It was not wracking, sobbing, loud crying. It was silent, body-jerking, soul-wrenching crying.
Through it all, and it seemed to last a long time, Ralphie held on.
“Get it out, sweet ‘ums, give it to Ralphie,” he muttered finally.
“I have to go home,” I said into his shirt.
“You can’t go home,” Ralphie replied.
“I have to go home. I have to get out of here,” I said back but I didn’t take my face from Ralphie’s shirt.
“You’ll go home,” Buddy said from close to our side and I felt another hand slide around my waist as Buddy got closer and affected a group hug.
“Thank you,” I whispered, not looking up, not looking at Ralphie or Buddy and definitely not Hector or Daisy.
“You’ll go home, Sadie,” Buddy said. “You’ll go home with us.”
Chapter Three
I Waited
Hector
Hector sat, leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his left hand dangling, his right hand holding a Jack and Coke.
Actually, he’d started out the night adding Coke but he hadn’t bothered with it for the last two drinks.
“Hermano, you gotta talk,” Eddie said to him.
Hector looked at his older brother. Eddie was sitting across from him in Hector’s living room.
The living room was a pit, he’d been working steadily on the house now for months but there was a lot of work to do, he’d barely scratched the surface. The living room was a jumble of unpacked boxes and furniture most if it covered in heavy, plastic sheets. Hector was refinishing the floors in the study and dining room. He should have started with the living room.
Hector looked back to the floor and said, “I fucked up, I know it and I’ll fix it.”
Then at the thought of “fixing” Sadie, unwanted and disconnected memories flashed through his brain.
Her standing at the sink in the bathroom at the hospital.
Her crying silently into her friend’s chest.
Her saying she wanted to take a walk instead of admitting she had to use the bathroom.
Her bloody face, bloody legs and the limp body he held as she told him there was no one to care if she woke up.
He lifted his glass to his mouth, threw back the Jack, draining it dry. He leaned forward and tagged the mostly empty bottle which was on the floor by his boot. He poured another heavy measure and then set the bourbon back down.
He was drunk, he knew he was drunk and he didn’t give a fuck.
“Tell me how you fucked up,” Eddie prompted.
Without hesitation, Hector replied, “I waited.”
That was it. He’d waited. He’d waited for Sadie to come to him.
After that night in her father’s office, he should have taken what he knew was his.
And he shouldn’t have fucking waited.
* * * * *
At first, when Hector Chavez started to get close to Seth Townsend, he thought Townsend’s daughter was a useless rich bitch, a beautiful one but still useless.
Then, because it was his job, he watched her and her father. And he saw that Townsend didn’t hide anything from Sadie. He wasn’t concealing how he was able to give her a very good life. She knew all about it. She seemed to have no problems with that which made Hector wonder if she was somehow involved in the operation.
Hector looked into it and found she wasn’t involved.
She was clean. Squeaky clean.
In Hector’s experience, no one was squeaky clean. This made Hector suspicious. So he watched her closer.
And watching her and her father (but mostly her) made him uneasy.
Being from a big, loud, loving and in-your-business Mexican-American family, he’d never seen anything like it.
There was no affection, no teasing, no loving displays.
There was also no visible abuse.
There was nothing.
Mostly that nothing came from Sadie. She was like a robot. Not just around her father but all the time.
She did everything right, everything exact, everything perfect. The way she dressed, ran her father’s home, organized his parties, everything.
She seemed to be able to do it with minimal effort. She never got stressed, frustrated, on edge. She was never anything but completely together and in control.
Further, she didn’t invite closeness or affection not only from her father but from anyone. She didn’t laugh or joke or lose her temper or display the barest hint of a personality.
She just did her job. All the time. Twenty-four, seven.
All that nothing made Hector want to make her feel something but she didn’t invite that either. She was ice cold.
This had the perverse effect of really making Hector want to make her feel something.
Then she started helping him, feeding him information.
He couldn’t fucking believe it. Not just because she was doing it but because she was really not good at it.
He’d even walked up to her father’s office door and seen her place a file in the drawer where she put information for him. The house had been empty before he entered it, he knew and undoubtedly she knew that Seth was away but it was still risky as hell especially leaving the fucking door open.
He’d stepped to the side so she couldn’t see him, guarded the door in case someone showed and disappeared when he heard her preparing to leave the room.
Anyone could have walked up and seen her do that. If anyone else but him had seen it, she’d have been dead.
Like her mother.
In the end he had to spend his time trailing her in order to protect her so she wouldn’t do something immensely stupid and get caught helping him and thus blowing his cover and getting him and more than likely herself killed.
And she was taking the risk for nothing. Most of it wasn’t even good information. Drug lords didn’t tend to keep sensitive shit in the safe in their home. However he couldn’t tell her that.
She never let on to anyone, not even a hint, that she knew who he was or that she was trying to help destroy her father.
She was always the Dutiful Stepford Daughter.
When she’d walked in that night, smiling a sweet but highly inebriated smile and telling him to kiss her, he didn’t hesitate. He had already made up his mind that when it was over, when he’d brought Townsend down, Sadie would be his. He couldn’t move in on her early, it could have fucked up the case and he’d been working it for over a year.
But when she’d put her hands on him, pressed her body into his and he could smell her expensive perfume close up for the first time instead of the hints of it he caught when she drifted by him, he lost control and couldn’t stop himself from accepting her invitation.
This did not make sense. She was not his type.
He liked his women to have long legs, pronounced curves and lots of attitude. She had the curves but she was petite and what personality she displayed was frigid, nowhere near the hot-headed, in-your-face attitude he liked in his women.
He didn’t give a fuck about this, bottom line, he wanted her. When she gave him his shot, he took it.
He’d been furious when, close to the point of no return, she’d walked away leaving him hard and aching for more of her.
At the time, he thought she was playing games. When he had time to think about it, he decided, in her drunkenness, she’d lost control too but she’d found hers and, in the end, the games she was playing were games she needed to play so she could end up alive and breathing after he took down her father.
That was much better than dead, like her mother was assumed after eighteen years ago Elizabeth Townsend approached Indy’s father, Tom Savage, a cop and the widower of Elizabeth’s close friend, Katherine.
Elizabeth Townsend had wanted to be free of her husband, her life and wanted it for her daughter too. She didn’t want Sadie to grow up the daughter of a drug dealer. Therefore, she started to inform on Seth who had yet to make the big time, giving Tom information.<
br />
Until one day, she just disappeared.
* * * * *
Although Hector had been furious when Sadie had walked away from him, he’d waited and not approached her even though he wanted to. He knew he was close to closing the operation.
It was just over a week later when the DEA moved in.
He kept firmly detached from the process after. He demanded that other agents interrogate her and he didn’t get involved when they investigated her assets. He wasn’t surprised when she’d walked away and didn’t look back when the Agency froze the accounts and seized all property.
She’d done her job and she was moving on.
When they told him they were going to transfer him to DC, he quit. He’d had enough. Although he got off on the hunt, he’d never been big on rules and policy.
Furthermore, Sadie couldn’t get to him in DC.
He bought a house, went to work for Lee who also was not big on rules and policy and waited for her to come to him.
He didn’t think it’d take long. He’d never had a sweet piece go that hot for him that quickly nor had he ever lost that much control. He had no doubt that when their lives were no longer on the line she’d make her approach. She was a trust fund princess who walked away leaving him aching, it was going to have to be her that made the next move.
Sadie and he had unfinished business, he knew it and he knew she knew it and Hector intended to finish it.
However, by the time she made an appointment with Lee, he was losing patience.
* * * * *
He’d heard about Ricky Balducci and his brothers. Word on the street was Sadie was marked. The Balducci Boys had an unspoken deal, win Sadie, win the throne.
It was insanity and it was talk. The Balducci brothers were known for being both insane and entirely full of bullshit.
He was surprised that Sadie had come to Lee and he knew when she asked for protection that she’d been getting pressure from the Balduccis. Why she didn’t share this information with Lee, he didn’t know but he didn’t care either.
He didn’t want Lee involved. He could take care of it on his own. When Sadie left he told Lee he’d look into it. By this he meant deal with the Balduccis and deal with Sadie.
Her time was up. He was done waiting.
That night, he followed her from her gallery to her apartment and waited outside in case she went out.
She stayed in.
He left her thinking she’d be safe in a high rise with security. He had an assignment with Luke that night and he decided he’d come back in the morning. He’d planned to return, make sure she got to work then he’d take Luke, Mace, Darius or Vance and go have a word with the Balducci Boys.
After that, he’d go to Sadie.
He didn’t have that chance.
* * * * *
“You waited?” Eddie asked.
Hector sat back, took another drink and leveled his eyes on his brother.
“She handed me her father.”
He heard and saw Eddie suck in breath.
Hector nodded. “Fed me info, not good info but she fed it to me all the same. You remember that situation out in Stapleton, I gave you the head’s up?” Hector asked.
Eddie’s eyes flared and Hector knew he remembered. It had been a big bust and the Denver Police Department had been fully informed ahead of time who would be there, when and what they would find. It was the only piece of decent intel that Sadie had passed him.
“Sadie?” Eddie asked.
“She wrote me a fuckin’ note,” Hector told him.
“Jesus Christ,” Eddie muttered. “She wrote you a note?”
This time Hector shook his head but not to Eddie’s question, in disbelief at the memory.
“She’s the worst fuckin’ informant I ever saw. Broad daylight, door open, she’s rifling through the safe. Christ, you wouldn’t believe it. Spent half my time building the case against Townsend, the other half keeping an eye on her.”
At this Eddie started laughing and although Hector wouldn’t have thought it possible, he smiled.
Then Eddie quit laughing and said, “Word was, she stood beside her father through the trial.”
Hector replied on a dying smile, “She played her part. She was good at it. She’d been doing it a long time. It was her final show. I pulled in a favor, checked the logs, she hasn’t visited him once.”
Eddie let this sink in then he started, “You know her mother –”
“I know,” Hector cut him off.
They stared at each other. They both knew the risks Sadie took and they both knew the guts she displayed by taking them even if she didn’t do it well.
“Does she know about her mother?” Eddie asked.
“Doubtful.”
Eddie stared at Hector a beat and then said on a sigh, “Townsend’s a piece of shit.”
Hector took another shot of Jack and didn’t reply. There was nothing to be said. Seth Townsend was definitely a piece of shit.
The silence stretched.
Then Hector said quietly, “Heard about Zano’s visit to Balducci.”
The air in the room went on alert.
“What’d you hear?” Eddie asked but he knew the answer, he’d heard about it too.
“I heard that Marcus called in a favor. Ren Zano went for a visit. Balducci tried to avoid him, Zano was persistent. Zano reported to Marcus that Ricky had a black eye, a broken nose and what looked like fingernail scratches from his brow down his cheek,” Hector answered.
Eddie waited.
Hector didn’t make him wait long. “Balducci told Zano he got in a bar fight.”
Eddie leaned forward. “Hector, you have to stay cool.”
Hector drained the glass again, bent forward and tagged the bottle for a refill. He emptied the bottle in his glass, returned it to the floor, leaned back and trained his eyes on his brother.
“This is not a situation where you stay cool,” he said it calmly, belying his words but there was no hidden meaning to what he’d said and it was clear just how much he meant it.
“What’s this woman to you?” Eddie asked.
“She’s mine,” Hector replied.
Eddie leaned back and tore his fingers through his hair then dropped his arm.
He knew what that meant; he’d felt it too about five minutes after he decided he’d stop at nothing to get Jet in his bed. Now he and Jet were getting married.
Eddie went on, “When you were there, did she give you more than information on her father?”
“Yes and no. She let the mask slip once. She let it slip again today so now I know who’s hidin’ behind it.”
“And this means?”
“This means she’s mine. No one touches what’s mine. And they sure as fuck don’t beat her, rape her and leave her broken. Did you see her fuckin’ house?”
Eddie shook his head but he knew what Hector meant. “Lee did the walkthrough with Matt. They took pictures. He told me about it.”
“I went there this afternoon. It looked like –” Hector started.
Eddie interrupted, “It looked like she fought him, used everything she had. They’ve got the rape kit. They’ve got Jack, Luke and your testimony. The doctors and nurses at the hospital. Zano’ll testify, he told Marcus he would. And they’ve got the photos of the apartment looking like a war zone. She walks into a courtroom and the jury gets a look at her and Balducci, they’ll make up their mind before the evidence is presented. According to Indy, she looks like a fuckin’ fairy princess, Ricky Balducci resembles an ape. She presses charges, he’s fucked.”
“She refuses to talk to the police. Didn’t see them at the hospital and then she was discharged and went to stay with friends. The cops followed, they were turned away at the door.”
“She has to press charges.”
“You don’t know Sadie.”
It was then Eddie asked the six million dollar question, “Do you know Sadie?”
“I know that whatever she has in her min
d is gonna stay there. That woman has a will of steel. She had to, livin’ with Townsend. When she woke up this morning, she asked to take a fuckin’ walk.” Hector leaned forward and shared, “You should have seen her Eddie, covered in blood, couldn’t hold herself up, arm hangin’ useless, wearin’ nothin’ but a torn up nightgown. She wakes up from that and she asks to take a walk, says she wants to stretch her legs a bit. Dios mio.” Hector sat back again and muttered. “Will of fuckin’ steel.”
Eddie let this sink in too but he looked pleased about it.
Finally he said, “Then we take Balducci down another way.”
Hector responded immediately, “I know what way Balducci is gonna go down.”
Eddie shook his head. “Lee’s on it.”
“There’s only one way a man pays for doin’ that to a woman.”
Eddie leaned forward at the tone of his brother’s voice. “Hector, listen to me. Lee’s going to dismantle his operation. He’s already workin’ on it. Marcus is on board. Zano knows Sadie and he’s pissed. He’s going to his Uncle Vito to bring the Zanos on board. Doesn’t matter, Lee and Marcus have already made it their fuckin’ mission.”
Hector knocked back the rest of the Jack, kept his eyes on his brother but didn’t reply.
Eddie kept trying, “Sadie’s covered. The car was towed for repairs, Vance has already been in it, planted a tracking device. Tonight he’s wirin’ her store. When she settles, he’ll do the same to wherever she stays. She’ll be protected.”
Hector stayed silent.
“Mi hermano you gotta be smart,” Eddie advised.
“How smart would you be if you came home to your house a disaster, finding out Jet fought for her life before having her wrist broken, her shoulder dislocated, her ribs broken, her cheek ripped open, her eyes blackened, her nose bloodied and she’d been violated?”
Eddie pressed his lips together.
“That’s what I thought,” Hector finished.
Eddie didn’t give up.
“Let Lee do his work. Concentrate on Sadie.”
“Sadie’s lost to me for now. She needs time.”
Eddie’s brows went up. “You’re backin’ off?”
“Yeah, I am. I waited before, I’ll wait again. This time she has a deadline, I’m givin’ her a month.”
Rock Chick Regret Page 6
