SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  That’s not always easy to do, since I myself tend to go with that reaction nine times out of ten, and I’ve had my fair share of problems controlling my anger. Who better to be an anger management therapist, right? I understand rage, I understand poor impulse control, and I understand just what is necessary to convince people to try to be…calmer.

  My door opens slowly, and a small man scuttles inside, with his nondescript face and his pudgy gut wrapped in a shirt the color of diluted coffee, making me think that I should just buy him some nicer clothes. Maybe that’s the reason for his shitty moods, I think, stifling a smirk at the ridiculous thought.

  “Please close the door and sit down, Harry,” I murmur calmly, staying behind my desk because I’ve found that having an obstacle between myself and angry patients is a good idea.

  Not that I’m afraid of them, mind you—more like I’m afraid of losing my license if one of these asshole decides to attack me, and I beat them to death. It’s a distinct possibility, and very much more so lately, because my mood has been somewhat…unpleasant.

  “H-hey, doc,” Harry stutters, his face turning red with embarrassed chagrin.

  I ignore the stutter, and the resulting anger he feels for the lapse, and nod my hello with a soft smile while waving at the couch, where I see at least fourteen other crazies a week. I love my job—don’t get me wrong—but these people can be real fucking whack jobs, even on a good day.

  When Harry’s taken his seat and stopped fidgeting nervously, I meet his skittish eyes and try to send out a calm, soothing vibe. The guy’s obviously jittery, and, from experience, I know that that isn’t a good thing. Not with Harry, who tends to attack first and think later, much later—usually after he’s been cuffed and is lying face down on the asphalt with some cop’s knee against his spine.

  “Hello, Harry. How are you today?” I ask, grabbing my notepad from his file and taking a deep breath before rising and going over to take a seat in my usual spot.

  Now that Harry is settled, I can risk getting closer, though I do so with the clear knowledge that the panic button beneath the lip of the table beside my chair is close at hand.

  “N-not so good,” he gets out haltingly, his eyes blazing back at me accusingly.

  I keep calm and don’t let my facial expression change, humming softly for him to keep going.

  “Ma s-says I g-gotta move out.”

  Bad. Bad news, I think, recalling the points of his case. The man is emotionally unstable, thanks to a divorce, the death of his father, and the living situation he shares with a mother who’s done nothing but baby him all his life. Losing one more person right now will likely send Harry over the edge, an edge that I’ve been trying to pull him back from for months, without success.

  “That must be quite a shock for you.”

  “She…she s-says she’s g-going to…” he says and then stops, his mouth open in a choked pause as he tries to get the next word out past his throat. “S-s-s-sell the house and move into a h-h-h-home!” he thunders, his face now a mottled red-purple as emotion overwhelms him.

  I have no idea what to say to that, because I can’t blame the poor woman. She’s a widow going on seventy, and she’s being forced to keep a home because her middle-aged son has decided to stop living altogether after losing his family. It’s even worse because Harry is a recovering alcoholic who’s been off the wagon more than he’s been on.

  “That must upset you, Harry, but we need to think about this in a logical way and talk it through. Why do you think that it’s a bad thing for your mom to go to a home? From what we’ve discussed before, it sounds like your mom isn’t well at all. A facility could provide her with the care she needs and make her more comfortable.”

  “N-nnnno! No! She’s leaving m-m-me!” he roars, his violent burst of anger slapping back at me so hard that I find myself flinching and holding on to the scraps of my patience with my fingernails.

  In my personal life, I would never let anyone talk to me this way, and before I became a shrink, I was a lot unhealthier in my reactions to certain things. I was an angry kid, for no apparent reason, and the anger followed me into adulthood, until one of my teachers snapped at me and told me to get help before I got thrown in prison. My solution was to become the person who helps others, and in the last few years, as I’ve tried to help people control their anger, I’ve found myself finding a balance within myself as well. Or so I thought until recently, when it was pointed out to me that my balance is little more than a coping mechanism that allows me to hide away.

  It’s not true, but it got me thinking…

  “Please calm down, Harry, and breathe deeply,” I say calmly, injecting a note of sternness into my voice while I shift my hand minutely closer to the panic button.

  I’m not afraid, just wired, and have to continually remind myself that attacking a patient will get me nowhere good.

  “I don’t want to breathe!” he yells, his stutter disappearing now that he’s riled up.

  I’ve seen this with him more than once, and it makes me antsy that he’s so enraged already, and so quickly, that his speech impediment isn’t triggered. The last time I saw this behavior was when I had to review the tapes connected to the last assault he committed and talk to the judge about his progress. In truth, he hasn’t made any, and that makes me feel like I’ve failed hopelessly.

  “You have to, Harry. Remember the first time we talked, when you came in here after your divorce?” I ask, using the pain to try to snap him out of it. “We learned to breathe and count through the anger. One, two, three. Just breathe, and talk to me calmly about what’s going on and how you feel. I’ll talk as well and tell you what I think. I never lie to you, Harry. Remember?” I remind him, watching him slowly take a deep breath and sag back down onto the couch.

  He once told me that the reason he doesn’t lose it with me is that I’m honest, and that that makes him trust me. I wonder what he’d think if he knew that I’d cap his ass in a heartbeat if he threatens me. Or, more likely, Heath would, since the big bodyguard would be in here in a second if I needed him. As part of my personal security, Heath is someone that I trust implicitly, and I know that I am safe with him just outside this door. He and some other security men have been with me and my family ever since we picked up a stalker who seems to get his thrills by causing us fear and pain. Heath has saved us all more than once, and I count him as a friend. A big, scary, gun-toting friend who’ll put a hole in Harry’s forehead without batting an eyelash.

  “She’s leaving me! G-going away, j-just like all the o-o-others,” he whines, the stutter returning but levelling off now that he’s calmer.

  With Harry, it’s a strange and sad mix of emotions and physical symptoms. The man can speak as smoothly as an aristocrat when he’s calm, stutters when his temper starts flaring, and then goes smooth again in the absolute throes of fury. The fact that I know this is due to seven months’ worth of observation.

  “You think that she’s leaving you on purpose.”

  “Yes,” he seethes, his brown eyes going hard until I shake my head and sigh, breathing slowly but loudly to get him to subconsciously mimic the act and stay stable.

  “We spoke about this a few weeks ago, if I recall correctly, and we discussed the wisdom of your mom going into care. You even seemed optimistic about moving out and taking a hands-on approach to your company again,” I point out. “What changed?”

  “Rene! That bitch. She petitioned for the house. And she wants more alimony and child support,” he spits, his eyes sparking though he keeps breathing with me and stays as level as I can keep him.

  “You don’t need the house, though, do you, Harry? And your lawyers said that it’s to be sold and the proceeds split between you. That’s enough to get yourself a nice little place or an apartment,” I point out, wanting to remind him of all the good things that we’ve spoken about before. “What about that date? Last time we spoke, you said that you were seeing someone.”

  “She’s a
whore!” he yells, coming to his feet again with a speed that makes my hand twitch.

  Harry isn’t a big guy, but I’m a small woman, and I’ve seen this man fight when he’s in a rage. The man he assaulted and put in the hospital was easily twice his size, and yet that didn’t seem to stop him one bit. My hand shakes as it slides right, getting closer to the panic button as I try to keep my temper under control.

  Memories bombard me, and I feel my whole body quiver as I recall just how helpless I can be. I’m a fighter by nature, and in any given situation, I’d put money on myself in a fight, but I’ve been attacked before, and this last time didn’t go so well for me. Lifting my left hand, I rub at my temple and graze my fingers over the scar there, the echoes of pain gripping me while I keep a firm eye on Harry.

  “Harry, we’ve spoken about this before. That kind of language and gender discrimination is not acceptable. You cannot allow your past to color the way you see the opposite sex. Now, tell me why you’re upset about the date,” I urge, gulping when he starts to pace and pull at his hair.

  “She stared at the waiter all night!”

  I don’t blame her. Not to be mean, but Harry isn’t good-looking at all. When I was growing up, my Catholic family would drive it into my head that no one is ugly, that everyone has redeeming qualities, and that criticizing the appearance of others isn’t nice.

  Well, I disa-fucking-gree. Sometimes you meet some real uggos, and while it isn’t their fault that they look weird, it’s worse to lie than to be mean, in my opinion. Look at it this way: Jesus says that it’s a sin to lie.

  “Perhaps she knew him? Perhaps you only imagined it?” I suggest, flinching when he turns on me and hisses, his muddy brown eyes looking red-rimmed and veiny, as if he’s hungover.

  “I wasn’t imagining it! She called me and canceled our second date, and then I saw her on a date with another guy!”

  Well, that’s what happens when you put up a picture of yourself from high school and show up in person looking like high school happened four decades ago, I think silently, my breathing technique becoming ragged when he stalks two steps closer and sneers at me, his face an ugly mask of rage and disdain.

  “You need to calm down,” I say sternly, drawing on my experience to keep the situation from spiraling out of control.

  “Calm down? You want me to calm down when my life is falling apart? You know what the problem is and always has been? You bitches! You all just take and take and take, until a man has nothing left!” he screams, his face going purple.

  This is bad, I think, as I fiddle with the sofa, my hand so close to the panic button that I think about actually pushing it. Harry usually stutters at some point during these tirades, and the fact that he hasn’t means that he’s skipped anger and gone straight to rage, a state that I try to avoid at all costs. He sees me move again and stops, his eyes flaring before he pounces, lunging so quickly that he’s at the table before I can move. When he upends it and sees the button, his face goes hard, and that savage light that I’ve seen there before blares down at me while he bares his teeth, revealing a soft foam of spittle in the corners of his mouth.

  A few weeks ago, I’d have been up out of this chair and punching him in the throat for daring to look at me this way, but after my recent attack and what we discovered afterwards, I just haven’t been on my game. Fear, that insidiously creeping infection that I’ve avoided all my life, fills me, and I find myself freezing as Harry looms over me.

  “Harry, you need to calm down and take a deep breath,” I croak out, flinching back when he raises a hand and slaps me so hard that my head twists to the side and slams into the arm of the chair.

  “Calm down? I am calm, you bitch. I’m calmer and more focused than I have been in a long time!”

  “Harry—”

  “This is all your fault. You were the one who told me to go for it, to broaden my horizons—”

  “I simply said that you need to,” I say and then swallow, nausea filling me when I feel something trickle onto my lip and lick out, tasting blood, “adapt,” I finish shakily, my nerves going taut when I pull my head around to see him taking a step back and pulling out a gun.

  Oh, Jesus.

  Memories flash at me, like a kaleidoscope of images that threaten to choke me alive. I see another gun, another man, crazed and out of his mind with fury as he aims at me, fully intending to pull the trigger. I feel the fear that I felt then, and the helplessness that overtook me as I crouched against Sin’s apartment wall and tried to cover her body, praying that she’d be spared even if I wasn’t.

  I never felt that helpless and hopeless before in my life, and if not for Paris and Grange, I know that I’d be dead right now instead of sitting in this office trying to regain some semblance of the carefree life I once had.

  “Harry. Please,” I whisper, forcing my legs to hold me as I push up out of the chair and breathe deeply to stop myself from passing out.

  In the last while, ever since that madman attacked Sin and me and almost killed us, I’ve had little spells. Panic attacks, Alex calls them. But this isn’t a panic attack, I think, as I keep an eye on Harry and try not to look at the gun that he’s pointing at me. This isn’t me panicking. This is me knowing that I’m going to die. This is me accepting that, for all my toughness and bravado, I can’t fight against a weapon.

  “She humiliated me, and all you can say is that I need to adapt? And mom. She’s abandoning me, and you think that it’s a good thing,” he rages, his eyes turning manic when I try to rise, keeping my movements so slow and steady that I feel my muscles threaten to lock down again.

  “It could be, Harry,” I whisper, my lips trembling to get the words out through my thick throat. “That’s all I meant. I know that sometimes, it-it’s not e-easy to be disappointed, b-b-but we have to…” I say, trying to breathe through my terror and only partly succeeding when he turns that gun on me again.

  Oh, Jesus, I think, flashbacks of that other gun and that other maniac threatening to overwhelm me and suck me in. I smell the acrid bite of soot as the memory of Sin’s fire-damaged apartment fills my nostrils. I feel the charred, smoke-damaged wall, still damp from the firefighters’ efforts to save the building from the fire that raged out of control. I feel that gun barrel pressing into my eye, causing damage to my cornea that even now isn’t completely healed as I stare blearily at Harry.

  Don’t let it suck you under, I tell myself, willing the courage that I once possessed to fill me, to help me, as I take a small step to the side, needing to reach the door.

  “We have to be…prepared for it,” I wheeze, my heart thrumming so hard that my knees shake and threaten to buckle beneath me. “It’s my job to do that for you. To…p-p-prepare you for other people’s decisions.”

  “You set me up! You said that if I put myself out there, I’d achieve what I wanted to!” he rages, the hand holding the gun scrubbing at his temple in a move that makes my gut clench.

  Peter did that right before he lost his shit and pointed that gun at me. He was going to pull the trigger, and if it hadn’t been for Ares Hart bursting into the apartment and killing him, Mindy’s brother would have shot both Sin and me, and then moved on to the rest of my family. I have no doubt in my mind that he was going to kill all five Sweet girls, and as I face Harry and stare into his deranged eyes, I know that now he is going to kill me.

  Before Peter and Mindy burst into our lives and threatened us, I was a confident, fierce female with no intentions of ever cowering before anyone. That was me. Fearless. Brave. “Get in your face and sneer” Nefertiti Sweet.

  Now, though, as I stare down the barrel of another gun and face the eyes of another killer, I feel nothing but fear and the sick crawl of the inevitable.

  “Please don’t do this, Harry. You don’t want to hurt me. I’m here to help you,” I whisper, tears leaking out of my eyes when he stops and his face crumples, his own emotions causing him to falter.

  “I just wanted someone to love me,” h
e wails, and in that sound I hear my own screams.

  I feel helpless, too, I want to tell him. I also know what it is to be all alone and scared. But I don’t say that, because I’m trapped in a nightmare of my own until the door bursts open and Heath rolls in, radiating ten kinds of fury and so much vengeance that all I can do is stare as he tackles Harry, wrestles the gun away, and saves me.

  And that’s the problem.

  Lately, I need saving more and more.

  Chapter Two

  Ares

  I storm into the hospital at a dead run and ignore the shouts of my security team and the nurses as I make my way towards the emergency room, my pulse pounding so hard in my ears that I struggle to breathe. It’s only when I stop in the doorway and my eyes find Nefertiti’s that I breathe fully again.

  She looks shaken up, as white as a ghost, and so alone that I have the urgent need to rush towards her and pull her into my arms, something that I never allow myself to do, because what Tee and I have isn’t about affection and comfort. We’re not friends. We’re…partners, in a sense. Two people who hang out because being alone isn’t smart at the moment.

  Looking at her now, with her skin so pale that it’s like milk, her red hair hanging in waves down to her ass, and her soft pink mouth set in harsh lines, I feel that same elemental tug that hit me the moment I saw her over a year ago.

  To say that I don’t want this woman would be a lie. I do want her. I’d have to be blind, deaf, and dead to look at Nefertiti Sweet and not feel lust and desire pool in my gut. The problem is, we’re no good for each other. Nefertiti thrives on conflict and revels in the chaos she creates, while I thrive on peace and have lived nearly all my life trying to show people that fighting won’t solve anything.