I could hear the tears clogging her throat and I rocked her slowly. She was seeing the little boy I had been, but I was a man now, and I’d long since gotten past feeling sad over my mother. All I felt now was disgust.
The harsh laugh that broke past my lips sounded anything but funny. “The weird part is, that rug was disgusting. It hadn’t been vacuumed in a year or more. It was like she looked for excuses to rage. That’s how she let off steam, I think. Then, every so often, when she knew she was on the cusp of losing us altogether, she’d take a week off and do something nice to lure us back in. To make us think that we could be happy. That we could be a real family.”
Of all the things—the beatings, the verbal tirades, the solitary confinement—that had been the worst.
The hope.
My guts churned with shame as I remembered how many times I fell for it. I didn’t need to count, because it was all of them. Every fucking time, until she left us. I would have forgiven it all if she’d ever really tried to change.
Needing the connection, I ran my fingers through Liv’s hair, marveling at the softness as she burrowed into the crook of my neck. I could feel her hot tears coursing down my chest, and although I hated making her cry, saying it out loud with her there felt like I was ridding myself of a poison in a way, so I pressed on.
“I’m not telling you this to make you sad. I’m telling you so you understand the bond I have with my brothers. No matter how many times she punished us—all three of us—we stuck together, and believe me when I tell you, Matty got the brunt of it. He was the oldest, and wanted to protect me and Reid, so he’d cop to stuff he didn’t even do to keep her away from us. He took quite a few beatings on my behalf. So tonight, I took one on his, and we’re still not close to even.”
I shifted in my seat and shrugged, not sure what else there was to say. Either she got it or she didn’t.
“That’s it. That’s the story. And that’s the guy you’re with.” I set her back so I could look into her face, hoping to see understanding and acceptance there. “I won’t lie to you again, but I won’t change, either. Not about this. If I love somebody and they love me back, I’ll take a bullet for them. That includes you.”
She met my gaze with tear-filled eyes and nodded slowly. “Me too,” she murmured and pressed a kiss to my jaw.
I wanted to question her. To ask her if she meant that she loved me too, or that she’d take a bullet for me, because I sure as fuck didn’t want the latter, but my train of thought got derailed as she swung her legs down and stood.
“What happened to your mother? Is she still alive?” Judging by the look on her face, she was willing to rectify that, and I nearly smiled. She was small but so were wolverines, and I’d be honored to have a scrapper like her in my corner any day. One more person who gave a shit whether I lived or died, making for a grand total of three.
I’d take it.
I ripped off the last of this particular Band-Aid in one yank, finishing the tale because she needed me to. “About six months after my dad died, she left us. No explanation, no plan for who was going to take care of us. No money. We lived off what little food was in the cabinets for a while. It was only after we didn’t show up for school for a week that anyone even came checking. We were put into foster homes from there, Reid and Matty together, me separate. Some of the families were nice and I wasn’t mistreated for the most part, but the only real family I ever really had was my brothers.”
She nodded slowly and blew out a long breath. “Okay. Well, I guess it’s my turn for a confession, now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way.” She gave me a shaky grin and swiped the last of the tears from her pale cheeks. “You stink. Like, for real. It’s just foul.” She pinched her nose and waved a hand in front of her face. “If you go take a shower, I’ll get in with you and wash your back.”
I wanted to jump up and kiss her for that. She knew how tough it had been for me, and even though she was clearly still affected by my words, she was giving us an out. A way to back up and regroup and not dwell on the bad stuff.
I might do dumb shit sometimes, but I was nobody’s fool, and I grabbed the offering with both hands. “I will definitely take you up on that,” I said, and reached down to grip her hips and pull her closer. “And maybe, once I’m all nice and smelling clean, we can—”
“Snuggle in your bed and go to sleep,” she finished with a wink. “I think you’ve had enough action for tonight. Tomorrow, if you’re feeling good enough, we’ll see about the rest.”
It wasn’t until I was under the hot spray of the shower that the exhaustion hit me like a dump truck. My muscles ached with fatigue, and all the places Stan The Tank had managed to land a shot started hurting at once. True to her word, Liv washed my back—and my front—with a sudsy cloth, skating lightly over cuts and bruises, fingers digging into tense muscle until the knots loosened beneath her gentle hands.
I barely remembered climbing out and drying off, we were both so bone-tired. All I remembered was crawling into bed and my girl climbing in next to me, pressing her bottom to my groin, and me burying my face in her hair as we fell asleep.
I’d faced off with a gangster, fought in an illegal fight club, and wound up with an eyeful of stitches, and I was still calling it one of the best nights of my life.
Chapter Four
Olivia
“Wasn’t Whitcomb supposed to be here by now?” Reid looked down at his watch and muttered under his breath before turning to face me, brown eyes filled with concern. “Are you sure he’s coming?”
I’d paid the guy a massive retainer to ensure that he would be, but who knew anymore? Lately, it seemed like humanity as a whole was on a mission to prove exactly how shitty it could be. Maybe Linden Whitcomb Esquire was just another crushing disappointment waiting to happen, which would seriously piss me off because it had been a really lovely couple of weeks, aside from being mostly homebound and basically broke.
Once Bash had gotten past the fight with Stan, everything had fallen into place. Mickey had contacted him and told him that he wouldn’t pay him the other five grand for the fight, but that he’d be willing to wait for the rest of the money until Bash got the purse from the Spada match. Not ideal, since none of us felt that Matty should have had to pay him at all, but considering the alternative, the terms were acceptable and allowed us to concentrate on the most important thing, which was making sure Bash was able to shake the assault charges so he could even fight Spada and collect said purse.
If today went well, then Bash would again be on his way to making his dreams come true. Back on the fast track to getting out of Boston for good and forging a career in the ring. After seeing him at Mickey’s warehouse, I blanched every time I thought about having to see him fight again, but both Bash and Matty assured me that sanctioned boxing wasn’t nearly as brutal and there were a lot of safety measures in place. If might have been a load of crap, but I chose to believe it because I couldn’t deal with the alternative. Not right now, anyway.
Bash tugged my hand and nodded toward the massive oak door of the courthouse. “That him?”
I looked up to see a tall, slender man in an impeccable gray suit walking across the marble floor toward the long bench we sat on, a smile perched on his too-tan face. “Yes, how’d you know?”
Bash shrugged. “He looks like a Linden Whitcomb, don’t you think?”
He did, indeed. I’d met with him once before, when I’d first retained him, but Bash and he had done all their strategizing over the telephone. It made me nervous. I’d wanted them to meet in person, but Whitcomb had wanted Bash to lie low and stick close to home until his shiner went away. He was afraid that the Abernathys had eyes on him and he didn’t want to give them any more ammunition to call his character into question.
“Sebastian,” Whitcomb said smoothly, holding out a hand. “Linden Whitcomb, nice to finally meet you.”
Bash shook hands with the lawyer and introduced him to his brothers. As we waited to be
called in and talked quietly about the case, clipped footsteps echoed through the foyer and I looked up to see Andrew Abernathy Sr. and his son strolling our way.
Bash growled under his breath and I laced my fingers with his, hoping I looked calmer than I felt. This was the first time I’d seen Andy since the night Bash was arrested, and I was surprised to find that I was even angrier than I’d been then. My blood boiled as I took in his smug expression and the way he and his father chatted away like they didn’t have a care in the world.
How could I have not seen the cruel twist to that smile or the coldness in his eyes before? It was so clear to me now, and I wondered who that girl had been. It would take a lot more than a handsome face and hollow words to get me to trust someone again. Now I was on the other end of the spectrum, thinking everyone was a liar. The only people I trusted now were Bash and his two brothers.
Weird how extreme situations could bring people closer together. Ever since Matty and I had followed Bash to the warehouse, we had sort of bonded. Aside from my classes, which were coming to an end for the semester, I spent almost all my time at their apartment, often in the kitchen, cooking meals for the four of us, and I was enjoying every minute of it. Even Reid had warmed up to me.
Now, with Andy closing the gap, the three of them pressed closer to me, like a trio of wolves protecting their wounded pack mate.
Only I wasn’t wounded. Not anymore.
I squeezed my way out and stood, baring my teeth at my ex in some semblance of a smile. “Still going to go through with the farce, huh, Andy?”
Senior stepped in front of his son and looked down his nose at me. “You come from better stock than this, Olivia. Surely your lovely mother taught you better than to get mixed up with scum like these people.”
“Actually,” a voice called from the doorway, “her lovely mother was the one who needed to learn something.”
In shock, I whipped my head around to see my mom walking toward us, looking classy and beautiful in a sharp cream linen pantsuit. They might not have any money left, but she clearly hadn’t been forced to sell her designer clothes yet.
“Mom? What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to come support you and your Bash.” She smiled and gestured over her shoulder. “And I brought a friend.”
I was so stunned to see her there, I didn’t notice the girl pulling up behind her until she waved at me.
“Hey.”
She looked so familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. Blonde and short, maybe five one, she was plump and had one of those faces that would make her perfect for the inside of a store-bought picture frame. No one feature stood out, but they all came together to make for a pleasant overall look.
I stared at her, nonplussed, for another long moment before it dawned on me. The last time I’d seen her, her face had been full of pity, all of it aimed at me.
“You’re one of the girls from the bathroom at Shorty’s that night,” I whispered, trying to stay calm in spite of the excitement coursing through me.
The night Andy had dragged me into the bathroom, threatened me, and grabbed me by the neck, there had been two girls waiting outside. The blonde standing in front of me now had been one of them.
This could be the break Bash needed to get this case thrown out. The arresting officers’ biggest issue was always that it was my and Bash’s word against Andy’s, and since I didn’t have any marks on me by the time I reported the crime and Andy still did, and they knew Bash and I were a couple now, they basically disregarded everything I’d told them and only Bash had been charged. Now, though? If this girl was here to tell the truth about what she’d seen? It could change everything.
“Yeah. I’m Emily. The cow.” She leveled a pointed glance at Andy before smiling at me.
When Andy had pushed his way into the bathroom he’d snarled the nasty name at her. I never even considered how to go about tracking either of the girls down when there were at least two hundred people at Shorty’s the night it happened. When Whitcomb had asked if there had been any witnesses, I said no, assuming they’d left the second Andy and I entered the bathroom, which meant they’d have precious little to add to the dialogue.
Maybe I was wrong.
“How did you find her?” I asked my mother.
“I had a PI friend of mine put out some feelers at your school. And once Bash’s old boss at Shorty’s found out how far Andy had decided to take things, he hung some fliers up asking for information on the incident. Emily saw one of them and called in. She agreed to give the grand jury a statement.”
“Thank you,” Bash said quietly. Reid and Matty echoed him, and my mother waved off their thanks.
“It was the least I could do.”
Lydia Beckett had been preoccupied with her own problems for a while, but the fact that she took the time and effort to do this for me and Bash moved me close to tears. Maybe there was someone else I could trust.
“And Dad?”
Her smile faded and she shook her head.
I tamped down the disappointment and focused on the positives. We had one more weapon in our arsenal against the Abernathys.
Linden Whitcomb had taken Emily to the side and was asking her some questions as Andy and his father spoke in hushed tones a few yards away. Senior was red in the face and looking agitated when Andy finally faced my mother.
“It’s not going to matter. Adding the word of another nobody to the list of nobodies you already have testifying isn’t going to help.” His steely gray eyes were cold enough to give me chills. The “do you know who we are?” was implicit, and if his words weren’t so true, I’d have winced at the cliché of it all. He was like the villain from one of those old ’80s movies my mom loved to watch late at night.
But the fact was, Andy had the goods to back it up. We’d all but been told that the Abernathys had called in favors and paid off various people in high places to get this to go their way. Maybe he was right. Maybe adding Emily to the mix wasn’t going to help after all.
Maybe we’d gone through all the motions like we had a fighting chance, when really, we never had a chance at all.
***
Bash
“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
The girl in the witness box nodded and leaned forward toward the microphone. “Yes, I do.”
I settled back into my chair and waited for this farce to be over. Any hope I’d harbored when Lydia Beckett had come into the courthouse with Emily was gone, chipped away bit by bit with each passing witness.
First, the cops who had arrested me, more than a week after the incident, suddenly recalled me resisting arrest. Which of course never happened.
Then, the single shot I’d delivered to Andy’s piehole had magically morphed into a “series of blows meant to maim,” according to him. He even managed to produce a doctor’s note claiming that he’d suffered 10 percent disability in the movement of his mouth, which was obviously bullshit because he’d had no problem running it for nearly an hour on the stand.
Liv had gotten a chance to speak, and was pretty compelling, but the prosecutor badgered her mercilessly about the fact that she hadn’t reported Andy for assault at the time of the incident. In the end, once our relationship was revealed, her testimony was discredited just like we’d thought.
I risked a glance back at her and she was wringing her hands, smashed between my brothers and her mother, who still looked remarkably cool and composed. I couldn’t fault her. She’d done what she could for me, and that let her off the hook with her daughter, but surely her life would be a lot easier if I wound up in jail long enough for Liv to forget about me.
I faced front again, and watched as my lawyer approached the stand. Even good old Linden Whitcomb seemed nervous as he ran a hand through his all-too-neatly styled hair and faced Emily with a nod.
“Can you state your name for the record, please?”
She leaned in again, her voi
ce strong and clear when she spoke. “Emily Elizabeth Fenwick.”
I heard a low gasp over my left shoulder and saw the prosecutor send a worried glance toward Andrew Abernathy Sr. What the hell was going on?
When I turned my attention back to Whitcomb, he looked like someone had taken a hundred-pound load off his back.
“Ms. Fenwick,” he said with a smile. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Rather than ask you a dozen questions, why don’t you tell the grand jury in your own words, what happened the night of the alleged attack on Andrew Abernathy Jr.?”
Emily scooted forward on her seat and began to talk. “I was waiting in line at the bathroom with another girl behind me. I didn’t know her, but she and I were chatting like you do in line, complaining about how there’s never a line for the boys’ bathroom.” She rolled her eyes and the women in the grand jury box chuckled, and sent one another knowing smiles. She seemed comfortable with the attention and very poised as she continued. “A guy came barreling past us, shoving us out of the way, dragging a girl behind him by the arm.”
“Is that guy here in the courtroom today?”
She nodded and pointed to Andy. “That’s him. And he was with her.” She gestured toward Olivia. “He was obviously hurting her because she looked scared, and was trying to get her arm away from him.”
“Objection,” the prosecutor said, standing to make his point. “That’s conjecture. Ms. Fenwick doesn’t know what Ms. Beckett was feeling at the time of the incident.”
“Can you rephrase that, Ms. Fenwick?” Whitcomb encouraged with a gentle smile.
“Sure. He was bodily dragging her into the bathroom. She was resisting.” He nodded for her to go on. “He pulled her through the door and slammed it behind them. I was worried he was going to hurt her, so I pressed my ear to the door. She was begging him to calm down, and he was screaming at her, saying awful things. Telling her not to try to walk away from him again or she’d regret it. I heard a slam, and I was about to get the manager when another guy came up to the door.”
Fix You: Bash and Olivia, Book 3 Page 4
