Don’t Poke The Bear

Chapter 7 The Wolf/Francessca

POV The Wolf/Francessca

A week later my brother Lion rushed into my office and I had just finished an Irish coffee and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I wasn’t drunk I’d only had a small amount left in my flask but it had left me feeling relaxed and sleepy. Lion was visibly annoyed about something but I was struggling to focus on him. He told me about a huge land deal that was happening and that Monkey had dropped the ball and he was in our meeting room talking to some company about a very small road that they owned and that they were asking over 100 times the price for the land. If they didn’t sell it to us it meant that the whole deal would fall through. I couldn’t blame the company but it wasn’t exactly the way people did business. Lion said that the owners wanted to speak to me. All of this snapped me out of my tiredness and my blood began to boil as I rushed towards the meeting room. I swung the huge glass door open and went in to show them who’s boss. To my surprise Jack and Ashton Owen were sitting at the other side of the meeting table. I couldn’t believe these two brothers were the ones causing all this hassle. Ashton smiled and he looked pleased to see me but his smile soon faded. “Right you two get your stuff and get the f**k out my building.” I said and Jacks eyes darted to Monkey and Fox I think he thought I was joking. “I said get up and leave now” Jack stood up first “listen Francesca this is business. I’d like to speak to you in private.. ” but I didn’t want to listen to his patronising tone for another moment. “oh I’m not Francesca in here, I told you before we are a bunch of animals, get out whilst you can” Ashton spoke up next “Frankie why don’t we come to some sort of arrangement?” I’d had enough, these two guys had obviously had a game plan since the first moment I laid eyes on them and I was more angry than I’d ever been in my life. “Don’t say you weren’t warned, you can keep your f*****g land. Lock the doors Lion.” I said as I threw a chair against the wall and kicked off my heels. Monkeys assistant ran towards the door screaming and yelling. “Get the Beast” I shouted but Lion tried to calm us down “if he comes in here it’s over, let’s take a deep breath” but I was past that point, my head was about to come off my shoulders. I felt humiliated and it wasn’t about some piece of land, they had played me and I wanted them to pay for what they had done. Monkey, Fox and I started to circle them I was trying to get their weak point as they verbally abused them. We’d had a tough up bringing and I mean really tough. Our father was violent since we were old enough to walk and it meant that we had become hardened to anything. I started to talk to my brothers in Italian and Ashton looked terrified. The door opened and I seen Jacks face react to the small figure of my sister Bunny in the door way. “Wolfie I can hear you shouting from the Beasts office, Teddy and Kitten are in there. Please calm down” my sisters and I were all small but Bunny was tiny. She had been dying her hair blonde years and it pained me because she looked so like my mother that I wanted her to have her natural beautiful dark hair. “Hi Bunny. What are you all doing here?” I asked trying to cover the fact that I was about to kick the s**t out of Jack and Ashton. She looked around the room and she could tell that she had walked into a hostile situation “We came to surprise you, but one of the staff is out there crying. She said she’s going to pull the fire alarm if you lose your s**t again.” I took a deep breath “everything’s fine. Honestly, why don’t you take Teddy and Kitten home to our house and let me finish up here?” She shook her head “Mamba is here too, she flew back this morning. If she comes in here Wolfie… you know what will happen” my stomach sank because I knew that Mamba could break both their necks in a heart beat. She was a highly skilled SAS soldier and an undercover agent for the MI6 with a terrible temper. My brothers all started to back down at the mention of Mamba. “No don’t bring Mamba in here..these guys are just leaving.” Said Lion and I could see that he looked terrified of what she might do to them. I walked over and put on my heels. “Why don’t I walk you guys out?” She said and Jack and Ashton had a lucky escape because I had seen Mamba kick the s**t out of men bigger than these two idiots and I would only need to give her one look and she would have ended them both. They walked towards the door and I couldn’t help myself. “I’m going to destroy you both for this, good luck” Both Jack and Ashton didn’t look back. They followed Bunny along the corridor and as soon as they left I realised that we were all going to have to answer to the Beast.

Later that evening I received a phone call from a number I didn’t recognise but I answered it any way. To my surprise it was Ashton and he sounded drunk. I could feel my blood pressure rise again but inside I took three deep breaths and let him have his say. He explained that he was only at the meeting because his brothers assistant had mentioned Jack was coming to my office and he wanted to see me and that he had no idea what it was about or what his brother was doing. He did sound sincere and I could believe that his brother would keep him in the dark but I was still angry with him. “Ashton leave me and my family alone” I said as I hung up the phone and I went to bed with a large whiskey because I’d had a day from hell and as usual I was exhausted. I woke up a few hours later to a loud knock on my front door. I didn’t want who ever it was to wake up my brother Teddy so I jumped out of bed and ran down stairs to answer it and to my absolute horror it was Ashton. He was a drunken mess and I wanted to throttle him. The rain was pouring down and I dragged him inside my porch and sat him down and took his phone out of his pocket. I searched through the numbers and found his brother Jack and pressed dial. It took a few moments for him to answer “hello.. Ashton why are you calling me at this time of night?” he said and he sounded like he had just woke up. “Hello it’s Frankie Archer, I have your brother here” He took a deep breath “is this a f*****g joke? Have you lot kid napped my brother because of a shitty piece of land? Frankie I don’t care about the land, you can have it, I was only there because I was desperate to see you.” I knew that we were a bit nuts but none of us would actually kidnap someone.. well none of us but Mamba. “We haven’t kidnapped him. Don’t be stupid, he turned up at my front door in the middle of the night and he’s drunk and soaking wet. You need to come and get him before I call the police” He sounded panicked “no don’t do that..I’ll be there soon.. text me your address” he hung up the phone and within 30 minutes he was on my door step. “Where is he?” He said as I opened the door. “He’s right here, I made him a strong coffee but he can’t string a sentence together” Although Jack was still clearly upset with me he managed to give me a small smile. “thanks for calling me” I shrugged my shoulders. Jack bent down in front of Ashton “What are you playing at Ashton? I told you to leave her alone and try to get over her” he said and it was a far cry from what he had told me in his office. Jack had basically told me I was one in a long line of women and that I meant nothing to Ashton but they had obviously had conversations like this before. “I love her Jack” he said as if I wasn’t there. “You both have to leave” I said and Jack looked shattered. “We can’t keep going over and over this mate, let me take you home so you can sober up” Ashton knocked over a vase and it made a loud crashing noice “if you have woke him up I’m going to kill you” I whispered as I looked up stairs. I seen Teddy’s bedroom light go on and I knew I needed to get rid of them before he came down stairs and lost his s**t with them for being in our house. “Whos that up stairs? Are you here with someone? It that your boyfriend?” Said Jack and he looked angry and hurt all at the same time. “I don’t have a boyfriend, it’s my brother Teddy” he shook his head and laughed like he didn’t believe me. “Come on Ashton, it looks like we’ve both been played here” he said as he dragged his brother out into the rain. By the Monday morning I received an email to say they were happy to sell us the road for its proper price and that was the last I heard from the Owen brothers until 2 months later when I went to Bunny’s house to meet her new boyfriend and they were both sitting there without a care in the world.. but I was heartbroken.