We arrive back at the mansion and James helps me out of the car. I seem to have lost a lot more blood than I thought. I’m a little light-headed. We are met by a few of our men at the door. They are obviously not happy with the situation.

“What in the hell happened?!” Charles yells out, proceeding to take me from James and hoisting me into his arms with the means of carrying me to the ‘medical room.’

“We met up with a few people who weren’t too happy to see us. Our little ‘Mean Queen’ here took a couple of bullets to the arm. She’s not too happy about it as you  can tell.” James explains as I huff in Charles’ arms.

I hate being babied and this does not help one bit. I’m quite aggravated by it to be honest. “You know I can walk on my own right? That’s why I have two legs and I got shot in the arm NOT in the leg.”

“Yes, and you almost blacked out three times in the car on the way over here and you walk like you’ve been on a week long alcohol binge.” James tells me. “You need to quit being so stubborn and know that at some point you have to be taken care of, especially if you plan on going home and playing as if nothing happened.”

With that point, I huffed one last time and just let Charles me and then lay me on the bed. It doesn’t take him long to leave the room when I started to strip down. It didn’t bother me to sit there in nothing on but my bra on above my waist. Unfortunately, I can say that he’s seen me in much less, and not too long ago. The stupid bastard seems to always find himself around when I need to release some stress. The part that bothers me the most is that he knows it. Not the point right now!!

“Would you hurry this up?!” I scoff.

“You need to not be such a pushy bitch,” he demands, “do you need to get some lovin’?” He smirks as he wiggles his eyebrows.

I roll my eyes and punch him. “Are you finished now? Whether or not I need some ‘lovin’ is none of your concern.” As he cut into my shoulder to remove the bullet, I cringe and try to think of other things.

I start thinking about how mad Chase and Tabbetha are going to be at me when I finally get home. I’m most positive that they are all at my house waiting for me. Sometimes I wonder why Chase even bothers paying for his apartment instead of just moving in. I know it’s because he wants his own place, but he’s hardly there. Then, there’s Justin. He’s probably sitting there wondering why those two are freaking out – being over dramatic I say. I hate that he keeps getting pulled into these messes, but I’m almost happy that he still chooses to stay around.

“Alright, sit really still because this is definitely going to hurt.” He tells me as he goes to remove the bullet.

He definitely wasn’t kidding. It is extremely painful. I try to breathe deep to keep from blacking out. It doesn’t take him long to get it out, but then we have to stop the bleeding before it becomes a serious issue. I lay back and allow him to sew up both wounds on my arm.

This gives me a short time to think about what I’m going to tell my friends. They are going to be mad and I’m going to have to be myself, annoyed and sarcastic.

“Alright, well I did a damn good job if I do say so myself. Now let’s get you some blood – you lost a lot. Then we can get you some heavy duty pain killers and get you on your way.” James tells me, helping me sit up.

James leaves the room for a few minutes and returns with our ‘on call’ doctor. We pay him a lot of cash for him to come ‘fix’ us and keep his mouth shut about it. He comes in with some blood for me and a prescription for pain killers.

“Who am I today?” I ask with a small smile. I can’t very well get these pills with my name on it. This would not only bring up suspicions about a drug problem and our doctor being a little corrupt, but why would someone so innocent like me ever need so much medication as often as we do around here.

“You are Amanda Dearing, and you broke your arm.” He tells me matter-of-factly.

“That’s so sad to hear. I really do need to be a little more careful.” I laugh at my slight joke.

The doctor does his job and it doesn’t take long for him to finish up and head out with cash in hand, or really more in his brief case. I leave the room soon after to go up to my bedroom I have here for those busy late nights at work. I keep clothes here for a reason.

I change into some new jeans without blood on them, and find a loose fitting shirt. I didn’t want to take a chance of anything pulling on my bandages. I grab a jacket to go over it that I’ll put on when I’m on my way home. I make my way down to my office to check up on some stuff and to fill out some stuff. I grab my cell phone to call Tabbetha when I see 13 missed calls and 13 new voicemails, not to mention the 20,000 text messages. The girl is ridiculous.

On my way to the office, I ran into a few of our men that were concerned about me, asking me how I was feeling. I always answered the same – “tough enough to kick your ass still.” I grab my phone to call Tabbetha when my office door swings open. “My office, you knock.”

“Aw, baby, be nice. I was just coming in here to check on you before I head out to take care of some more business.”

I hold up my pill bottle and shake it. “I’m fine and don’t call me ‘baby’. I’m going home soon to deal with the firing squad and probably going out. I need a serious drink.” I tell him.

“That won’t be too smart with the pills. Maybe you should go home and rest.” James tells me with concern in his voice. This is not what I’m used to and it throw me off a bit.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” I tell him, grabbing my jacket and leaving the mansion.

Justin

As the three of us sat around, or paced around in Tabbetha’s case, I cannot help but wonder who this James guy is and why Tabbetha and Chase seem to be so uneasy about him and Arianna being together. Who is he and what is the big deal about him? The main question though is why am I so bothered by the fact that Arianna seems to be quite attached to him.

“Where the hell is she?!” Tabbetha screams out.

“You need to sit down.” Chase demands. “Your pacing is making me dizzy and I’m sure it isn’t comforting for Justin either.”

The girl finally sits down, and before I can breathe out a sigh of relief, she jumps up again when her phone rings. “Where the hell are you?! Where have you been?” She demands into the phone at, who I assume to be, Arianna. Is she the girl’s mother? I am shocked by the way she was demanding answers like a mother to her teenage daughter.

I hear Arianna tell her to ‘calm her ass down’ and that she was fine and on her way home. Finally! Hopefully the girl will quit pacing a hole into the floor while yelling at us for no reason. It doesn’t take long before I hear the girl yell out. “She hung up on me. The bitch hung up on me!” I can’t help but laugh a bit at this. The girl does have a habit of hanging up on people and I’m sure she enjoys it.

Within minutes, I hear Arianna drive up. I see her on a motorcycle this time. The girl has a nice ray of vehicles. I am going to enjoy getting to know her.

“I’m going to kill her and enjoy every minute of it.” Tabbetha storms out of the room to meet Arianna at the back door.

Arianna

I get off my bike and take a deep breath before heading inside where I am promptly met by Tabbetha, followed by Chase and Justin, at the back door. The red tint of Tabbetha’s face showed how furious she was at me which makes me smile a little bit.

She shocks me with a tight hug and an expression of relief that I’m ok. Then she launches into the girl I was preparing for. “I hate you so much right now!!” She exclaims.

“First off, you need to calm the fuck down. You are not my mother.” I tell her trying to stay calm myself. “Second, I’m fine. I’m old enough to do as I please.”

“That makes me feel better,” she yells back sarcastically.

I move into the living room where the boys had moved off to. Chase is just standing there trying to ignore the whole thing and Justin is sitting on the couch looking extremely uncomfortable. “Hey Justin! How’s your day been so far?” I greet him.

“Hey. It’s been good, thanks. How about yours?”

“Its been ok. I seem to have this headache that won’t go away.” I inform him pointedly towards Tabbetha and continued upstairs, of course being followed the whole way.

“Real mature, Arianna” Tabbetha rolls her eyes at my antics, causing me to laugh. “With your line of work, anything is possible especially when you are with James. What if you don’t make it home next time?” She’s pretty much in tears now.

I hear the boys talking downstairs. “So is it always this lively?” Justin asks.

“Yes, especially when Arianna’s in an annoyed mood and Tabbetha isn’t helping much.” Chase laughs a bit and I laugh a little myself at this.

 “It’s only 10 at night. For the love of it all, you overreact so much. I know what I’m doing. I was hoping to come home from work to enjoy my night. I need you to just get off my back!” I tell her and realizing I shouldn’t have said what I did.

“Let’s go out!” She exclaims.

As much as I wanted to go out and have some drinks, I am not sure if I really want to go out with them and see them trying to hook me up with whoever. “Wow! you cheered up quite quickly there didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I’m excited at the thought of you hanging out with us, and not that shithead you call a partner.”

“Ok that enough! I need you to learn to accept the fact that he’s not going anywhere. He’s my business partner and that’s not going to change anytime soon if ever. Plus, I didn’t even tell you I was going to.” I tell her.

“Well I hate him. He’s the reason you are in this business and you went all crazy bitch not too long ago.” She irritates me so much.

“You are so dramatic and paranoid. I got in on my own free will. I am not sure exactly what you mean by ‘crazy bitch’ but I don’t care. You play nice or else. I told him the same thing earlier.” I warn her. “Now I’ll go out with you all tonight if we don’t do any barely legal bars. I just want to have a few drinks and chill, not worry about 21 year old loud motherfuckers coming over to our table to be on Justin.” I tell her with no hint of compromise on this.

“How about the pub? It’s not a really loud bar and people there know to leave you alone if you want.”

I  agree and tell her to go inform the boys of the plan while I shut myself in my room. I need to fix myself up a bit and check up on my bandages and make sure they are holding up. My arm is definitely hurting me, but I know it could be worse thanks to the pills.

I just change into a simple nice top that wouldn’t rub on my arm so much and another cute jacket sweater to go over it. The last thing I need is for Tabbetha to see my arm and overreact in the way she loves to do and I don’t want Chase threatening to kill James. This is all especially because Justin is around, and he doesn’t need to be in all of this.

It isn’t long before we are all ready to go and find ourselves in booth at the pub with a couple of pitchers on our table. I have a feeling this is going to be a long night and hopefully I won’t remember much of it.