Antihero (Imperfect Heroes Book 1)

by C. J. Pinard

“Ellis,” Talia squeaked out in a panic, her eyes dripping tears in streams down her cheeks.

  “Shut up, bitch,” Ripper said in her ear but looking at me with that cold look in his eyes.

  “Don’t talk to her, asshole. Let her go now and I won’t kill you, you fuckwad. I mean it.”

  “No!” he raged, spitting into the late afternoon air. “Tell me how the hell you avoided prison and maybe I won’t fuck her in the street right here, in front of you and everyone else. You snitched, didn’t you?”

  “How do you know I didn’t do time?” I asked, my eyes not leaving the gun in his hand.

  “You stupid fuck, I’ve got connections at every Florida state prison. Nobody’s ever heard of you. Trust me, I asked.”

  “Maybe you have shitty connections. You know, criminals aren’t exactly the most reliable sources. Just sayin’.”

  What was wrong with me? I’d resorted to making jokes. I must have been certifiably insane. Or nervous as hell.

  He grinned and his smile made my stomach turn. He looked at Talia and fingered one of her curls. “She sure is pretty. Tell me, LT, do the curtains match the drapes?” He reached down to grab her crotch, but she put a knee up to block him and then slammed her head against his nose.

  He’d backed away in time so her head didn’t quite connect, but it was enough of a distraction for me.

  I ran over and snatched the gun from his hand, releasing the magazine and expelling the bullet from the chamber in less than two seconds flat as he was stumbling backwards. I’d disarmed this thug in the blink of an eye.

  Huh, guess the Marines had taught me something other than how to kill people.

  I shoved the handgun’s magazine into my pocket and tossed his gun onto the ground and grabbed Talia as she ran into my arms. She was sobbing, and I felt lower than pond scum for putting her in danger. My eyes never left Ripper. He’d fallen backwards onto his ass and was shaking off the shock. But now, suddenly he was getting back up. My body stiffened, ready for a fight.

  “Okay, back in the car,” I murmured in Talia’s ear.

  She shook her head and cried, “No. Not again. Please. Let’s just go!”

  “There’s not gonna be a second time,” I growled in her ear, keeping my eyes on Ripper, whose own told a story of anger, resentment, and pain. He was about to tear me apart, but it wouldn’t be easy. I had enough rage for the both of us, and he was going to be a sorry motherfucker if he laid a hand on me. And if he even looked at my girl the wrong way again, I was gonna kill him and then go away for a very long time.

  Talia squeaked when Ripper got up and headed toward me. She clambered around to the front of the car. I could swear I could still hear her heavy breathing.

  Once he was within arm’s reach, I reared my arm back and let my fist fly into his nose. I smiled at the sound of the satisfying crunch my blow had made. He yelled as his nose began to gush blood. Unfortunately for him, that act alone had ignited a fire in me. The blood seeping down his face made me smile with some sort of bloodlust. It was fucking on.

  Putting his hand to his mouth, Ripper looked at the blood on his hand and said, “Oh, hell no, you little pussy. I did seven years behind a fence because of you. I’m gonna kill you now, you snitch.”

  I laughed. Literally laughed. Maniacal, insane, and incredulous. I’d never told on Ripper or anyone else. My trial had been my own and that judge—for whatever reason—had seen something in me he thought could be saved. And he had been right, so very right.

  Still, being called a snitch hurt. I knew the code—never tell on your fellow brother. And I hadn’t, so to be accused of that infuriated me to code-red levels. Pushing him with both hands, he stumbled backwards and I stuck my foot out and tripped him. I watched in amusement as he fell down on his ass onto the pavement.

  Immediately on top of him, I got into his face, ripped off my sunglasses, and stared into his dark brown eyes. “Behind a fence, motherfucker? Try spending eight years in the Marine Corps. I’ve seen stuff that would make you shit yourself.”

  I didn’t wait for a reply. One final blow to his right cheekbone most likely left it shattered. Did I care? Not one bit. Again, I just didn’t have any fucks left to give and today was no exception.

  Thanks, Dad. Fucking convict asshole. Sins of the father, passed right down to your only son. One you never cared about.

  Hearing sirens in the distance, I ordered my girl into the car and took off onto the highway, staying at the speed limit even though my lead foot wanted to push the car to 100 MPH to expel some of this energy.

  I was twenty-five years old and had been all over the world. I’d been through worse shit. I should have been a lot more calm and mature than this, right?

  But I wasn’t. I was a hot-head. I looked over at Talia, and she was sniffling, tears streaming down her face, the little yellow Minion her only comfort.

  Because obviously, I couldn’t be.

  Chapter 12

  Talia

  What the hell was that back there? Oh, my God. Why didn’t he just drive off when that maniac got out of the car?

  And “Ripper”? What kind of name is that? I was frightened that Ellis knew the guy—and that the guy knew him! It was clear there were things he hadn’t told me about his past. What a real shock. Not.

  But the fact that thug had mentioned that Ellis should have gone to prison with him had me terrified beyond anything.

  I was sad that such a wonderful weekend has been ruined. Couldn’t I get lucky, even once, to have someone treat me nice and take me places? I thought I’d had. I thought we’d turned over a new leaf in our relationship—or had just begun to finally build a “real” one. But it looked like that was not gonna happen. It was time for me to put some distance between myself and him. No way was I going to be involved with someone like that. I knew he had a temper but this was unbelievable. Watching him pummel that guy in the street was so awful to watch.

  Plus, it wasn’t like I was going to get over having a gun pulled on me. Not ever. I’d be having nightmares about that for years to come, I was sure. I looked down at my trembling hands and had to force myself to breathe in and out before I passed out from fear and pain. I tried hard to keep a tear from slipping out of my eye, but it was no use. It trailed down my cheek and I wiped it away with the back of my hand.

  He pulled up into my apartment complex and I got out before the car had barely stopped.

  “T! Wait!” I heard Ellis behind me.

  I shook my head, my bag around my shoulder, the Minion under my arm as my voice shook with emotion. “Just go, Ellis. Please. I need some time alone.”

  He spun me around before I could get the key in the door. I could hear that his car was still running. “No. I’m not going to go. Not like this. Please let’s go inside. I need to explain some things to you that I should have told you a long time ago. You deserve to know. I did not mean for my past to collide with my present, and now it’s time for me to pay for those sins. But the one price I refuse to pay, though, is losing you. Please.”

  I turned around and put the key in the door. I opened it, not caring if he followed or not. If he left, fine, I could get some time to think. If he came in and talked to me… whatever. Then I’d tell him to leave once he was done.

  “I’m going to turn off the car. Please give me just five minutes, okay?”

  I still didn’t say anything, I left the door open and went inside.

  I heard the car turn off and he walked slowly inside, closing the door behind him. I was standing in the kitchen, getting a glass of water. I just glared at him from behind the half-wall counter, my arm propped against the sink.

  “Well, speak,” I said shakily, not caring if I sounded like a bitch.

  He nodded and came to stand on the other side of the counter, sitting in one of the barstools. “T, I was going to talk to you about this when the time was right. This weekend was so damn perfect, I didn’t think us talking about our pasts would have been the best thing right now. I
just wanted us to be happy and carefree for a couple of days, not bog it down with the heavy stuff.”

  I nodded, telling him to continue.

  He blew out a breath. “When I was a kid, I did not live in a good area. My mom did her best to raise me, but we had no money. My dad was in prison, and I was an only child. When I got to high school, I barely attended. I found friends on the street and began hanging out with them more and more. They were not good people, and even though deep down I knew this, I still kept hanging out with them. I learned later through a government shrink that I did this because I needed to feel a sense of belonging from having a broken family unit, and from being left alone so often.” He said the last part as if he was quoting from some kind of psych book.

  “Go on,” I said, still sniffling.

  “Well, I ended up in a street gang called the Orlando Aryan Boys.” He looked up at me for my reaction. I now remembered him saying something about a gang when we were in the car at the pier, but I had sort of blown it off, thinking it was probably just a stupid high school thing. But this really rocked my world.

  “An Aryan gang? Really?” I said. “That’s really stupid, Ellis.”

  His face twisted into something between regret and anger. “I know that now. Misguided youth and all that.”

  “Continue.” I sighed.

  “So I began to commit petty thefts and other minor crimes like vandalism and stealing parts off of cars and selling them with my… gang. The guy from today, Ripper, he was sort of our leader.

  “So, one day, we, in our infinite wisdom, decided it would be really cool if we broke into a large department store and stole guns and ammo. We thought it would make us a more powerful gang. At this point I’d already been shot at twice while entering into another gang’s territory, even if it was just a simple restaurant or store that another gang would claim as ‘their’ part of town. It was all just so dumb.” He sighed and raked a hand through his black hair.

  “Ripper busted the lock while I tagged the building with OAB in spray paint. Again, real smart of us to tell the cops who’d been there, huh? Anyway, the alarms blared and we got away with some weapons and stuff, and I thought we’d gotten away with it ‘til some cops showed up at my door with video surveillance photos. I was done. Too many priors and now a felony? I was only seventeen and they told Mom they were gonna charge me as an adult, since my birthday was less than six months away.”

  I now stared at him in shock, my resolve softening a little. “Ellis, I…”

  “Don’t, T. Don’t look at me like that. I hate that look. I don’t do pity or sympathy. Please just let me finish or I just won’t…”

  I nodded.

  “For some reason, the judge had mercy on me. He knew my father was doing time and maybe he saw something in me that I hadn’t seen in myself at the time. He gave me a choice. Marine Corps or prison. Believe it or not, at the time, I thought I was such a badass that prison didn’t really scare me as badly as it should have. One night when I was in boot camp, I thought back to that day and realized how stupid I was. My mother pretty much didn’t even let me choose. I was still a minor and she told me I was joining the Marines and that was the end of that. Or so I thought, until today. Ripper, Mom told me, had been sentenced to ten years. Guess he got out three years early.”

  I nodded, knowing more about crimes and criminals than I should have. “Probably got paroled early. Overcrowding and all that.”

  Ellis got up off the barstool and came around into the kitchen. Standing right in front of me, he placed his right arm on the counter, and rolled up his sleeve. He had a large USMC insignia tat that I’d seen plenty of times. He reached down and grabbed my hand.

  “Give me one finger,” he said.

  I obeyed, pointing my first finger at him. He grabbed it and traced a large “O” in the middle of the insignia. Then he traced an “A” next to it, and then a “B.”

  “I had the OAB tattoo covered with this.”

  He still had ahold of my hand. I looked really close and could barely make out the covered up letters. If I hadn’t known they were there, I’d have never seen them. “Good decision,” I said.

  He chuckled. “It wasn’t my decision. My sergeant saw it one day while I was coming out of the showers and told me, and I quote, ‘You better cover up that fuckin’ mess or I’ll take a razor blade to it while three other Marines hold you down.’”

  My eyes widened. “Wow.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t know how to tell him I was still seventeen and no tattoo shop would take me, so I sort of avoided the topic. I’d gotten the OAB tat in Ripper’s uncle’s garage at the time. So anyway, on my eighteenth birthday, I got this.” He pointed to it again.

  “I’m not sure what to say,” I said, feeling stupid. I was still angry, but I was glad I had given him a chance to explain.

  “You hate me now?” he asked, rolling his sleeve back down.

  I shook my head. “I don’t hate you. I’m not one to judge, Ellis.” I pulled a beer out of the fridge and handed it to him. I then went around him and sat on the sofa with my water.

  “Thank you,” he said, sitting next to me.

  “I buy those just for you, you know,” I said, pointing at the bottle. “I don’t drink beer.”

  He chuckled and popped off the lid. “I wondered.” Then he paused as he took a pull from the bottle and then set it on the end-table. “You know, T, I meant what I said that I had planned on telling you all of this. I just didn’t want to tell you this weekend. It just felt too perfect to muddle it with ugly truths and stories of my past.”

  “I know, and I believe you. But isn’t that what makes the weekend better? Sharing stuff like this, getting to know each other better? I mean, that’s all I’ve ever wanted since I met you. But you’re so closed off all the time, and would only come over for sex, so I took those small moments with you and cherished them because I thought that was all I would ever get.”

  His eyes were big and he sucked in a breath, and then raked fingers through his hair. “God. No. I… I thought the same about you, T. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome and all that. Thought you were busy and didn’t have time for any sort of relationship, so I also took what you’d give me. And then when you stayed the night last week, it freaked me out. I didn’t know why it freaked me out until I forced myself to go on that bike ride and think about it. The only thing I could figure out was that I would actually now be in a relationship, if that’s what you wanted. It scared me for about half a second then it made me happy. But you were gone, and pissed, and I thought I’d lost you.”

  I nodded, debating my next words, but felt it was the right time. “I’m not exactly a golden child either, you know. My past isn’t pretty.”

  He grabbed my hand, and I felt encouraged to keep talking. It wasn’t as bad as his, so I hoped he wouldn’t judge, but then again, I’ve seen people break up over lesser things. So it was my turn to bare my soul.

  “My mother, she died of a drug overdose. She couldn’t deal after my dad walked out on us for his much younger secretary. I had a pretty normal childhood until then, but it slowly started to fall apart after that. Mom dated men who were not good, and ended up marrying the worst of them all. Rick was an abusive piece of shit who eventually killed her with all the drugs he fed her. I sat back powerless to watch, finally bolting the day I turned eighteen. I lived with friends and tried to have my own life, then I got the news of Mom’s death, and in a strange twist of fate, I turned to drugs to numb the pain.

  “I couldn’t hold down a job and would drift from place to place, not caring about myself at all. Then one day, I found out on the same day that not only was I pregnant, but was having a miscarriage. When I began to bleed badly, I passed out and someone took me to the emergency room. You wouldn’t believe how painful it is to lose a baby, even one you didn’t think you wanted or even knew you were carrying. I hit rock bottom. I felt hopeless, and while I never contemplated suicide, I knew if I kept on that track, I woul
dn’t live very much longer. I was barely holding onto the job at the coffee shop, so I called Bo to come get me from the hospital. She practically forced me into rehab. The hospital threatened to call the authorities with how much coke was in my system, too. I knew it was time. I went through a painful rehabilitation and got better. Fast forward to now. Been clean two years. Doesn’t mean temptation doesn’t slither around and entice me back on the wagon every once in a while, though.”

  Ellis looked at me with the same pity I’d given him. He leaned forward, putting his arms around me and pulling me into a hug. I melted into him and sniffed back tears. It was still so painful to talk about that part of my life. My mom, the shame of becoming an addict, the baby. I avoided it at all costs, mostly. But I felt I owed it to him after what he had told me. Plus, I was still emotional and on edge from the day’s events. I was a serious mess.

  “I’m sorry I’m so messed up. I wish I could change my past, but I can’t.” I sniffled into his ear.

  He murmured back, “We're all a little damaged, T. Some of us just know how to wear our fucked up on the inside and mask it with normalcy on the outside."

  That made me smile a little bit. He was so right.

  He stood up and offered me his hand, and I took it after setting my water down. He led me into the bedroom where he undressed me, and I let him. Then, as I stood there stripped bare, he reached over to the long nightshirt I had laid over the chair and slipped it over my head. Kissing me on the lips, he peeled off his clothes down to his boxers and pulled the covers back on my bed, instructing me to get in. After flipping off the light, he crawled in behind me and pressed his body up against mine. With both arms around me, he whispered, “Goodnight, sweetheart.” We both fell asleep quickly. It was nice.

  He was there when I woke the next morning.

  Chapter 13

  Ellis

  I woke the next day feeling like a huge weight had been lifted. After I left Talia’s, I applied for that prison job, so that was out of the way, and a huge relief. I had no idea how long it took to hear back, but I wasn’t going to stress about it. I laughed at the thought of working in one. I’d feel right at home around those dudes, wouldn’t I? Hopefully, I’d get some training on how not to feel comfortable around them. And hopefully my past would not catch up with me. The judge had told me since I joined the service and had received an honorable discharge, that my juvenile record would be sealed permanently. I damn near cried hearing that.