Barber Shop Ink - Book 3: Riverworth Read online

  I was pacing when Jax came storming back into his kitchen, now dressed in more than just his boxers.

  “Keep ya fucking shirt on,” he said glaring at me, “and keep your voice down Cassidy is sleeping.”

  “Sorry man,” I sighed, leaning against the kitchen bench. “She just left, and her note is bullshit. It explains nothing, and she left this,” I held up my hand her ring on my pinkie. “I’m losing my mind here Jax.”

  “Shit, dude I know you love her, I do too but I dislike her ass right now.”

  “How could she do this Jax? How could she just leave like that? There is so much that pisses me off about this whole fucking thing but after everything she tells me her real fucking name on a goodbye note!”

  “She thought she was doing the right thing,” he said shaking his head.

  “How? How could she possibly think that running away in the middle of the night to face down the fucking mob by herself was the right fucking thing to do!”

  “Because she thinks that this is all her fault.”

  “What? How? It’s my fault. Mine. I was the one who inherited the debt. I was the one Vex was after. How the hell could she possibly think that any of this was her fault?”

  “Because Morningstar had a little chat with Vex,” Jax said scrubbing a hand across his face.

  “I know she told me,” I muttered.

  “Two of her friends were killed and she believes it’s all her fault.”

  “I know that too Jax her uncle came to see us. You’re not telling me anything new.” I could feel my temper spiking again.

  “Yeah, she told me Charlie had paid you guys a visit,” he flopped down on a stool dropping his head into his hands. “Hedge came to me and told me Morningstar was summoned before the head fucking honcho of the god damn mafia. I don’t know much but from watching the Godfather you can’t refuse when you have been summoned.”

  "The fucking mafia! Jax where is she? We have to get her back,” I yelled thumping a fist on the counter.

  “Yeah right. What’s the plan Memph? We somehow managed to find her and bust in fucking everything up getting her killed?! Sounds like a great fucking plan.”

  “What didn’t you stop her? She came to you. What didn’t you stop her?”

  “I tried dude,” he snapped glaring at me. “I tried to stop her, but she told me what she was going to do, and it made sense. She has this whole other life that I knew nothing about until she turned up on my doorstep. You no know nothing about how things in the motherfucking mafia work and I sure as shit don’t. I can guarantee that if either of us went with her we would fuck things up. So, I let her go, but, I told her she had to talk to you and explain things, before she went so you would understand.”

  “Well, she didn’t fucking listen to you because I have no fucking idea of what the hell is going on,” I hissed.

  “I only have limited information, okay. I’ll tell you what I can,” Jax started. “Hedge, well I guess I can call her Jupe now. Jupe said she was going with her uncle to talk with the head of the Marino family who are Vex’ employers. She was a bit fucking cryptic, but she told me she couldn’t do what she needs to, if you or I were with her. Jupiter didn’t want her focus divided dealing with their shit and worrying about keeping one of us safe.”

  I was silent for the longest time, a thousand thoughts and emotions crashed through me like a runaway freight train. It was so weird hearing Jax call her Jupiter or Jupe instead of Hedge. She had always been Hedge to me.

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “No man. She said the less I knew the better. She just said that she was going to go see the Don or whatever and that she was going to fix things so that we wouldn’t have to worry about Vex or anyone like Vex again. You see Memphis it’s not just you she’s trying to protect it’s all of us. Vex has made threats against you, me, Cassidy.”

  “You know I would never let them do anything to her. You know that right Jax?”

  “I know Memphis, but you and I can’t be with her every second of the day. This is what she does, Hedge, she fixes thing. She sees a mess and she has to fix it.”

  I was so angry that she left in the middle of the night, gone off to deal with this mess by herself. It hurt she didn’t want me with her. I was so pissed at myself that I hadn’t been able to handle Vex on my own. Hedge shouldn’t be the one to fight this battle. I was scared shitless that something would happen to her and I would never see her again.

  “This is not her mess Jax. Hedge should never have been part of this to begin with. She shouldn’t have gone to that church. She shouldn’t have exposed herself like that. She shouldn’t have put herself in danger!”

  “And what Memphis, you would have preferred to keep handing over fistfuls of your hard-earned cash to that piece of shit Vex? Have his minions continue kicking the shit out of you? Continue having the threat of those fuckers hurting Cassidy or Jupiter?!” Jaxon growled at me standing up stabbing his finger on the kitchen bench.

  I gave him a look that said: ‘what do you think?’

  “Exactly. Look Memphis I know it’s not ideal, but suck it the fuck up, trust her and let her do her thing.”

  “Jax this is just so fucked up.”

  “Yeah Memph I know it is,” he muttered.

  “I just need to talk to her Jax. I need to make sure she is okay. I know I sound like an ass, but I need to hear her voice. I feel like I can’t breathe, it’s like an elephant is sitting on my chest. I feel like I want to vomit and punch the shit out of something all at the same time. I can’t handle this. I feel like I’m going insane.”

  Honestly, I felt like I wanted to cry, my heart and soul hurt in the worst kind of way. I just wanted her back with me. I don’t think I’ll be able to function until I have her back in my arms.

  I heard a shuffling of feet and looked up to see an exhausted looking Cass stumbling into the kitchen wearing a pair of Jaxon’s boxer briefs wrapped in one of his flannel shirts.

  “Morning Old Man.”

  “Morning Kid,” I gave her a quick kiss on the top of her messy hair before she turned and made herself comfortable in Jaxon’s arms. “Sorry if I woke you.”

  “It’s fine, Memph you didn’t, this did,” she said holding up a phone I had never seen before.

  It wasn’t either of theirs. Jax and Cass’s phones were both on the kitchen bench charging. This phone had a thick, heavy industrial looking case, the type that marketed towards tradesmen. You know the ones you could run over with a tank, and your phone would just like new. Jax took the phone looking at it.

  “Jax, who is Jupiter?” Cass asked.

  I sucked in a breath and stepped forward to snatch the phone from him. “Give it, Jax.”

  “No,” he said turning away from me still looking at the screen. “Babe, Jupiter is Hedge,” he replied answering Cass’s question. “Jupiter is her real name.”

  “What?” Cass asked stunned.

  “Her real name is Jupiter Calliope Riverworth.” Jax continued looking at the phone as if he was reading something. “Don’t worry Memphis knows.”

  “She told him?” Cassidy gasped.

  “Sort of.”

  “Jaxon!” I snapped. “I’m about to lose my shit here man.”

  “She sent a message, just give me a sec,” Jax replied scrolling across the screen.

  “Give you a sec, give you a sec! Jaxon, she sent a message on some cryptic as fuck looking phone. Tell me, please,” I begged, shoving my hands through my hair for what felt like the millionth time.

  Jaxon continued to fiddle with the phone for a while longer before he put me out of my misery.

  “Okay God, you’re impatient.” I growled at him, my patience now paper-thin. “She says to give you the phone. I have to give you some instructions first,” he said holding the phone out of the way when I went to take it.

  “Fine, what?” I snapped.

  “Jupe said to tell you she’s safe. This is an encrypted phone. Untraceable. She has
it locked up tight. Until she changes anything from her end, you can receive texts and calls from her, but you can’t send her any texts or make any calls.” He held up his hand to make me stop when I tried again to take it from him. “She said it is to keep her focused and not distracted. You my friend are a distraction.”

  “Like fuck I am.”

  “To her, you are a major fucking distraction. Jupe has sent you three video messages, she wants you to watch, and that she will call you. Probably at some ridiculous hour considering the time difference. Jupe also said to tell you that if you have anyone, try to unlock this thing or mess with it, the phone will self-destruct.”

  “What?!” Cass and I exclaimed eyes wide.

  “Not like Mission Impossible style self-destruct with explosions and stuff, but the internal computer will implode and fry itself. Then the only thing it will be good for is a paperweight. She also said if you try to leave the country to find her she will know, and she will stop you. Probably something like stopping you at customs, and an unexplainable problem with your passport something like that.”

  “Who the hell is she?” Cass asked in awe.

  “I honestly have no fucking idea,” I muttered shaking my head.

  “C’mon, Bro, yeah you do. She’s the woman who loves you like no other, who wants to marry you. How many people do you know who would put their lives in danger for the people they love? She is the woman who confronting her past to save your future.”

  “No, she’s the woman who took off in the middle of the fucking night, without a goddamn word leaving her engagement ring behind. She won’t tell me where the hell she is and is working with her asshole uncle again.”

  “I think it’s kinda romantic,” Cass added looking all starry-eyed.

  “I hate this, I hate all of this. If it wasn’t for me and my Pop’s stupid debt, she wouldn’t have even been in this situation.”

  “Take this,” Jax said handing me the phone, “watch the videos. Answer her when she calls and talk to her. Trust me you’ll feel better when you do.”

  I took the phone looking at it like it was a fucking lifeline. I was going home to watch the videos and wait for her to call. Once I knew she was okay I was going to rip her a fucking new one. I took the phone and walked to the door before I realised what I was doing.

  “Thanks, Jax, sorry for being an ass. Sorry I woke you so fucking early on a Sunday,” I shouted, and with that, I got back on my bike and drove back to our apartment.

  Chapter 4 Memphis

  I had been standing in the kitchen staring at the phone sitting on the island bench for an hour like it was a bomb ready to go off. I had already been through two beers before I grabbed a bottle of rum - beer just wasn’t cutting it - and continued to stare at the phone. I took a swig straight from the bottle feeling the liquor burn its way down my throat to my rolling stomach. I know it’s only nine in the morning, but I needed a drink and fuck-it, it was five PM somewhere in the world. I took another swig from the bottle glaring at the phone willing it to do something. Anything.

  I was making myself insane, caught between watching the stupid fucking phone so I wouldn’t miss a message or a call and wanting to smash the fucker. I wanted to smash it, so I wouldn’t have to see her or hear her because I knew if I did, it would fucking-hurt.

  After a few more fortifying swigs from the half empty bottle of rum I stumbled my way to the bedroom. I kicked off my boots flopped onto the bed hugging her pillow. It smelt like her shampoo, comforting me a little.

  “Stop being a pussy and just hit fucking play already,” I berated myself once again procrastinating.

  I growled frustratedly hitting play on the first recording.

  “Hi Baby,” her voice came through the phone.

  It was her voice. A voice I would know anywhere, but it wasn’t her. It didn’t look like her she had changed her appearance. Jupiter - fuck it was weird calling her that - didn’t look like Hedge anymore. She didn’t look like my fiancé, and it pissed me off.

  “FUCK!”

  Stabbing my finger on the screen stopping the recording and threw the phone at the foot of the bed. It bounced off the bed, thumping and rattling across the floor.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I chanted as I followed the phone over the end of the bed. “Please be okay. God, I hope it’s not busted or fucking cracked.”

  I picked up the phone holding my breath and praying like mad that my tantrum hadn’t just destroyed the only link I had to her. I turned the phone over in my hand letting out a relieved breath when the phone was still intact and operational.

  “Memphis, you fucking-idiot! What if something happens to her and these fucking recordings are the last time you will see her,” I scolded myself. “What the fuck man? Don’t even think like that. Don’t put that shit out in the universe,” I huffed admonishing myself.

  Excellent, Hedge leaving me in the middle of the night without a word has pushed me over the edge, I have lost my fucking mind. I’m kneeling on the floor cradling a fucking phone in my hands like it was some precious relic, arguing with myself.

  I crawled back over to the bed, grabbed her pillow hugging it to my chest with my back resting against the bedhead. I retrieved the bottle of rum off the bedside table guzzling down a large mouthful to fortify my nerves and pressed play again.

  “Hi Baby, I know you’re angry with me but let me just say two things first. One, I won’t explain myself on a recording. Two I am coming back, don’t for one second think I’m not. God, Baby I am so tired, and I wish I was in bed with you right now. Please don’t be mad at me. I love you Memphis. I am coming home, and I am marrying you.”

  She looked and sounded exhausted. I watched the video ten times before stumbling into the kitchen to grab another bottle of rum. The first bottle was only half empty when I started. I was going to have one motherfucker of a headache in the morning, but I didn’t care. Flopping back down on the bed with my liquid courage in hand I clicked on the next video.

  Hedge, well Jupiter, man, I don’t know if I can get used to calling her that, looked beat. She was lying in bed telling me she was okay. That she loved me and how she wished that I was with her because she didn’t want to sleep unless she was in my arms.

  “If you hadn’ snuck out in thz middle of the fuckn’ night, you wouldn’ have a problem sleepn’,” I grumbled. The excessive amount of rum I inhaled without noticing slurring my speech.

  The third video was a short one telling me she loved me, missed me and would talk to me later. I watched, re-watched and then watched all three videos again. I felt better and worse from watching her on the small screen of the encrypted phone. I felt better because I knew she was okay. I also felt worse because I wasn’t with her and that she felt the need to disappear in the middle of the night and handle this mess. My mess, by herself.

  I finished what remained in the bottle of rum. Listening to Hedge say she loves me on repeat falling asleep hugging her pillow thinking it was a poor substitute for the real thing.

  Sometime later. It could have been five minutes, it could have been five hours. The almost two bottles of rum I drank messing with my concept of time - I woke to a buzzing noise.

  “What the fuck,” I mumbled, rolling onto my stomach pulling Hedge’s pillow over my pounding head. The annoying buzzing continued, “Not now!” I pushed the pillow further against my ears, and the buzzing stopped. “Thank fuck.”

  I was just about back to sleep, when the buzzing started all over again, but this time my booze-soaked brain registered that it was a ringtone. Baby Mine. You know the song from Disney’s Dumbo when his mum is trapped in a circus wagon, cradling and rocking baby Dumbo with her trunk while Baby Mine is playing. It was one of Hedge’s favorite songs.

  Wide awake in an instant I scrambled to find and answer the phone. I found the phone where I had left it charging on my bedside table and stabbed my finger on the answer button, but nothing happened. I kept stabbing at the answer button on the screen.

 
; “Answer damnit, answer!” I stabbed the button one more time before my sluggish brain registered the flashing arrow on the screen showing I should swipe to answer. “Fuckn’ idiot,” I muttered swiping the screen. “Hello, hello, Hedge? Baby Girl, are you there? Hello!”

  I heard her giggle and I got hard, it’s just what her giggle did.

  “Memphis Baby, all I can see is the side of your face. It is a video call silly.”

  Feeling like a total dick, I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked down at the screen seeing her gorgeous face. She was lying in bed with her head on a pillow, a duvet pulled up covering her naked chest. I grabbed her pillow put it under my head and lay back down. With the image of her lying in bed on the screen I could almost pretend that she was here in bed with me.

  “Morning Baby,” she breathed once I had myself situated.

  “Imma little bit angry with you,” I whispered.

  Well I attempted to whisper, but my drunk brain made me whisper-yell. Now, that my adrenaline had settled back down the copious amounts of alcohol pumping through my blood took back over and if it was even possible, I felt drunker than before.

  “Baby are you drunk? It’s what midday there.”

  “I might be a lil’ bit shrunk,” I slurred trying to sound sober and failing abysmally. “You’re too blame. Imma cranky with you.”

  “I know you are Baby, and I am so very sorry for making you worry. I promise to spend a lot of time making it up to you when I get home,” she replied with a sly smile.

  “Oh, God, Baby Girl, don’t look at me like tha’ when you’re not here to deal with the consequences,” I grumbled pushing down on my hardening dick. A little impressed that I managed to say consequences without drunkenly tripping over the word.

  “I’m sorry Baby,” she giggled.

  “Stop giggling,” I groaned. “You know what that dosezz. I’ve had way too, too much rums to dealz with it alone.” I closed my eyes and counted backwards from ten, three times, I didn’t have the brain power to do it from a number larger than ten. “Okay change of suzzject. Imma not horney with you. Imma cranky with you. Where are you?”