22. Arsen
22
ARSEN
“Where is she?”
My voice is still thick with sleep, and the rich scent of espresso wafting from the kitchen is like a siren call. Still, there’s only one thing on my mind. Has been since the moment I opened my eyes and found Laila’s side of the bed cold.
Gedeon salutes me with his mug. “Good morning to you, too. I slept fine, thanks for asking.”
“No one gives a shit how you slept, mudak .” Dominik turns to me with a sheepish smile, clearly trying to make amends for yesterday’s spat. “How was your night, Arsen? Tired? Sore, perhaps?”
“Just annoyed.” I’m too tired to play along. And too proud to admit it. “Where is my wife?”
I can’t remember the last time I shared a bed with a woman. I sure as hell can’t remember the last time I woke up and wished there was a woman in my bed.
But I rolled over this morning, still half-asleep, and reached for Laila. It wasn’t even a conscious thought—it was an instinct. Some primal urge to find what’s mine and hold her close.
“She wasn’t there when I woke up this morning,” I explain when my vory continue staring at me blankly. I snap my fingers. “Where the fuck is she?”
Dominik shakes his head like he must be imagining things. “She walked past with her yoga mat half an hour ago.”
“She didn’t look very rested, either,” Gedeon adds under his breath.
I should’ve known. Laila does yoga every morning. It’s her routine.
Then again, there was nothing “routine” about what we did last night. But if she’s sticking to the status quo, I can, too.
I snatch the mug from Gedeon’s hand and drop down into one of the patio chairs. “Give me an update.”
“Update: that was my coffee,” Gedeon grumbles.
“About the Italians,” I grit out. “Or Natascha’s funeral. Has Rolan reached out again?”
Dominik waves me off. “We’ve got everything handled. You’re supposed to be in the honeymoon phase.”
We aren’t taking a honeymoon. I’ve never taken one, actually. Natascha and I skipped it in favor of never being in the same room longer than necessary.
And Laila would rather wake up early… and do yoga, apparently.
“Update,” I snarl again. “Now.”
Dominik sighs. “I found out where Laila’s father lives.”
“Who asked you to do that? Was it Laila?”
Because it wasn’t me, though I was thinking it loudly last night.
“She didn’t need to ask. He’s been bothering her.” Dominik’s hand tightens around his mug. “I took the liberty.”
“He’s a real piece of work, this guy,” Gedeon agrees. “Has she told you about him?”
It’s a simple question, but it sets off a domino effect of insecurity inside of me. Laila wouldn’t even let me see her phone last night, but she’s talked to other people about her father.
I’m her husband.
I should be the one she talks to.
I should be the one she wakes up next to.
“I want to know what you know,” I respond, dodging the question.
“Not a ton as of yet,” Dom says. “I saw her fighting with a bouquet of flowers months ago and wanted to know why. Apparently, they were a gift from the bastard. He’s been in and out of prison since his divorce from Marie.”
“For what?”
“Petty theft, embezzlement, fraud—all stupid, white collar bullshit,” Dominik rattles off. “He likes the high life, but he sure as hell hates working for it.”
“Which is why he’s sniffing around Marie and Laila,” I fill in.
“He’s angling for the house,” Dominik confirms. “Laila has been good at keeping him at bay. I asked her if she needed help handling him—a few times, actually—but she always turned me down.”
“I think it’s why she stopped telling us about Charles,” Gedeon says. “She didn’t want us getting involved.”
“Unfortunately for her, I don’t care what she wants.” I shove to my feet and stride for the door, the words of that lie buzzing on my lips.
Dominik calls after me, “What are you planning?”
“I have a father-in-law to introduce myself to.”
Charles Barnes lives less than an hour from me.
For a man desperate for cash, he lives well enough. His address brings me to a tidy little townhouse in a neighborhood with ornate iron cages around the trees and commercial-worthy families pushing strollers, sipping coffee, laughing.
“Pretty nice digs,” Gedeon observes, peering up at the house from his window. “Cheap doors, though. I could kick that in first try.”
I park on the opposite side of the street and turn back to them. “I’m going to go the old-fashioned route and knock. And I want you two to wait here.”
“What are you planning?” Dominik asks again.
There’s still a thread of tension in his voice. One day, I’ll be grateful for the way he safeguards my wife’s feelings.
Right now, it’s just a reminder that he knows her better than I do.
“I’m planning to talk to him,” I say flatly. “The two of you stay here and run interference if he tries to flee.”
I walk through the low metal gate and follow the sidewalk to the porch. The closer I get, the more the cracks—both literal and figurative—begin to show. The porch is fractured and sagging. Mail overflows from the rested mailbox, some of it spewing off the porch and piling under the overgrown box hedge to the right.
I push a doorbell that’s yellowed with age, but there’s no distant chime, no motion inside. So I knock twice with a tarnished knocker.
Finally, I hear a shuffle of life on the other side of the door. A muffled, wheezy cough. More shuffling.
Stepping away from the door, I glance through the arched window to the left just in time to see an eye peeking out at me from behind the drawn velvet curtains. The curtains instantly snap closed.
Fuck it.
Plan B.
I step away, cock back my foot, and deliver one solid kick in the center of the door. Just like Gedeon said, it caves like a paper banner at a football game.
I push my way through the wreckage and into the house. The interior matches the exterior: nice in theory, but crumbling in reality. Thick layers of dust blanket every inch of the house, disturbed here and there by dragging footstep trails.
I follow sounds of grunting into what must be the living room. The daylight seeping in through cracks in the heavy curtains paints the room in shards of bloody red amongst the pockets of black shadow.
It’s out of one of these shadows that Charles Barnes lunges towards me, rusty fireplace poker extended like a sword. “You’re breaking and entering!”
I resist the urge to laugh at his choice of weapon. If he kills me with that pathetic thing, I deserve to die. “And you’re going to need something better than that to stop me.”
He flinches, but doesn’t lower the poker. “Are you Hamlin’s man?”
I can work with that.
I shrug noncommittally.
Sweat is collecting over his eyebrows. “Listen, I told your boss the other night, I’ll get him his money. I swear. I just need more time.”
“Hamlin’s not a patient man, Charles.” Fuck if I know a thing about whoever Hamlin is, but the panic in Laila’s father’s eyes tells me enough.
He swallows. “He told me he’d give me a week. I have four days left. Four days!”
“How much is this place worth?” I look around like I haven’t already taken stock of the house. “A property in this neighborhood—it has to be worth something.”
“This place isn’t exactly… mine.”
My eyes narrow. “You’re squatting.”
“I’m resourceful,” he says in lieu of admitting the truth.
“Pigheaded bastard” is the way I remember Laila describing him. “Resourceful” must’ve slipped her mind when compiling adjectives.
I gesture to the nearest chair. “Sit, Charles. Let’s have a little chat, man to man.” He tightens his grip on the poker, and I sigh. “Bring the scrap metal with you if it makes you feel better.”
He dabs the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and joins me near the window. The chair creaks when I lower myself into it, but Charles stays standing, the poker dangling loosely at his side.
“Why are you here?” he croaks. “I have more time.”
“I’ve already told you: I just want to have a little chat. Now, sit down. I won’t ask again.”
Reluctantly, he lowers himself into the chair opposite me, the poker settling between his knees. A part of me actually hopes he’ll try to use it. It would give me the excuse I need to beat him to a fucking pulp.
A beam of light catches his face and illuminates it. I take a good look at the man.
His eyes are deep and wide-set. Rough stubble coats his loose jaw and his scalp is bare in patches, though gray has only just begun to creep in at what’s left of his roots. He doesn’t share much in common with his daughter.
“You say you have four more days,” I repeat, to which he nods aggressively. “But you must have a plan. Tell me how you’re going to pay Hamlin.”
He runs his fingers along the edge of the table, his eyes darting around as he talks. “It involves some family assets.”
My fingers curl into a fist. Not yet, I urge myself. Rein it in. “I can’t imagine a man who squats in someone else’s home has property of his own somewhere.”
“You’re damn right I do!” Charles draws himself up indignantly. “And it’s a nice place! Big. Soon as I get some of this paperwork bullshit out of the way—you know the city, permits, that sort of thing—Hamlin will get his money. It’s gonna take no time at all. It’s fine.”
“And it’s yours?”
That makes him hesitate. “It… will be. Ex-wife still has?—”
“Ah. It’s your ex-wife’s.”
“For now. But she’s sick.” He grips the table with one hand, his teeth gnashing, literally chomping at the bit. “Real sick. She won’t be around for long. When she kicks it, that house is mine .”
My jaw clenches tight. Just a little bit longer. Keep him talking. He’ll dig his own grave, if you let him. “You didn’t have any children?”
He releases the table, leans away as though he’s been stung. “Err… no, we have one kid. A girl. Actually, she’s the problem.”
I raise my eyebrows. Charles seems to interpret that as encouragement because he blusters on, oblivious to the fact that I have two clenched fists in my lap.
“Marie spoiled her. Laila has no respect for me. She’s selfish and entitled. I’ve been trying to reach out for months now, and the little bitch won’t let me see her mom.” He scowls. “I deserve better than that. I did everything I could for Laila?—”
“Abandoning her was for her benefit?” I interrupt.
He recoils, frowning. “I didn’t exactly abandon her. I had to—Circumstances changed after the accident. It was complicated.”
“I suppose being a deadbeat dad always is.”
“Listen,” he stammers, “the girl is fine. According to Marie, she’s got herself knocked up and has some rich new sugar daddy to take care of her. She doesn't need the house like I do. ‘Sides, I’m her father. I deserve it.”
My lip curls with contempt. “You’re no father, Charles Barnes. You’re a fucking rat.”
I shove the table hard and it crunches into his stomach before he can even react. He flops off his chair and onto the rug, wheezing like a landed fish.
“What the— Listen, man,” he splutters, “I swear, I can handle this. I can handle her. Hey! Maybe if you help me, I can get the house faster. Yeah, I’ll bet that we can get them to?—”
My foot hurtles into his ribs. Shit cracks that isn’t meant to crack. “It’s best you stop talking now, Charles,” I inform him icily. “It’s my turn.”
Charles gazes up at me with raw, animal fear.
“You will not go anywhere near Marie or Laila. And you will certainly not go anywhere near our child.”
Charles’s eyes go wide as he finally puts two and two together. Better late than never, I suppose. “You’re?—”
“That’s right,” I confirm. “And I will be back here to ram that fucking poker through your asshole if I so much as get a whiff of your putrid scent anywhere near my woman. Is that understood?”
He nods so fast that his cheeks tremble from the force.
“Good.” I walk to the ruined door, but stop at the threshold. Charles is still lying on the floor, sweat and snot dribbling down his face and pooling on the carpet. “Oh, and I’m not Laila’s sugar daddy. I’m her husband.”