Chapter 13
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
LYDIA
Dark Chapel is crowded. Saturday night usually does that; brings in all the locals in Stone Fell who want a little extra adrenaline with their drinks.
I stand in the shadows of the converted church, Fox at my back as we hide away within the sanctuary entrance.
Some of the red cushioned pews are still here; we only took out the ones in the middle, for the ring.
The stained glass is all original, the spiraling arches with paintings etched along the walls, those are too.
The pulpit we left but the cross is inverted.
The people in this town didn’t like that. Not at first. Not until I told them about Saint Peter. It’s a Christian symbol. I ordered our team to spread the word. It’s humility.
I stare at the large wooden cross now, the baptistry empty behind it, the podium manned by the ref who watches the fight with bleary eyes, happening several red carpeted steps down from him. Our refs don’t interfere. There are no tapouts here. Every fight ends with motionlessness.
He’s wearing a black shirt with a red, inverted cross on it, taking up most of the fabric.
The standard uniform for employees. The women serving drinks, weaving in and out of the pews and the standing crowd, they wear the same, but they pair it with black or red miniskirts.
Carmela—one of my few friends in this town—is the only one not in the same uniform.
She supervises the girls from her spot just a few feet in front of me, right inside the entrance.
She’s dressed much like I am, in black slacks and a black halter top.
It’s unintentional tonight, but at nineteen, she sees me as a role model and our wardrobe has meshed.
With her thick, short dark hair and big brown eyes, her ability to speak two languages flawlessly, and the way she knows the people who hold this town together that everyone else overlooks, she’ll take over Dark if she wants.
I know I won’t run it forever. It was a bone Lynx threw me; something to keep me from being bored. I grew up kissing violence; this was like that, but with power.
Still, it’s not quite the familiarity my uncle thought it might be.
Even now, scanning the crowd of leering faces, fists clenched around beer and noses dipping into fingers for blow, the voices and chaos and sweat and the blood on the white floor of the ring, it’s nauseating.
I don’t trust anyone in this building except Fox at my back.
Not even Carmela. I trust her to do her job and do it well but I don’t believe anyone in here wouldn’t slit my throat if the payoff was good enough.
I don’t blame them.
I wouldn’t do the same for money, but I’d do it for Lele.
I close my eyes in the dark awning—no one knows I’m here but the guards stationed right inside the foyer, and Fox, of course—and think of my brother.
I sat with him most of the day; wasted time, if I’m being brutally honest. There are meetings I need to attend, deals to negotiate, lives hanging in the balance of product and pushing and purse strings and policing.
But I can do some things from my phone and if I wasn’t there, the guilt would make me ineffective.
Then another image blurs with Lele lying helpless in bed, his darker blond roots starting to show through his bleached white hair; something I know he’d hate.
Storm Leary, at the edge of the cliff.
Seeing him again made me feel wild but known. Seen. It’s the same sensation I got in the funeral home. When I was already hardened but there was hope, too. He seemed to be what I wanted to reach for.
In that short moment, I thought of the future. Not being alone.
It was gone before I could even plan with him. Another meeting, a date, hanging out. Ripped away by some truce I never agreed to. And I realized I was an idiot and my life wasn’t like the movies, where teenagers come of age with people who love them, people who teach them.
The only thing I ever learned was how to keep going in the storm.
And he’d been mine for a blink.
I demanded Fox do more digging since my uncle still refuses to take my calls.
Turns out, not everything has gone well for Storm.
He’s been in trouble, back in Aben. Where Hawthorn and Cassia technically live but don’t work.
Accused of sexual assault he’d gotten away from.
But Fox told me he now lives with the accuser.
I’ve heard of stranger things. Thinking of it, though, being forgiven and being never alone, it makes my stomach knot up, my nails dig into my palms.
Who is he to have that life? And why do I have this one?
But in some ways, he’s like Lele. Not as friendly, not as vocal, but more magnetic with his presence than I guessed a middle man could have been.
If he wanted, his dealing could rival mine in a few years.
As it is, I don’t fucking know what he wants.
That’s the missing piece of the puzzle, although I’m certain I’ve gotten at least half of it.
The girl.
He likes her.
I’m not quite sure why. In his hands, she could be breakable. But in mine, he is.
Lost in the mystery, my mind wanders down corridors I usually keep locked. All the blood. Sticky and viscous. A door with a surprise inside. A boy throwing his arms around me. Did he scream my name? Did he know me at all?
I think I invented him. I think he helped me survive.
“She’s here.” Fox’s voice shatters my daydreams of revenge and ruin only to drop me into the reality of it.
I smile to myself without opening my eyes, knowing my guard will track her, and if she’s in here, she isn’t leaving anytime soon. Everyone comes to Dark for a show. They never go home disappointed.
She doesn’t want to leave alone. The man she’s wrapped herself around is attractive, I’ll give her that, and not unlike my brother in some ways.
Light hair, light eyes, a square jaw. But unlike Lele, this man has tattoos, and he seems much less drunk than the other patrons of Dark.
They’re both seated in an aisle of pews near the back, the last fight on, but by this time, most people are too fucked up to pay attention.
I’ve done my rounds here. Played gracious host, put in face time with people who owe me money and some who owe me blood.
Eve is here too, one of the few sober attendees, and seeing her pretty face as she asked quietly after Lele made me think of Lynx and why, exactly, after he drove up and down my street so many times, I haven’t been able to get ahold of him.
His indifference to Lele—if he’s somehow heard what happened, and I don’t doubt he has—is making me imagine what it would be like to take his head clean off.
He thinks he trained me to obey him. Mostly, he’s been right. But this is the one line he should know better than to cross.
Falls Church is on my destination list soon. I’ll drag him out of church if I have to. That’s what he taught me, after all. There are no excuses, Lydia, not even blood.
But tonight, instant gratification is my preference, and I’ll get blood too.
So with a nod at Fox, I slip out the heavy front doors, past my own guards, all without a word.
In the mid-October night, my heels clack on the stone steps and I glance at the stars overhead, the mountain ranges in the distance.
In another life, I’d appreciate all this more.
One where I didn’t find myself crawling in my mother’s brain matter as a child.
One where memories I’m not so sure are mine seep through my mind like sand slipping from wanting fingers.
But this is the life I have and I’m going to do my worst with it.
I disappear—hidden from any lingering eyes—on the sidewalk situated between the church and the empty brick building next to it.
Well, it’s not quite empty but it’s very much mine.
It’s back here, on the desolate side street no one pulls their car to thanks to Dark’s expansive church parking lot, that I park my own baby.
The doors unlock as I get closer and I watch the rear exit of the building once I’ve slipped inside the Q and shut and locked my doors.
The soft purr of my engine keeps me company along with the faint sounds of my year-round Halloween playlist that not even Fox knows about playing through the speakers.
My seatbelt is on and my eyes are glued to the exit.
Fox will play his part well.
He looks like a father figure if you’ve never had a real one.
My phone rings through my sound system and I flinch, then silently berate myself for having any fear. Growing up, if Lynx had seen that, he would’ve snapped my finger as punishment.
I don’t risk a glance away from the door. I need to follow Fox’s Suburban, parked in front of me, very closely but with an ease that doesn’t feel like stalking, or the girl will get paranoid, and this won’t work.
I answer the call, because it’s nearly one in the morning, Sunday now, and my people know better than to call me on a fucking Sunday. It’s holy. That’s why I’m at church.
“Lydia.”
“I need to see you.”
My pulse trips at Berlin Bishop’s rough voice. He may be too much of a player for me, and I’m definitely not marrying him, but he has an effect on people and I’m not exempt, I can admit it.
“What do you have?” I don’t look away from the door, not even when a leaf skittering across the street catches my attention in my peripheral vision.
“Something you want.” His tone is seductive.
I don’t know if this is a booty call or intel.
We’ve never fucked so I assume the latter, but then again, after I take care of what I need to, I might be desperate enough to let him.
It’s been…a long time since I slept with anyone.
I think conserving sexual energy propels women further to the top.
But using it can too, so long as it’s not wasted on a self-serving mini dick prick.
Berlin might be selfish, but I think he knows how to fuck. I’ve watched women melt in his presence, and it’s not because he doesn’t try. It’s because he does.
“Which is?” I keep my words clipped.
“It’s about your brother.”
I swallow hard as my fingers curl tighter around the leather steering wheel but I won’t look away from the exit door and I won’t let Berlin’s bullshit interrupt my plans for tonight.
I know Lele isn’t awake because I have my own men and women on duty to call me immediately if he so much as blinks his fucking eyes.
“Berlin.” I enunciate his name carefully. “Do not fuck with me.”
He laughs, but it’s devoid of true amusement. “I know better. Where are you?”
“As if I would ever tell you that. Are you at Clawson’s?”
“This seems unfair.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Come see me.”
“I can’t right now.”
“Lydia, you’re going to want to know—”
“I have to go. Don’t call me again. I’ll call you.” I end the call and watch as Fox has his arm around a very fucked up girl. She’s nuzzling against his broad chest and his eyes are on me as he guides her slowly down the sidewalk to the blacked-out Suburban.
I smile at him in the dark.
I don’t know if he can see it, but he shakes his head softly all the same, as if he’s tired of my shit, but he’s still going to support it.
What choice does he have?
If Fox left me, he’d be dead before he crossed the county line.
It’s not good to rule from a place of fear, but it doesn’t fucking hurt.
Lynx assigned him to me, but he’s been my shadow since I was twelve years old.
I like to think our loyalty is stronger, and now that his salary comes from my bank balance, it should cement the fact.
The girl easily climbs into the passenger side of his SUV, but he doesn’t look away from me.
There’s something in his eyes tonight I don’t like.
I think about Berlin’s call. He could be manipulating me, but it feels as if since my brother went down, everyone is on the verge of that.
My mind flickers down dark corridors.
Finding my uncle inside my childhood home.
It was a game we played.
Who could hurt whom first.
I remember the first time I won.
I didn’t look for him.
I waited for him to find me.
When he opened the doors to his own closet, his lips parted with surprise. I pressed the tip of the knife to his gums.
He needed stitches.
And I earned respect.