“Don’t close your eyes,” he snarls. A second later, when I fail to acquiesce to his request, he backhands me. My elbow crashes through the glass wall of the shower, but Spade grabs my hair before the shards can take my arm entirely. He throws me to the wet floor and begins to moan. His cum drips onto my stomach and legs and he pushes me flat down with his foot when I go to wipe it off. “This is your life now,” he says, “do you understand?”
I nod, right hand closing around a large shard of glass, just in reach. As he stretches down to grab my arm, I cut the glass across his face. He canters back, and the water on the floor does a better job of disabling him than I ever could. He crashes through the other side of the shower wall and clunks his giant head on the lip of the toilet as he comes down. That’s a concussion at least. I start to shake with laughter as he tries to stand and fails, again and again. The sound both carries and echoes, consuming me as it pulls me further and further down into its embrace.
So many ironies, and so many unavoidable consequences of actions that I had no part in whose outcomes led to this. My whole birth was a tragedy. My whole life is a joke. And it’s funny as hell so I laugh and I’m laughing still as his feet and fists find me and I don’t stop laughing until a belly full of blood rushes up into my mouth. And as I pass out, I hope to hell he kills me tonight. A night where I felt, for the first time in my entire wasted existence, that glimmer of love and hope. To even taste it was enough.
Knox
I notice Dixon watching me from across the table. He’s been on me like moss on a rock ever since I blew up last week. Not that Dixon is dad, by any means, but the guy did get us to where we are now and that comes with a certain amount of respect, well earned. We’re a long way from washing dishes. And we’re happy because of him. Well, most of us anyways. Not Aiden. Not me. Not now. First time I’ve been back to the barn in seven days and I’m only here because Charlie’s fighting.
I stay focused on my kid brother in the ring, dancing on light feet but not packing punches like he oughta, on the cold beer trapped in my left hand sweating beneath my fingertips, on Dixon’s gaze pressing against me like a fucking fist to the throat, on the scratchy arms of the wicker chair that leave splinters behind like scathing little reminders that I’m just a mortal man who can’t stomach rejection.
I don’t look for her and so far, I’ve succeeded in avoiding the sight of her perfect shape. The long black hair, caramel skin, those lips… Fuck. Even the smell of this shitty barn has my dick twitching – sweat and beer and blood and hay and dirt – all of it reminds me of her in a painful way that has my balls ready to burst. There are few smells these days that elicit any other reaction.
Clifton curses when Charlie takes a nasty right hook to the shoulder. His opponent is bigger and Charlie is scrappier than the effort he’s displaying. He could stand to learn a few things from Plumeria… And in the stroke of a second I’m thinking of her again.
“Hey.” I look up at Ollie as he slouches into the empty chair to my right. He’s got a black plastic bag in hand and sets it down on the table. “Yours, I believe.”
I snatch up the bag and look inside to find a stack of fifties. Flipping through the cash, I quickly calculate that there must be at least ten grand here. “Where the hell did’ya get this?”
Ollie sits back. “What?”
“I said where’d you get it?”
“Mer.” He runs a hand back through his greasy hair, eyes darting away from mine quickly. “She said to leave her winnings for you.”
“Mer’s winnings? She doesn’t want the money?”
Ollie stares at me like I’m a fucking madman, though he doesn’t say it aloud. Probably still thinks I’m aiming to get his head on a pike. “Look, I don’t understand the shit between you two, but since she left I figured you’d want it.”
“Left?” I swivel around to face him when I should be looking out for my brother.
“Yeah man. She quit almost a week ago.” Ollie’s eyebrows draw together and he reaches into his back pocket for his cell. “Last thing she sent was this.” He tilts his phone towards me and I see a few strange characters scrawled across the screen. Eventually, I’m able to decipher their meaning: “I quit. 36428 2 K. Try. M.”
“I think she was trying to write sorry there,” he offers with a shrug.
My mouth is dry and a deep sadness fills me as my slow ass finally understands. She quit because of me. Must have left me the money as a tip. Like I’m a goddamn prostitute. And an expensive one at that. Doesn’t make sense though. Even if that’s what she was getting at, she needs the money more than I do. She’d a kept it. “You try calling the number?”
“I tried but it’s disconnected. Sucks too. I didn’t realize how much I needed a second set of hands around this place.”
“Talk to Dixon about getting a replacement,” I say absently. I lean back in my seat, feeling heavy as I weigh the two options I’ve got in front of me: take the money and accept that there are some battles I’m just not meant to win. Or go after her with everything I’ve got. A slow smile creeps across my cheeks as I handle the cash. It’s dry between my fingers, most of it well creased and well used. Prostitute or not she wouldn’t have given it to me if there were no hope. She wouldn’t have bet on me either. I slip the money into the inside pocket of my coat.
“She leave town, or you think she’s still at the same address?”
“No idea.”
“Can you find out?”
Ollie makes a face. “I’m not sure.”
“I’m coming to you on hands and knees.”
Kid looks down at his hands. They’re pale and bit to hell around the nail beds. Then he leans in close and lowers his voice to a whisper like he might not want one of my brothers to know. Weird, but I don’t question him as he starts to give me some of the information I’ll need as I plunge into my next battle against Mer for Plumeria’s heart.
I smile at the thought as Ollie says, “I know one of the girls that works down at Camelot. She’s been fucking Mario. I could probably ask her and get a good idea.”
“You think you can hit her up by tomorrow?”
“Latest, by Tuesday.”
“Thanks, man.” I take his hand and he shakes it hesitantly, either surprised or worried, I can’t tell which.
“No problem…”
“And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to brush you off,” I say, leaning forward to rest an elbow on the rickety wooden table. “Griffin’s little brother is a freshman this year and he’s been looking for work. I’ll send him by tomorrow and you can try him out on an easy night, see how he does. He can hold his own from what I can tell.”
Now Ollie just looks shocked. “Thanks.”
I laugh, feeling a strange giddiness at the decision that’s come over me. I’m going to take this girl through the power of charm – another word for coercion – and in doing so I’ll do something I’ve never done before: I’m going to try. “I’ll add more money to the account for your bar back once you’ve selected him. No reason to let another one get away.” I take his shoulder in my hand and give it a light squeeze. “Don’t hesitate to come to me for anything.”
Dixon and I ride home alone. Aiden has a fight in the city at a different ring. One where there is no mercy rule and where the odds on leaving in a body bag are fifty-fifty – if your opponent doesn’t, you do. Charlie’s gone to watch to get some pointers after tonight’s loss and Clifton joins them as back up. We don’t ever let less than three of our own go to the pit in town. As we park in the garage, Dixon asks me about my conversation with Ollie and when I tell him, he slams his car door shut.
“You’re different now,” he seethes.
I roll my eyes. “Different because I’ve started taking on more responsibility? It’s a responsibility that I should have taken more seriously before now. The clubs aren’t just yours, brother. And I spend more time than anyone in the ring. I should be lead on everything concerning th
e barn.”
Dixon clenches his teeth and balls his hands to fists as we wade into the living room. “You’re a fucking ingrate. After all the work I put in to build up our assets. To build you up into a man…”
“And men have needs, my brother, and those needs include women.” I throw my coat onto the back of the couch and grimace at the empty empire that surrounds us. “That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?”
“You’re getting your head all fucked up because of a chick…”
Pointing at all of the pictures of us and Marguerite that date back to our childhoods, I speak over him. “We are family, brother. But we’re also men. Men have women. Men have kids. What did you expect? That we’d all stay your boys forever? I want a family of my own some day, to give my kids what none of us ever got. Don’t you?”
Dixon’s face is severe in the low light radiating from the kitchen. I flick a lamp on and his frown only grows more pronounced. “No.”
I breathe air out of the corner of my mouth. “We may be family, but we are still individuals and I don’t always have to agree with you.”
“When you make a decision that affects us as a group, it goes by me first,” Dixon hisses through his teeth. His eyes have never been so bright a white, or so crazy. “Don’t make me throw you out of the house…”
“This is my house too,” I roar and the sound echoes off of the high ceilings. “And this no women in the house rule is a fucking insult. You’re not my fucking father…” The words break on my next laugh, though I don’t recognize it as such. The sound is harsh, mean. “You’re fucking terrified, aren’t you? Of losing control? Of us no longer needing you? Because when that happens you’ll look around and realize your hard ass is fucking lonely. You keep this up, brother, and you might just die that way…”
Dixon comes at me in a burst and slugs me in the ribs. He doesn’t hold back either, and that man’s always had a good throwing arm. Anticipating the blow is the only reason I can breathe through it. He shoves me against the wall, disrupting a few photos Marguerite took shortly after Aiden joined us. He stands apart, looking anywhere but at the camera in all of them. Glass shatters in the frame as one of the pictures hits the ground.
Dixon is pure fury as he steps back into the center of the living room, as if knowing that distance is the only way he will be able to master the carefully constructed control he’s so proud of. But I know as well as he does, we’re all the same. All wounded in our own fun, unique little ways. Foster child syndrome. Finding Marguerite and each other saved us. We were the lucky ones and Dixon is still clinging to that. So afraid and proud and angry. I can see each emotion pass across his face like the turning of book pages before he leaves the room and the silence settles around me.
He shouts over his shoulder, “You can have the barn but if I see that girl in this house Knox, I’m going to kill her.”
I’m cold, my stomach sore from where I took a hit, though not sore enough to keep me from going after him. I stop myself halfway down the hall. No point in fighting over a girl who probably hates me. Even though I said what needed to be said, the whole argument might be for nothing when it comes to Plumeria. I lay on my bed that night with the curtains open, counting sheep and stars.
I massage the bruise on my stomach and try to plan what I’ll say to her if I do manage to track her down. I wonder what sort of expression she’ll be wearing – what she’ll be wearing. I close my eyes and picture her tits, those thighs and what’s waiting for me between them. I jack off to thoughts of her, like the teenager I assured Dixon I wasn’t, her name on my tongue whispered to the darkness.
I get up too early and head to the second floor library. I should spend more time here, but I don’t. Going to the computer, I draw up the files for the month’s coming fights and make a few changes to the schedule. Then I refill the booze order and give Morgan, Griffin’s little brother, a call. I share Ollie’s number with him and tell him where to go and by when and get a call from Ollie not long after I hang up.
“Hey. How are you?”
I grunt, “I could complain, but I don’t want to waste the time. She still at that shitty place outside of town. Exit 29 on the 401?”
“Not sure.” His voice is high pitched, off somehow but I’m not interested in him. “Talked to Mindy. She said she hasn’t seen Mario in two weeks.”
“Fuck.” That’s a bad sign. I groan and lean back in my chair, then I get up all at once. “Better go see for myself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m tired of waiting. I need to see her.”
“Could be some shit, Knox. That family isn’t exactly notorious for being clean and reliable.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Ollie lowers his gravelly pitch. “Could be some cartel shit. I’d steer clear unless she contacts you first.”
That hadn’t occurred to me. But it doesn’t matter. I’m already in the car. “Good advice.”
“You gonna take it?”
“No.”
“You’re fucked in the head, man. You know that?”
I laugh hollowly to myself as I pull out of the garage and onto the road. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Shit.” Rustling on the other end of the line. “Well good luck, I guess. Give her hell.”
“Oh I’m planning on giving her more than that.” My dick and my heart.
Her house is in farm country, straddling the farmer district and that of their farmhands and surrounded by apple trees still clinging to a faraway summer. Now all their leaves have changed to brown and the forgotten apples that litter her dusty dirt driveway are dead and rotten.
In the pale light of sunrise the last time I dropped her off, I’d thought the house was grey. Looking closer, I think it might have been painted blue at one point because I see patches of scattered navy paint decorating the façade. Two stories and it doesn’t seem to have a basement. Just a porch leading up to an open screen door.
There are two cars in the driveway – one a Rolls Royce, the other a busted Ford. I park behind both of them so no matter which she drives, she won’t be able to sneak past me to get away. I can’t decide if that makes me psychotic or practical as I turn off the ignition and step out of the car wearing a standard black tee shirt, faded blue jeans, and black shitkickers with the safety toes. No button ups, no cologne. Just me and desperation.
Damn. I’m nervous. Nervous as a fucking dweeb asking the head cheerleader to prom. She’s going to say no. I know it, she knows it, and so does the rest of the school. But I’m a proud mother fucker and I’m going to ask even if it peels the paint right off me when she says what we all know she’s going to.
My boots thud loudly against the uneven slats leading up to her porch. The screen is open, clacking against the doorframe in the wind. The door behind it is closed and locked so I rap my knuckles across its faded surface firmly, crossing my fingers and hoping to high hell someone’s still inside and that she didn’t move to another state entirely just to get away from me.
“Plumeria, it’s me. I know you’re in there, I can hear you moving.” There’s at least one different set of feet falling across creaking floorboards, though more likely two. Or more. I’m surprised until I remember where Ollie got his information ¬– or lack thereof – and I roll my eyes, fully expecting Mario or one of the strippers from Camelot to open the door as the footsteps draw closer. I’m wrong.
The door opens wide and a Mexican man with grey hair sighs, then grins, as if he’s pleased to see me. I can’t fucking fathom why. “Welcome. Which of the Cleary brothers are you?” He has silver hair and cinnamon skin and the raven eyes of a fox. I can’t tell if he’s thirty or sixty but there’s something in the set of his jaw and the volatility of his gaze that reminds me of Plumeria. I wonder if they’re related.
“Where is Plumeria?” I say, rather than answer.
Glancing past him, the space is empty all the way up to the
meager fireplace against the far wall, hidden behind a cracked leather armchair. Wooden floorboards are ancient and rattling, the ceiling is high and the fan that decorates it must be broken because even though it’s muggy inside, the fan is covered in dust and cobwebs. There’s not a photo or piece of art in sight, not that it would have done much to improve the livability of the place.
Plumeria lives in a shithole and though I know I shouldn’t have expected more, it still bothers me in ways that tell me I care too much for a girl who’s given me so little.
“She’s just in the bathroom, freshening up for you. You know how women are,” the man drawls, moving deeper into the house. I follow with reluctance because nothing he’s said to me so far is right. Plumeria isn’t the kind of woman to freshen up and there was no way for her to know I was coming.
The damp air is stale and smells faintly of air freshener. The rose kind, which increases the feeling that I’ve just walked into a morgue. My fingers are twitching, and I wish I hadn’t left my gun in the car. As it is, I’m the only unarmed man in the room.
The silver-haired serpent has a bulge on the inside of his left ankle that’s unmistakable, though the other two men in the room hold their weapons even more conspicuously. They’re both carrying Berettas in their left hands, two identical versions of one another leaning against the left wall. The outline of where a sofa used to be rests between them, though that sofa now sits on the right side of the room. The apparent leader of the trio gestures for me to take a seat on it, so I do. A cloud of dust puffs up around me.
“These are my business associates,” he says, “don’t let them trouble you.” A door that I can’t see somewhere down the hallway to my right opens and closes and I hear the shuffling of more than two feet. Standing by the chair positioned in front of the fireplace, the man claps his hands together. “Perfect timing. Thank you, Spade. And Plumeria, you have a guest.”
Plumeria steps out of the mouth of the hallway into the living room and I remember that I’d been debating whether or not to bring flowers. She doesn’t need flowers. She needs mercenaries and gunpowder and automatic weaponry.
The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1) Page 7
