Dirty Power

by Ashley Bartlett

“What?” he repeated.

  “The fucking scar.” I traced it with my free hand, trailing my fingertip across her cheek.

  “Haven’t I apologized enough for that? Christ, you would think I beat her all the time.”

  Reese finally broke free from my grip.

  “You haven’t apologized at all, you piece of shit,” she said.

  “Yes, I have. I told Cooper—shit.” He actually looked contrite. But contrite wasn’t going to cut it. “I…I’m sorry, Reese. I told Cooper I was sorry. I suppose I never told you, though.”

  “Gee. I feel all better now,” Reese said.

  “I’m sorry. I was angry and I lashed out and I shouldn’t have.”

  “Fuck you.” Reese pushed past him.

  I followed her into the hallway.

  “Leave me alone,” she said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  Reese rounded on me, but her eyes locked onto something over my shoulder.

  “What?” I turned. Breno was standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “I am sorry, but I think we have a problem,” he said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Come into the kitchen.”

  Reese and I followed him. Joan was standing by the door. Christopher was back at the sink washing dishes. Reese sat down. I started to lean against the counter, but the gun at my back was digging into my skin.

  That was when I made a mistake.

  I took out the gun and set it on the counter, then leaned back.

  “In order to transfer the money, Joan needs to go into her bank and sign a number of forms,” Breno said.

  I looked at him while he spoke. Just long enough for Joan to make a decision. She bolted for the door.

  I lunged for Joan. I didn’t get her arm like I wanted. Just a fistful of her shirt. That was enough. I yanked her back, grabbed her arm, and hauled her into the hallway. She stumbled and I threw her down. Her head glanced off the floor with a dull thud. She looked at me, panic in her eyes.

  “I told you not to try anything, bitch.” And then I kicked her in the side.

  She rolled over and curled into the fetal position. I kicked her again.

  “Stop. Please. Stop,” she yelled.

  “No.” I pulled back to hit her, but Breno grabbed me.

  “I’m sorry,” Joan sobbed.

  “I’ll make you fuckin’ sorry.” I tried to push Breno off, but he held me tight.

  “It is all right, Cooper,” he said softly. “You caught her.”

  “Right. Yeah.” I shrugged off his hands. He let me. “Get up,” I told Joan.

  “I can’t.” One of her hands was clasped to her side. The other was cupping the back of her head.

  “Yes, you can.” I reached down and took her arm.

  “I think you broke my rib.”

  “It will heal. Get up. Now.”

  Joan slowly pushed herself upright. I dragged her to the stairs. I glanced back once and saw Reese staring at me openmouthed. Her eyes were gray and wet. This was going to be bad.

  *

  “What did you do with her?” Christopher asked when I walked back into the kitchen.

  “Chained her to the toilet again.” I pulled out a chair and joined them at the table.

  Reese glared, but said nothing.

  “As I was saying, Joan needs to go into the bank and sign some forms. Her bank is in the Caymans,” Breno said.

  “So you’ll go with her and transfer the money,” I said.

  “And if she runs?” Christopher asked.

  “She won’t. She just tried and it didn’t work. She won’t try again,” I said.

  “It’s true,” Reese said. “That woman is terrified.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “If you keep Emma here, then I believe Joan will behave,” Breno said. “But there’s something else that might also help. It is your call.”

  “What is it?”

  “Her accounts total nearly seventeen and a half million.”

  “Huh?” I’d been up all night. Coherent wasn’t gonna happen. “She only stole fifteen.”

  “So, what? She already had two and a half mill in the bank?” Reese asked.

  “No. Before she stole our money, she had six thousand four hundred eighty-two dollars and fourteen cents,” Breno said.

  Well, now I was extra confused.

  “Joan is very good with her money. She invests well. When she has money to invest, that is,” Breno continued.

  “She made two million in six months?” I asked.

  “More than two million. She also owns this home and two nearby vacation properties that she rents out,” Breno said.

  “And her boat,” Christopher contributed. “And two cars.”

  “So what are you thinking?” I asked Breno.

  “It is up to you guys and Ryan, as I said.” I nodded. He continued. “I suggest that we let her keep her houses as well as the two and a half million. She will be able to live quite well on that.”

  “And she won’t be all pissed off and shit,” I said. It sounded smart. Not me, Breno’s plan.

  “I like it,” Reese said.

  “Agreed.” Christopher.

  “Should we ask Ryan?” Breno asked.

  “I’ll do it.” Reese pushed away from the table and went outside.

  “Cool.” I stood. “I’m going to sleep. Leave Joan where she is.”

  “Wait,” Breno said.

  “What?” I really wanted to sleep. So I might have sounded pissed.

  “You’re bleeding again.” Breno pointed to my arm.

  I looked. He was right. “Fuck.”

  “Sit down.”

  “Shit.” I didn’t sit down. I didn’t move at all.

  Breno stood and led me back to the table. He rolled the sleeve of my T-shirt and peeled the tape off my bandage.

  “You have really done it this time, Cooper.”

  “What?”

  “Over half of your stitches are torn out.” I decided to take his word for it. Looking at my wounds made them hurt more. “Stay here. I need to give you new stitches.”

  “No fuckin’ way.”

  “You need to listen to Breno,” Christopher said.

  “I have plenty of stitches, I don’t need new ones. Thanks. I’m going to bed.” I started to stand, but Breno pushed me back into my seat. I didn’t hear the door open.

  “Hey, get the hell off her.” Ryan crossed to my side.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “Breno just wants to give me stitches. I’m respectfully declining.”

  “Why?” Ryan asked.

  “’Cause I don’t want a needle shoved repeatedly through my skin.”

  “No, why do you need stitches?”

  “She tore some out.” Breno lifted the bandage away so Ryan could see.

  “Fuck, Coop. Half your stitches are gone. That shit is gross.”

  Breno put the bandage back in place.

  “She tore some in Vegas. The rest, I believe, are from the tussle with Joan. Although I don’t remember this much damage. Did you do anything that would tear them since Vegas?” Breno asked.

  I had. I’d fucked his daughter and lost two stitches. Then, when I climbed into Joan’s house and carried her toddler around, I’d lost a couple more. But I’d just mopped up the blood and ignored it.

  “Maybe when I climbed into the house.”

  “You hid them from me,” Breno said.

  “Not on purpose. I just didn’t want more stitches,” I mumbled.

  “Too bad.” Ryan sat at the table and put his hand on my shoulder. “Go get whatever supplies you need,” he said to Breno. “I’ll keep her here.”

  Breno nodded and disappeared through the doorway.

  “Fuck you,” I said to Ryan.

  “Blow me.”

  Breno came back with a plastic first aid kit. He washed his hands. Spread a piece of gauze on the table. Started laying out instruments. I wasn’t having this. Or maybe
I was. Damn. He put on latex gloves. And pulled off a long strip of dental floss.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” Breno closed the floss and tossed the small container down.

  “Yeah, what’s with the floss?” Ryan asked.

  “What did you expect me to use? Thread?” Breno asked. Then he and Christopher laughed.

  “It’s not like it’s mint flavored,” Christopher said. “It’s sanitary. And it won’t break off into little infectious threads.”

  “Damn.” That sounded logical. I reached over and took Ryan’s hand. He squeezed reassuringly.

  “Want some booze?” Ryan asked.

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  “This will hurt,” Breno warned me.

  He was right. It hurt like a bitch.

  *

  I don’t know how long I had been asleep before I felt the bed dip as someone climbed in next to me. I grunted. It was the best greeting my sleep-drugged mind could come up with.

  “I heard you smacked a bitch,” Ryan said. “Not a tussle,” he imitated Breno. “But straight up smacked a bitch.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Christopher and Reese talked. They only loathe each other now, instead of being mortal enemies.”

  “Good.”

  “You can go back to sleep now,” he said.

  “’Kay.”

  And I did.

  I hadn’t had the dream since I’d found Ryan. My subconscious had been blissfully quiet. I hadn’t really thought about it either. It’s strange how easily nightmares can be ignored when you don’t want to face them. But they always come back. Always. Until you deal, I guess. I hadn’t dealt, though.

  It was the same as always. Blood seeping into my shoes, sucking at my feet, seeping between my toes. It climbed my body, weighed me down. I waded, swam, lunged for Reese. The gun. That fucking piece of shit gun. I pointed it at Tommy. It turned on Reese. She was silent. In death. In recrimination. Her cool gray eyes glaring even after the life had gone from them.

  “Please, please, I’m sorry. Come back. I’m sorry.”

  “Coop, Coop. Wake the fuck up.” Warm arms were around me. A muscled body pressed close. My tears streamed into a warm, soft shoulder. He held me close and rocked me. “It’s okay. I got you. It’s okay.”

  “Shit.” I sniffled. My throat was raw. I must have been screaming.

  “What the hell?”

  “Fucking dream.”

  “Dream? What the fuck kind of nightmares are you having?” Ryan asked softly.

  “They…It started in Mexico. After…”

  “Tommy.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Shit. What’s it about?”

  And I started to talk. Didn’t even consider not telling him. It was time. I told about the first dream and how Reese ignored me. I told him about the pot farm in Mexico. How Marco had covered for me. How fuckin’ terrified I’d been. How terrified I was of myself.

  It started slow. A jumble of thoughts and images that made no sense. Then they began to take form. I found the chronology. I remembered the names of the men Esau had killed. I told Ryan how I had watched them slowly die, kept alive by the hope that they might make it through the night. But Esau didn’t leave survivors.

  Ryan didn’t ask questions. He didn’t need to. At that point, I was just spilling my story. Like blood falling to a cement floor. Tentative drips at the first cut, gushing by the last, until the heart ceases to beat and there is nothing left except a cooling body.

  I stopped crying at some point, started again at another. Felt the tension begin to drain as my tears mingled with his sweat. He didn’t stop me when he started to cry. He just rested his cheek against the top of my head and let my hair dry his tears.

  When I told him about Alexis, he tensed up. By the time I got to the trafficking, his muscles were so tight it was like leaning against a wall. Good. I was glad someone else was as horrified as I had been.

  This time when I told him about Christopher and Breno, I didn’t gloss over details. There was no need to protect myself or them. I wasn’t arguing for some relationship between father and children that would never come to fruition. ’Cause there was just me and Ryan.

  We fell asleep like that. With the afternoon sun slanting across our bodies, warm in the aftermath of the truth.

  Chapter Nine

  I wasn’t asleep long. The sun hadn’t moved. Neither had Ryan. For the first time in a very long time, I was content. No, not content. Calm maybe. Everything had been drained from me. In a good way. It would come back. I knew it would come back. But I felt like Ryan had started a wall between me and the past. Maybe I could keep it at bay, let it slowly slip away until I was me again. Maybe.

  I couldn’t tell right away why I had woken up, but then I heard it. Soft breathing, hitched with tears. Reese.

  She was somewhere. I could feel her now. I looked around the room. She wasn’t there. The hallway. Carefully, I extricated myself from Ryan’s grasp. Found the jeans I’d been wearing for two days. Pulled them on. The door creaked when I opened it. The small cracks seemed deafening as they echoed down the hallway.

  Reese looked up when she heard the noise. She was sitting on the floor, her back to the wall. Her cheeks were wet.

  “I…I’m sorry.” She pushed herself up. “I wasn’t trying to listen in.” She turned and started to walk away. “I just heard screaming. And I…I swear I wasn’t trying to listen in.” Her voice was so low I could barely hear her.

  “Wait.”

  She stopped but didn’t turn. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “You should be. You should be livid that we dragged you into this. Left you to those bastards. You should be so mad.” Her fists were clenched at her sides. Her head down. “So mad.”

  “I’m not.” I didn’t know if I was lying. I’d yelled at Ryan only two weeks before for presuming to take my grief and anger.

  “Well, I am.”

  “Come here,” I said. She didn’t move. “Just turn around, please.” I could have gone to her, but somehow I knew that wouldn’t be a good idea.

  Reese glanced over her shoulder. Unclenched one fist. Held her hand out to me. “Come on.”

  “What?”

  “Come with me.”

  I took a step forward and slid my palm against hers. She tugged lightly, pulled me down the hallway. We passed the open study. The computer on the desk was still on. We went into the kitchen. Christopher and Breno were playing in the living room with Emma. I could hear faint giggles. They didn’t notice us. Joan was silent up in her small prison. Probably sleeping. Or nursing her bruised ribs. We went out the sliding door, through the backyard this time instead of over the fence.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  Reese didn’t answer. Just led me down the beach. I didn’t ask any more questions. I didn’t know where we were going. I didn’t care. We must have walked a mile before Reese broke her silence. Or maybe it just felt that way. Walking on sand is hard.

  “I should have asked about the scars.”

  “What?” I knew what she had said. I don’t know why I wanted her to repeat it.

  “The scars. You’re covered in fuckin’ scars. I should have asked. I didn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t have told you,” I said. “I didn’t want you to know about them.”

  “I can’t blame you. I wouldn’t have told me either.” Reese let go of my hand. I’d forgotten we were even holding hands, but I still felt the sudden loss.

  “It wasn’t about you. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  She laughed. A hard, raw sound. “You thought I wouldn’t care. Don’t lie.”

  “No. That wasn’t it.” Even as I said it, I realized she was right. Sort of. I’d been afraid she wouldn’t care.

  “I don’t blame you. After the way I treated you in Mexico.”

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say.

 
“Fuck.” She turned and walked toward the water. “Damn it.” And then she started to cry. Again.

  “Hey, it’s okay.” I followed her. Put my hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s not okay. It’s not.”

  It wasn’t, but I lied anyway. “Really, it is.”

  Reese spun and stared me down. “Damn it, Coop. Stop trying to make me feel better. I knew you were all fucked up and I just left you to deal on your own.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

  “There are a thousand things I could have, should have done. I didn’t. So please don’t pacify me,” she said.

  “What do you want me to do? Get mad? I did just as much damage to myself. You can’t blame yourself for all of it.” I was too damn tired to blame anyone anymore. It was easier to forget. Or maybe it was easier to acknowledge that it had happened—like I had earlier with Ryan—and just move on. Yeah, that was it. I couldn’t change the past. I couldn’t change what I had done. But maybe I could let it go.

  “What are you talking about? I dragged you into this shit.”

  “Stop it,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t drag me. I wanted to be with you guys. You couldn’t have stopped me.”

  “I should have tried. You didn’t know who we were going up against. I did.” She clenched her hands at her side again.

  “I knew when I went to Vito.” As I said the words, I got mad. At myself. I’d known Vito was a douche bag. And I’d thrown myself on his altar. What the fuck had I been thinking? “I could have walked away. I thought about it every day. But I didn’t. It was my damn choice. And I stayed. So all that fucked up shit I did and saw, that was on me.” I stepped close to her. “Don’t delude yourself, buttercup.”

  “Why the fuck did you stay?” she shouted. “Seriously. What the fuck were you thinking?”

  I knew the answer to her question. It wasn’t a good answer. Not for this conversation.

  “Answer me, damn it.” She kinda looked like she wanted to deck me.

  “You.”

  “What?” She stepped back.

  “I was thinking of you.” I stepped closer again.

  “Fuck you.”

  “I’m not blaming you. But I knew the only way to find you was to stay with Vito and wait for you to find me.” I’d needed her to want me enough to come back, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.