“Are you sure?” my father asked, his voice rough with suppressed emotion.
“Yes, sir,” the closest cop confirmed. “The other boy caught him raping his sister. From what we can tell, it was not intentional. The other kid was just trying to protect himself. Once your kid realized he’d been caught, he fought like hell to get away, which the other boy didn’t let him accomplish. So he started fighting for his life, and the other boy defended himself.”
“I want him in jail!” my mother screeched. “Now!”
“He’s currently in police custody,” the officer continued, not missing a beat at the poisonous words my mother spewed. “We will be investigating more thoroughly, but as of now, everyone is corroborating the evidence we’ve found. The girl has also confirmed that apparently this has been going on for years.”
I made a squeak in my throat, and my hand covered my mouth.
He’d been doing it for years.
Funny, but my brother hadn’t visited me like he used to for years.
I didn’t think that was a coincidence.
Not at all.
And I felt sick to my stomach.
“She’s lying!” my mother assured the cop. “The girl is a tramp. How could you think otherwise?”
I turned around and walked upstairs, straight to my bedroom, and called Reed.
He didn’t answer.
I called him fifty-one times before I realized something was very wrong. I had no clue how bad it was going to get, and I certainly wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
***
Six hours later, I snuck out of my parents’ house and walked over to Reed’s house. I was pretty sure that my mom would not appreciate me going over to the Hails’ house to offer comfort.
It was five miles, and around mile marker two, it started to drizzle.
It wasn’t too hard, but it was enough to soak me through by the time I’d arrived at their place.
I knocked on the door and smiled somewhat timidly at Travis when he opened the door.
He didn’t smile in return, he just held the door open for me to enter.
I stepped inside and immediately saw Reed standing in the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest.
He was so beautiful.
So strong. So captivating.
He only had to look at me to make me weak in the knees.
And today wasn’t any different.
The anger on his face—seemingly directed at me—was something I’d never seen from him before, though.
It was almost as if he blamed me for my brother’s misdeeds…which I guess shouldn’t have been too surprising.
I thought I’d be able to convince him that I was just as disgusted by what my brother did as he was, though. That he’d give me a chance to explain…to offer my sincere apologies for the type of person that I knew my brother was.
“Reed…”
“Get out.”
My mouth dropped open, and I took a step forward, completely ignoring everything that was going on around me. Which included Reed’s parents, his sister, Amy, and all of his brothers, excluding Tobias.
Amy was at the kitchen counter, her arms wrapped around her tightly, looking at the sink as if there was something incredibly fascinating there that held her attention.
“I said get out.”
Reed’s words were furious.
He needed time.
I saw the error in my ways now.
I nodded, knowing that I’d need to try to do this some other time.
But I stopped before turning completely around and found Travis.
“Thank you.”
With that, I walked out the door, unaware that I’d never be back.
Chapter 3
Most days I don’t give a fuck. Today I don’t give a motherfucking fuck.
-Text from Krisney to Hennessy
Krisney
Six months ago
My mother was on her phone, focused solely on what she was doing, and not paying attention to me in the slightest as I opened my mouth to tell them the news.
“We’re going to Mike’s!” my mother suddenly declared.
I grimaced. I hated Mike’s…and come to think of it, so did my mother.
But I didn’t question her. I knew how she was. Knew how she would act to get her way anyway, so why bother?
There’d been one time when I’d finally had enough of a certain high-class restaurant, that I’d decided it’d be best to tell my mother that I hated everything about that restaurant. The fish. The steak. The sweet tea that was the worst sweet tea in the state of Texas.
She’d listened to me tell her how I hated it—I’d been fourteen at the time—and then had proceeded to go to that restaurant for the next week. Every single day. Sometimes twice a day.
I’d gotten the point pretty quickly after that. My mom flat out didn’t give a flying fuck. She certainly didn’t care when I refused to eat the dinner, and I learned the hard way that she’d let me starve.
When I’d refused to eat the first meal, she’d then told me that I wouldn’t eat unless it was what she provided for me. Which began four long days of hunger hell that resulted in me eating every single piece of food off my plate when it was offered, and never again complaining after I learned that she wouldn’t budge.
Instead of opening that particular can of worms, I dropped the bomb I’d been holding onto for forever. Well, forever being about a week, anyway.
I should’ve known this wasn’t going to go over well. Should’ve planned for it to blow up in my face.
I guess in a way I had though, because otherwise I’d have told them a lot sooner than the day before I was set to leave.
“Mom,” I swallowed thickly. “Dad, I have something to tell you.”
Dad looked at me, his face a worried line of concern.
My mother, on the other hand, started to groan.
“We don’t care, honey,” my mother said, automatically assuming that I was trying to get out of the next social function that she demanded I attend while visiting home. “You don’t get an excuse not to come on Friday night. You don’t have to return to the base for another two weeks.”
I licked my dry lips.
“Yeah, about that…I’ve been stationed in Germany. I’ll be leaving in the morning.”
My mother’s head turned, her eyes no longer on the road, and stared at me like I’d just summoned a demon instead of telling her that I was moving to Germany.
“You what?”
I nodded quickly. “Mom, pay attention to the road.”
My mother turned back to the road, but I knew I had every single bit of her attention. She might as well not have been looking at the road at all.
“Darling, be a dear and tell our daughter that she needs to talk to her boss and tell him that she can’t go…”
I stopped her before she could continue.
“Mother,” I pinched the bridge of my nose with barely concealed impatience. “You don’t get a choice in where the Army sends me. And frankly, it’s quite comical that you would think so.”
My mother’s beady eyes narrowed on me. “I can make a few calls.”
And I knew she would.
But I’d prepared for this.
“I’m sorry, but it’s done. Besides, I want to go.”
She didn’t say anything as she found a place to park, right next to a motorcycle that looked somewhat familiar.
But it took me a while to realize the relevance of seeing that motorcycle because she was busy shooting me death glares as she walked around the hood of the car.
“It’ll be okay, honey,” my father said.
I smiled, but he saw the wobble just as well as I felt it.
We both knew my mother.
She wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop trying to run my life. And she would never let me forget that I disappointed her.
She would try every single trick i
n the book short of hurting me to get me to stay here, but this time, she wouldn’t be successful.
No way, no how.
I was tired of being forced to do her bidding.
I was a grown-ass woman.
Thirty years old, for God’s sake.
I should be able to make my own decisions without worrying about repercussions from my own mother.
“Mother, don’t.”
She had her phone out, and was typing furiously as she made her way to the front door, not once stopping to address me or the elephant in the room.
I swallowed a groan and followed behind her.
“Mother.” I tried to get her attention once again.
She sneered at me over her shoulder as she walked into the restaurant.
I followed behind her, unsurprised when the woman at the hostess station seated us immediately.
I was also unsurprised when my mother got a great seat in the corner of the room with a great view of the fish tank, as well as immediate service by our server.
Grumbling under my breath, I took a seat in the corner, a little unsettled when my mother sat next to me, boxing me into the corner.
My father took the seat across from my mother, and immediately ordered a beer.
“Look who’s here.”
My eyes automatically scanned the room, and my belly clenched when I saw Tobias sitting at a table with his new girl. She was cute. They fit well together. Then there was the other man, the scary as fuck one, along with a family that had to be his wife and two kids.
And immediately I knew why my mother had picked this place, as well as why she’d chosen a parking spot that was really far away from the door instead of her usual close parking spot that would ensure that she wouldn’t have to walk outside or be in the sun longer than she needed.
Dread filled my body as I stared at the couple.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
This was not going to be good.
This was never good.
Ever since my brother had been killed by Tobias, my mother had turned into a vindictive, petty woman who would do anything to ensure that Tobias and his family had the worst life she could possibly have a hand in providing for them.
I sat there for twenty whole minutes, waiting for it to happen.
I knew it would.
And I wasn’t disappointed.
It was Tobias’s girlfriend who started it all. My mother had made me aware of the new girl since he’d first been spotted with her. She’d then never stopped letting us all know how much she hated that he was happy, and Jay was ‘cold and dead in the ground with no one to love.’
I knew the instant that Audrey spotted my mother that it was about to go down.
I’d been secretly looking into this girl, and I liked what I found out. She fit Tobias well, and I liked the way she made him smile.
She was also the first person I saw that Tobias really paid attention to, and I knew from the instant I saw her the first time that this was going to be it for him.
The Hail boys were all alike. Once they found the one, they didn’t waste time in making sure she was known to be off limits to any other man. They’d been doing that since they were young.
Hell, a certain Hail boy had done that to me once upon a time. Once upon a time before my brother ruined everything.
Audrey had started across the restaurant toward the bathroom, and she would’ve made it, too. But my mother had to go and make a comment, and Audrey stopped.
“Trash doesn’t belong in this establishment. Why don’t you take those stupid kids and get out of here so people can enjoy their meal?”
I hadn’t once heard the kids that’d been sitting at the same table with Audrey and Tobias. Tobias had been holding the kids, and they’d been quiet nearly the entire time. I’d heard maybe one gurgle from the baby, and it’d been a happy sound. One that had made me smile wide, which had immediately made me sad since I wouldn’t be having any babies.
Not ever.
After the one and only disaster of a relationship I tried to have after Reed and I broke up, I knew it wouldn’t be in the cards for me.
I was a sad, pathetic excuse for a human being. I was also head over heels in love with a man that I knew would never love me back. Which equaled no babies for me. At least not the old-fashioned way.
I might buy some sperm on the Internet and artificially inseminate myself with a turkey baster…my mom would just love that!
“What?” Audrey halted when she heard my mother’s words and turned only her head to study her.
I immediately sank down in my seat, embarrassment flowing through me.
“Mom…”
My mother backhanded me so hard that I felt the reverberation all the way to my toes.
With the precarious perch I had on my chair, it also ensured that I fell backwards onto my ass from the force of her blow.
Stunned, I sat on my backside and watched the rest of the show with a dazed amazement.
“I’m sorry, but since when should I care about your opinions?” Audrey asked sweetly.
My mother turned a purple shade as she sputtered in indignation.
“That man who you’re letting touch you?” my mother snarled. “He’s the same man who beat my son to death with his bare hands.”
Audrey’s eyes turned cold.
“The son who had been raping an innocent girl who didn’t deserve to have your filthy, fucked up son touching her,” Audrey pointed out.
“Jay was a good person,” my father bellowed.
My father was obviously trying to protect my mother…just like he always did.
Jesus Christ.
In between one breath and the next, my father was being pushed back by the big, scary man covered in tattoos. His name was Ghost, and he seriously scared the crap out of me at times.
Ghost pushed my father back until there was more than two feet of space between them, but that only made room for my mother to step in.
“He was my baby and that monster beat him to death,” my mother screeched, throwing her arm out and pointing toward Tobias.
Audrey took a step forward, but there Tobias was, catching her around the waist before she could get closer to the vile woman—IE my mother.
“You think that your son didn’t deserve that?” Audrey asked, deceptively calm. “Let me tell you something. Had my brother been there when I was raped, he would’ve done the exact same thing.” She was shaking in anger at that point. “Then again, maybe it’s okay in your book that your son raped a young girl for years. A girl around the same age as your daughter. Hell, it could’ve just as easily been your daughter.” Audrey pointed to the side of the room.
He did.
Those words reverberated in my skull.
I felt bile rising in my throat, and what little I was able to eat over the last half hour started to churn in my belly.
Ghost grunted in approval at Audrey’s words.
I felt like my eyes were bouncing everywhere, and I wasn’t sure where to look or what to do.
I let my eyes flit around the room when I heard all the gasps from the other diners. It almost caused me to miss the way my mother stepped forward and tried to slap her hand across Audrey’s face.
She would have, too, since Ghost was still blocking my father’s path.
I, however, did not miss it.
I was up off the floor and across the space so fast that my feet tripped over each other in my haste to get there before my mother could make a mistake that she couldn’t come back from. The moment I grabbed her arm, she swung. And due to my unbalanced feet, I flew with my mother’s momentum.
I was a small woman. Much smaller than my father and mother.
About five-foot-one if I wore my tennis shoes, and a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet.
Which happened to be why I went flying to the floor very ungracefully.
With her target out of her way, my
mother then switched to a different objective.
She balled up her fist and let it fly.
Tobias took it. Didn’t try to step out of the way. Didn’t try to block it like I knew he could.
Her balled up fist hit his eye, and I knew instantly that it hurt just by the sound her fist made when it made contact with his skin.
His head didn’t even rock with the hit, but I could tell that my mother was proud of herself.
“I let you have that one hit for your son, Mrs. Shaw,” Tobias said very carefully. “But that will be the last one you get. Shaw—Jay,” he corrected since he knew my mother hated it when he called him Shaw, “was your son. I realize that, but what you don’t seem to understand is that he committed the ultimate act of violence against my sister. He did it repeatedly and right under my nose for years. I walked in on him in the act of raping her. Trust me when I say that he deserved what he got, and I’d never change what I did, even given the option. My sister’s gone. Your son’s gone. It’s time for you to stop acting like a raving lunatic over something that you know can’t be changed. I’m sorry that he did what he did and it led us to where we are now. I’m sorry that this happened to all of us. But it’s time to stop taking it out on me when you know in your heart that you’d have done the same damn thing had you been in my situation.”
My mother didn’t reply, but I could tell that she wanted to.
Her angry eyes were practically brimming with accusations that she wanted to scream at him.
But luckily, Ghost saved her from looking like a fool.
“It’s time to go. Cops are here.”
My mother’s head whipped around, and I gasped. I hadn’t even realized that they were there.
Bad Krisney. You know better than that, I scolded myself.
“Ma’am, sir,” said the cop, a young man who looked to be in his early twenties. “I’ll be escorting you out now.”
“Why not him?” my mother hissed.
The cop looked to where she was pointing. “I saw you hit him, ma’am. I’ve already questioned a few of the patrons about what they witnessed, and they’ve told me that this man only came over here to defend his girlfriend.”
“He’s dressed like a thug,” my mother growled, gesturing toward Tobias’s leather vest. “I just wanted to come eat here, and he offended me. He’s in a biker gang, for Christ’s sake. Who do you really want to believe here?”
The Hail You Say Page 2
