He led her out of the laneway while the bouncers got the attackers roused. None of them made any move to get higher than their knees. Two were still unconscious.
She went with him back to the car. He talked the whole way but she had no idea what he was saying. She kept seeing the calm and composed way he’d beaten six men into the ground. She did not understand how that was possible. It wasn’t simply adrenaline. It wasn’t being a hero, or using his size. He’d only had two beers. He’d been brutally systematic and methodically deadly, this man who cut sandwiches into animal shapes for Mia, and once let her draw tattoos all over his arms that took days to wash off.
He paid for their parking and they settled in the car.
He rang Etta. “I’m sorry we’re late. We’re on the way now. Twenty minutes. I said we were sorry. Yes, I understand the concept of overtime. Etta. Etta. Etta. Shit, all right. All right.”
He drove. She stopped seeing blood and hearing men shout. She stopped being shocked and acted. “What was that?”
He glanced at her. “Are you okay?”
He’d probably asked her that a dozen different ways on the walk to the car. “I am not okay. I want answers. I don’t understand what happened.”
“I’m a big guy. I can handle myself.”
She swivelled to face him. “You were a machine. You don’t get that way by being a nanny or by some miracle when you’re threatened.”
“No, baby. I leaned to do that. But I don’t do it anymore.”
She shivered, but she wasn’t cold. “You learned to do it, to beat people up. Explain what that means.”
“Let’s get home and get some antiseptic on your leg and we can talk about it with a cup of tea, okay?”
“I don’t want a fucking cup of tea.”
He flinched.
Six men coming at him with the intention of hurting him hadn’t made him twitch, but her use of a swear word did.
“Pull over. Call Etta and tell her we need more time. As long as it takes you to tell me what you just did. The damn bouncers didn’t believe what they saw. You need to make me understand how the man I trust my daughter with can beat six men bloody and unconscious and walk away without a scratch on him.”
He turned into a side street to find a place to park. Audrey looked at her hand resting on the door moulding. It was perfectly still, an ordinary arm lying there, but on the inside she couldn’t stop herself shaking. If her teeth started chattering it would not be a surprise.
Reece sat still, his hands resting on his thighs. He wasn’t the least bothered by his knuckles. She’d thought the scars on them came from his days bricklaying.
“I haven’t always been like I am now.” He kept his face averted. He didn’t want this. He wasn’t getting an option. He talked or she got a taxi home.
“There was a time when I was angry and thought the world owed me because I’d had to cook for a family instead of hang out at the skate park. I was a selfish little prick, acting out. I finished school and didn’t know what I wanted to do, except drink, get high and get laid. Polly and I moved into a dive together. We didn’t know what we were going to do with our lives. We did labouring jobs to get the cash for rent and to buy booze and weed, meth, Es. We messed around with women. Polly’s dad hassled us to get it together. He never quit on us. We were dickheads, young and dumb as cement. One night two guys jumped me. I was so high I was flying. I beat them both till I thought I’d killed them.” He took a breath, slow and uneasy. “I liked it.”
He twisted his head to look at her. She felt sick. But he was a kid and there was nothing of that in him now—until tonight.
“I had this body, but I had more experience with baby formula than being a man.” He looked away again. “It felt good to be the man for once. Good to get away from the stink of kids. To have no responsibility for anyone but myself. I took mixed martial arts classes. I learned to how to fight. In the gym, people would bet on me and I always won. And I liked that, being a sure thing. Polly started an illegal fight club. That makes it sound worse than it was, bigger. It was just me taking on any challenger for any bet.” He moved his hands to the steering wheel. “We should get home.”
“We’re not finished here.”
He sighed. “We made a shed load of money. I mean we really cashed up. We didn’t need jobs. We only needed me to win and I liked to win, and so long as I was high in some way, I didn’t mind hitting blokes so it all worked out.”
“There’s not a mark on you.” She was well qualified to know. She’d been over every surface of him but never picked the blackness inside. How could she have missed it?
He held his hands up. “Except these. That was our thing. To see if I could stay unmarked while I beat other guys till they cracked and bled. I’d be covered in tatts like Polly otherwise. We wanted the bruising to show up.”
“I can’t process this.”
“Charlie disowned me.” He took a shaky breath. “Wouldn’t let me come home, not even to visit or see the girls, till I cleaned myself up. But the easy money, the life, the women, it was hard to give up. I thought I was King Shit.”
“Why did you give it up?” Or was it simply buried, this urge to hurt people. He’d walked into that fight with something more than calm, more than the knowledge he could win. He’d wanted her to wait to call the police. He wanted that fight.
“I hurt someone badly.”
Audrey’s lungs felt too small for the amount of air she needed. He might’ve said he killed someone. He could’ve killed someone tonight. The efficient way he’d checked they were all breathing was as practiced as his use of her oven.
“I got so good I could tell how to best hurt them, so they went down and stayed there. These big guys used to come at me and think they could use their bulk, outmanoeuvre me. And these little guys would think I was stupid or slow. I learned how to take them down quickly, how to make it so they didn’t want to get up again. After a while I had to learn to dance around a bit otherwise it was over too quick, not enough of a show and the punters got annoyed.”
“One night I didn’t get that sum right and this guy, he kept getting up and getting up, and I had him on his arse five times and he wouldn’t stay there. I even tried holding him down with my foot. I hit him too hard, too often.” Reece slammed his head into the back of the headrest. “He lost an eye.”
Dear God.
“And somebody filmed that fight. They loaded it to a website, they made money off it. Of this film of me fucking pulverising this guy’s face, hitting him over and over and over. I’ve got this expression. Fuck, Audrey.” He covered his eyes with a scabbing hand. “I could’ve been mowing the lawn, it was nothing to me, but there’s blood everywhere and the guy’s eye is exploding out of his head.”
She swallowed bitter bile and violent awareness. She was crowded against the door to get as far away from Reece as possible. The pain in his voice was not enough to overcome her revulsion.
He dropped his hand to his lap. “And then the whole fucking city wanted to hit me. The cops got involved. I could’ve been charged for assault and battery, grievous bodily harm at a minimum. But the guy had bet on me. He bet big. He meant to lose. He said he knew I tried to stop him getting up, but he was high too and he had a side bet on marking me. He didn’t want the cops involved. He’d borrowed the money from a safe at work, not legally. He needed it to go away. I was lucky. I paid his medical expenses, paid for a prosthetic eye. If I’d been charged, let alone convicted, I’d never have been able to work with kids.
“I stopped the drugs. I stopped drinking. That wasn’t who I was. I missed home and Charlie and the girls. That was it. We quit. Polly went to work for his dad, I went to uni. I’m not that guy anymore, Audrey. You have to believe me. I still have his skill. I still have his body, but I am not that man. I haven’t hit anybody again until tonight.”
“Did you take something tonight?”
He looked at her directly for the first time since they’d pulled over. “I�
�m not drunk. I’m not high. I don’t have a substance abuse problem. I wasn’t going to let them near you. They could’ve done anything to you.” He shook his head. “Six fuckers. I didn’t see another option. Cops would’ve taken too long. Didn’t trust the bouncers.”
“They’d have hurt me?” She hadn’t focused on that. She’d seem peripheral to it.
“Maybe. No knowing. They wanted me because I stopped their fun in the bar. They’d have hurt me anyway they could.” He shrugged and it hit her, how dangerous that situation had been for her. He reached for her. “Come here.”
“No. I don’t want to. I can’t. I don’t. I want to go home.” She wanted to see Mia, wake her up and hug her. She wanted to shower away the liquor on her legs and the stench of fear and hate, and the vision of Reece checking pulses.
Her nanny knew how to check to see if he’d killed someone.
Reece couldn’t do anything about his appearance. The noise Etta and Flip made when they saw him woke Mia, who cried when she saw his hands. Audrey hugged Mia till she got irritated and put her back to bed, sitting with her until her breathing evened out.
She let Reece tend her cut leg, while Etta and Flip watched. She couldn’t reconcile the calculated violence with the man kneeling at her feet with Dettol and a packet of Dora the Explorer bandaids. He’d saved her life again. But he’d enjoyed doing it. She could see that in him, the pride. It burned like acid poured on safety and shredded it to ribbons.
She touched his cheek. “I need time to absorb this. I didn’t think there was anything important I didn’t know about you.”
He got to his feet. “Okay, sure. I think.” He stopped and shook his head. They were both very aware of Etta and Flip.
“What, Reece?”
“It’s not up to me to tell you what to think. But you’re in shock. Not the need to be hospitalised version, but that was a bad scene. I don’t want to leave you alone tonight.”
“But that’s what I want.” If she closed her eyes all she saw was Reece’s efficient brutality and the blood flying. She could still hear the sick crunch of bone breaking. “I need to be alone with this for a bit. And you need to get the girls home.”
Reece backed off. Etta’s eyes were too busy taking all this in. Audrey stood up. “You should see a doctor in the morning.”
“For what?” He looked genuinely confused. That’s how normal this was for him.
She gestured at his hands. He’d cleaned them up before he tended to her, but they looked bad, torn, bruising already starting to show. If she didn’t tell him to stay away tomorrow he’d be back first thing and she didn’t know if she wanted that.
“Please, Reece. Sleep in, see about your hands. I’ll call you later.”
He accepted it. He stepped forward to kiss her, but she turned her face, moved at the same time he did, but away, not towards him. She had a headache and she needed to sleep. In the morning she’d see what direction they’d moved in next.
Together or separately.
21: Ripper
“Tell me again.” Flip hung over the car seat, her face close to his.
“Sit back and put your belt on, Flipper.”
“I will, but tell me first. How many guys?”
“More than one. Sit back.” If she didn’t sit back and belt up, he’d lose it with her. The night had turned to shit and he was worried about Audrey. “Can we just cool it?”
“No.” Flip laughed and poked him on the shoulder. “You beat dudes up. I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Neither did Audrey. You never told her,” said Etta.
“Never told her what?” said Flip.
“Jesus, can we let this alone.”
“Audrey sure wasn’t looking at you the same way she did when we first got there. She looked at you like you were a freaking celebrity when we arrived. Just then she looked at you like you were Jack the Ripper,” said Etta.
“Who’s Jack the Ripper?” said Flip.
Etta faced the back seat. “He was this mass murderer guy who killed all these prostitutes.”
“I know what a prostitute is and I’m not scared of Jack the Ripper.”
“You’ll be scared of me if you don’t put your flaming belt on,” he growled.
God, this night. He wanted it over with. The first half of it was a wet dream. He’d thought Audrey was lying about the bows across her butt, but no bra strap. He’d had to touch her. There really were tiny straps and bows and most of her arse cheek in his hand. He’d almost suggested they get a room. If he had they’d have avoided this now. Audrey frightened of him. He should’ve gotten them out of the bar at the first sign of trouble. He should’ve minded his own business.
Etta was right. Audrey was freaked. First he did that stupid thing telling her he wanted a family. That was not cool. And then he’d had no choice but to go in hard, he couldn’t risk getting taken out himself, leaving her exposed. He’d give anything to take back what happened in the laneway. And yeah, he’d kept the fighting secret, he wasn’t that man anymore, but the look on her face told him she didn’t believe it. And worse, fuck, she’d seen the part of him that enjoyed it, got off on the primitive thrill of a test of strength and skill.
He dropped the girls off and headed to Polly’s. Found the flat empty and grabbed a shower. Then he surprised Polly and some girl making out in the kitchen. Holly fuck, the girl was Les. He knew this was on, but he hadn’t seen it in action.
Polly unhanded her when he walked into the kitchen. “Reece. Dude. Hey, what happened?”
“Hey, Les.” Les looked well kissed. Polly looked peeved he’d been interrupted mid kiss. He was slow to unhand Les. Reece wished the bath sheet he was wearing was bigger. He wished he wasn’t here at all. “We got jumped. Audrey’s okay. A bunch of guys’ll have sore heads tomorrow.”
Polly said, “Shit, man.”
Les said, “Audrey’s really okay?”
“She’s—yeah—she’s shocked. We were having a good night and then.” He looked at Polly. “Oh fuck. I didn’t want her to have to see me like that.”
“How many?” said Polly.
“Six.”
Les’ hands flew up. She tried to tidy her hair to disguise the action. “Oh my God.” She turned to Polly, horror on her face.
He took both her hands in his. “It’s fine, Leslie. Our Reece can more than handle himself.”
“Against six guys?”
“Hell, yeah.” Polly grinned. Reece knew what he was thinking. Those old days didn’t have the same sense of revulsion for him. He hadn’t been the one meting out the violence.
Les spun back to him. “He organised fights and you fight. And you don’t have a mark on you.” She was putting this together with whatever Polly had told her about those days.
He held his hands up. But his knuckles looked better now, red, split, bruised, swollen, not normal, but nothing broken. Tomorrow he’d have bruising around his ribs and kidneys.
Les pulled her hands away from Polly. “I do not see how that’s funny. What did the police say?”
Reece flexed his hand, testing his grip. How did he explain this to Audrey so she wasn’t threatened? Best thing to do was sleep first. “My guess is the guys were dealing. They had a shit load of cash on them. Cops are going to be more interested in that. Anyway, don’t let me interrupt.” He opened the fridge and poured himself a glass of milk.
Polly cocked his head. He had a hand on Les’ shoulder. “You staying here tonight, mate?”
“Yeah, if that’s okay? I’m done in. I’ll get out of your way.”
He took the glass of milk and left them to it, lay in bed and couldn’t sleep. He kept going over the night from the moment in the bar where he’d wanted to save Audrey from being jostled, to the moment he accepted that thank you beer. He could’ve pulled her out of the way instead of going amongst it. They should’ve left immediately. That complimentary beer had rubbed their noses in it. The fact security had left him alone as well. But once he’d made that mi
stake, once they’d come at him, what choice did he have?
He was still awake half an hour later when he heard the front door open and close. Polly pushed the bedroom door open and leant against the jamb. “Shit happens, ‘eh.”
Reece pushed upright and braced against the wall. There was pain across his abs now. “Did Les go?”
“You frightened the horses. All she wanted to talk about was you taking on six guys.”
“Sorry, mate. I ruined everyone’s night.” He plucked at the sheet. Polly didn’t make a move to go. “So, you and Les, you’re really in to her?”
“Yep.”
“Really?”
“What?” Polly’s voice went low.
“She’s not your usual type.”
“No.” He got strident, “she’s fucking amazing.”
“Really?”
“Stop saying that pansy word.”
“She’s a great girl. She’s just—”
“What, go on say it?”
“Just—” Enough drama for one night. Reece let it go. He’d expected Polly to dodge.
“Smarter than I am? She sure is. More intelligent, and a pack more fun than anyone I’ve dated for a long while.”
They looked at each other, both of them silhouettes in the dark.
“You’re not going to screw her over then, because she’s Audrey’s friend and—”
“I’m going to try not to screw her over. I prefer her under me when I do the screwing, but you know, I don’t have a good track record at not screwing up with chicks, so I’m not making anyone any promises.”
Polly was being genuine. “I like it.”
“Doesn’t sound like you do.”
“It’s unexpected. I was worried.”
“Yeah, that it was some kind of joke. Because she’s not my usual pole dancer.” Reece let that go too and Polly went on. “I didn’t come in here to talk about me.” He pointed in the direction of the bed. “What’s with you and the goon squad?”
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