by Geri Glenn
“No, actually, it can’t,” I snap. “I don’t know where all of this is coming from, but you’ve been a total ass the last couple of days.”
Benjamin’s eyes widen in shock, his eyebrows disappearing under his bangs. “Excuse me?”
“This is not the way a relationship works. You can’t just argue with someone and then not discuss it. You don’t get to mistreat a person one day and act like everything is just fine the next. You called me a bitch last night!”
Benjamin’s jaw hardens with every word I speak. “You done?”
I gape at him as his easy-going personality disappears, and his anger fills the space around us. “I called you a bitch last night because you were being a bitch, just like you’re being a bitch right now. We didn’t argue last night. I shut you down before you could make it into an argument. And I’m shutting this one down too. We have a dinner date with friends, and we’re not going in there fighting.”
“If you think I’m still going—”
Benjamin’s hand clamps on my wrist so tight, pain shoots up my arm, causing me to cry out. “We. Are. Going. And we are going to smile, be polite, and go home without causing a damn scene. Am I understood?”
“You’re hurting me!”
Benjamin’s hand grips me tighter as he yanks my wrist toward him. “Am I understood?”
Any argument I may have had saved up to spew out at him evaporates as I stare into his cold, angry eyes. “Yes. Yes, you’re understood,” I say softly.
Benjamin releases me and settles back into his seat, his hand coming up to smooth his hair out. “I’m sorry, Georgia,” he says, his voice an eerie combination of calm and dominance. “I don’t like having to do that, but you brought that on yourself. We’re almost there.”
I stare out the window, tears rimming my eyes as we pull up in front of the Peterson’s house. My emotions are all over the place, and I can barely breathe as Charles parks the car and walks along to open the back door, totally unaffected by the way Benjamin had just manhandled me a few moments ago.
Benjamin is the first one out of the car, and it’s him who takes my hand to help me to my feet. His grip on my hand is firm, and he applies more pressure than necessary as he gives me a warning stare.
“Benjamin! Georgia! How lovely to see you.”
Benjamin’s smile is pasted in place before he turns around to face Mrs. Peterson, and I force myself to do the same. As pain, confusion, fear, anger, and shame war for the most pressing emotion inside me, I go through the motions of acting as if everything is just fine. And it will be. At least until I get home to the safety of my bedroom where I can fall apart and finally admit that nothing about this is fine. Nothing in my life is fine. Not anymore.
TRIPP
Carter had been asleep when I got home last night, and I’d managed to get a shift at the train yard tonight, so our impending conversation had been put on hold. It’s almost two o’clock in the morning by the time I get home from that shift, and I know I can’t put it off any longer. Everyone in the house is sound asleep thanks to Hailey. That girl is my rock.
I hate that at fourteen years old, she has to shoulder so much of the household responsibilities, but she does it when I can’t, without complaint. And for that, I’m grateful. I can always count on her to make sure Max is bathed and fed, and has gotten in his nightly reading for school.
Carter used to be the same way, but lately, he’s been absent from home more and more. We rarely see him, and even though I don’t have many rules, he still manages to break them.
Quietly, I make my way up the stairs, careful not to wake Max or Hailey as I open the door to Carter’s bedroom. He’s sprawled out on his bed, one foot hanging over the edge, the right side of his face pressed into the pillow. He looks so peaceful lying there. Innocent, even. But I know that the second I wake him up, that innocence will disappear.
“Carter,” I whisper, giving his shoulder a gentle shake. He groans and turns his head, but doesn’t wake up. “Carter,” I repeat. “Wake up. I need to talk to you.”
Carter sucks in a deep breath and lifts his head from the pillow, turning to look at me through bleary eyes. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I say quietly, still mindful of the other kids asleep just down the hall. I reach for the chair in the corner of the room and dump the clothes stacked on the seat onto the floor, then take a seat. “I need to talk to you.”
Carter’s forehead creases with a frown, and I watch as he reaches for his phone. “What the fuck, man? It’s the middle of the night.”
“It’s important,” I tell him.
Sitting up, he scrubs his hands down his face. “What is it?”
Fuck. Where do I even begin?
“You know that new social worker, Ms. Addington?”
His nose wrinkles the same way it does when I tell him to scrub the tiles in the bathroom. “What about her?”
“She came to see me last night.” Carter sits up, his gaze suddenly alert and unwavering as I speak. “Said she saw you talking to a man at the center, and that he gave you a bag. She was worried about you.”
Carter’s gaze narrows. “Yeah, I’ll bet she was. Fuckin’ bitch.”
I don’t know why my little brother calling Georgia a bitch pisses me off so much, but the anger that flickers through me surprises me. Lord knows, I’ve called her a few names myself. “Enough,” I snap. “She was right to come to me and you know it. She could have reported it and got Child Services involved, but she didn’t. Now what was in that bag, Carter?”
“Jesus, Tripp. Since when did you start acting like a fucking warden? It’s none of your damn business what was in that bag or who I was talking to.” He flops back down on the bed and turns to face the other direction. “Now get out. I’m tired.”
“Trey Harper is bad news, Carter.”
“Get out.”
Squeezing my eyes closed, I take a deep, not-so-cleansing breath, and attempt to get my rising anger under control. “Before Mom took off, I used to spend a lot of time with Trey and his buddies. Me and Zack both did.”
Carter doesn’t move, but I know he’s listening.
“We thought we were pretty hot shit back then, roaming the streets at all hours of the night. Drank a ton of cheap beer and smoked more pot than should be humanly possible.” Carter slowly rolls to his back, his eyes on me as I speak. “We used to do shit for this one guy, Romeo.”
I pause, thinking back to a time when I’d been too young and stupid to know what was best for me.
“We were fifteen. Romeo was older than us, and way cooler. He drove a sweet car and always seemed to have the hottest chicks.” And now for the part I never wanted to tell anyone. “He was a member of the Red Vipers. The leader of them, actually. Romeo gave us little odd jobs to do here and there to make some extra money. He hooked us up with girls, booze, and weed. We all loved him, and we all wanted to be just like him. Trey, though? Trey worshiped Romeo.”
“What happened?” Carter asks, pushing himself up on the bed until his back is resting against the wall. “Why aren’t you guys friends anymore?”
“Before any of us really realized what was happening, we were all members of the Vipers.” Carter’s eyes widen in surprise, but if I stop now to answer the questions I know he’s dying to ask, I’ll never get this story out. “We sold drugs, stole cars, did a few B&Es. We were making money, and Romeo was treating us like kings, so what could go wrong, right?”
My jaw ticks as I think about Romeo and how he’d fucked with all of our heads, acting like the father figure we all craved. “One night, Romeo sent us to another neighborhood not far from here, wanting us to scare the hell out of some poor fucker that owed him cash. Rough him up a little, if we had to. Why he sent three fifteen-year-old kids to do the job, I’ll never know, but Trey, Zack, and I rolled up in there like a bunch of thugs. Hell, that’s what we were.”
I shake my head. “The guy was scared out of his mind. We stormed into his h
ouse in the middle of the night and dragged him out of bed. We had him and his wife on the floor as we screamed at him. Trey had a gun pointed at the guy, and kept telling him that if he didn’t pay us now, he was gonna kill everyone in that house.”
“Jesus,” Carter whispers.
“It was intense. Anyway, he had a little money in his wallet, and Zack was fishing it out when the door to the bedroom opened. Trey whipped around and fired the gun. The next thing I knew, this little boy just drops to the floor, blood spreading around him before I’d even realized what had just happened.”
Carter gapes at me. “Trey shot a kid?”
My chest feels tight as I replay that night over and over in my mind. “Four goddamn years old. He was coming in to check on his parents. Trey shot him in the head.”
“What did you do?”
I stand, pacing his tiny bedroom, not able to sit still any longer. “I ran to the kid, prayed there was a way to save him, but he died instantly. The man went apeshit and attacked Trey, and Trey shot him. The woman was screaming so loud, Trey then turned the gun on her, ‘getting rid of the witnesses’ he’d said.”
I turn and drop down onto Carter’s mattress, staring into his eyes while praying that I’m getting my point across. “Trey didn’t even blink, Carter. He didn’t care that he’d just shot three human fucking beings. He’s not right,”—I poke two fingers into the side of my head—“up here.”
“How’d you get out of it?”
“Getting out of the Viper’s isn’t easy. They don’t tell you that when you get in, but not everyone survives. Me and Zack, though…” I shake my head again. “We wanted out, and we didn’t care what the price was. We weren’t about cold-blooded murder.”
“Jesus.”
“You need to stay away from Trey, Carter. He’s not just a bad guy, he’s a psychopath.”
Carter stares at me. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that before?”
“That was a very dark time for me,” I admit. “I warred with myself over what to do about those deaths for so long that I drove myself crazy. But Mom was almost never here, and you guys needed me. So, I got out, and neither me or Zack has ever spoken about it again.”
“What about Trey?”
“Part of getting out of the Vipers was vowing to take that night to our graves. Trey is a Viper now, we’re not. We stay away from him, and he hasn’t bothered with us.”
Carter blows out a breath. “Wow. That’s heavy.”
I stare at my brother and think about how young he still is. I know he thinks he’s all grown up, but he’s just a kid, and Zack was right about me needing to tell him everything. “Look, I don’t know what you have going on with Trey, and I know you wouldn’t tell me if I asked. Just…just stay away from him, okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I get it.”
I pat his knee over the blanket. “Good. Good. Now, get some sleep. School in the morning.”
“Night, Tripp,” he says as I open his door and step out into the hall.
“Night, kid.”
Eight
Georgia
“Night, Janet!” I call out as I throw my purse over my shoulder.
“Night,” she calls back, lifting her gaze from her paperwork just long enough to toss a smile my way.
As I head out of the community center, I think about last night. Benjamin had shown me a side of himself in that car that I hadn’t been prepared for. He had always been proper, driven, and confident. Last night, though…that had been something else entirely. Last night, he’d been mean. To me.
The afternoon sun shines down on my face as I walk toward my car. Opening my purse, I begin digging around for the sunglasses I always keep in there, as well as my keys.
Finally finding the thin framed shades, I pull them out and place them on my face. That’s when I notice that I’m not the only one in the parking lot.
Leaning against my car are four, very large, very scary looking men, and Carter Fletcher.
My heart lurches in my chest as I screech to a halt, my eyes glued to Carter, who stands off to one side of the tallest man. A shadow of worry crosses his face, but quickly disappears when the man steps forward.
“You Georgia Addington?” I stand frozen, unable to speak as I just stare at him. He towers over me with an ominous presence that has a rock forming in the pit of my stomach. His skin is dark, his eyes cold. A tattoo of a teardrop adorns the skin under his eye, and the word Malice is permanently inked above his brow. He’s terrifying. The man chuckles, the sound void of any humor, as he glances back at Carter. “This her?”
Carter nods, his gaze remaining on me.
“My boy here says you think you saw something the other day…something about a bag?”
Oh, God. My eyes dart around the parking lot, desperate to see someone else nearby, but there’s no one. It’s just me, Carter, and these men.
Once, when I was in high school, we’d had a gym teacher that had spent a single class teaching us some very basic self-defense techniques. I had spent most of that class shrinking back into the crowd of more popular kids, praying he didn’t call on me for a demonstration. My prayers had been answered, and I had learned absolutely nothing that day.
As the tall man draws nearer, I rearranged the keys in my hand so that my house key pokes out from between my first two fingers. The smooth key fob for my car suddenly seems a whole lot less convenient now that I can’t use it as a weapon.
“Is that what you think you saw, Miss Addington?”
Blinking back burning tears, I press my lips together and shake my head from side to side.
“That’s what I thought,” the man says, coming to a stop just a couple of feet in front of me. My entire body jolts with fear as he thrusts his hand out. “Trey Harper. And you’re Georgia, right?”
Swallowing, I nod my head and try to just keep breathing as he takes my hand and grips it tightly in his. The man smiles, the sunlight gleaming off the silver teeth in his mouth. “There ya have it, then. We’re friends now. And friends don’t rat on friends, do they, Miss Addington?”
I shake my head as Trey keeps his grip on my hand, but says nothing.
“That’s what I thought too,” he purrs, finally letting me go. “I’ve lost a few friends who couldn’t keep their mouths shut. I’d hate to lose you too.”
My gaze darts to Carter, but he just stands there, frozen in place. His eyes are glued to where Trey stands just inches from me, his size dwarfing me, and his presence making me want to run screaming back into the building.
“So, now that we’ve cleared that up, do you still think you saw me give something to Carter?”
I shake my head again, but yelp as Trey grabs my arm and pulls me to his chest, his mouth moving to my ear. “I’m going to need to hear your words,” he hisses, his fingers digging into my skin.
“N-n-no,” I whisper. “I didn’t see anything.”
Trey buries his nose into my hair, inhaling deeply as I stare over his shoulder at the other men, all of them smiling, except for Carter. “Good girl,” he murmurs, his lips grazing my ear. “See you soon, sweetheart.”
Trey finally lets me go and turns to his buddies, twirling a finger in the air as he walks away. As one, the other four men step away from my car and saunter out of the parking lot, as if they hadn’t just put the fear of God into me.
TRIPP
I’m just stepping out of the shower when my cell phone rings. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I rush to the counter and check the number on the screen. I kind of want to slap myself for the way my heart beats just a little bit faster when I see the name G Addington staring back at me. This time, I don’t ignore her call.
“Hello?”
“Tripp?” Georgia cries from the other end, her voice sounding like she’s on the brink of having full-on panic attack. Her breathing is uneven in a way that scares the hell out of me.
“Georgia, what the hell? What’s going on?”
“I—” She draws in a de
ep breath, as if she’s trying to calm herself, and tries again. “I-I w-was leaving work and th-they were there—five of them—all around my car.”
“Five of who?” I ask, gripping the phone so tight, I’m surprised it doesn’t break. A horn blares and Georgia gasps. “Are you driving? Tell me you are not fucking driving and crying at the same damn time.”
“I just needed to get out of there,” she pants, but the rushing air you always hear on the other end when someone is in a car is still there.
“You did, Georgia. You’re out of there, okay. So please, pull over. Pull over, and then we can talk, okay?”
Georgia blows out a long breath, and the steady click of her turn signal sounds on her end of the line. A few seconds later, the air around her grows quiet.
“I’m parked,” she says quietly.
Some of the tension her phone call had created in my very being melts away. “Good. Thank you. Now, who the fuck was around your car?”
Georgia sniffles, a soft sob escaping her before she answers. “Trey, three of his friends, and…” My heart sinks as she pauses. “Carter was there too.”
Un-fucking-believable. Even after telling him one of the most painful times in my life, the little asshole is still sniffing around that gangbanging prick. And not only that, but he went to Trey and fucking told him that Georgia had seen them, knowing damn well how dangerous he is. I could kill him.
“Did they hurt you?” I ask, suddenly far more worried about her than I am my dumbfuck brother.
“No,” she says softly. Another sob fills the air. “They just…God, they scared the shit out of me, Tripp.”
I mutter a low curse and pinch the bridge of my nose with my fingers. I’m relieved that Georgia is unharmed, but I want to kill them for scaring her like this. “What did they say?”
