by Cora Kenborn
The lump on my bed grunted as a ball of his clothes hit him in the face with laser accuracy. “Babe,” he mumbled, shaking his jeans off his cheek and burying his head into the pillow. “Why’re you up so damn early on a Saturday? Go back to sleep.”
This shit wouldn’t do. He knew the rules.
This time his cell phone bounced off his forehead. “Jesus!” He shot straight up, rubbing the red mark it left behind.
I shrugged and disappeared into the adjoining bathroom, turning on the shower full blast. When I reentered my room, he sat up glaring at me, but he’d at least put on his pants.
Good boy.
“Now that I’ve got your attention,” I said, collecting his shoes and depositing them on the foot of the bed, “I’m going to shower, and you can get the hell out.”
He stared at me with a blank look. “You’re kicking me out?”
“Nothing gets by you, does it?”
I was being a bitch, maybe more so than necessary. But I had no illusions about what had happened last night or in the past few months. I wasn’t an idealistic teenage dreamer who held onto some fantasy of love and happily ever after. I’d lived life enough to know happily ever after existed only in fairy tales and cheesy rom-com movies.
Once you’ve danced close enough to the fire to get licked by the flames, you learned to adapt to the darkness.
He grasped my arm in a firm hold, smirking as if he didn’t believe me. “C’mon, let’s hit round two. I’ll even get you there first.”
What he got were his car keys flung right between his eyes.
“Fuck!” His head snapped back against the headboard with a thud. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
For the first time since waking, a conflicted smile broke across my cheeks, and a twinge of regret pulled at my stomach. Turning away, I paused at the bathroom door and glanced over my shoulder. “I know,” I said, the corners of my mouth gravitating downward.
“What’s wrong with you, Eden?”
My mind drifted as I closed the bathroom door. “Everything.”
“I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again—yadda-yadda—you know the drill.” I tore through the back door, throwing the dusty brown apron over my head in the middle of my usual apology.
“I know that look.” Nash shook his head as I double wrapped the tie around my waist.
Furrowing my brows, I busied myself unpacking the new shipment of paint thinners that had arrived during the morning delivery. “What look? I don’t have a look. There’s no look.”
Well, that doesn’t sound suspicious at all.
“Uh-huh.” My brother smirked, his trademark platinum blond hair falling in a chunk over his left eye. He leaned in front of me, pressing his hands over the box I frantically emptied. “That, dear sister, is the freshly-fucked look. It’s a blinking neon light all over your face.”
“Nash!” My mouth dropped open, heat staining my cheeks.
He chuckled and reached into the paint box to help me unload. “Not that I want to hear about my little sister’s sex life.” His face twisted into a grimace as if he’d just smelled something rotten. “Actually, keep the details to yourself. But can you please send the booty calls home half an hour earlier? It’s impossible to sign for deliveries and man the counter at the same time.”
Guilt washed over me as we worked in silence. I wanted to say something to ease the tension, but anything I said would sound like hollow promises. If I was honest with myself, that’s exactly what they were anyway. Every time I rolled into the hardware store late for my shift, I’d apologize and swear it wouldn’t happen again. Every time, Nash would nod, knowing damn well I was full of shit. The one consistent thing my family could rely on was my unreliability.
I could handle most anything, except for Nash’s silence.
He chewed on his lower lip, concentrating on holding as many paint cans as he could in each hand, as his forearms strained with the weight. The unruly chunk of hair fell into his eyes again, and he attempted to blow it away with a harsh breath. I laughed as it flopped right back down.
“Damn,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Licking my palm, I reached across the box and slicked the pale chunk across his forehead. It was a move I’d done hundreds of times when we were kids.
Old habits die hard.
“You need a haircut, towhead.”
He narrowed his eyes. “That’s disgusting. Keep your spit to yourself, Cherry Pop.”
Insulting each other’s hair had been our thing since my ex-husband sent me running to the hair dye aisle, half-crazed. I smiled to myself, remembering the moment Nash first saw my shocking, bright red hair. He’d laughed himself to tears, claiming I looked like a cherry popsicle. The name stuck, and for the better part of a year, I’d been Cherry Pop. Siblings were just assholes like that.
Everyone around me swore I’d lost my mind, going from a natural blonde to a very unnatural stop sign redhead. Nash just smirked and left a twelve pack of melting red popsicles in my mailbox the next day.
The morning passed into afternoon and while the hardware store saw enough foot traffic to break even, hoping for a profit seemed laughable.
Watching my brother repeatedly rearrange a wall of washers, I drummed my nails on the register. “Have you heard from Dad?” I asked, my eyes trained on his methodical movements.
He paused as if contemplating the weight of my question, then resumed straightening the impeccably straight packages. “He’ll be in later this evening.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
A hint of irritation seeped into his voice. “Let it go, Eden.”
Tap, Tap, Tap.
I continued drumming my nails. “I have let it go. I let it go when you worked fourteen hour shifts all week. And the week before that…and the week before that.” Nash’s back stiffened as I pushed away from the counter and took a few steps toward him. “I let it go when you left the community center for a couple weeks until Dad could find some help to ease the load. How long ago was that, Nash—three weeks? A month? Or has it been so long that you can’t remember?”
“I said, stop.”
My brain heard him. It sent a clear message to my mouth to shut up. However, my insatiable need to push the envelope informed my mouth that it was clear for takeoff, and it barreled down the runway on a suicide mission.
“And I let it go when that second job he’s been so tired from working all the time called and asked why he hadn’t bothered to show up for the past four days.”
A growl rose from the depths of my brother’s chest as his fist tightened around an entire row of washers. His knuckles whitened and the metal bar ripped from the display wall as he twisted toward me. “Goddamn it, Eden, I said that’s enough! He’s tired, all right? The man spent our entire lives doing right by us, by himself. Do you think you could stop acting like you’re the only one that’s ever had something bad happen and grow the fuck up?”
He might as well have slapped me across the face. I stared at him, my mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for breath. Struggling for words, I reached out a tentative hand to him. “Nash, I…”
The chime of the bell over the door rang and a swoosh of air sucked the tension out of the room. Anger faded from Nash’s face, and the consummate professional took over. I fell in line behind him as he made a sweeping welcome gesture with open hands.
“Welcome to Lachey Hardware, gentlemen. Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?” He approached the two Latino men and engaged them in deep conversation, parading them from aisle to aisle.
I busied myself with counting out the money in the register, catching pieces of Nash’s conversation with the two men. Their voices elevated as they argued about cable ties, rope, and duct tape.
I barely held in a snicker. It wasn’t the first time men had come in with that supply list since Fifty Shades of Grey hit the big screen. It wouldn’t be the last. They all pretended we didn’t know exactly what freaky games the
y were playing in the sack, and we indulged them until they walked out with their bags of sin.
Glancing at my watch, I blew out a frustrated breath and untied my apron, knowing Emilio would kick my ass for being late for my shift at the bar. I hated leaving so soon, but my job at the hardware store didn’t keep my lights on.
Before I got a chance to lift the apron over my head, four hands shoved a bounty of rope and duct tape on the counter in front of me. Jumping, I gasped as I covered my chest with my hand.
“Jesus. You scared the shit out of me.” My shock suddenly turned to unease as the taller one with scarred fingers and a long black ponytail leaned in close.
“Many apologies, señorita.” Something seemed off as he bared his yellowed, stained teeth. “Señor Lachey said you’d ring us up.”
Hesitating at first, my fingers finally found the keys on the register. After bagging the merchandise, a shiver shot down my spine when his fingers lingered over mine as he took the bag.
“Gracias,” he said, indulging himself in a slow perusal up and down my body. I swallowed slowly while the man laughed low in his chest.
As he turned, I nodded to the bag, and the words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush of impetuous nerves. “Big DIY project?”
Throwing a sharp and predatory look over his shoulder, he sneered with a wink that had my skin crawling. “I always do it myself, Eden. Otherwise, you have to go in and clean up someone else’s messes.”
I opened my mouth for a rebuttal, closed it, then opened it again. “Do we know each other?”
His dirty fingernail flicked the name tag on my apron. “We do now.”
Confounded and more than creeped out by his plastic smile, I watched them both walk out the door and disappear before being jarred out of my thoughts by a light hand on my back.
“Assholes,” Nash explained, reading my thoughts. “They wanted to argue with me over everything. They even wanted to know what time we closed, because if it wasn’t what they wanted, they said they’d be back.” Rolling his eyes, he smiled and pushed me forward. “Get out of here. You slept through half your shift, and the local drunks will have my ass if you’re late for their shitty beer and chips.”
Balling up my apron, I sighed and logged out of the cash register. As I retrieved my purse from under the counter, something snagged on the top of the cabinet door, sending the contents flying across the carpet.
Bending down, I grabbed the strewn papers and stifled a second groan as I realized what had been shoved in my purse. Still squatting on the floor, I ran my fingers across the top of the University of Texas brochure.
“Nash,” I warned, waving the brochure in the air. He grinned and held his hands up innocently, walking toward the front of the store.
I shook my head and tossed the brochure into the trash can beside the register. Seven brochures had found their way into my purse, car, and apartment. All seven had made their way into the garbage.
Humidity smacked me in the face as I kicked the back door open with more force than necessary. Turning the ignition, my little PT Cruiser purred to life, and I backed out of the parking lot on my way to the cantina.
Nash refused to give up hope that one day I’d fall in line and enroll in college. Maybe his head filled with visions of me graduating with some fancy degree, but at twenty-five years old, I didn’t need to take Intro to Algebra with a bunch of pretentious teenage assholes to prove a point. I spent three years proving I could be what someone else wanted, and it destroyed me.
Nash had no clue he was slowly proving he could be what Dad always wanted him to be—a replica of himself.
I punched the gas out of frustration, and the car protested, lurching hard into a busy intersection.
I’d die before I’d let that happen.
Chapter Five
Brody
Still aggravated at the morning’s turn of events, I slammed the car door and straightened my red power tie. My closet overflowed with variations of tones and patterns, but all were red. Red symbolized power, and it used to inject a jolt of confidence through my veins by just wearing it.
Now those damn red ties made me sick to look at them. The power was a façade.
My agreement with the Carreras had been made rashly with the ambition of a hungry assistant district attorney with eyes focused on a man too old and sick to run for reelection. The candidate pool had been vast, and I knew the only way to rise above the pack was to sell my soul to the devil himself.
So, I did.
Aligning myself with the Carrera Cartel was the biggest mistake of my life. Had I known what singling myself out from honest men would cost me, I’d have never made the deal. Now, with her life literally in my hands, I had no choice but to play the devil’s game.
I just hoped it’d be enough to spare myself in the process.
Exhaling a rough breath, I squared my shoulders and walked with an outward confidence toward the simple, wooden front door. Knocking again, I glanced around the perimeter, a move I’d learned from my time with Carrera.
The simple whitewashed siding of the ranch style house was blackened with weathered time and carelessness. Overgrown grass hinted at a recluse who had better things to do than lawn care, and long-dead flowers lay dark and flattened next to the porch. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the place had been vacated long ago.
But I knew he was in there.
And he knew I was outside waiting.
The question hung immobile in the air, waiting for one of us to relent. I sure as fuck wasn’t going anywhere. Irritated, I pounded harder on the door again, raising my voice.
“Open up, Lachey. We both know why I’m here. You can talk to me, or you can wait for the Houston PD to drag you out.” Letting my anxiousness get the better of me, I counted my steps as I paced the porch. Moments dragged by before the door cracked open, and the disheveled shell of Elliot Lachey’s face appeared. To his credit, he didn’t back down under my glare.
I couldn’t decide if he was brave or stupid.
When he sniffed and rubbed his nose vigorously, I knew the answer. The base of his nostrils was caked with white residue.
He was high.
“What do you want?” he asked, wrinkling his nose at a rapid pace.
I smiled tersely and stepped over the threshold of his home. Before he could protest, I raised a hand, silencing him. “Don’t ask me questions you already know the answer to. And wipe your damn face. It’s not smart to greet the man who holds your life in his hands with cocaine all over your face.”
Lachey wiped under his nostrils and stepped backward, his black athletic pants and Texas State t-shirt a far cry from the put-together look I remembered from a few years ago.
I placed my hands on the kitchen counter, grimacing as my palms touched a sticky substance I assumed had lived there for days. The entire house looked and smelled like shit. Pulling out a handkerchief from my pocket, I wiped my hand and pinched the bridge of my nose impatiently.
“You’re pathetic.” I shook my head at him as lines of surprise wrinkled his forehead. “You get caught buying that shit and you still snort it? What kind of moron does that?”
“You don’t know anything about me, Brody,” he countered, his eyes wild and dilated from the drugs. “You don’t know what it’s like to be me. Stress is killing me.”
Opening the cookie jar on the sticky counter, I pulled out a fresh eight ball bag of cocaine and threw it at his chest. “No, this shit’s killing you.”
The old man’s eyes were vacant. “What does it matter? I have nothing left. If I’m going to jail, I might as well go high.”
“What about your kids?” Thoughts reverted to the morning and the sadness in Eden’s eyes. She kept a shell tucked around her like an emotional shield in an invisible gender war. No matter how hard I tried to break through it, she kept me at arm’s length, giving me her body but never anything more. I wondered if her determined distance had been caused by her bastard of a husband or the detachmen
t of her father?
“He’s much better off in San Antonio where he can do his charity work.” He paused, rubbing his mouth as his eyes misted. “And Eden stopped caring a long time ago.”
I could’ve argued with him. I could’ve forced him to see what he’d done to his family and business, but I didn’t have the time or the desire. I’d come here for one reason.
“You don’t have to go to jail today, Elliot.”
His jaw clenched, and he eyed me with distrust. “Oh? Are you sending me on a vacation instead?”
I tried to hide an amused smile. “No, more like an adventure.” Refusing to waste any more time, I pulled a box from my pocket and held it up. “Know what this is?”
“I may be high, Brody, but I’m not blind.”
Smartass.
“Inside this box is a DEA grade tracker. You’re going to call your Carrera contact and make another buy with this device on you. You’re going to find out the warehouse locations and how they get their shipments through the Corpus Christi ports.”
Elliot laughed, walking away then turning back with disbelief painted across his face. “You think they’re just going to hand over that information to a buyer? Are you crazy?”
I’d passed the point of not giving a damn about his life anymore. Someone more important depended on what he did after I walked out of this house. “I don’t give a shit how you get it,” I said, shoving it in his hand, his fingers barely touching the edges as if it burned him, “just do it. It’s either this or the Houston PD gets a delivery of a video starring you and known drug dealers doing some business in the second ward. It’ll be out of my hands then.”
The stunned look on his face might have made me feel a bit sorry for him if I didn’t already know he’d bled the hardware store dry. His selfishness caused Nash to leave his job in San Antonio and Eden to work two jobs just to keep it alive.
He frowned and continued staring at the box. As I was about to hit him with another ultimatum, he set it on the kitchen table and took a step back. “I’m sorry, Brody. I can’t.”
