Love and Sacrifice: The Pierce Family Trilogy #2

by Chelsea Ballinger

  He looks at the wall and his painful expression tells me that I'm not gonna like this story either.

  "My mother was one of the most beautiful women in our neighborhood. Every guy wanted her, but.... she was charmed by my father. Officer Tony Sorelli was a well- loved cop in our neighborhood. He was also married with a family, a wife and two kids. When he and my mom got together, she didn't know at first that he was married, but when she found out, she had already got pregnant with me. He got her an apartment, paid the rent, looked after her as long as she was his and only his. He made her these promises that he would leave his wife, but by the time I was five or six she realized it was never gonna happen. Well, she finally admitted to herself that it was never gonna happen. She told him that he was still gonna be a part of my life, but that they were done. So my mom always wondered why Tony’s wife never said anything to her."

  "She knew about her?"

  "The whole neighborhood did. Tony flashed my mother around like a trophy, but his wife never said anything. But she found out when she told them they were through. Tony responded to her with a sucker punch to the face, like she was a guy on the street. He told her that nobody leaves him. He started beating her all the time. When I was eight years old I decided to protect her, but that was a joke. I tried to push him off her. He just threw me across the kitchen table. I got my first broken arm and my father started beating me too. I think a piece of me thought he never would touch me, but I was wrong. It got to a point where he would leave my mother alone sometimes and just come after me. All the time he would get drunk and find a new way to beat the shit out of me. Sometimes it was with a belt, a bat, or with his fist. So, when I was twelve, I finally just begged my mother to run away. For us to leave here and never look back and she smiled at me and she told me she was sorry, and that she was going to make it right. She started packing up our stuff and told me to go to school. That she would be there when I got out. But she never came. I waited for about an hour before I ran home. Our neighbors were downstairs crying and telling people to call the police. This old couple that would babysit me sometimes saw me and said for me to wait outside and that I don't want to go in there. I ran past them and into my apartment. The door was wide open and I saw blood everywhere, bloody handprints on the walls and the apartment was just trashed. A pool of blood was trailing to the bathroom so I followed it and there she was in the tub, soaked in blood. I've never seen so much blood in my life. He had stabbed her so many times."

  Oh my God.

  Tommy's eyes watered and a blank expression crossed his face.

  "I didn't even hesitate. It was like something in me snapped. I grabbed her gold Saint Michael necklace and washed the blood off it and threw it on over my head.” He grabs the Saint Michael charm on his chest and starts to rub it with his thumb, still wearing that blank expression on his face as he stares into space. “I think my crazy ass thought I was Saint Michael for a minute, out to get vengeance. I went in my room and grabbed my luminous baseball bat that Tony got me for my birthday that year. I walked twelve blocks to his house. His son was there, Joey was his name. He looked at me and the blood on me and I knew he knew. He knew who I was and what had happened. He was about eighteen, I think. I didn't have to say anything, he just said ‘bar.’ The same bar Tony always went to. I walked over there and he was there with a smile on his face, drinking a beer and flirting with the waitress. He had red and puffy eyes from crying. I knew he had cried after killing her because he would always cry after beating us. I thought to myself, how dare he weep for my mother? I started swinging at his truck to get him outside. He loved that truck more than anything. It only took him 10 seconds after hearing that alarm. He saw me and I think I saw a hint of remorse. Like he was sorry that he was a piece of shit. He tells me to go and turns his back on me to tend to his jeep and I just let myself go. I swung on his legs, then his back and then he was finally on the ground. I hit him more than I can I remember. I just kept hitting him on the head with the bat. I didn't even flinch after I heard the crack of his skull. Finally some drunk pulled me off of him and the police came and they learned the truth about the beating and stuff from my so-called brother. He couldn't go after the old man, but he decided to help me out of his own guilt. But unfortunately the cops didn’t have evidence linking Tony to my mother’s murder, which was bullshit. I was found guilty for reason of insanity. They sent me to a mental institution for about seven months, then to juvie for three years. By the time I got out, there were people who helped me out. They gave me a way out."

  "By becoming a drug dealer?" I wouldn't necessarily call that help.

  "Well, you have to do what you have to do to survive, Ella."

  "I like the way you say my name."

  "After the story I just told you, all you can say is you like the way I say your name?" He chuckles at me and the mood changes.

  "Yeah, after that heartbreaking story that sends my emotions all over the place, all I can I think about is how this person is a survivor and yet still haunted by the pain inside of him says my name with so much integrity and meaning. I think he should know that the little things count. Bad shit happens, but there is a lot of good too. Even if I don’t fully believe it myself. Yeah, Tommy. That's all I can say."

  I continue tending to his scars and studying the marks and tattoos that to me tell the story of Tommy Dumas and where he's been.

  "Why did you have to be so amazing?" I smile to myself, but hear a hint of sadness the way he says it, like he expected me to be less of a person or maybe he hoped I would be.

  Chapter 9

  “Watch It”

  She is doing something to me. Fuck! She is doing something to me. It’s like it’s all coming in phases. Phase I is the instant attraction. Let’s face it, with a girl that looks like Ella, of course you’re gonna have a physical attraction to her from the first moment you see her. Phase II is that instant connection that I never thought existed. From the moment she first spoke to me it was like everything just flowed together. The conversations we have are random and she pushes me to be open and it’s working, and I keep telling myself that I’m just giving her what she wants so she can give me what I want. But what I want is her.

  I want to feel her skin, I want to hear her speak, laugh, and moan. I want to see her smile and I want to feel what it’s like to have her. I want it all and if I have it all, will I be able to destroy it?

  “Hey golden boy.” I cringe at the sound of Terry’s voice calling out to me as I head out of the warehouse.

  “What do you want, Terry?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I just came to collect my weekly payment.” Mickey pays us every week and we have to come to the warehouse to collect or pay a debt if we don’t sell enough supply.

  “I don’t get why Mickey pays you. You’re not selling anything. Well, maybe bullshit to the Pierce girl.” He takes a hit of his cigarette and blows the smoke in my face.

  I start to walk past him, but he stops me by placing his hand on my chest and it takes everything in me not to kill him right now.

  “Or maybe I’m wrong.” He smiles. “Maybe you’re not selling the girl bullshit. Maybe you’re buying the bullshit you’re selling? I mean, either way, I got to give it to you. The girl did go to that bullshit catering company to find you.” My heart drops. Shit, I don’t want my heart to drop.

  “How do you know that?” I ask him.

  “Don’t worry about that.” He takes another pull of his cigarette and pats me on the back, hard. “Just keep up the good work. Don’t want to let daddy down.”

  I watch him walk away. I could easily kill him right now, nice and clean. I could snap his neck and bury him in the woods. Why the fuck am I not doing that right now?

  Because if I do, I will be proving him right and I will be letting Mickey down. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

  Ella

  “What the hell have I gotten myself into?”

  “I don’t know, but
it sounds fun,” Dina says as she flips through the channels on my TV.

  I laugh. “It’s just… it’s like I want to take care of him or something. He’s been through so much and I don’t know. I’ve never been able to connect with guys like I do with Tommy. He gets me and I get him.”

  “Two weeks of knowing this guy and you’re going crazy already. You are definitely hopping on the tortured romance train like your brother did.”

  “No. Donovan and Claudia’s romance was literally insane. Tommy isn’t the son of a cop or sadistic psycho… wait never mind, he is… but he’s dead.”

  “You have been leaving out the juicy stuff.”

  “Well, some of the stuff he has told me, I have a feeling he’s never really talked to anyone about it before so I don’t want to just come out and tell someone his business.”

  “Well, obviously, you like him… a lot. Maybe you’re falling for him.”

  “What?! No. It’s too soon. I have deep feelings for sure, but no.”

  “Ella, guess what?”

  “What?”

  Dina pats me on the head. “That’s how it starts when you fall for someone.”

  Tommy

  It’s a good thing that I don’t have my gun with me because there’s a black car with police lights flashing behind me. I pull over. I’m only a couple of blocks away from my apartment and something tells me these aren’t the Eastbrook cops. I place my hand on the handle of the car door, gear in drive, and foot on the brake. One of the guys steps out of the car and walks over to my window. I lower the window and he flashes his badge at me. It looks legit, but who knows?

  “Can you step out of the car, please?” he asks me.

  “Why?”

  “Just step out of the car, Tommy.”

  How the hell does he know my name?

  I shift the gear into park and step out of the car. This guy looks like a cop for sure. The other cop gets out of the car and slowly walks over. I can’t make out what he looks like because it’s dark and the headlights from their car are blinding me. If this is my time to die, then it’s my time to die, but right now the last thing on my mind right now is… Ella.

  “Hello, Tommy.” The guy finally gets in my sight.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Give us a minute,” he tells his partner.

  The partner walks back to the car and I shake my head at the sight of the person that kind of looks like me, except older and with brown hair.

  “You know who I am?” he asks me.

  “Yeah, I know who you are.” I size him up. “So you became like him, huh?”

  “I’m nothing like him,” he says harshly.

  “Well, you’re a cop. That’s for sure.”

  “And you’re a thug.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I did my time. Now, I’m clean.”

  “Cut the shit out. I know everything about you.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well tell me this, why would the cops want to keep tabs on little old me?”

  “Because you’re working for Mickey Valentine. You have been since you got out of juvie. And the cops don’t know about that, yet.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because if they find out, Roman Pierce finds out.”

  Now he has my attention.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you don’t.”

  “Fine, if you know what the hell you’re talking about, then tell all your fucking narc friends about it!” I point my finger into his face.

  “You know why I can’t do that!” He jerks at me. “You’re my brother, Tommy.”

  I let out a harsh laugh. “Please, you have guilt.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “The hell it isn’t!” I push him away from me. “You have guilt because you let a twelve-year-old kid do what you didn’t have the balls to do! You let the bastard take care of your daddy problems.”

  He puts his hands on his hips and stares at the ground, shaking his head. “Alright.” He looks back at me. “Alright, yes. I saw you that day with the bat in your hand, the blood on your clothes, and the same look I always had after he would slap my mother around, like I wanted to kill him. I told you where he was and I prayed that you would kill him, but I regret it. I regret it all and I’m sorry that I wasn’t there to be a brother to you.”

  “You didn’t even know me.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Tommy. It did not matter how you came into this world or that we have different mothers. What mattered was that you were my little brother. It wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t my fault that we had that evil son of a bitch for a father. I even took my mother’s maiden name because of the disgusting feeling I had from knowing I shared a name with that piece of shit.”

  “So, what do you want? You want to be brothers, make everything alright?”

  “I don’t really know. I would like for us to have some common ground, yes. I would like you to know that I have a wife and a three-year-old son. I have a daughter on the way too. Our sister Talia is engaged to be married. She would like to meet you too.”

  “I already got a family.” I start walking towards my car.

  “Who? Mickey Valentine?” I pause. “He’s worse than Tony.”

  I chuckle. “Nobody is worse than Tony.”

  “You can keep telling yourself that. That’s what Mickey does. He takes kids who have no one and turns them into his soldiers. But once you cross him, it’s over.”

  “And why would anyone cross him?”

  He slightly smirks. “Because of Ella Pierce.”

  My eyes widen and I clench my fists at the sound of her name.

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I keep tabs on you because you’re family. I know more than you think. Get out while you still can. I won’t tell my boss because if they know you’re one of Mickey’s flunkies, Roman Pierce will know. And he is known for being a merciful man, but because you brought his daughter into it. His blood, a man who lost a kid already, he will kill you. And if you stay with Mickey, your gonna watch the Pierce family burn. Valentine doesn’t show mercy to anyone. He gets off on making people watch their families getting tortured, mentally and physically. Now I don’t have enough evidence to get Mickey, yet. I don’t even have enough evidence to take you in. All I know is that you know Mickey and you’re getting friendly with Roman Pierce’s daughter. You better watch it because you’re gonna have to make a choice soon, little brother.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “Get the hell out of here.” I get in my car and turn on the ignition. “By the way.” He leans on my car. “My name is Detective Joey Manning now.”

  He gets back in the car and I watch as they pull off, gripping the steering wheel with one hand and punching the car’s ceiling with the other.

  Chapter 10

  “Go with It”

  Ella

  “Hey,” I greet him as he comes up his steps.

  “Hey,” he answers. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “After you texted me back and told me that you were on your way home and didn’t feel like having company.”

  “And I don’t,” he answers with an attitude.

  “Yeah, and I took that as a let me stay away from the girl I like type of thing.”

  “Listen Ella ─ ”

  “See, I used to be a real bitch. Still can be sometimes, but I used to not care about the whole boyfriend thing.” I stand up and walk down the steps to him. “I have finally graduated high school and I am happy. I have great friends, great parents, and I’m happy. But when I got to know you, I realized that there is a missing piece. I’m not talking love or anything, but I really like you Tommy. And I want to explore that. And I can probably explore it with any other guy, but I want to explore it with you. I get that you have baggage, but don’t we all?” I shrug. “I just w
anted to let you know that because after two weeks of knowing you, I already know how you kind of think.”

  He shakes his head to himself and looks up at me. “So what are you asking me, Ella?”

  “To go with the flow. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  He arches his brow and smirks to himself.

  “I also wanted to know if you wanted to go break into my high school with me?”

  “You do know I went to prison, right?”

  “Yes, but I swear, if we get close to getting caught, I will serve your time for you. So, come on.” I pat him on the chest, which feels nice and firm and walk over to my car, hoping he will follow.

  Tommy

  “Go with the flow,” easy for her to say that. She doesn’t have any idea what the hell is going on.

  We stop down the street from her high school and walk to the side door of the building.

  “So, cat woman, what now?” I ask her. She bends down and removes a key from under a rock.

  “One of the security guards is a frequent customer at my father’s casino. My dad doesn’t know this, but he asked me to put in a good word for him because he owed the casino a lot of money, so I had him make me a copy of the side door key in exchange.” She lets out a bright smile and opens the door. I follow her in.

  “Why?”

  “I was failing Algebra, so I would come here and steal the answers to the tests and have this kid, Ryan Wheeler, genius in math, take them for me so I could have the answers.”

  I follow her through the hallway. “And here I thought you were an innocent human being.”

  “I am my father’s child,” she says cheerfully.

  “So, what are we doing here?”

  “Going for a swim.” I stop in my tracks and stare at her, just to make sure I just heard her correctly. She turns around and smiles at me, only this time it’s a very seductive smile. Before I can take it in, she takes off her top, revealing a black bra.

  Shit.

  I follow her through the hallway, then to the gym. She leads me through the locker room and showers and pushes open a red door, revealing the inside pool. I’ve only swam in the city pools and they were never as big as these. The pool is so huge, I’m completely distracted by it so that I almost forgot Ella is undressing in front of me. I focus on her and there it is, that same bright smile. She kicks off her sandals and unbuttons and unzips her shorts, slowly pushing them down to her ankles, which causes the heat inside my body to get hotter. She kicks them off and I take in her body, black bra and panties. She has that type of body that is so perfect you don’t even want a paper cut to ruin it. She laughs at my reaction and jumps in the pool. I quickly remove my t-shirt and jeans, revealing my boxer briefs, and jump in the pool, quickly, so she won’t witness my hard on. Girls don’t do that to me. They don’t make me nervous, but this one does.