Chapter 22 Stan
TWENTY-TWO
STAN
Playlist recommendation:
I’m No Angel - Dido
I hated that she trembled in my arms.
I hated that Martinez had terrified her.
As much as I wished I could have stopped this vacation before it had a chance to happen, I had already learned that Kitty didn’t allow fear to conquer her, to stop her. Yet, here she was. Trembling.
My hindbrain might have roared with glee at her finding shelter in my arms, but I raged at the fact she had to.
“I think that the Martinezes do nothing without a reason.”
“Doesn’t sound like an answer to me.”
“There would be repercussions for hurting you,” I attempted to appease, giving her the honor of the truth and not sugarcoating it in anyway. “But I do believe that you must have come to their attention somehow.”
Stroking the back of her head, the calluses on my fingers catching the silk of her hair, I stared at the pool and tried to make sense of the night’s mess, but nothing computed.
“When Neev was sixteen, her Spanish teacher slept with her.”
My brows lifted at the whispered, out-of-the-blue, and seemingly irrelevant confession. “Your brothers dealt with him?”
“No. We didn’t tell them. I love them but… Neev didn’t see anything wrong with it. She said she loved him. He’d been grooming her for months.”
“What did you do?” As little as I knew about this woman’s past, I knew enough to recognize she wouldn’t let anyone hurt her family.
“Neev only told us because she was happy. Fucking happy.” Her fist flexed into a tight ball.
“When she shared her ‘special secret’ with us, somehow, and I have no idea how, we contained our reaction.” She exhaled and her words became a whisper.
“You’ve probably noticed how different Raisin and I are.
Who am I kidding? Of course, you’ve noticed.
But on this, we were in complete agreement.
“We had to handle him, put him on a permanent registry, and Neev could never know.” A shudder traveled down her spine.
“On the ride to the school that night, neither of us even tried to talk our way out of it. He’d betrayed our sister.
Messed with her head. Made her think he loved her and that they’d be together after she graduated.
He needed to be erased from her life so she could move on.
“So, we waited for him after school. Tied him up and put him in the trunk of his car.”
I paused my hand mid-stroke, dumbfounded by the admission. “How the hell did you do that?”
“Raisin came onto him and I hit him over the head with a tire iron.”
Both aghast and fascinated, I prompted, “Then what did you do?”
“Perverts don’t stop, do they?”
“No. They don’t.”
Watery eyes peered at me. “Neev told us it started after she turned fifteen, Stan. I had to put a stop to it. So we did. Róisín and I.”
“Why didn’t you tell your brothers? Or the Five Points? Surely they’d have handled it for you.”
“Maybe. Those years were chaotic. We lost my da and brother so close together and the family struggled to find a semblance of normality afterward.
“I should have gone to them but I wanted vengeance for her. They’d have made it about them. What did they do wrong? Shit like that. They already policed us. I wasn’t about to punish her for being targeted by a pedophile. Now, I’d make different choices, but then…”
“But what, duci?”
“Neev reacted poorly to Da’s death.”
“I’m sure you did too.”
“And losing my brother—”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be. It is what it is. I just… had to step up. For her.”
No matter what she claimed, her grief was as raw and as fresh as if they’d passed away yesterday. Something I could empathize with entirely—my own grief for my father remained an open, festering wound. No amount of sweet memories could ever ease the agony of loss or my guilt at being a failure.
In this, we were mates.
“A-After, she…”
“She, what?” I prodded when she fell silent.
“I think she internalized what happened because no one would have believed her anyway. She acted out. So she decided to own it. Declared it was love.”
The unfairness had me deepening my hold on her. “What did you do?”
“We took his car upstate.” Her throat bobbed. “The deepest part of the Hudson is in West Point, so we went to Beacon, which is the next town north, and drove his car into the river.”
Oddly impressed by their ingenuity, I snickered. “And the groomer was no more.”
Her throat bobbed. “I haven’t told anyone this before and I know Raisin hasn’t—”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
“You could use it against me.”
“I would never do that. And I’m more than willing to share a truth for a truth, Kitty.”
Her shoulders sagged with relief, but first she pleaded, “Don’t tell Neev.
We said we confronted him after school one night and he ran away.
She was mad at us for a long time. It took years for her to trust us again.
I’m only bringing it up now because it’s…
I don’t know. Could be related to this mess, maybe? ”
“Is she okay?”
“She misses him.” The words were torn from her.
“I could bring up his name today and she’d say nice shit about him.
It’s why I cut her so much slack. He fucked her up so bad that she’s in denial.
I don’t know what’s worse. For her to think she lost someone who loved her or for her to learn the truth of what a nasty little pedophile he was. ”
“You were never brought in for questioning?”
“No. Never. We were smart.”
“Very smart. You got away with murder. If my arms weren’t full, I think that’d deserve a round of applause.”
Her laughter was swiftly becoming a source of solace to me. “Raisin’s clever. It was my idea, but she figured out the location of the cameras and helped us avoid them.”
“Always the quiet ones.”
“Always. I didn’t sleep for months afterward. Every time the doorbell chimed, I thought it was the cops. I assume he’s a missing person still.”
“And you think he has something to do with your reason for being here?”
“It sounds so dumb when you put it like that. He was our Spanish teacher. They speak Spanish.” Her cheeks gusted out. “I mean, I don’t know. It’s a weak link but—”
“Was he Mexican?”
“No.”
“What was his name?”
“Jared Brückner.”
“Not Martinez.”
“No, but is it something they might want to hold over our heads?”
“Perhaps. You killed anyone else in your short life?” I teased, earning myself a huff. “Is that why you became a nurse?”
“Maybe.” Her bottom lip quivered. “I’m no angel.”
She was to me.
A fallen one—righteous and unafraid to castigate those who hurt her family.
I didn’t think she could be more perfect if she tried.
“Have you punished anyone else?”
She swallowed. “I shouldn’t tell you.”
“Why not?” Laughter flowed from me. “You know what I am, Kitty. Currau undoubtedly shared more than he should have… There’s more blood on my hands than yours. Are you sure you want to know one of my sins? If you’re no angel—” Lies. “—then I’m definitely no saint.”
“P-Please. I’d feel… better.”
Divulging the details of a murder would make anyone nervous, so I assured her, “I poisoned the head of the Messina and Puglisi families when they mutinied against mine.”
I didn’t mention the fact I’d been kidnapped by them. That would only muddy the waters.
“Really? Which poison?”
Her curiosity screamed academic interest—fuck if that wasn’t a turn-on.
“Made it myself.”
“You routinely create your own poisons?”
“Pays in my line of work.”
“The drug you overdosed with… I suspected you’d made it.”
“That wasn’t a poison,” I reasoned. “Not a typical one. Though, I guess medicines in different strengths and guises are a form of poison. Once their behavior is predictable and in a controlled environment, we use them to heal someone.”
I noticed that she’d burrowed herself tighter into my hold. “What does the drug do?”
“The one I took? Or the poison I used on my enemies?”
“The one you overdosed on.”
“It’s called Vangelin.” She had no way of knowing she was the only person with whom I’d shared that name. “It strengthens the atrial walls.”
“To counter heart failure?”
“As well as atrial fibrillation. It’s part of a wider program I’m studying to cure heart disease.”
“Lifestyle will—”
“No. A cure,” I professed.
Her lips pursed. “If we make it out of this alive—”
“We will.”
“—then I want to see your case notes.”
“Is that a demand?”
“Yes.” She pushed her forehead into my chest. “God only knows what you’ve done to your heart by experimenting on yourself. Especially after that heart attack you had two months ago. Jesus Christ, do you have any idea how reckless—”
“I have every idea, but it’s fine. I’ve developed the drug and—” I broke off. “Miedda.”
“What is it?”
“I thought he was talking about Red, but what if it’s Vangelin that’s caught his interest?”
As I calculated the likelihood of Martinez being interested in my clinically untrialed drug, I still took note of how she stiffened in my embrace.
Which is when I recognized I’d fucked up.
“Red?! Oh, my god. How did I forget that was discussed at dinner?! I knew it was Sicilian but—”
Her hands shoved at me, but my instinct was to tighten my embrace.
“Let me go, you jackass!”
“It isn’t what you think!”
“No? This route you took to create a new type of heart medication didn’t involve you stumbling across an erectile dysfunction treatment?”
When that pretty mouth tautened into a sneer, I shifted my hold on her, cupping her elbows to keep her close. “And I regret it. Every fucking day I wake up on this godforsaken planet.”
“Why would you sell something like that? Why would you think to distribute it? You had to know what the fallout could be!”
“I tested it, trialed it, but I didn’t take into account how much those fucking morons would overuse it.”
“Bullshit!”
“And… I needed the money.” Heart on my sleeve, I made the shameful confession, fully aware there was no redemption for this particular sin. “I had to fund—”
“No. You didn’t. You’re not board-certified! What use is your drug if—” She cut herself off. “Currau said you have a PHD. In medicine?”
“Pharmacology, with a masters in biochemistry.”
“Jesus. Are you board-certified?”
“Yes.”
She rubbed her hands over her arms. “This kind of project needs backing.”
“That avenue wasn’t open to me with my ties. I had to keep this private. That’s why I needed the funds. It’s unofficial right now, but I’m—”
“What about the people who got hurt along the way? Don’t they matter to you, you asshole?”
“I’ll burn in hell for what they went through.” The simplicity of my statement seemed to startle her. No artifice would apologize for the monstrosity of my creation and I didn’t bother trying. “I never claimed to be a good man, Kitty.”
“No, you didn’t.” Her eyes fluttered to a close like the strain was too much for her. “I-I think I need to get some sleep.”
Distance was the last thing I wanted between us, so I murmured, “Did you want more leverage over me?”
“That wasn’t enough?”
I’d earned her snarl, but to be honest, I preferred her rage to her sorrow.
I deserved the former, never the latter.
“If it means you’ll be more open with me, no.”
Neither of us discussed why being open mattered after we’d known each other the sum total of a day.
But before she could take another breath to spit at me or I could justify my past actions, from out of nowhere, a bunch of car alarms fired up just as dogs started howling.
It was a cacophonous warning—a precursor to the main event.
In the near distance, so close the ground trembled beneath us, a blast lit up the night sky.
The sonic boom in the aftermath had her staggering into me as the raucous dissonance of a thousand sirens raged into being.
Frozen on the balcony as we studied the chaotic scene that belonged in a movie, a voice from beneath us drawled, “Was that mentioned on the State Department website, Kitty?”