Jodee

Chapter 23 - Responsibility

ACE POV

"My office." I ordered Caleb without even looking at him the second my little sister's curly brown hair disappeared up the stairs and I heard the thud of her door shutting.

My day has had a promise of "fucked-ness" since the moment I woke up.

It all started with Ciaro Soltani messing with one of my gang's drug shipments, the words written; "watch your assets, Ace" on the side of the shipment that did come in.

This in itself made my blood boil. He had no fucking right to mess with my shit and try and start a gang war. And pin point the attack directly on me. I wasn't afraid of Soltani or his weakass gang but I sure as hell didn't want a gang war.

Gang wars were blood baths full of innocent people and young children dying unnecessarily. None of these quick and painless, they all ended with a fate that had you begging to be killed. No one should have to endure that.

I would lose a lot of men to come out on top again — as I always did. It was just a plain waste of my time.

Cairo had made it pretty clear that he knew I had a little sister a couple months ago — though Caleb suspected he didn't know anything else besides the fact that she existed — so him saying "assets" made me believe that he might know I have full custody of my sister.

I knew that this was all speculation. I had no clue what Cairo knew about my family and he had made no other direct threats against Jodee besides the first one. So as of right now, she was safe. And it would stay that way, I would make sure of it. 

But after these "random" guys showed up to pound on Caleb and mess with my sister's head on what should have been a fun day for her ... I wasn't so sure anymore.

Was this so random?

My best friend could never "read between the lines" as the saying goes. But I always could. I have always been able to see hidden messages and meanings behind everything. In most situations this was a good thing because I was always two paces ahead of everyone else.

However, when it came to my baby sister I took this speculation to a whole new level. Everything was about her in my life and therefore I was always worried that a hidden message may be directed towards her. Assets is usually a term for anything you have control of or over. And because Jodee is under my care she is an asset of mine. Caleb says that this is called overthinking and me just freaking myself out because him and I had made damn sure Jodee stays out of dangerous things, meaning that she is safe.

But that was just the overprotective brother in me ... I always had to be ready, alert.

I wanted to hate Jodee before she was born. I so badly wanted to forget about this child and go about my life. Because why should I care? She was just the unfortunate kid that came out of my dad knocking up some girl he didn't give two shits about. But the second I held Jodee for the first time all of that went out the window.

All of that hatred and anger towards an unborn baby turned into rage against my father and her mother for doing this to her. She was dealt a bad hand before she was even born. I no longer wanted nothing to do with this baby. Instead I wanted everything to do with her. I wanted to make sure she was given the best life she could with what she was given, I wanted to protect my baby sister. And I would till the day I died.

That's one of the reasons I moved us to California and was very careful about who I brought around her when she was young and we couldn't leave. She didn't need bad influences in her life like our violent father and her good-for-nothing mother. I made sure that bad influence didn't rise because I couldn't control her heritage.