by Harley Stone
“Nope. Not Mom. My dad got it for me. He works for a software company, and he can get anything.”
And I’d bet he paid a pretty penny for it, too. Emily and Naomi hadn’t told me much about Dylan’s situation. I knew he and his mom had moved out about seven months ago, and that his dad had physically abused his mom a few times. The man was apparently trying to buy his son’s love with expensive game consoles and sounded like a real piece of shit to me.
“What’s your favorite team to play?” I asked.
“The Canucks,” Dylan replied without hesitation.
“Ah. They have some standup guys.”
His eyes widened. “You really know them?”
I shrugged. “Not some of the newer guys, but the older fellas, yeah.”
Now I had his full attention, so I spent the rest of the time dropping names and sharing stories, shamelessly earning the kid’s respect through the players I’d had the privilege of getting to know. By the time the ladies emerged from their appointment, I was well on my way to winning him over. It had been at least a half hour since he’d taken a stab at me, and he actually seemed disappointed when his mom appeared and asked if he was ready to leave.
I might have started out as an uncool babysitter, but hell if I didn’t redeem myself.
Dylan looked at me and hesitated like he wasn’t sure about the protocol for our goodbye. I had no such reservations and held out a hand for him to shake, man to man.
“It was good to hang out with you, my man,” I said.
“You too, Kaos.” Dylan’s handshake was firm, and his smile seemed genuine. He’d been a hard nut to crack, but I always did enjoy a good challenge.
His mom’s pensive stare drew my attention. Tina was a natural beauty with light brown hair, big hazel eyes, and plump lips. She was only about five and a half feet tall, but she had the kind of curves that made a man want to grab a handful and hold on tight. Dressed casually with minimal makeup, she had an intriguing girl-next-door look about her. If I met her in a bar, I’d try my damnedest to take her home. Knowing she came with a hell of a lot of baggage didn’t dim her appeal one bit, but she was a mom, and that kept my ass in line and my tone respectful.
“You’ve got a good kid here,” I said, standing.
Her eyebrows rose in question as she looked from me to Dylan like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. When she realized I had nothing more to say, her guard dropped, and she smiled. She had a nice smile. It raised her cheeks and added life to her tired eyes, taking her from pretty to stunning. “Thank you.”
Dylan looked up at me and opened his mouth as if to say something, but instead, he looked away. The kid wanted something but didn’t know how to ask. The hour I’d spent with him made me think about a motivational poster I’d seen hanging on the office wall of the administrator for the Sharks & Parks program. ‘Every kid is one caring adult away from being a success story.’ I didn’t know if the Josh Shipp quote held water, but I was willing to give it a try.
Dylan wasn’t a bad kid.
Sure, he was a bit of a bully and kind of a smartass, but I liked him. He reminded me of myself at that age. My parents would get a kick out of him for sure. Especially since they didn’t have to raise him.
When I’d acted like a little shit, my coaches, teachers, and family cared enough to knock some sense into me, but who did Dylan have? A dad who beat the shit out of his mom and tried to buy his love?
Making a split-second decision I’d probably regret later, I turned to face Dylan. “You know, if you ever want to learn how to play hockey, I’ll teach you.”
His gaze shot up to meet mine. “Really?” He searched my face, and I got the impression he was waiting for some kind of condition or requirement.
I only had one. “As long as it's okay with your mom.”
“Can I, Mom?” Dylan asked, his tone hopeful.
Tina frowned. “That’s probably not a good idea.” To me, she added, “Dylan has been having some behavioral issues, and we don’t really have the money—”
I held up a hand, cutting her off. “No charge.” I didn’t need the money, and there was no way in hell I’d accept payment from a single mom.
She stiffened and distrust clouded her eyes. “Thanks, but I don’t think so.”
“But Mo-om,” Dylan whined.
“Come on. We need to get going.”
Clearly people didn’t go out of their way to help this woman. I realized how I must have sounded—a grown ass man offering to coach her son for free—and shook my head. “Wait. I’m screwin’ this all up.”
Her eyebrows arched in question.
“Look, I’m not a creep or anything. I was a lot like Dylan, so I understand what he’s going through. Went through a rough patch myself around his age. Got in so many fights my parents were one suspension away from sending me to military school. Thankfully, a teacher stepped in and sparked my interest in the game. Gave me something else to hit.” Mr. Dens had handed me a hockey stick and dropped a puck on the ice, instructing me to swing as hard as I could. Yeah, he’d given me something else to hit, but not before I landed on my ass enough times to take the steam out of my sails.
Tina watched me intently. She wasn’t checking me out, more like interrogating me with her eyes. Her attention was uncomfortable, like when a cop follows you and you know you’re not doing anything wrong, but you still feel nervous as hell. I was telling the truth and trying to help her kid out, but her scrutiny made me feel like I was about to get a ticket for some traffic rule I didn’t even know about.
“Changed the whole course of my life,” I said. It did, too. I owed Mr. Dens more than I could ever repay. If he hadn’t put me on the ice, I had no idea where I’d be today. Nowhere good, for sure. “Team sports are… imperative for children. Can’t say enough about the benefits, but you should do your own research on the topic. It’s crazy all the ways bein’ part of a team can help a kid.” And I really wished I could remember some of those ways, but Tina’s intense, hazel eyes were locked on me, making it difficult to think. I needed to wrap this up and get out of her headlights before I started sweating and stammering. “Anyway, I wasn’t a bad kid. I just needed a little direction. Kinda like Dylan here.”
“Yeah, I just need some direction,” Dylan parroted, still watching his mom hopefully.
Tina gave her son a small smile. She still didn’t look sold, but I was done with my spiel. If she didn’t want my help, I wouldn’t push.
“No need to answer today.” I walked over to the front desk and scribbled my name and number down on a Post-It. “Just think about it and let me know. No pressure. The veteran group I’m a part of… we like to help people out. Even if you and Dylan don’t decide to pursue hockey lessons, you should keep this number. If you ever get into trouble or need help, just call and we’ll be there.”
I handed her my info. She gave me one more intense stare down before pocketing the Post-It with a nod. “Thank you.” Her eyes were glassy when she turned to face the ladies. “Thank you all.”
“Of course,” Naomi said. She and Emily had watched our exchange quietly.
“We’re happy to help,” Emily added.
Tina gave me one last lingering glance before shooing her son out the door. The second they were gone, Emily and Naomi spun around to face me. Their smiles had vanished. Emily’s face was pale, and she rested a hand on her stomach like she was about to puke.
Gritting out a curse, Naomi slapped the empty wooden coat rack, sending it crashing to the floor.
Feeling completely out of the loop, I asked, “So… what’d I miss?”
3
Kaos
“WHAT THE FUCK is that?” I asked, studying the photograph Emily slapped down on the table. We were in the conference room she and Naomi used for meetings. She had a file open in front of her, and her face was an unreadable mask as she followed my gaze. That had to be her lawyer face.
“That is the kind of thing I’d hoped to avoid by switching m
y focus from criminal to family law,” Emily replied.
We both stared at an image of a naked woman tied up with rope, gagged, and covered in black, blue, and purple bruises. The exposure was a little dark, but what I could see of her face, hair color, and body shape, the woman looked mighty fucking familiar. My blood pressure spiked as bile rose up in the back of my throat. “Tell me that’s not Tina.”
Emily eyed me curiously, seemingly surprised by what she’d heard in my voice. That made two of us. “It’s not her. It’s the reason she left her husband. Well, there were many reasons, but this was the catalyst.”
She wasn’t making any sense.
Frustrated, I looked to Naomi. “If that’s not Tina, who is it?”
Naomi’s mouth was set in a hard line, and there was murder in her eyes. “A hooker. Tina’s bastard of an ex apparently pays this woman so he can smack her around whenever his anger gets the best of him. Keeps him from beating the shit out of his wife.” Sarcasm and venom dripped from her words. “He’s so considerate. A real fuckin’ giver.”
“I don’t understand.” I struggled to make sense of the bits and pieces they were giving me. “He does beat on Tina. Or someone does, at least. I saw the bruises on her neck.”
“Now he does,” Emily replied. “About seven months ago, she was cleaning out the garage and found a box of these pictures stashed away. She said there had to be at least a couple dozen of them. Apparently, Matt likes to keep trophies of his abuse.”
“The bastard caught Tina looking through the box and came clean,” Naomi spat. “The fucker called it a kink. Made Tina feel like she was shaming him for getting upset about it. He even tried to lay the blame on her, saying she should be taking care of his twisted-ass needs. Like being an abusive sadist is some physical requirement and he’s a saint for paying a hooker so he could spare his wife. Give me five minutes with that cocksucker and I’d take care of his fucking needs, all right. I’d even pay his ass for the experience.”
Emily raised her eyebrows at Naomi.
Naomi shrugged. “Well, I’d slip a hundred-dollar bill into his coffin.”
I liked Naomi. She made sense to me. “I want in on that action,” I muttered. Now, I studied the photo with renewed purpose, mapping out every bruise on that woman. I fully intended to repay each one to her abuser.
An inferno blazed inside me.
I’ve always had an explosive temper. When I was a child, my folks would go out with my aunts and uncles, leaving all of us kids together in one house. They only had two rules: no deaths and no breaking shit. You’d think they’d be easy rules to follow, but we were a rowdy bunch, with more energy than brain cells. Once, a couple of my cousins were wrestling and knocked over a table lamp, shattering it. I was on the other side of the table, and both those assholes tried to pin the blame on me.
To be fair, whenever something broke, I was usually guilty, but this time, I didn’t do it. Determined to make them eat their bullshit accusations, I attacked. The lot of us were rolling around on the floor throwing punches when my three older brothers intervened. They tackled me and trapped me in the coat closet. They intended to let me out as soon as I chilled out, but being locked up for a crime I hadn’t committed flipped a switch inside of me. I couldn’t turn it off. The longer I stayed locked up, the harder I raged.
By the time our parents returned, I’d torn the shit out of that closet.
I was so riled up the adults had to keep me restrained. They tried to unravel the truth about what had happened, but in the end, the facts didn’t matter. We all got our asses beat and were sent to bed. After that, my cousins slept with one eye open every time they stayed the night. The fuckers knew I’d be gunning for them, and I was. My revenge came after months of plotting and preparing. With a low voltage electric wire slipped into our swimming pool at the perfect time, I taught both my cousins and my brothers a lesson about fucking with me.
My oldest brother, Gregory, still complained about occasional numbness in his fingers and toes.
To be honest, it was a wonder any of us survived childhood.
So yeah, I knew what it was like to lose my temper. But no matter how pissed I got, I’d never laid a hand on a woman in anger. Not even close.
Naomi turned on me, her expression reflecting the fury I felt. “You want to know the most fucked up part of this whole thing?” Before I could respond, she answered her own question. “If Matt hadn’t caught Tina looking at those pictures, she never would have said a word. Her husband would still be out there beating the shit out of his paid side piece and coming home to her like he was a respectable family man.”
Emily looked worried, but I couldn’t tell if her concern was for Tina or Naomi. “We don’t know that for sure.”
Naomi threw her hands up. “We sure as hell do!”
“Is Tina a doormat?” I asked. She hadn’t seemed like a pushover when she was staring into my soul, trying to figure out why I was so interested in her son. She’d protected Dylan, pushing back about letting me coach him. “Didn’t seem that way to me.”
“No, she’s…” Emily snapped her mouth closed.
“It’s complicated,” Naomi added.
“And that’s not our story to tell, Kaos. We’re only sharing case information with you because we have a plan, and we need your help.” Emily’s gaze turned pleading. “Will you help us?”
“You don’t even have to ask.” They couldn’t take me off this case if they tried. I was fully roused now. I had questions and concerns and was ready and willing to take down the bastard. Rolling my head from side to side, I worked out the kinks like I used to before I took the ice. “Just tell me what I need to do.”
Emily removed a packet from her file and set it on the table. “Matt Parker is dangerous.”
My gaze slid back to the photo. “Obviously. How did she get the marks around her neck?”
Naomi stopped pacing long enough to answer. “Fucker jumped her outside of her workplace. Threatened to kill her if she doesn’t come back to him.”
“Why isn’t he in jail?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s an upstanding citizen,” Naomi sneered. “A smart one, too. No witnesses, no evidence other than the bruises they can’t pin on him, and he had an alibi. The cops think it was some random attacker who was interrupted before he could rape her.”
“But that photo,” I argued. “You said Matt has a box of them.”
Emily frowned. “Tina pocketed the one before she moved out, but there’s nothing to tie it to Matt.”
“But you said the woman’s a prostitute. What if we find her?”
“It’s pointless to even look for her. She won’t talk,” Emily replied. “Trust me. No local prostitute would dream of taking the stand against her john. Prostitution is still illegal here, and it’d be the end of her career, if not her life.”
“There has to be a way to nail his ass,” I said, not bothering to hide my disgust.
“Not for that,” Emily said, picking up the picture and tucking it back into her file. “People are still innocent until proven guilty, and without evidence or witnesses we have no case.”
Naomi leaned over Emily’s shoulder. “I feel for the hooker, I really do, but we can’t forget what Matt did to our girl.” Plucking another photo from the file, she handed it to me.
Tina. This one was her; I would bet my life on it. One eye was swollen shut, but the other was unmistakable. Her lip was busted, and a fist-sized bruise covered the right side of her jaw. Naomi added a second photo to the first. This one was a torso shot. Tina wore a sports bra and boy shorts, but almost every inch of her exposed skin was covered in bruises.
“Holy shit,” I swore.
“Yeah. That’s what he did when he caught her with her hand in that box of photos.” Naomi picked up another picture, studied it, and then flipped it around to show me. A blond-haired, blue-eyed man wearing a business suit. He looked like the average corporate Joe, medium build, friendly smile. The man even had a fucking dimple
on full display. “Meet Matt. He’s got the predator mullet going on. Hard-working family man on top, abusive sexual deviant just beneath the skin.”
That old pre-hockey rage reared its ugly head. Once again, I felt like an enraged kid, ready to destroy walls, shred clothes, and bust heads. This time, a harmless prank wouldn’t be enough to sooth my beast.
I wanted Matt Parker’s blood.
Through my haze of fury, something nagged at the back of my mind. This was the proof she needed, which could only mean one thing. “She didn’t go to the cops.”
It wasn’t a question, but Naomi shook her head anyway.
“They made a deal.” Emily gathered up the photos and returned them to her file. “A good mother will always sacrifice herself for her child, and Tina loves her son. She gave Matt an ultimatum. She promised not to press charges as long as he let them move out without a fight and agreed to supervised visits with Dylan.”
“So, he beat the shit out of her and got away with it. That’s some serious bullshit.”
“She was smart,” Emily countered. “With no priors or witnesses, it’s her word against his. She would have to file charges within seventy-two hours of his arrest. He might have gotten a full fifteen days in jail, but I doubt it. She had no money of her own, no one to really help her.”
“She had limited plays available, and the game was rigged to let him win,” Naomi said. “Tina moved in with her sister, and as soon as her bruises were gone, that bastard went back on his word and tried to kidnap Dylan. That’s how she got our card. Lily and her dog were in the park that day. They attacked Matt and stopped him from getting away with the boy. Unfortunately, he knew just what to say to make it look like a misunderstanding between parents. The cops didn't even book him.”
“So, he still has no fuckin’ record,” I growled, amazed at how much the asshole had gotten away with.
“Exactly.” Emily nodded. “He laid low until last week when Tina told him she wanted a divorce. He wouldn’t even discuss it. The next day, he caught her in the parking garage outside of her workplace and left her that colorful scarf of bruises.”
