Vic Vaughn is Vicious by J.A. Huss

CHAPTER NINETEEN - VIC

I spend my entire Saturday with no Daisy and no Vivi and I suddenly don’t understand my life before last week. How did I ever live without them?

Daisy ended up working three shifts because I had an overflowing schedule of regulars I didn’t want to turn away. I didn’t even leave the shop until three AM. Daisy needed to be up at four-thirty for her Sunday breakfast shift so I just went home and crashed.

Vivi didn’t call on Saturday but I got a group text from Veronica with an update. Apparently, all the inner-circle kids spent the weekend over on the farm and now Daisy and I have been added to Ronnie’s contact list called Carpool Bitches.

My fuckin’ sister is nuts.

So I am smiling big when Daisy climbs into my truck after her Sunday morning shift. The moment she closes the door, she leans across the bench seat and kisses me, breathless.

Me too. She takes my breath away.

“I made so much money this weekend.” She buckles herself in while I pull out and head north towards Bellvue. And then she starts talking fast and excited. Like she’s got to fill me in on a million things that have happened in the one day we’ve been apart.

It really does feel like I missed a million things.

I don’t want to be apart from her. I want to spend every minute with her.

She’s still talking when we pull up to the farm gate thirty minutes later. I barely say anything, but I don’t even mind. I just want to hear all the words coming out of her mouth.

Her attention on me wanders when the gate opens, and then she’s leaning forward, craning her neck, trying to get a glimpse of Vivian.

I know Daisy has missed Vivi terribly this week. And a more selfish mother would’ve said no to a whole week away from home. But I know that Daisy is always thinking about what’s best for Vivian, and this farm is way better than a pre-paid babysitter.

I park the truck and the moment we open our doors, there is a squeal from across the farm. Daisy and I both look towards the barns to find a pack of princesses racing towards us wearing long-sleeved baseball shirts with pastel-colored tutus that for some reason also come with knee pads, and cowboy boots, and various types of helmets.

Vivi crashes into Daisy, hugging her tight and talking excitedly. The same way Daisy was talking to me on the way up here. The rest of them tackle me, trying to take me down.

Then the screen door is slamming and Spencer is calling off his little minions. “OK, OK, OK. Take pity on Uncle Vic, girls. He’s an old man now.”

They all say, “Awwwww!” But one whispers, “Sissy,” and I know it comes from the Little Mermaid. She’s so fucking bossy.

It’s not just all my nieces here though. Ford’s two kids are here, Five and Kate. Ronin’s two kids are here, Sparrow and Starling. And hell, even Sasha’s kids are here, Lauren and… the fresh one, who is a boy.

I turn to Spencer. “What are you doing? Getting the band back together? This looks like your ten-year ‘we pulled it off’ reunion.”

Spencer sips his beer, looking off in the distance towards the rolling hills that surround his farm, and feigns disinterest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But just for the record, it’s been sixteen years, not ten.” Then I catch him grinning into his mug.

“It’s gonna catch up with you one day,” I say.

He shrugs. “It always does.” Then he looks at me and his expression goes serious. “But don’t you worry. We’ll still win in the end.”

Ronnie is suddenly in front of me, smiling. “OK, that’s enough of that talk. Vic, your daughter is delightful. She needs to be enrolled in Saint Joseph’s pronto. I have all the paperwork inside and I’ve already bribed Sally in admissions into putting her in the same class as Starling. So”—she pats my chest—“make sure you and Daisy sign those before you leave.”

“Ronnie, you can’t just enroll our kid into your favorite school.”

She shrugs and shoots me an expression that reads, Try to stop me. “Oh.” Her eyes go wide. “Vivi has a surprise for you.” She claps her hands. “Kids! It’s showtime!”

And then I’m tackled again, but this time by Vivian, who is trying to put a blindfold on me. All the other kids pile on as well until I relent.

Daisy is given the same blindfold, only they ask her politely and get to put the scarf over her eyes without a battle.

“What the hell is happening?” I protest.

But Spencer grabs my arm and starts walking me across the farm. “You’re gonna fuckin’ love this, dude. So just go with it.”

Daisy grabs my arm. “What are we doing?” But she’s excited, I can tell.

“Your daughter has a surprise for you,” Ronnie says. “She’s been working on it all week.”

A surprise. When was the last time someone bothered to surprise me?

I can’t recall a single time.

But this is the life of a dad, right? It comes with all kinds of surprises.

I’m pretty sure we’re led into the pool house and then we’re positioned and told to sit. Daisy and I sit, falling backwards into the cushions of a soft couch.

There’s some whispering, some giggling, and then Oliver says, “I’m not wearing a tutu!” But the Little Mermaid sets him straight with some hushed threats, and he relents.

Daisy leans in to me, wrapping her arm around my biceps. “Your family is crazy.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She leans her head on my shoulder. “I’m falling in love with them.”

“Just them?”

Her lips find mine. Then I get a kiss. “This has been the best week.” She sighs. “You are the very best thing that has happened to me since my parents died.”

“And just imagine. We’re just getting started.” I relax back into the couch cushions, also letting out a breath. Not even caring that I’m blindfolded.

From outside my imposed darkness there is a hushing sound. Many children with fingers to lips. And then Snow White says, “Welcome to the first annual Sick Girlz show! Produced, written, and directed by Vivi Vaughn. Sit back, relax, and feast your eyes on this summer’s hottest tattoos! Body paint edition!”

Vivi Vaughn. I get lost in that for a moment. It’s not her name. Yet. But I like it.

Our blindfolds are taken off and Daisy and I have front-row seats as the glass patio doors to the pool house are opened up to reveal the pack of princesses. They have taken off their baseball jerseys and helmets to reveal full-sleeve body paint up and down their arms. And pigtails, of course.

There is a red carpet, there is music, they have choreographed dance, and there is an intermission where Daisy and I are served hot dogs and snow cones while a costume change takes place. Then they come back out and do it all again. This time, instead of tutus, they are wearing Shrike Bikes gear and have a new dance that involves Oliver and Vivi pedaling a couple of Shrike Trikes in a figure eight while Belle leaps across the space like a ballerina.

I don’t even know what I’m looking at.

At one point, baby animals make an appearance. Not just goats—ducklings, chicks, piglets. Then the whole thing devolves into squealing and laughter.

Daisy leans into me and once again says, “Your family is amazing.”

And even though most of these people aren’t even related to me, I have to agree.

Vivi is one of them now. She will grow up with the nieces, and Oliver, and the friends.

She will never be alone again.

After the show Daisy migrates to the pool for some girl time and I spend the afternoon with Spencer and his friends. Regardless of his denial, Spencer and his friends do indeed have a history.

Ronin was an internationally famous model in his younger days. Ford used to produce reality TV shows. And Spencer and Ronin’s wife, Rook—who was also a model for a short period of time—were the stars of one of those reality shows.

But that’s not really who they are. Not even who they were.

Ronin, Spencer, and Ford got away with murder when they were in college. This is no-shit real. And everyone knows they got away with murder because evidence was dismissed on a technicality. But the asshole who died truly was an asshole, so no one wanted to take a closer look at things.

If that was where it ended, eh. It’s kind of a weird footnote in the history of these people. But that’s not where it ended.

Turns out someone did care about that murder because the three of them stole a lot of money in the process. Not just any money, either. They stole money from the US government, specifically the FBI. And the FBI, at least around here, is as crooked as they come. They wanted it back. This led to a whole string of events that involved… I look around and find…

Sasha.

She is a whole other level of… how to even put it? Dangerous, I guess. She’s pretty normal now. Two kids. Married to, of all people, an FBI agent. She was even an agent herself, for a short time, anyway. But mostly so she didn’t get charged for assassinating the world’s most wanted criminal out in Kansas about ten years back.

I never really wanted Sasha’s whole backstory. Not that Ford, her stepfather—a whole other rabbit hole that no one has time for—would even tell me the full details. They are a very tight bunch and everything between them is all hush-hush and need-to-know.

Once you include Sasha into this little circle of family and friends that Ronnie has going on here, you begin to unravel things and immediately start wishing you had left that dangling thread alone. Because Ford’s wife, Ashleigh? She comes from the Hong Kong underground. Her father was a full-fledged member of the Triad.

Jax isn’t just an FBI agent, his stepfather was in charge of a black ops org so deep inside the US government, even he didn’t know about it.

Then there’s that whole ‘Where did Sasha come from?’ can of worms.

This is when I checked out. I was done asking questions.

And I didn’t figure I needed to know all the details about Sasha’s ‘side of the family’ because things settled down and all the weird shit that was happening in the quaint town of Fort Collins, Colorado just disappeared.

They all look normal now.

Ronin and Rook own the Fort Collins Theatre, a sort of coffeehouse-dinner theatre kind of place that sits diagonal to Sick Boyz.

Ford and Ashleigh are really just a couple of rich fucks who like to ski in Vail, raise face-eating German shepherds, and dote on their genius kids.

And Spencer and Ronnie have settled into a life of custom motorcycles, princesses, and farm animals.

But. I do have to say, if you’re going to have people on your side, you really can’t go wrong with this bunch here.

So I don’t worry about it.

We’ve all done things in our past.

If they got past them, so can I.