In Too Deep

Six

•
•
•
•

You need to come home now. It's urgent. I'll be waiting for you.

An eye-rolling text from Grant that Nova almost pushed aside. Almost. She knew the gist anyway. The same thing would happen; Grant would ask about the money, they would get into a fight and one of them would leave. She would have loved to avoid all of that, but as always, her feelings got the better of her.

Her feelings ought to have given her a smirk warning of what she might come home to. She was in fact, not well prepared for the outcome of that text from Grant.

It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a game. Her brother, Grant was on his knees, in her living room, where he should be sitting on her couch. His gaze was almost glazed, the bruises stark on his pale face. It was swollen and bloody like he had been in some terrifying accident that he managed to escape from.

The room was silent and tense as she took a shallow breath in, her eyes locked on her brother, who was staring at her with half of his face that wasn't bleeding and swollen.

"Now that you've gotten your one minute moment of silence to take all this in, shall we get to business?" he asked, his drawl rolling out of his mouth and crashing in waves against Nova's ears.

She was sitting on the couch, where she had been forcibly kept there as she breathed in heavily, Ghost's remarks breaking up the deafening beating in her ears, and she could honestly say, at that moment, she had no idea what was going on and what she would do. But she was sure about one thing; Ghost had it out for her and for what reason, she had no idea. It was one thing to force her to help him, but it was another to beat her brother to a pulp and still gaze at her like he was doing her a favor.

When Grant groaned and flinched in pain, she was feeling it in her bones. Her face was wet with silent tears, but even though the moisture pooled in her eyes, she could tell that Ghost was looking at her without a shred of regret in his eyes, a sickening grin on his face.

"Do you know that your brother and I share a special relationship?" he taunted. His tone was more serious when he added, "It's really better than the relationship we share, muneca."

What? She glanced at Grant, who averted his gaze from her, and Ghost's taunts turned into a full-blown psychotic laugh, and she blinked back the tears she had in her eyes.

He was on his feet instantly, and Nova's eyes flickered back to him, watching as he approached Grant who was knelt on the ground with two of Ghost's men behind him, as Ghost grabbed his hair and pulled his head back to force him to look up at him. Grant was scared, she realized, because he was quietly watching, not making a sound or moving a muscle, letting Ghost do whatever he wanted with him. It pissed her off.

"Would you like to tell your sister who am I to you?" Ghost asked him, and she could tell by the way he looked back at her that he was grinning like the sadistic bastard he was. "Or should I do it?"

"She already knows," Grant finally croaked out, earning him a nice hair tug from the man standing above him.

I knew? Nova's expression changed and her brows pinched together slightly before her eyes widened as the realization punched her in the gut, and she had to hold back a gasp as she sent Grant a furious and disbelief look.

"He's the one you owe money to?!" she gasped out her question. Ghost's smirk showed a glint of teeth. Her fury felt like it was burning her up from the inside out. If Grant owed money to Ghost, it meant.. "You're part of a gang?" She stared at the other man incredulously. Nova knew he was a criminal, but she had no idea that he was part of a gang, that Ghost was none other than a gangster. Part of people who did illegal things, people who weren't afraid to kill or hurt anybody for their own benefits.