Today, I miss mama so much I can't breathe. Those two words are stuck in my throat. They’re pushing my face into a bathtub of water, like I saw my father do to a man once, and now they’re chasing me out of our apartment block and onto the sidewalk like a couple of scary monsters. I see them in everything, no matter how tightly I shut my eyes.
The doorman looks sad and fierce as he watches us leave.
The sun looks sad and fierce in the sky.
I tip my head back for greater inspection, and Tatiana tugs at my hand. She’s five years older than me, and with her shiny curtain of dark brown hair she looks so like mama it hurts my heart all over again.
“Come on, Nina!”
“I don’t want to go,” I wail, dragging my feet, but her grip only tightens.
“You heard what papa said, didn't you?”
I heard the shouting, but I didn't understand it. I just know that if we don't obey him then his fists and his pain will follow us out of our apartment block, too.
Tatiana drops my hand as soon as we reach the park. I watch her stumble over to the swings, her feet catching on imaginary tufts of grass. She slumps down into the middle one, but she doesn’t move. She just stares at her knees, her long bangs flopping all around her face.
Sad.
There’s a group of older boys on the climbing frame playing pirates.
Fierce.
“You debating the choice there, sweetheart?” drawls a voice behind me. “I’d go for the swings, if I were you... That girl looks like she needs the company.”
I turn, and take a step back in shock. There’s a loose grin on the teenage boy’s face but there’s nothing funny about his appearance. He’s slumped over a park bench, his face all bruised like a piece of moldy fruit. One hand is tucked between a white T-shirt and a torn black jacket, and there’s a stain of red beneath his fingertips. I glance at it, and my heart starts jumping about in my chest like one of those Mexican bean things Tatiana keeps on her nightstand.
He frowns at my reaction. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you, kid. Shit, I can’t even sit up straight.” He shifts position, and the movement knocks the last of the laughter right out of his voice. “Damn, that hurts…”
“Sad and fierce,” I mutter at him. His eyes are the cloudy gray-brown color of the earth in summertime. His hair is as black as my nightmares, but for some reason he doesn’t scare me.
“What’s that you said?” He winces again and tries to straighten up.
“Sad and fierce,” I repeat, because this man-boy is everything about those words and more. I can tell he’s bad like my papa and his friends, but there’s something so sad about him, too.
His face goes all tight for a moment before he shakes it loose. “Are those two words from your fucking spelling bee this week, princess?”
I watch him pull out a crumpled pack of cigarettes with his spare hand and slot one into his mouth. His words don’t shock me. Not even close. I’ve heard a hundred times worse in my short life.
“My mama’s gone,” I whisper, “and everything is sad and fierce now.”
He nods, accepting this, like this kind of loss is a part of his family too. “That’s a tough break, kid.” He lights up his cigarette and inhales deeply. “Never knew my folks. Got dragged up in Brooklyn by a bunch of fucking pedos.”
“What’s Brooklyn?”
His red lips curve into a smile. “Well, it’s not Manhattan, darlin’,” he says, waving his arm at all the smart buildings glaring down at us. “I can tell you that much.”
“Why is your face all banged up?” I ask him curiously.
There’s a pause as he blows out a fresh cloud of smoke. “That story’s not for sharing… Didn’t your mama ever warn you 'bout talking to strangers?”
I say nothing. A sudden rush of tears is making my vision go all blurry again.
“Ah, shit.” He grimaces, more out of frustration with himself than the pain. “Here, come closer a moment, I ain’t gonna bite ya.”
I shuffle forward a few steps as he tosses away his half-smoked cigarette and bends down to run his fingers through the dirt by our feet.
“Good girl. Now, hold out your hand.”
I do as he says, and I feel a light sprinkling of dust across my palm before he’s folding it into a fist. His touch is warm and gentle; his skin is stained pink. Again, I should feel frightened, but I don’t. He’s like the role-play we did at kindergarten once. He’s a good man pretending to be bad.
“It doesn’t matter what side of the bridge we live on,” he mutters, staring down at my fist. “We all have this in common.”
“What, dirt?” I say, my nose wrinkling in confusion.
His face creases up again, and I see a trickle of light behind his weird-looking eyes. “You might have a point there, sweetheart. Sounds like we’ve both had to eat our fair share of it recently.”
I turn my fist over and study my knuckles. “Can I throw it away now?”
“Not until I’m done talking.” He slumps back against the bench again. The stain on his T-shirt is getting worse. His skin is white beneath his tan.
“We come from the ground, remember that, and we go back to the ground when we’re done. It’s what we do in between that counts.” He pauses to light another cigarette, and as he raises it to his mouth I can see his hand is shaking. “I ain’t gonna be sitting here on this bench with a hole in my stomach forever. Neither will you always look so lost in that expensive dress next to your ivory tower, with fucked-up grown-up words like sad and fierce chasing you around all over town.” He gestures to the scary buildings again. “Make it count, no matter what they throw at you, kid. Can you do that for me?”
I think about what he just said. I think about mama. Did she make it count?
I know I won't remember this moment—his face will fade into the dark, along with her memory—but for some reason I want to so badly. I can almost taste it. It’s silky-smooth on my tongue like chocolate ice cream.
“Okay, I guess.”
“You guess?” He shakes his head and tuts at me. “Guesses are for assholes still fumbling around for their dicks in the dark. I want your promises, or nothing.”
Now it’s my turn to straighten up. “Okay, I will… But you have to do it, too.”
There’s a challenge hiding behind my words, and it takes us both by surprise.
“Done.” His next smile is a slow and lazy thing. It looks like my cat, Zoya, stretching out in a patch of sunlight. “Don’t you worry about that, princess. There’s a whole world beneath the dirt of this city, and I'm planning on ruling over every square inch of it.”
Buy Now!
Catherine Wiltcher is a former TV producer and a self-confessed alpha addict. Her writing is best described as sinfully sexy, and her characters always fall hard and deep for one another. She is the author of the bestselling cartel saga, the Santiago Trilogy, and she recently released her first contemporary romance book with Entangled Publishing.
She lives in the UK with her husband and two young daughters. If she were stranded on a desert island, she'd like a large pink gin to keep her company. Cillian Murphy wouldn't be a bad shout either…
For book and blog updates please visit
www.catherinewiltcher.com
Newsletter signup for excerpts, giveaways and so much more!
https://catherinewiltcher.com/newsletter/
The Santiago Trilogy
Hearts of Darkness
Hearts Divine
Hearts on Fire
Grayson Duet
Shadow Man
Reckless Woman
Standalones
Devils & Dust
Hot Nights in Morocco
Unwrapping the Billionaire
Anthologies
Men of Valor
books on Archive.
Shadow Man: Grayson Duet: Book One Page 21
