Him?” she asked in surprise. “I would have thought he sourced it out because he’s so gentle with me and Thisbe and Kaylee.”
“He is gentle. He is a family man. He loves his family. My mother is his princess and when you see her with him, you’ll
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< Making Plans Part I
get a clearer picture of how much he protected her from the life. She is his only child and he adores her. When my father wanted to marry her, he refused him five times.”
“Really?”
He nodded, “he didn’t like my father much, still doesn’t to be fair.”
“Why? Because he took his daughter from him.”
“Partly. As I told you earlier, my father is a bit of a dick. Thisbe swears he has autism on some level and struggles to sort out
the nuances of social norms but it’s an excuse she uses as an exception for his behavior. He demands perfection from his sons and close enough from his daughter. He loves my mother to pieces and there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her, include beg her father six times for her hand, but he’s dry.”
“Are you close?”
“Not really. He wanted so much more from me growing up. My mother told him time and time again I would be running my grandfather’s businesses and his jealousy, his own wants for me to take over his company put a lot of pressure on me. My grades were never good enough. I could get a ninety–nine and I’d be questioned why it wasn’t perfect. I could get it perfect and he’d ask why I didn’t do bonus questions. He was training me to be able to balance both my grandfather’s expectations 3/5
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< Making Plans Part I
and his.”
“Why not Glenn? Can’t Glenn run his company?”
“At the risk of sounding like a weak man, I never bucked. Dad wanted perfection. My grandfather wanted a vovoi in training and I simply settled into their wants and took it on. Glenn fought the status quo. If you told him to color inside the lines, he would paint abstract art all over the walls. He brought a man and a woman to dinner once and made my father incredibly uncomfortable. He’s not the guy you want running things which require finesse.”
“Yet you’re sending him on a job tonight.”
“Because Glenn gets results with violence. My grandfather trained him to be my second–in–command, and he takes his role seriously. More than he wanted to be CFO for my father’s company, Glenn and also Ford,” he nodded to the men, “were both excited to be part of the family. There is a thrill, an excitement, and a quality of the life we lead clandestinely which makes them gravitate to it. Glenn is an engineer. He builds things but in order to learn to build, you need to learn to take things apart and that is where he excels.”
“And the Prince of Pain? What does he excel in aside from taking a good beating?”
“Well,” he shifted, “if I were in a nest, I could take out every 4/5
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single one of the agents in this area with military precision and not miss my target by a fraction of an inch, even if they were moving. I also am not opposed to causing anyone pain up close. Mostly, I’m very good at the psychological bullshit which is needed to wear a person down to spill things they didn’t intend. My grandfather is like that too. He could fuck with a guy’s mind so fast his enemy would be questioning his own existence.”
“He’s been very quiet today.”
“Guilt. Spending time with you and Kaylee is reinforcing that his stubborn nature has deprived our family from you both. With the news Davis is out, he’s going to feel even more guilty. We all made mistakes which resulted in us losing time with you. We won’t make that mistake again.”
“What do you think Davis is wanting with Ziogas?”
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