But when I opened the door amidst Kifo’s growling barks, I was greeted with a smiling April, trailing a rolling bag behind her. “Girlfriend!” she screeched and hugged me.
I shrugged off her hug, trying to shrug off my shock as well. When I left her at Parkland, with how unwell she was, I thought the next time I’d see her would be in a coffin.
“I haven’t forgotten my bestest. I know you’re not big on the affection thing.” She hit me on the shoulder, pouted, and folded her arms. “What’s this I hear about you getting married? Saw a blurb in the society pages. Daughter of deceased financial guru marries gorgeous doctor. Well, they didn’t put in the gorgeous part, but from the way you talked about him at Parkland, I knew he had to be.” She came inside without invitation and closed the door behind her. “We won’t even talk about how you were supposed to tell me you two got back together and motivate me to get out.”
“How did you find out? We weren’t allowed access to the outside world at Parkland.”
“A newbie snuck a tablet in. If I paid her with drugs, she let me borrow it for an hour.” She stopped and pointed to the picture above the mantle. In a daze, she examined my favorite picture of Ethan, taken by his friend Melonie while he was swimming inside a lake. “Is that him?”
“It…is.”
“Yes, girlfriend! I can totally see why you’re in love with that. I would be, too.”
I rolled my eyes, because his looks weren’t the reason I was drawn to him. If it had been the case, the first time I met him, I would’ve hopped on his third leg and spun with reckless abandon like so many other women would have. “April…why are you here?”
“What’s with the lack of happiness to see me?” she asked through a seemingly permanent pout. “I thought we were buddies.”
“We were—are—I guess. The timing of your visit isn’t the greatest.”
“Well, I hope it can be a good time because my parents shut the door in my face. I stole my brother’s car and drove all the way up here from Freehold. Did you hear that? Freehold? Do you know how hellish the traffic was? I was this close”—she pinched her fingers together—“to road raging.” She looked around the living room area from where we stood. “I didn’t know where you lived. I knocked on every door until I met someone who could tell me which house was yours. It was good fortune you happened to be the twelfth house down. It’s a really good thing you live in the only gated community on Braddock Bay. How much would that have sucked if you were in a bigger town…or something. I’m starving.” She left her rolling bag in the middle of the living room and roamed into the kitchen.
I stared at it, feeling a bit of the pull from Eric’s neat-freak tendencies. I shook them off and met April in the kitchen to watch her search through the refrigerator. “Whatcha got to eat? Damn. Fully-stocked and whole bunch of ready made meals? Why do they have numbers on them? Are these dates? No, they are times. I’m shocked, girlfriend. I thought you’d have a grocery store’s worth of green juice.” She glanced back at me. “But looking at your figure and the crazy amount of cooked food, I guess Eric is making sure you’re eating good.” She shut the refrigerator door and jumped up to sit on the counter. “Is Eric coming home soon?” She looked at her nails pensively. “Will he cook when he does? I don’t really like the stuff in the Tupperware. Too fattening.”
I shifted my weight in discomfort, because there was too much to say and not enough time to say the bulk of it. “April, you can’t stay here.”
Moisture began to well up in her eyes. “W-why not?”
I blamed the hormones for my answer. It was the only excuse I could muster to explain why her disappointment would’ve affected me at all. A part of me felt like I owed her for the little things she did for me when we were in Parkland. She looked out for me in a way many hadn’t before. “Fine. One week.”
Ecstatic over my answer, she squealed and jumped into my arms.
I wrestled her arms from around my neck. “Would you stop doing that?”
She gave me a funny look and looked down my body. Her gaze stopped at my stomach. “I thought you got a little happy in love pudge, but I guess I was wrong. You’re preggers?”
I shuddered at the use of the word preggers. Startled she could tell so early, I closed my cardigan tighter around my body.
“There’s nothing for me to eat. Why don’t we go somewhere?”
I looked at the time. “Most of the places around are crowded right now. It’s the dinner hour. Besides, I don’t have any transportation.”
She crossed her eyes and whirled her head around. “Nikki, you don’t have to lie,” she goaded me. “I have a car. You can do this. Come on. I’m with you every step of the way. Let’s find a dive.”
“Even if I could go, the problem hasn’t fully resolved itself. Sometimes I can manage, sometimes I can’t. My parasite won’t let me take any medication to get me there.”
She crossed her eyes again and mouthed, “Parasite?”
I lifted a brow at her and shrugged.
“Yeah…you’re still so goth…or is it emo?” She waved off her inane stream of consciousness and smiled. “Fill me in. I’ve been bored since you left Parkland. I need some excitement.”
“Not much to tell.”
“The lies you tell. Man like Eric? I’m sure you have a million stories to tell about him.”
I didn’t exactly know what to tell her. He’d barely spoken to me since our visit with Dr. Savine. Seemed nothing I did could draw him to the man I preferred and have him stick around. Instead, he was persistently the man he was with other people around me.
He was now driving me as crazy as he claimed I drove him. He was right about the withdrawal, but that’s the sad fact about addiction. We’re never addicted to the things that are wholly good for us. The fact that they were detrimental devices served as an aspect of the appeal; the guilty pleasure was the catalyst.
My guilty pleasure seemed hell-bent on putting me through rapid detox, only to give me a taste of the drug I craved when I finally detoxed. The cycle would never end. It would get worse when the baby was born. I couldn’t estimate exactly how much worse it would be.
I COULDN’T BELIEVE where the fuck I was.
Victor Mejía bought a home ten miles away from Nikki’s place; it wasn’t a coincidence. He was my last resort. I knew how the dominos would fall once I stepped through the door. The craving had been starved so much it didn’t exist anymore. Meeting with the man would awaken it, and that man would show himself to Nikki. She hadn’t experienced him full-throttle yet, and I wanted to keep it that way. Need will make you do things you swore to never do. Preston became a completely unusable, unstable fuck, forcing me to seek out extreme solutions to a problem that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
The front door swung open before I had a chance to ring the bell. Big tits, tall, dark hair…young. Definitely Vic's type. He disguised his girls as housekeepers, but they couldn’t clean for shit, and fucked him nightly. She was no different. They were ‘trained’ for him in a very unconventional way. We used to debate about it. I never thought you needed a steel room and a strong backhand to sway a woman into your way of thinking; he argued the contrary.
He wasn’t bestowed with the gifts I had. It was a sad, fucked up fact. Looks played a lot into what you could and couldn’t get away with, but it didn’t explain the reason why Vic had to take a different route. He was criminally-minded and very educated on the inner workings of the streets, but when it came to women, he had no idea how to win with finesse. He had no other choice, but to break them his way. My way was intricate, and in my opinion, more satisfying. It was like a business acquisition to me. Why bulldoze a building and build over it, when you can infiltrate the inside, easily taking over from the top down and the inside out.
I lost my way when I met Nikki, and my pawns—without my attention—spun out of control. It’s a good thing the most unruly ones are dead now. Their deaths weren’t remotely close to a minor tragedy; t
he world is a microscopically better place without them around.
The only thing Vic and I shared in common, besides our blood ties, was our taste in interior design. Clean lines. White and Black. Funny we like our inanimate surroundings to be boring, but the people we surrounded ourselves with could entertain many during their stints inside a psych ward.
There was one thing I didn’t like about his house—it reminded me too much of the one I was brought up in.
“Can I get you a drink, Dr. Brenton?” Vic’s “housekeeper” asked, leading me down the hall to the grand room.
“I’m good.”
She opened the heavy metal doors to Vic’s office. Vic had a Bluetooth in his ear and a drink in one hand. In his native dialect, he threatened to cut off the intended’s cock and send it to his mother with a bow tied around it.
Victor wasn’t one to be fucked with. He’d done some semblance of the same thing to his third ex-wife’s boy-toy.
“My man,” his longtime bodyguard and one time my friend, Pete, greeted me with a handshake and half hug. “Glad you came around. Been too long. Why are you such a stranger lately?”
“Been busy. I almost didn’t recognize you now that you look like a meat head,” I said casually, trying to avoid showing him that I was a little irritated about his decision to show himself to Nikki at the worst of times—Casper’s wedding.
“Yeah, I’ve been shredding at the gym for years.” He pointed to my ring. “Heard about you getting hitched. Is the wife the looker next to you at the wedding? Nice, man. Congrats. Is this time for real?”
I gave him a short nod. Wished people would stop asking me different versions of the same exact question. It wasn’t their business, but where Pete was concerned, I understood the curiosity—he and Vic attended my wedding to Estelle. They knew from the very beginning about the nature of my relationship with her. She didn’t fully find out the truth until it was too late; the woman never meant anything to me.
Pete visibly backed off, wisely remembering not to dig any further, because I didn’t spill information on my personal life with anyone. Vic was another story; he was like a father to me, and knew every dirty detail.
For the first time in my life, Nikki was something I wanted to keep to myself.
From his office to the right of the two-level foyer, Vic spotted me. He stood upright from his desk and walked over to me, wearing a smile so bright, he nearly blinded me. “Ethan!” He outstretched his arms, expecting me to give him a hug. I avoided it because he would always kiss me on my cheeks like a foreigner. “Marriage running you haggard the second time around, eh? We won’t discuss how much it hurts my feelings to know I was left off the guest list for the very important event.”
“My wife prefers not to be around too many strangers,” I explained.
His eyes lit up at my use of the word wife.
I’d never used the term when referring to Estelle. She never felt like my wife to me. She felt like…property. An unruly, rapidly depreciating piece of shit property. She wasn’t always that way. She was a strong-willed, smart-mouthed woman before she met me. One month with me, and her parents wanted to send her to rehab, a mental health facility, thrust her back into the church, and put a hold on her trust.
I’d lied to Nikki when I said Estelle came to me the same way I had left her; she didn’t need to know the truth. Estelle had a drinking problem, but it was the worst of what she came to me with. Women always came to me with a mask of sanity. When I was done with them, the mask was torn away, showing the disfigured, insane ugliness hidden behind pretty faces and false overconfidence.
“What are you drinking?” Vic asked, heading to the living room and directing over his shoulder for me to follow him to his bar. “What’s your pleasure? I’ve got a few girls upstairs waiting for you.”
“Not tonight.” Not ever again.
“Shit, son. I know you don’t want me to meet her, but the way you’re going about, I have to meet the woman who stole a heart no one knew you had.”
“We’re having a family, Vic,” I admitted.
“No, shit,” he said as if he expected sunshine and got rain instead.
I squared my shoulders, trying not to show him it was a big deal, by not making it a big deal. “You went out of your way to summon me here,” I said, referring to the way he sent Pete to stalk me and confront me at Casper’s wedding. “I’m here. Tell me, why am I here?”
“You were missed.” He toasted the air and downed whatever was in his glass. His drink was likely bourbon. He was the one who turned me on to Van Winkle; at 107 proof, it was nothing to joke around with. “I’ve summoned you a few times before through more subtle methods, but you didn’t respond. You got married and forgot about this old man. My more aggressive measure got your consideration. You came this time.”
“That’s because I had to make sure you were still ugly.”
He laughed. “Money makes me look like you, pretty boy. Sit.” Walking over to the couch, he sat down and rested his arms on the backrests like he was a king. “Stay a while.”
“I can’t.” I checked out my watch to drive a point home, but was redirected when I realized Nikki hadn’t checked in with me. After the incident with Preston, I directed her to leave the anti-theft alarm on at all times and check in with me every hour. She dutifully obeyed that is, up until three hours ago. Made me think something was going wrong with the baby again. Her pregnancy was high risk due to the abnormal amount of blood inside her uterus. I had good reasons for the concern.
His face dropped. “I insist.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and sat in the club chair across from him. “I think I know what this is about.”
“Are you concerned?”
“No.”
He glared at me, before the corners of his mouth curled upward. “You’re lying to me. Must be in dire straits.”
“Did your godson say something to you?”
“Piece of shit hasn’t said anything. I’m still Victor Mejía. I know everything the Feds know and many things they don’t. Problem like this? My godson can’t do anything. If Preston needs to scratch his ass, he calls me to ask for permission. You’re educated, Eric. You know better than to run to Preston if you need something. Cut out the middle man and stop avoiding me. I have work for you—it’ll be as it was. Like old times, my boy, like old times. Could use you around here again. Permanently and full-time.”
I hadn’t done work for him since I was a teenager. Sure, I attended the meetings and pretended to be engaged. Avoidance and misdirection were my modus operandi. It carried me through—up until I quit working for him when I went to med school. My relationship with Vic changed after med school. He became the connection to the drugs I needed for the clients of Suicide Angels—nothing fucking more.
“Because you would want me to do too many things I don’t care to do,” I replied.
“I haven’t forgotten who you were, Eric. Does your girl know what that tattoo truly stands for? You could’ve gotten it removed, but you didn’t. Loyalty. You are still representing for the crew who brought you through it all—even though you left them for bigger things.”
A crew that was once under contract to do Vic’s bidding. When the money came in from Eamon after his death, some of the members who were loyal to Eamon turned on me. Dom and Vic got them off my back. Every single member who stood against me is dead. Pete, Dom, and I are the only ones left of the original members.
“Howard Sr. can’t get all the credit for helping you,” he reminded me. “I’m the one who really helped you when shit hit the fan.”
“And I paid back the debt.”
“You know a debt is never really paid. Considering I’ve granted you many more favors—keeping the pigs from sniffing around Tamala and Estelle’s”—he arched his fingers in the air—“suicide. I could call it all in, my boy. How about you tell me what my godson asked you for? I know it was something.”
I never asked him for a single favor. I didn’t
tell him about what went down with Estelle, either. The sneaky bastard had a bad habit of keeping tabs on me by having me followed. I called him on it once; he said he did it to protect me, but I knew better. “Doesn’t matter what he wants. He’s not getting it.”
“It’s your wife he wants, eh? Simple-minded piece of shit. He always has been. He’s not like us. We don’t politely ask for what we want. We take it and make it ours by any fucking means at our disposal. You should worry about your cousin, Ethan. Thing about a man under Fed care? He becomes a grape. Pressed the right way, he’ll make the sweetest tasting wine for the pigs to drink. It’s a flood of nectar that will attract the hornets…it will touch more than just him. It will touch you and your family. I know you, son.” Lifting his tumbler from the table, he pointed his glass at me. His new trainee immediately ran over and refilled his glass with bourbon. The speed at which she did so almost made her trip over her own feet.
I could see it in her eyes—the level to which she’d been broken. She was in the final stage before Vic pressed the only boundary she had left. If she didn’t allow it to happen, Vic would make her disappear like every single woman that once stood in her place.
“Shit job at the hospital is wearing you thin. You’re too good to be a servant to the ungrateful masses. You should be living like a prince.”
“Uh huh,” I replied, becoming downright bored. Money was a means to an end. But it would never be my foundation. Some of the richest people were the most mentally fucked up. I knew that firsthand. It didn’t solve anything. It only amplified what people tried to hide. Case in point: every woman I played the game with came from money.
He could tell he’d lost my interest and tried to use his new toy to distract me; it didn’t work. “She’s that beautiful, huh?” Vic asked, disappointed.
He insulted me again, because he knew I only fucked with beautiful women. Nikki was something more. Goddamn. Sometimes I don’t recognize the man she turns me into. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t want to be reminded of him. “You know I won’t talk about it.”
The Starkest Truth (A Breaking Insanity Novel Book 2) Page 12
