by Brook Greene
I rein myself in and give them both a nod, letting them know I’ve got my shit together and I’m all business now. Cowboy drapes his arm over my shoulder as the three of us rejoin the group.
“I’ve got money, whatever amount you want,” Jake slurs, spit mixed with blood dribbling down his chin.
Keeping a tight restraint on my composure, I get into Jake’s face. “I have money, more money than you or your father could ever offer me,” I hiss through gritted teeth. “But I will tell you what I do want from you, and you’re going to happily give it to me.”
~~~~~~
I stand in front of the small mirror that sits on the dresser in the bedroom of my parents’ house and shrug on my suit jacket. I smooth my hands back over my gelled hair that my father wanted me to cut, but I refused. I hold my hands out, palms down, in front of me. I survey the fresh bruises and broken skin of my knuckles, so out of place with the image I have to portray today.
“Son, the car is here,” my father calls from the bottom of the steps. I adjust my tie once more, getting my game face on. I haven’t been this Matthew in a very long time. Being in his skin feels so foreign to me, but I could get drunk on the power he possesses.
I greet Miguel, my father’s driver. “It’s been a long time, Matthew. It’s good to see you.”
I clap him on the back, smiling at my father’s longtime friend and employee. “You too, Miguel, you too.” He opens the door for me and I slide into my father’s Bentley, settling on the bench seat beside my father.
“You look like the old Matthew.” I turn to see my father smiling at me. I know what he means. He never liked the tattoos or the hair. He would never admit it, and that’s why I stopped them just above the wrist on both arms so they could be easily hidden under my dress shirts.
“Yeah, I might look like him, but I feel very different.” He nods to me, then turns his eyes from me, taking a deep breath. “I’m not going to ask you if she’s worth, but…” I hold back the groan because there’s always a fucking but. “We’re calling in a lot of favors for this young woman, Matthew.”
“Yes, Dad, I know, and if she wasn’t I wouldn’t have asked.” I train my eyes straight ahead, knowing there’s so much more I’ve kept from her, and it’s only going to push her further away.
“If I didn’t believe she was, son, I wouldn’t be here.”
~~~~~~
Tessa
I stand in my bathroom looking at the little pink pill still in the bubble pack. I’d gone to the pharmacy this morning and purchased two items. One I’ve used, and the other is staring back at me. The glass of water shakes in my nervous hand.
My phone buzzes and I look over at it, surprised at who it says is texting.
Avery: Tessa, this is Avery. Are you coming by today?
I pick the phone up and read the message several times, letting my fingers hover over the keypad, trying to figure out how to respond. Feeling very sick to my stomach, I type.
Me: Yes.
I lie.
~~~~~~
Matt
When my father and I walk into the elaborate office, a petite blonde sits behind a dark wooden desk. Her button-up blouse strains to contain the overly large breasts they cover.
My father takes a seat and I walk to the receptionist who I’m sure gets ass fucked by the bastard we’re getting ready to see, regularly. She perks up when I stop. “Hello. May I help you?”
I reach for my back pocket and take out my wallet to retrieve the five, crisp, one hundred dollar bills from it. “Hey, darlin’. Do me a favor and take the rest of the day off.”
Her mouth makes a perfect O. “I can’t, um…” She looks nervously down the hall, then back to me.
I smile my devastating smile, the one that’s gotten me more pussy than should be humanly possible. “Sure you can, sweetie. Take this.” I hand the money to her, making her eyes widen at the amount. She must be paid peanuts. “And lock that door behind you.” I point to the door my father and I had just entered through. She presses her lips together in a thin line, considering my offer.
She bends to retrieve her purse from a drawer in her desk and snatches the money out of my hand. “Putting up with him ain’t worth this job.” She turns her pitiful eyes to me. “Thank you. I’m outta here.” She takes off, practically running from the building.
I follow after her and flip the deadlock before pulling the blinds, blocking any curious eyes that might come by. I then turn to my father who’s standing there, waiting for me. “Ready?”
He tilts his head. “If you are.” I hold my arm out, signaling for him to lead the way. He does, and I follow him down a dimly lit, narrow hall, to a large door flanked with smoky panes of glass.
My father knocks, and we hear a muffled, “Come in.” He pushes the door open all the way, but doesn’t walk inside, just stands in the doorway.
The man behind the desk looks up, shocked at the sight of the two of us. “Where’s Lena?” He raises an eyebrow in question.
“She took an early lunch,” My father says as he enters the office. I follow him inside, then close the door behind me.
Recognition hits his eyes and he slips his indifferent mask back on, along with a fake, sleazy smile. He stands and rounds the desk to greet us. “Jackson. I have to say, I am surprised to see you.” His beefy hand takes my father’s sleek one.
“And I have to say, Reginald, I’m surprised to be here.” My father gives as good as he gets. Two men who couldn’t be more different that come from the same background. My father releases his hand and gestures to me. “I think you remember my son, Matthew.”
“Yes, yes. Matthew, might I say it’s good to see you again?” I take his offered hand and give it a shake before dropping it quickly. I have to fight the urge to wipe my hand down my dress pants to get the stink of this asshole off.
“Have a seat.” He gestures to the sitting area off to the right of the massive wooden desk he rules his underground empire from, while also running his Christian ethics campaign. There are two chairs and a couch, separated by a small table. My father and I take the couch.
It’s this country club pretentious bullshit that made me want to leave a life of privilege and join the military after college. I’d loved living the life of a trust fund baby in high school, but the decadence had grown old to me, fast. I wanted more from life than charity events and a trophy wife.
“Scotch?” he offers as he crosses to the small wet bar to the left.
“Please,” my father drawls as he undoes the button on his suit jacket. I do the same as I sit, laying my briefcase on the table.
Reginald sits two tumblers with the amber liquid in them in front of us. “So, Jackson.” He lifts his drink to us. “Here’s to college and how far we’ve come from the two little idiots we were.” We salute him and down the drinks. He’d brought the bottle with him and promptly refills our glasses.
The difference between Reginald and my father is as vast as day and night. My father has taken care of himself, stays fit, and doesn’t look like the fifty-nine-year-old man he is. There’s a hint of gray at his temples, but our light hair hides it well.
Reginald, on the other hand, with his potbelly and receding hairline would never pass as a man the same age as my father. Leaning forward, he takes out a cigar and offers my father one, but he declines. He clips the end and holds a butane lighter to the end until he blows out a large puff of nasty ass smoke over his head.
He sits back, holding his glass in one hand and his stogie in the other. “Why are you really here, Jackson?”
I swallow down my second drink in one tilt of my head, then place the glass down. I pull out the folder I’ve been carrying around with me for days and lay it down on his side of the table, then take the bottle of scotch to refill my glass, again.
I settle back, looking over to my father who has a cool expression on his face, while I’m about to hulk out into a rage monster and lay waste to the piece of shit sitting across from me.
> “What is this?” Reginald gestures with his cigar at the folder I’d just laid down.
“Something you need to see, then it’s something we will discuss.” My father’s calm is the polar opposite of me, but I knew I would need him here, and I’m a pussy ass bitch for it, letting my daddy take care of my problems. But this, the problem Tessa has, is far beyond my reach, but not my capabilities. It’s better in the end for Tessa that my father’s here.
He narrows his eyes at us and I smirk at him. Leaning forward, Reginald opens the folder and jerks back. “What the hell is this?”
“I do believe that is some of your son’s handiwork,” my father replies as he takes a sip of his scotch.
~~~~~~
Tessa
My phone’s been ringing constantly for the past two hours, so I reach for it and cut it off, not even taking the time to look and see who it is. I don’t care. It seems that Matthew had programmed every one of their numbers into a phone I didn’t think I possessed anymore.
My mother had brought me tea and left me alone. I lie in bed and wait. For what, I don’t know. Maybe for ‘My life is a train wreck’ documentary to come on the TV across the room and tell me what I’m supposed to do.
I always expected Jake to show up at my door, but never a man like Matthew. So now I have to figure out how to close my heart to him and let him go because he’s something I can’t have.
~~~~~~
Matt
He scatters the pictures of a beaten and bruised Tessa, taken of her through the years of torture she’s suffered at the hands of his son. I lean up and hand him a second folder, which he tosses onto the table. “I’m done with this.” He goes to stand, but my father’s voice cuts through the air with an authority that makes even me sit up straight.
“Sit down, Reginald. We’re not done yet.” My father reaches out and flips open the other folder, and Reginald’s eyes zero in on the pictures it contains. “And this is some of my son’s handiwork.” The pictures we’d taken of Jake cover the ones of Tessa, and I cringe at the sight of just the pictures of him being that close to her.
“You can’t do this,” Reginald barks, and I scoff.
“Yeah, he said the same thing, but guess what? I did.” I lean out to pour him another drink. “Here, you might need this.” He jerks the bottle from my hand, and I try my best to act offended, but a laugh escapes me instead.
“Get out of here or I’ll call the cops.” He stands in a dramatic fashion, but my father stops him with a lift of his hand.
“Now, now, Reginald. Do you really want to do that?” my father asks, standing too. I’m tall, and I get that from my father. He dwarfs the short pudgy man.
The man stops. “Do you know what this could do to my campaign?” I jerk my head back at his misplacement of priorities. My father and I have just shown him pictures of his son strung up and beaten, and the fucker is worried about his campaign?
“And your son? Do you not give a fuck what we did with him?” I rest my elbows on my knees, lacing my fingers together.
“Those two have been a thorn in my side for too long. I should have gotten rid of him when he started screwing that trailer park trash.” My father takes the bottle from his hand, guiding him back to his seat. “When we found out she was pregnant…” Stop, hold the fuck up. What? “I told him we should’ve gotten rid of her and her whole family.” He talks as if they’re trash, something you take out and I feel the burn again. I could swear I’m turning green, and the seams of my dress shirt are beginning to rip under the strains on my tensing muscles. I shoot up out of my chair, but my father’s hand at my chest is the only thing that can, in this moment, stop me.
My father tilts his head in the direction of the chair I want to throw through the bank of plate glass windows across the room. I lower myself down into it, not sure of how much more shit spewing I can take.
“They got married, and then she lost it, that vile piece of trash she carried.” He speaks like he’s talking about rats in a sewer.
Unable to control myself any longer, I lunge forward, my father not fast enough to stop me. My fist connects with his jaw, knocking his fat ass to the floor. I stand over him, my hands balled into fists, and spit dripping out of my clenched teeth. I get in his face. “That will be the last time you talk about Tessa.”
His eyes look up at me, filled with fear, as they should be. I’m done with this shit, and not even my father can control the rage surging through my body.
“You’re son and I were discussing how he’s going to give Tessa that divorce, and he’s going to walk away from her and never look back because if he does, I will kill him.” I take him by the lapels of his suit coat and bounce his big body off the floor to accentuate my point.
“Son,” my father coaxes, and I feel his hand on my shoulder. “No need to make threats.” I let go of him and loom over him.
My father offers Reginald his hand and helps the man off the floor. I take a step back from him, not yet having my anger under complete control.
He dusts himself off, his angry eyes darting between me and my father. “What have you done with him?” he asks, showing the first ounce of concern for his son.
“He’s fine,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. “And he’ll stay that way as long as you both cooperate.” I look to my father, who nods to me. I open my briefcase again, taking out the newly drawn up divorce papers and hand them to Reginald.
He looks down at the papers I’m holding out to him. Snatching them away from me, he pounds his meaty finger into his chest. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you for this?”
My father holds up his hands to stop the man. “That will not be necessary.”
“Oh, I think it will be.” I watch as he musters up his courage.
My father’s laugh is deep, and echoes through the large office. “You’re not getting how this works, so let me explain it to you. Those are just copies.” My father gestures at the pictures still spread out over the coffee table. “I have the originals. So you and your son are going to fall in line or these little pretties are going to make a very public appearance, along with a very thick envelope containing damning material. I don’t think your Christian conservative voters will be too happy you have been hiding and helping a drug using, wife beater of a son.” My father drives the point home, leaving Reginald speechless. The bastard knows we have him and his son by the balls, and we hold his life and freedom between the covers of a manila folder.
My father points to the papers Reginald is holding. “If she is such a thorn in your side, those papers you’re holding will get her out of your life forever, if you can convince your son.” My father’s voice is even. “Do we have your word that you will have your son’s signature on those papers and couriered to Tessa by the end of this week?” My father is all business. I hold onto my composure loosely, letting my father speak.
“He doesn’t listen to me or reason when it comes to her,” he protests, glancing over at the photos of a beaten and bloodied Jake.
“You better work damned hard at making him understand why this is so fucking important. His ass better sign the damned papers,” I threaten as I turn, looking for the scotch, needing to douse the flames of anger burning in the pit of my stomach. I chug it directly from the bottle, not giving two shits about manners or the fact that this particular bottle of alcohol costs upwards of around four hundred dollars.
Finishing, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, zeroing my eyes in on Reginald. “We’re done here.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Tessa
I’d spent the better part of the past two days—since I’d left Matthew at the clubhouse—in bed, unable to face even my mother with the shit I’ve got going on in my head.
There’s a soft knock on the door, right before my mother pushes it open and sticks her head in. “Are you going to stay in your room for the rest of your life?” I bury my face back into my pillow. I feel as the mattress at my feet sinks, and then the s
oft touch of my mother’s hand on my leg. “Tessa, honey, there was a delivery for you today, by courier.”
I lift my head from my pillow to see a thick brown, business sized envelope in my mother’s hand. I push my oily hair out of my eyes as I sit up and take it. “Clerk of Superior Court.” I read the label out loud. My eyes slowly drift up to her, and then I bound off the bed, racing to my bathroom. I make it to the commode just in time to empty what little food I’d eaten into the bowl.
“Oh heavens, I was afraid of this.” I hear water running, then feel a cool cloth on my forehead. I fall back on my ass, my back thumping against the tub. The surreal situation wraps itself around me like a sick joke blanket. My mother continues to wipe my face as big tears roll down her face.
She lowers herself to the cold tile floor in front of me. Taking my hands in hers, we sit and cry together, knowing the nightmare I’ve been living for the better part of twenty years is only going to get worse.
“Maybe you should call him, Tessa.” She finally breaks the silence hanging heavy around us.
I shake my head emphatically. “No, Momma. I can’t bring him into this any more than what I already have. He has a son for God’s sake. This is my mistake, and it’s all on me to fix it or live with it.” I haul myself up off the floor. Helping my mother up, we make our way back to my room where the envelope lies on the bed.
I pick it up, turning it in my hand. “Damn, it’s heavy.” I run my finger along the top to open it. I reach in to pull the papers it contains out. I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand as I read the first page of the papers. The divorce papers in my hands are nowhere near like the papers I’d filed at the shelter. They’re much more complicated, and look a ton more professional.
