* * *

I sat in the dark, tucked away out of sight at the end of the long driveway, and waited. I’d driven the SUV because it was black with tinted windows and my white Phantom would’ve stood out like a homing beacon. Plus there wouldn’t have been enough room for the boys to tag along. Though I was having serious second thoughts about bringing at least one of them along. I shot a quick look towards the backseat in my rearview mirror, where the comedy hour has been in full swing for a good half hour now.

The lights were off and outside the night was still, as if it were just waiting for some shit to pop off. Inside the vehicle was a different story. Jared, Shane and Alex were with me in the truck, and I am this close to throwing Alex out on his ass if he didn’t shut the fuck up. If he doesn’t stop riding my ass with his shit, I just might give him some of what I have in store for Sian’s disobedient ass if she comes down this driveway.

As the only one of us who isn’t attached at the moment because he’s a horn dog, he finds relationships hilarious. More to the point, he finds the fact that Sian runs my ass funny and hasn’t stopped running his damn mouth since we picked him up earlier. There’s no point in telling him his time will come. If anyone had told me a year ago that some five foot nothing little hellcat would own my balls I wouldn’t have believed them either.

He started his shit in the back again and I rolled my eyes and blocked him out rather than reaching over the seat to strangle his annoying ass. I’d run out of threats like a half an hour ago, not like he was listening to me anyway. A quick look in the rearview showed Jared and Shane were at the end of their rope as well. If not for our reasons for being here, I’d find this shit funny as hell.

“Seriously my dudes. Why can’t you control your women? Didn’t we play out this scene already like a few weeks ago?” He’d been laughing at that same joke for the last ten minutes. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel and held my peace. I already had enough shit to deal with as it is, and he did have a point. Jackass!

“Look, I could give you boys some pointers but it’s gonna cost ya.” Yeah, okay. His oomph from the backseat had me turning around to see what gives. Shane had elbowed his ass in the ribs. Good. Maybe now he’d shut the hell up and let me think. I grinned and turned back around when he started his shit again. At least he was consistent.

I wasn’t saying anything to anyone; in fact the only noise in the vehicle came from him. I’m not sure what the others were thinking, but I was saving my energy for Sian’s ass. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do to her, but I know if she passes this driveway it’s not going to be pretty. She’s a willful little shit, who hates the word no. Which means I have trouble ahead, unless I nip that shit in the bud starting now. I half expected her to do some shit like this, but still the other half of me was holding out hope that my girl wasn’t dumb enough to put herself in danger. Fucking female never does the expected.

Jared had gone in to get the lay of the land and just as we suspected, they were up to some shit. I have no doubt once Belle realizes he’d played her his ass will be in the crapper, but at least they’d be alive. Sian might wish she wasn’t when I get through with her disobedient ass though.

I don’t know what it is, some may say I’m over reacting, but the thought of Sian going anywhere near Mandy really scares me, and not in a High School drama sort of way either. There’s nothing High school about being attacked and left in an alley for dead. Why this girl can’t get that through her damn head is beyond me. I think I’m more upset about that shit than she is, or at the very least more cautious.

I know Mandy’s nothing but a skank, and that in itself doesn’t make her a danger to anyone other than the unsuspecting men she catches in her web. But when it comes to Sian I think she poses a whole other kind of threat. A serious one. One that no one else seems to have caught onto but me. It’s that blonde wide-eyed innocent shit she pulls in public that has most people fooled. But I’ve seen her underbelly, something she doesn’t know yet, and maybe that’s why she still thinks she can pull the wool over my eyes.

If she thinks I’m going to spend the rest of my life protecting my woman from her obsessive ass she’s dumber than I gave her credit for. I’ll just as soon off her ass and be done with it, or better yet, let Track have her. He’s been offering to make her disappear for a good year now.

He’s also part of the reason I’m sitting out here like this. His call earlier had a hint of urgency that spooked the hell out of me. Until then I was thinking I was gonna have to spank Sian’s ass for sneaking out the house, never mind going near Mandy. But the way he insisted there was danger had sent me running out of the house earlier than I had planned. If only this damn girl would learn to listen, I could be in there right now copping a feel or some shit while my boys kept her girls occupied.

No, instead she has to play Mata fucking Hari. It boggles the mind that someone who’d been attacked not too long ago would even think of sneaking out in the middle of the damn night, but I’m guessing that’s a female thing. Either that, or she was so loved and protected she has no real sense of danger. I didn’t even know that was a thing until dad explained it to me.

Something else was bothering me though, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I had that unsettling feeling in my gut. The one you get when you know some shit’s about to go down, but you just don’t know what, or where it’s coming from. And I was certain this had nothing to do with Mandy’s stupid ass. Track and his shit again.

The three jackasses in the back were still going at each other while I remained lost in my thoughts. I had a pretty good idea why she thought she had to confront that she-wolf even after I told her to leave it alone. As much as I don’t want her near Mandy she feels the same as I do. She thinks I need protecting just as I feel she does.

Beyond that I know there’s something else bothering her about this whole situation. She hides it well, but I know she’s still a little bit jealous of my past relationship with Mandy, and the fact that we all still share the same airspace five days a week at school. Plus the fact that Mandy won’t stop her shit and is always finding ways to stay relevant.

So now we’re caught up in this game of tit for tat. There’s no doubt that I’ll do anything to protect her, but it’s becoming more and more obvious of late that she too thinks she needs to protect me. I have no doubt that that’s what tonight is about, I know her that well.

I guess I’m just gonna have to show my future wife that it doesn’t work that way. I’ll do the protecting thank you very much, and she can keep her hardheaded ass out of shit. If her sneaking around isn’t bad enough, she’d lied to me. Not outright, she’s not that dumb. But lying by omission is the same as, as far as I’m concerned.

I can’t keep her safe if she doesn’t listen. Of course she shouldn’t have to deal with this shit, not at her age, not at any age. I’d like nothing more than to give her the carefree days that our own parents enjoyed as teens. Days filled with sunshine and laying out by the pool, with no bigger worry than where to eat dinner or which movie to watch? Shit that most people our age take for granted.

I want to give her everything I think she deserves, and most of all I want to keep her safe. I want our time together to be as smooth and happy as what I’d grown up seeing with my parents. If I had my way the only horror she’d ever have to endure is the one already passed; when she was left for dead in that filthy alley. But how do I do that when I can’t erase the one who means us both harm? And when she wouldn’t get it into her head that she was to stay as far away from that snake as possible? It wasn’t that I didn’t think she could handle herself against Mandy in a fair fight, but that’s just it. I don’t trust Mandy to be fair in her dealings with Sian any more than I’d trust my dick anywhere near her diseased ass.

As mad as I am at what I see as the biggest mistake thus far in my life, I knew there was no sense in self flagellation, in chastising myself again for even getting involved with her in the first place. The truth is, I had no idea of what she was when I first asked her out a year or so ago. It was that fake façade she wore in public that had drawn me in. Thankfully it hadn’t taken me long to see beneath that veneer she wore so well.

By the end of our acquaintance I knew she was nothing more than a sad twisted little girl with venom in her veins instead of blood. But not even in my wildest dreams would I have expected her to go after what’s mine, not like this. Maybe it was time I showed her exactly who I was in case she’d missed it the last few times I confronted her. Maybe that was the only way to keep Sian safe.

I pushed thoughts of Mandy out of my head and looked out the window at the night sky to calm myself down. It was a warm California night with clear skies and a nice little breeze that carried the scent of flowers and the distant ocean every once in a while. The kind of night a guy should be sneaking into his girl’s window to crash her sleepover party and maybe get some playtime.

Instead I’m stuck out here in this truck looking at the sky like a damn astrologer. I could’ve gone in and just kept her ass in the house without letting on that I knew she was up to something. But I’d told her ‘no’. Something her spoilt ass is not familiar with. She’s the first girl whose family I’d gotten this close to and it was because of this that I get to see the transition up close and personal.

Her dad was the first male to spoil her though he’d probably say not. But it’s eye opening, watching the way he is with her, getting my cues from him. I grew up in a home with another spoilt ass female, seems like that’s the only kind. Dad lets mom get away with mad shit, and all it takes to get her out of trouble is a smile and one of those looks that have them disappearing upstairs at all hours of the day. Nasty!

I want us to have that, Sian and I, but I also have something that my dad and hers didn’t seem to. An obsession that runs deep and an insane urge to possess her completely. Where I’ve seen my dad give mom breathing space as is needed, I can’t seem to do the same with Sian. She’s turned me into a dumb fuck micromanaging asshole.

Maybe they suffer from the same thing; my dad and hers, but they just had more practice and knows how to hide it well. Dad would probably give me one of his you’re young yet; you’ll learn spiels. He’s always trying to rein me in, when he himself loses his shit if something goes wrong with mom. He seems to think that because they’re older, and have more time together that it makes a difference. The hell it does. I’ve felt this way about her from the start and the shit only seems to get worse with time.

I don’t think I’m too young to know what I feel though, or to know that whatever foundation we set for our relationship, that’s the way things will be as we grow together. By that token I wanted her to learn here and now, that when I tell her not to do something, that shit wasn’t just so I could hear myself talk. Plus I still owed her for popping shit off at me earlier. So little Ms. Thing has a lot coming her way.

“I think I hear the car.” Shane put his head out his window and listened but I kept my eyes on the driveway exit. I’d be able to see the lights from the car that way. Then again her sneaky ass might be driving with them off.