Hers to Tame
Page 29
Bonnie ducked her head to hide her smile and smoothed her hand over the top of the computer. Prepping for Armageddon or just a good old-fashioned technological revolution had been her dad’s favorite pulpit topic since Kevin had first shown him the internet. That said, he’d never put one iota of effort behind his prepper ideas.
Rather than give her dad any more to chew on, she focused on Kevin. “I still don’t get why you needed a Mac. What was wrong with that new Windows machine you got last year?”
Her dad grunted and wiggled in his recliner.
Kevin cleared his throat. “I just thought I’d try my hand at doin’ some app front ends. Lots of demand for people who can do that kind of work—especially, stuff that goes on an iPhone. Can’t do that with a Windows machine.”
“Yeah? How’d it go?”
Kevin rubbed the back of his hand across his nose and aimed his answer at the coffee table. “Not my kinda gig, apparently. Gonna have to stick to networks and databases, I guess.”
“Or you could stay the hell out of all that nonsense and get yourself a real job like your sister,” their dad said.
Kevin clearly wasn’t done with the arguing. “Just because I don’t clock in and out of some dead-end, boring-ass corporate gig doesn’t make it nonsense.”
“Oh, right,” Dad said. “It’s not nonsense. It’s the thing that’s always landing you in deep shit with more people than we can count.”
Mmm. Fair point. What Kevin called networks and database work, most other people referred to as hacking.
Clearly, Kevin knew his dad had hit close to the truth because he shrugged the comment off, focused on Bonnie and changed the subject. “A word to the wise—I turned location services off on your computer. If you’re smart, you’ll keep it that way.”
“What the hell’s location services?” Dad said.
Bonnie chimed in before the two of them could start going at it again. “It helps you find your computer if you lose it or someone steals it.”
Dad snapped his attention to Kevin. “That true?”
“Hell, yeah, it’s true. Phones, too. It’s the way things work today.”
“Well, that’s bullshit.” Dad flicked his hand toward her computer. “You do what your brother says and keep that location thing off. Government’s got no business messing in your affairs.”
Bonnie raised both hands in surrender. “Fine. Fine. I’ll leave it off. Now can we focus on these damned bills so I can get back home and enjoy my one day off?”
Her dad crossed his hands across his swollen belly. “Already told ya. Not gonna worry about bills and medicine and doctor’s appointments anymore. Gonna live my life the way I wanna live it with the time I have left. So, don’t go giving me any grief about it.”
His stare slid to Kevin and he added, “Not either of ya. Understand?”
No. She didn’t. Not even a little bit. She’d already lost her mom because of booze and partying. Just sitting back and accepting her dad giving up wasn’t even remotely in the cards.
Outside, the muted rumble of an engine pulling up and idling in front of the house made its way through the thin living room window. With their house being the last one on the dead-end street, that meant her dad’s buddies were rolling in early to help him get his drink on.
“Are you kidding me?” Bonnie said, twisting for a peek behind the blinds. “It’s barely after three o’clock in the afternoon.”
Before she could get a glimpse, Kevin shot to his feet, knocked her hand aside and looked for himself. He straightened and shot their dad a look that was all business. “It’s them.”
“God damn it, boy. I told you this wouldn’t be good.” He folded down his footrest the way a gunslinger stowed his gun, stood as quick as he could and waved toward the hallway. “Get Bonnie out of here.”
“She can’t leave. If they see her, she’s fucked.”
“Then get her to my room. Put her in the gun closet. I’ll stall.”
“Are both of you out of your mind?” Bonnie interjected.
Rather than answer, Kevin snagged her laptop, shoved it in her backpack and manhandled her down the hallway. He lowered his voice as they neared her dad’s room. “You gotta be quiet, Bonnie. No fucking around, all right? Not a single fucking word no matter what.”
“Are you for real right now?” Bonnie twisted as much as his pushing allowed and tried to look in his eyes. “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing you need to know about.” He jerked open the closet’s bifold doors, slid the clothes aside and opened up the hidey-hole where her dad once kept his illegal firearms. It was a simple unfinished cabinet with now empty gun racks, but the outside blended with all the rest of the paneling in the room. Kevin shoved her inside and paused only a moment. “Promise me.”
A knock sounded on the front door, and Kevin’s already pale face blanched a deeper shade of white. In all the years she’d known her brother and through all the crazy trouble he’d gotten himself into, she’d never once seen so much fear in his eyes.
Bonnie swallowed hard and pulled her backpack tight against her chest. “O-Okay.”
Lips mashed tight together, Kev gave her a sharp nod and closed the door.
The hangers scraped across the metal rod and the bifold doors whispered back into place.
What the ever-lovin’-hell were the two of them up to?
What they’re always up to, her conscience whispered back to her. Doing things outside the way the rest of the world lives and then ending up with their asses in one sling or another.
Voices sounded in the living room, but her heart pounded too hard for her to hear. A sickly sweat built along the back of her neck and her spine.
God, she was sick of this crap. Her whole damned life she’d done her best to stay in the shadows and out of the messes her family created. Why they couldn’t just have normal jobs, pay taxes and lead calm lives like everyone else was beyond her. Everything had to be a party. A scheme, or the next great con.
The voices grew louder, her dad’s gruff take-no-shit tone volleying back and forth with another one she didn’t recognize.
A second later, something cracked. A heavy thud against wood followed by scuffling and grunts. The clatter of the metal screen door against its frame.
Then quiet.
Painfully terrifying quiet.
But she kept her promise and waited.
And waited.
Her legs trembled with the need to move, and her forearms ached where she clutched her backpack tight.
Where the hell were they? She had to have been in the cramped space at least thirty minutes. Maybe more. It sure as shit felt like more. If whoever it was was gone, why didn’t they come give her the all-clear?
What if they can’t come get you?
All too easily, the grunts and scuffles she’d heard replayed in her head.
If you think Bonnie’s gonna have enough to bail you out with Pauley, you’re out of your mind.
No way.
Pauley and his goons weren’t the types to bust heads. More like B-grade loan sharks who annoyed you into paying outstanding debts.
Unless Pauley was out of options and was tired of her dad’s crap. Yeah, Kevin might be able to hold his own with someone out to rough him up, but Dad didn’t have a prayer.
One thing was for sure—someone was going to have to stick their neck out and figure out what to do next. Per usual, no one else was showing up for the job.
With a deep inhale and a slow exhalation, she eased her backpack out of the way enough to feel for the release latch in the dark. The cold metal was a welcome brush against her fingertips, but the tiny click that came as she slid it aside felt gunshot loud.
She paused and listened, the air from her father’s bedroom swooshing through the tiny crack she’d created and gently stirring whips of hair
against her face and neck.
But other than that—nothing. No movement. No voices. Just an absolute void of activity.
She nudged the door just wide enough to slip free and ducked beneath her father’s clothes. One painstaking step after the other, she rounded the unmade bed to the open bedroom door. A peek down the hallway showed absolutely nothing but the tan shag carpet that should’ve been replaced five years ago and a beam of overcast light from the side window Kevin had uncovered.
Sticking close to the wall, she tiptoed forward, pausing at the two bedrooms along the way to glance inside. Her heart pounded and her lungs clamored for air as if she’d sprinted a mile. At the corner where the hallway opened up to the living room, she hesitated, closed her eyes and braced. Whatever was on the other side, she could handle. She’d had more than ample training dealing with crap like this her whole life. This was just another drop in the bucket.
She pressed one hand to the wall and leaned forward...
Nothing.
Not a single soul.
But the bills and junk mail that had littered the coffee table were all over the floor and her dad’s recliner was turned at an odd angle. The front door had been left open just a crack with only the screen door keeping the cool January air at bay.
So, what? They just left her here? Forgot she was hiding in the closet?
No, her family was crazy and unreliable as hell, but they weren’t so callous as to leave her hiding in a cramped space. Not unless they were drunk, anyway. Which had been known to happen a time or two growing up, especially when a special school event had clashed with a roaring party.
With a sharp huff, she slid her backpack off her shoulder, sat it in front of the end table and went to shut the front door. The last thing she needed was someone else unexpected showing up while she tried to figure out what the heck was going on.
She shoved the door flush with the jamb—and froze.
Was that blood?
Reopening the door to let in the light, she shifted for a better look.
It was blood. A decent-sized streak of it that carried across the doorjamb at standing height. A quick check outside showed two fat drops on the stoop as well.
Her stomach lurched and a mangled cry lodged in her throat. She slammed the door shut once more, threw the bolt and scrambled well out of reach.
This was bad.
Very bad.
Wiping her hands on her hips, she paced to the open side window, scanned the street outside and pulled the blind back down.
Okay. She just needed to think things through. Figure out the right thing to do.
“The cops,” she said to the empty room. “Everyone calls the cops.” She hustled for her phone in her backpack, pulled it out and fired up the screen.
Um. Tiny problem there, hot rod. This is your dad and Kevin we’re talking about. You call the cops and there’s no telling what trouble you’ll bring down on them.
She stared at the phone a beat longer, punched the button to put it back to sleep and dropped to the spot she’d cleared out for herself on the sofa. Even if she did risk it and call the cops, they’d probably rope her into the mess as well—guilty until proven innocent and all that.
Hell of a predicament when you couldn’t call the people who handled shit like this for a living. Talk about your damned if you do / damned if you don’t situations.
Jaw clenched, she planted her elbows on her knees and glared down at the bag lying between her feet. Cops weren’t an option. Kevin’s buddies weren’t an option. Neither were her dad’s. The only people she knew outside her family’s friends were good law-abiding people who’d be scared to death to step foot in this neighborhood.
She let out a slow, steady breath and forced the muscles in her shoulders and neck to relax. Between the open zipper of her backpack the corner of the laptop Cassie had given her peeked out, the brushed aluminum an almost space-aged touch compared to everything else in the room.
Hold up.
Maybe there was a non-law-abiding option.
Not Cassie. She was as good and sweet as they came. But Cassie’s new man, Kir—and the freakishly hot badasses he ran around with all the time—were rumored to be mobsters. Russian ones at that. Surely one of them would know what to do in a situation like this.
Of course, she’d have to call Cassie to get one of them to help, and calling Cassie meant exposing the ugly side of her life. Not an ideal plan considering how far she’d gone to hide it from her new friend. Even if she dared to let Cassie see where she hailed from, didn’t calling on the mob always end with a debt being owed?
She stood, paced to one side of the living room and back, all the while eyeballing the blood smeared on the ivory paint around the door. There had to be another option. Something that fell between bringing cops into the equation and making deals with mobsters.
Stopping mid-path, she planted her hands on her hips and glared at the bloodstain. Really, the only other options were to walk away completely and leave her family to fate, or to venture out on her own to figure out what happened—neither of which were likely to generate results.
She can’t leave. If they see her, she’s fucked.
Right. Another problem if someone was watching the house.
Her gaze slid back to the MacBook.
Funny. The slick device Cassie had gifted her with after her man had hooked her up with a newer and more powerful one to further her photography work was probably the most valuable possession Bonnie owned.
Including her broken-down car.
Cassie hadn’t asked for a single thing in return. Had just said she liked hanging out with Bonnie and wanted to pass some goodness along to a friend.
No strings.
No agendas.
Just a smile and a hug before she’d gone off to a photo shoot.
Of all the people you know, she’s the least likely to judge.
Part of her wanted to believe the thought. Part of her was too tainted by the two-faced people who’d marched in and out of her life.
The fact of the matter was, the only family she had left was missing. And, from the looks of things, they hadn’t gone peaceably.
She palmed her phone once more.
A knot lodged at the base of her throat, and her blood buzzed like she’d had nothing but caffeine for days. She scrolled to Cassie’s number and tried to ignore the way her thumb shook over the keypad. She hit the call button, lifted the phone to her ear and muttered to the room, “Swear to God, if my fucked-up family ruins the one good friendship I’ve got, I’m gonna kill ’em both myself.”
Don’t miss Mine to Keep by Rhenna Morgan,
Available October 2020
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Copyright © 2020 Rhenna Morgan
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