Chapter 11
Elenie
Elenie made herself a cup of coffee in the tiny, grubby kitchen, rinsing the mug before she used it because she shared the house with animals.
The day stretched out before her. Maybe she should grab her library book and take the long walk down to Weller’s Lake. She could escape and read and chill for the afternoon. And keep her mind right away from dark eyes or corded forearms.
It’d been so easy to forget who she was at the fair. Dazzled by the attention of Roman Martinez, his support of her to Mrs. Alberty, the easy conversation, the sexy damn heat of his closeness, she’d let herself get swept away. As if he actually wanted to spend time with her. As if he hadn’t tracked her down because of who she was. She knew better, dammit. It was embarrassing how much his change of tack had blindsided her. Elenie still felt the mortification through to her bones.
The volume of her unruly thoughts drowned out Frank’s footsteps in the hall. His sudden appearance in the kitchen doorway startled her, and Elenie’s coffee slopped until she steadied her hand.
“Clumsy!”
she murmured, giving him a half-smile and reaching for a cloth.
The force of the backhand across her face split Elenie’s lip, coming from nowhere as it did. Her head whipped to the side; white-hot pain bloomed from her cheekbone. Scalding coffee spilled over her hand and her wrist, the mug shattering against the kitchen counter. Her forehead smacked the edge of the fridge as her legs gave out beneath her. Stupid with incomprehension, she lay in a crumbled heap, half leaning against one of the cupboard doors at Frank’s feet, brain scrambled.
His boot caught her in the side and her ribs screamed. Elenie curled into a ball to protect her poor, battered body. Blood from her mouth dripped onto the floor.
“Think it’s funny to make a joke out of me?”
Frank’s face was as cold as concrete.
“I didn’t—”
she began, not even knowing what she was saying.
“Did you think no one would see you chatting with a fuckin’ cop like you’re best fuckin’ buddies?”
He pulled her off the floor—one hairy hand clamped around her wrist and the other gripping the sleeve of her t-shirt. Elenie heard it rip, felt it give. A pained cry forced its way through throbbing lips.
“You’re a part of this family whether you like it or not. And we don’t like cops, we don’t talk to cops, we don’t fuckin’ think about cops!”
She flinched when the spittle from his mouth landed on her face.
“Get your goddamn act together and choose where your loyalties lie.”
Frank let go and she collapsed onto the floor, colliding with one of the kitchen chairs, which rocked on its legs then crashed over on its side. He stormed out of the kitchen and into the entryway. The screen door rattled when he slammed it behind him.
Shaking with shock in a pool of cooling liquid, Elenie gasped through swelling lips, too dazed to move, broken pieces of the mug scattered around her. There was dirt under the fridge and the corner of one sticky floor tile near her hand had lifted because the adhesive was old. A trip hazard, she thought randomly.
Dizzy and sick, she couldn’t even push herself up to a sitting position. The side of her face, where Frank’s knuckles had caught her mouth and cheekbone, felt hot, numb, strange for a moment or two. And then pain began to kick in like an absolute bitch, stealing her breath and pounding under her skin. Air wheezed in and out of her chest.
Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe. Moving could come later. Elenie closed her eyes and even that hurt. Helpless tears trickled into her hair. It was hard to tell how much time went by.
This was an awful, sickening first; Frank had never hit her before. Despite his bluster and threats, she’d never thought he would. She’d been an idiot to imagine the danger only radiated outward, away from the house.
Light footsteps paused in the doorway. Her mother’s feet were bare, toenails painted a delicate shade of coral. Elenie looked at them but couldn’t speak. Slowly, very slowly, she lifted her chin. Athena’s narrow face was a flicker book of expressions—confusion, shock, pity, denial, and, finally, weariness.
“Oh, Elenie,”
she said eventually. And there was judgment in her tone. Not toward Frank. Never toward Frank.
Picking her way through smashed china and coffee, Athena stepped around the fallen chair, over Elenie’s ankles, and lifted a pack of cigarettes from the window ledge. She headed for the door, then paused. Elenie drew in a juddering breath as her mother turned back. But Athena just closed her fingers around the neck of a vodka bottle on the countertop and left the kitchen without saying another word.