by Bijou Hunter
I leave my car and walk to the house where Sissy is bundled up except for her battered face. She’ll sport a shiner in the morning. Topher hits her so often that I’m not surprised by her lack of tears. Sissy, Hart, and Haydee stare at me with their owl-eyes as Ring Pops stick out of their mouths. Despite them looking like babies sucking binkies, I don’t smile.
Rather than wasting time asking if she’s okay, I hand over the car keys and say, “Go stay with Lily where it’s warm.”
“Come with us.”
“If I run, he’ll follow,” I tell my sister while walking past her. “Get somewhere warm before those candies freeze to your kids’ lips.”
My frowning sister removes the pop from her mouth, staring at it for a long few seconds as if it might be a threat. Then she shoves it back in her mouth and gestures for the kids to follow her. I watch her hesitate when she realizes the car doesn’t have their seats inside, but returning to the house isn’t an option. After buckling them in the back seat, she waves at me and drives into the increasingly wet night.
My gaze returns to the dark house. Like earlier with Cooper, my first reaction to danger is to want to run away. Also like with Cooper, running will only prolong the inevitable.
If a beating is what is coming to me tonight, I can take it. If Topher wants to make my punishment more permanent, I suspect I’ll put up a fight. While killing his son would be so easy for Topher, I’m not so sure I’m as ready to kill my father. Or anyone for that matter. I’m not a killer. Men as indifferent to shit as I am don’t rage at the world. We’d have to care to kill, and I’ve never given enough of a shit to do so.
In the corner of the dark living room, a figure smokes. I spot the bulky shape of Topher and his ever-present cigarette lighting periodically in the darkness. I stand at the door, still considering my fight-or-flight options.
“Heard you knocked up Cooper Johansson’s princess,” his rough voice echoes.
“News moves fast in Ellsberg.”
“Reason I didn’t hear this news from you, boy?”
“You taught me never to gossip.”
“True that.”
I stand very still, wishing to disappear to an alternative universe where Topher died as a child, and I’m the offspring of less damaged trash.
“Is the power out?” I finally ask and reach for the light switch.
Unhappy about the light, Topher glares at me with his cold blue eyes, but he looks that way even when happy. I walk to a chair across from him and sit down. The house isn’t properly insulated and remains chilly even with the heater running. I struggle not to shiver from the cold and his evil fucking glare.
“I assume Princess wouldn’t tell her parents about the kid if she didn’t plan to keep it.”
“Seems that way.”
Exhaling smoke, he squints his gaze. “So was this a one-night stand or are you in good with the bitch?”
“I’ve fucked her off and on through the years. She seems solidly addicted to what my dick offers.”
Topher’s face softens. He doesn’t understand love or loyalty. Only fucking, money, and violence make sense to him. A good girl wanting a bad boy’s cock is an idea he can wrap his tiny, rotten mind around.
“Has she ever told you shit?”
“She’s a woman. All they do is talk.”
“Anything about who shot her idiot sister?”
Thinking back to my conversation with Cy this morning, I don’t answer immediately. If I ever wanted to kill my brother without having to do the deed myself, this would be my chance. While Cy is a shitty person, he isn’t much worse than me. Besides, I’m a pussy about having my family murdered. I blame all the pot I’ve smoked over the years for making me such a hippie peacenik.
“Everyone knows it was an asshole from Tennessee.”
“Sounded like bullshit.”
“Yeah, but it must be true since she said her brother-in-law got a lot of crap for having his problems spill into Ellsberg,” I lie. “So, based on the family drama I might have overheard while hiding in the shadows, I’d say the Tennessee asshole is the guy.”
Shifting into a frightening expression, Topher’s face makes me wonder if I’ll die soon. Then I realize the asshole is smiling. I can’t remember the last time he looked happy. No, wait, yeah, it was when he kicked the crap out of some guy he thought was banging Sissy. The guy wasn’t, but Sissy cried anyway, and the guy’s mom cried, and Topher really enjoys making women cry.
I don’t know why he’s smiling right now, but I doubt it’s a good thing.
“Cooper Johansson must be shitting himself to know his princess has your bastard in her belly. I’m surprised he hasn’t put a bullet in you yet.”
“He’s soft,” I say, spotting an out of this situation as long as Topher focuses his hate on someone besides me. “Three daughters made him weak.”
Nodding, Topher wags his finger approvingly at me. “I never wanted a girl just for that reason. All the fucking princess shit turns a man into a pussy. Your sister ruins everything she touches.”
I don’t react to his words, but I rarely do. He talks shit twenty-four seven. If I nodded every time he was trashing someone, I’d need a neck brace at this point. Considering I was raised to believe medical care is a scam, I avoid nodding too much.
“I gotta tell you,” Topher says, standing in his rickety way. His old man hobbling ruse frequently tricks people into lowering their guards. “If someone asked which of my boys had the best chance of fucking one of those uppity Johansson girls, I wouldn’t have picked your scrawny ass. I certainly wouldn’t have picked the queen bitch to be the one to dip her pussy into our trashy side of the tracks. But here we fucking are.”
Topher’s happy with me, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still pissed about my not telling him about Lily sooner. Of course, he’d still be mad even if I texted him during sex. It’s never enough with an asshole like my father.
“You hold onto that slut,” he says, leaning closer to my ear. His breath is a thing of fucking nightmares, and I have to fight the urge to push him away. “If you fuck up our in with that fucking family, there’ll be nowhere in this fucking world where you can hide. Do you understand?”
Just in case, I hadn’t picked up on his threat, Topher steps back and slices me across the neck with his tiny blade. An actual rickety old man would have slit open my throat, but Topher’s got a steady hand, and he only nicks my Adam’s apple.
I cuss under my breath and walk into the kitchen for a towel to stop the bleeding. Topher laughs like the cheesy movie villain as he struts toward the back door. To my relief, he doesn’t stick around to make any more threats or horrify me with more smiles. Instead, the asshole disappears outside and slithers off to wherever he hid his car.
Still holding the towel to my flesh wound, I replay in my head the encounter with Topher. Over the last few days, I’d imagined a variety of outcomes. Not a single one went as well as tonight.
For the first time since Lily told me about the baby, I’m not shitting myself with doom. Is it really possible for someone like me to openly love a woman like Lily? I guess we’re about to find out.
THE PRINCESS
Sissy’s face leaves me wrecked, and I wonder if I’m capable of murder. A million times over the last decade, I’ve imagined killing Topher Mullen. Long before I was friends with Sissy or head-over-stupid-heels for Dash, I spotted the bruises on the dippy blonde, and I knew in my heart where they came from. Everyone knew Topher beat his kids. He never hid the fact, and no one ever made him stop. I used to think my pop would do something, but that’s not how the world works. The Mullens were useful to the club, so the family’s evil antics were ignored or given a minor eye roll.
Nothing’s changed over the years. Sissy remains her father’s punching bag. She also gets smacked around and yelled at by Cy when he’s drunk. I know this last fact because I was hiding once when he showed up and overheard him go nuts on her for leaving the back door unlocked. Every minute
listening to him scream at her, I got closer to reaching for the gun Pop gave me for my eighteenth birthday. I imagined killing that sonovabitch and then hunting down Topher too. The world would be so much better without them around. I mean, would anyone anywhere care if they were gone?
Of course, Lionhearted Delta’s big plan to gun down all the baddies in Ellsberg never happened. Chicken-shit Lily refuses to rock the boat. I rocked it by going public with my love for Dash, and I see the results of my big move on Sissy’s face.
“Do you need to go to the hospital?” I ask when I find her shivering on the front porch with Hart and Haydee.
“No, why?”
I could cry if I weren't so angry. And angry for Dash too. Where is he right now? If Topher did this to Sissy, what will he do to Dash for sneaking around with me? I wish I could call someone for help, but Pop is angry with me, and Colton is a kid in more ways than he’d like to admit.
Who else is there? Quaid killed people in the war, and I heard from MJ that he’s an enforcer for the Reapers. He’s got the resume to help Dash, but I can’t ask him to put himself on the line. First, I barely know the man, and second, if something happened to him, I’d never forgive myself for MJ’s pain.
I realize I know dozens of scary, violent men, but none will run to a Mullen’s aid even if I was the one asking. Pop always said the club didn’t interfere in the family bullshit of the Mullens and Roches.
“Toxic people always try to take everyone down with them,” he used to say when those families were mentioned.
Once in the house, I hurry to the kitchen to start a pot of cocoa to warm my shivering guests. I also grab a bag of peas from the freezer for Sissy’s face.
Now on the couch with a kid on each side, she cuddles them against her body and hums a song I don’t recognize. Singing and humming is a tonic for Sissy. Music keeps her calm. Busywork does the same for me.
Back in the kitchen, I ask Sissy if she’s hungry.
“We ate.”
“I have leftover pizza.”
“Mom,” Haydee whispers very loudly. “Pizza.”
“Don’t ask,” Sissy whispers loudly back.
Sissy and her kiddos will likely never win a game of hide-and-seek. They’re the loudest quiet people I’ve ever known. Even if I couldn’t hear them, I could have guessed their reactions. The kiddos dream of nice stuff other people have while Sissy always assumes she’s imposing on me. If I go along with her and don’t share the pizza, though, she’ll feel bad later about her kiddos not getting something fun.
We went through this routine at the Louisville Zoo when she wanted to buy them each a stuffed animal but barely had enough for tickets. I don’t know how the Mullens make so much money from booze and pot, yet Sissy can scarcely afford the smallest stuff on a daily basis. Dash never seems to have money either, but their father is never broke. Colton even claimed Topher spends thousands of dollars on lap dances at The Velvet Panty strip club.
“I shouldn’t have come here,” Sissy says, suddenly next to me. “Dash said I should, but he doesn’t think about the stress on you and the baby.”
“Where else could you have gone?” I ask, hating the sight of her swelling purple eye. “No one in this town cares.”
“No, they don’t,” she whispers. “You care too much.”
“If I were stronger, I would have told everyone years ago.”
“You’re the strongest person I know,” she says, and I believe she means it. Sissy, though, has a distorted view of me.
In her eyes, I’m the anti-Sissy. She fails at everything, but I’m always a winner. I sometimes wish she could see me more clearly, but she needs the fantasy. Just like how she needs to hum and sing rather than cry. It’s how she survives in a world that long ago dismissed her. Who am I to make her change?
“I’ll warm up the pizza, and you can sleep in the second bedroom tonight. Stay as long as you want.”
“You need the room for the baby.”
“That’s not for a long while, and you need it now.”
Sissy glances back at her wide-eyed children. They’re still waiting on the pizza verdict. She smiles at them, and they smile back. Dash calls them The Three Dummies, which I hate, but he doesn’t mean it in such a bad way. And he isn’t particularly wrong. Sissy and her kiddos are simple people. They just want fun stuff and to be safe. Nothing else really interests them, and I can’t believe life won’t provide them even such tiny dreams.
“I’m worried about Dash,” I admit to Sissy as we stand in the kitchen.
“He’s sneaky, and Topher likes him the best. He’ll be here soon.”
“Do you really think Topher likes Dash?”
Sissy twirls her hair and looks out the kitchen window. “Sure. He lets Dash make money runs, and Topher doesn’t trust anyone with the money. Cy drinks too much, and he has women who want stuff from him. Topher never trusts him. I’m a girl, so he doesn’t trust me with money either. That just leaves Dash.”
I think to ask Sissy to quit her job and move out of that house. She could get away from Topher and Cy. Start fresh. Be someone else. The empowering words sound so right in my head, but I know they’ll ring false if said aloud.
Sissy can’t leave unless Topher says so, and he likes having her around too much. Other women leave him, but she never does because he trained her since she was little to think she couldn’t survive without him. And to emphasize his power over her, he slaps her around like he did tonight. She wasn’t at fault for Dash and me, but she’s an easy target. As long as Topher’s alive, she’ll always be his go-to punching bag.
Bitch Delta wants to find Topher tonight and put an end to his bullshit. Pulling the trigger would be so easy, but I’m afraid anyway. If I hesitate, he’ll kill me without thinking. The man has killed more important people for lesser reasons. Then Pop would have to go to war with Topher. Sure, the Reapers would win, but Topher’s shockingly resilient. If they don’t kill him quickly enough, he might take out a few more people before his end comes.
As usual, I talk myself out of acting. Topher’s not my problem really. He might even be more manageable now that Dash is tied to me. Things could change without me having to take any chances. Yes, life through my rose-colored glasses is so damn easy.
Irritated with my Lily-brain chickening out, I don’t say much for the next half hour. The kiddos eat the leftover pizza while Sissy only nibbles on a few toppings. She does drink cocoa and takes a handful of pain medicine. After their meal, the kiddos move to the living room to watch TV. Soon, Hart is sound asleep and his sister can barely keep her eyes open. My warm, quiet house provides what they rarely enjoy. Even Sissy dozes on the couch with one eye occasionally opening to check on the kiddos.
Restless waiting for any sign of Dash, I stand at the front door and peer out the window. None of my texts receive a response, and I don’t know if I should panic. Flipping between rage and fear, I can’t believe how slowly time moves. I even consider the clock might be broken, but it’s just my racing mind refusing to relax.
Then like waking from a nightmare, I spot Dash emerge from the darkness. He hurries across the street and toward my door. Only when I see his handsome face shadowed by his hoodie, can I breathe again.
THE LOSER
With her face pressed close to the window, Lily looks like a kid. I hate how my life routinely fucks with hers. She'd be better off in a million ways if she ditched Sissy and me. For one thing, her parents would react to her baby news with joy rather than disgust. For another, her baby’s paternal grandfather wouldn’t respond to the news by beating up the kid’s auntie. Lily’s otherwise blessed life would be so much fucking better without Mullen trash floating around in it.
“Are you okay?” she asks before I reach the top step.
“I swear we don’t get a proper autumn anymore. It just goes from summer to winter,” I say rather than answer her question. Stepping into her toasty home, I slide out of my wet jacket. “The leaves barely hit the ground before
we get ice.”
Ignoring my babble, she whispers, “Your throat,” before reaching for the haphazardly applied bandage. “I hate him.”
“You and the world, babe. Is Sissy okay?” I ask, leaning over to peer into the living room. My sister sleeps with her mouth hanging open. There’s nothing funny about her battered face, but I do laugh when I notice her kids are also sleeping open-mouthed. “They’re just like their mom. Poor Hart.”
“Why not poor Haydee?”
“Oh, she’s screwed completely. No helping her,” I state, and Lily gives me her disapproving tough-chick frown. I smile at her expression before leaning forward to nuzzle her warm nose with my frosty one. “Hart might do okay if he owned a few more brain cells. His floppy blond hair doesn’t help either.”
“Colton has floppy blond hair.”
“Yes, he does, and he’s not the brightest tool in the shed, but he’s also a Johansson, and your idiot uncle proved long ago that brains aren’t necessary if you have brawn and the right last name.”
Lily shakes her head. “Tucker is truly stupid, but he’s happy, and Hart and Haydee can be too.”
“Sure, Lily Bear,” I say and cover her frowning lips with my smiling ones. She worries so much about the inequalities in the world rather than enjoying every moment as if it might be her last. Nothing is given in this world. Not even for a Johansson.
“You’re staying here,” Lily says once I remove my lips and she stops staring dazed at me. Yep, even after all these fucking years, I can still kiss her into a stupor. “Sissy and the kiddos too. I don’t want you going back to that shithole.”
“Ooh, I get hard when your naughty Delta side comes out,” I say, wrapping her against me so I can give her ass a pat.
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are. That’s why you’re so sexy. Let’s sneak upstairs and warm my cold body with your overheated one,” I suggest while sliding my hands around her waist and resting them on her sweet ass. “Sissy is conked out. She’ll be snoring soon.”
