Chapter 16 Brigid
SIXTEEN
brIGID
Keep your head high and sway those hips.
I had no desire to talk to that useless dickweed about what happened the night before.
I wasn’t someone’s plaything, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to fuck up my chance to prove to Daddy that I was useful for the family business.
So, as I walked up the massive concrete steps to the front door of the facility, I didn’t even peer over my shoulder to see where Puck was.
I simply ushered myself inside and put on my best smile.
“Brigid! We were wondering when we’d see you next,” Maria said from behind the counter.
I walked up to her and leaned against it. “Girl, these past few days have been absolutely insane. Sorry I haven’t been in.”
She stood and placed her hand on my forearm. “You’re totally okay. All of us need a break from this place every once in a while, no questions asked.”
I patted the top of her hand. “Any chance Lori hasn’t been seen yet? I was hoping to tend to my favorite patient today.”
She giggled as she typed on her keyboard. “You know she always holds out until the last minute to see if you’re going to show up. I’ll schedule you for her today and let her know you’re coming.”
I rapped my knuckles against the desk. “Just sign me in, but don’t tell her. I want it to be a surprise.”
Maria giggled with delight. “Surprises are wonderful, so count me in.”
I winked. “I really appreciate it.”
I peered over my shoulder just as Maria was done signing me in, smiling at the fact that Puck hadn’t followed me inside. Good. Maybe he wouldn’t be a useless muscle head after all.
“All right! You’re set!” she chimed in. “She’s back in her room. She just finished with breakfast.”
I smiled. “Perfect, then she’s in a good place to take her medicine. I’ll see to it that she does.”
I walked down the all-too-familiar hallway and took the second left. I walked all the way down that hallway before taking a sharp right and then another immediate left. And as I stood in the open doorway of Lori’s bedroom, I noticed that she had upgraded.
After three long, arduous months, she had passed enough of her rehab milestones to warrant a bedroom all to herself.
I leaned against the doorway frame. “Seems like congratulations are in order.”
Her eyes bulged as she whipped her head up. “Brigid!”
I held my arms out. “Hey there, Lori.”
We hugged one another tightly before I linked her arm with my own, deciding at the last minute that a walk through the back gardens was in order.
I led her toward the back door before we stepped out into the sunlight, peering over my shoulder one last time to make sure Puck hadn’t slipped inside in an attempt to be stealthy.
And when I saw he still wasn’t following us, I turned my attention to Lori.
“I love these back gardens. I don’t get out here nearly as much as I’d like,” she said.
I patted her forearm. “Maybe you will now with all of these extra privileges.”
She puffed her cheeks out with a sigh. “I hope so. It took a hell of a lot of work to earn my own bedroom.”
I smiled brightly. “I know it did, and I’m so damn proud of you.”
She sighed. “But I’ve still been having some bad days.”
I nodded. “You're always going to have those, which is why your next step here will be to build yourself a network of supportive people outside of the rehab center. Have you started on that yet?”
She shook her head. “I just got my room yesterday, so I’m taking a couple of days to enjoy it before I start another leg of the journey.”
“Sounds like a wonderful plan to me. I like it.”
She peeked over at me. “I’m really glad you came to visit today. I thought for sure today was going to be a bad day.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Why’s that? Did something happen at breakfast?”
She shook her head as she stopped walking. “No. Just some nightmares last night.”
I turned to face her. “What kind of nightmares? Do you want to talk about them?”
And when she looked over at me with watery eyes, I quickly searched for a private place we could sit and talk.
“Over there,” I pointed, “we can sit under that tree and talk.”
Lori sniffled. “Perfect, okay. Yeah, yeah, that’s good.”
She grew tense as we moved to the concrete bench. We sat down underneath the shade of the weeping willow and Lori threaded her fingers through my own as her hand trembled. I grew worried for her. What in the world had her so damn scared from a nightmare?
Maybe it has to do with the cartel.
“I’m here whenever you’re ready,” I said softly.
But Lori shook her head quickly. “I don’t—I don’t know if I can talk about it. It’s so—it hurts so much.”
I turned my body to face her. “Confronting your past will help you heal; you know this.”
Tears flooded her eyes. “Talking about Dean is always hard.”
I blinked. “Your husband?”
Her gaze fell to her lap. “He was always a rebel, my Dean. My parents didn’t like him, but I was infatuated, you know? Bad boy goes soft for his girl and all that. I fucking soaked that shit up.”
I giggled. “I know the feeling.”
She lifted her watery gaze to mine. “Be careful with men like that, Brigid.”
I furrowed my brow. “What happened, Lori? You’re safe here. You’re safe with me. You can talk about this.”
She swallowed hard. “If he finds out—”
I reached out and cupped her cheek. “You have my word that whoever you’re afraid of isn’t going to get to you. Ever. I swear it.”
And as she drew in a deep breath, she let her guard down.
“I got pregnant with my twins my senior year of college and Dean convinced me to drop out. You know, finish my degree later while he took care of the kids after they were born. We got married soon after I entered my second trimester, and that’s around the time that Dean started getting involved with gangs. ”
I shook my head. “Why gangs? Why not finish college?”
She snickered. “He wasn’t in college, Brigid.
He barely finished high school. But he got involved with them in order to help pay for all of the medical bills from my pregnancy.
Having twins is rough on the body and it came with a lot of care that regular pregnancies don’t come with initially.
It took a toll on us, and I guess Dean felt it was his responsibility to provide no matter what. That’s how he—”
Bingo. “Your husband is the person you talk about when you say you know someone in the cartel, isn’t he?”
A tear slipped down her cheeks. “He dealt drugs for them for a long time and it more than paid for our bills. We were rolling in money, and because of his charm, he quickly moved up the ladder, you know?”
I took her hands within mine. “It’s okay, take a deep breath for me. You’re safe here. I swear it.”
She drew in a deep breath before she lowered her voice.
“After the twins were born, I was in a hell of a lot of pain. Labor tore me to shreds, and when my postpartum depression set in, I was useless. The medications the doctors gave me didn’t cut it.
I either felt so much pain it made me sick or felt so little that it made me angry.
There wasn’t a happy medium no matter how much therapy I sought out, so I started using the drugs Dean was dealing. ”
I nodded slowly. “And you got hooked.”
She closed her eyes, as if relieving the story piece by piece. “He eventually found out when his selling stash kept coming up short and he forced me to start dealing as well to pay him back for all that I stole.”
“Jesus,” I whispered.
Her eyes snapped open. “He figured that if I was taking them, I might as well help earn some money in the process. And I was so desperate for more just to take the edge off the pain my brain kept putting me in that I dove in head-first. It’s how we hid my drug use from the cartel.”
“Why did you have to hide it in the first place? Wouldn’t they like someone using their stuff?”
Her voice muted itself to a whisper. “In the Banderas Cartel, you can’t use their stuff and still work for them.
They stick to it like glue. And when I became more involved with the inner workings of the cartel because of Dean’s position, it was a constant struggle between my addiction and trying to keep the kids safe. ”
I shook my head softly. “I’m so fucking sorry, Lori.”
She leaned against me, as if talking about it drained her body of all its energy.
“Eventually, they figured out that I was using the drugs I was supposed to be selling. They threatened me and Dean. They threatened the lives of our two boys. And even though Dean stood up for me, there was a price for that.”
I held her close. “What kind of a price?”
Her voice grew shaky. “A price way too great for my own sins.”
I furrowed my brow. “Lori, what did they do?”
Her hand gripped my own as her body trembled.
I wrapped my arms around her. She stuffed her head into the crook of my neck and sobbed relentlessly, as if I had just opened the vault that contained all of the emotions she stuffed down on a daily basis.
I blinked back my own tears as she unleashed against me with snot dripping down my shoulder.
And as I held her close, I waited for her to gather herself.
Then, I shifted so that I could take her head in my hands and gaze into her eyes.
“What happened, Lori? It’s important that you voice it. That you put it out there to process.”
Her lower lip quivered. “I can’t. I just—I’m sorry. I’m just not feeling well anymore. I think it’s the pollen or something.”
I sighed. “Lori, please. This is—”
She stood to her feet. “Yes, I think I need a little nap before my group therapy session. Want to walk me back?”
Damn it.
I knew something was wrong. I knew there was something she was afraid of that she wasn’t talking about. But I also didn’t want to push it, or her for that matter. I nodded my head before I offered Lori my arm, and together we started back toward her room.
But once I closed her room door behind me, she turned to look straight into my eyes.
“You remind me so much of Roo, you know,” she said softly.
I tilted my head. “Who’s Roo?”
She snickered. “My daughter.”
I paused. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
She smiled softly as she looked down at her feet. “She’s strong, valiant, and is smart as a whip.”
I smiled. “Just like her mother.”
She snickered as she shook her head. “Jared’s more like Dean, though. Hot-headed. A go-getter. Nothing can get in his way if he decides it can’t affect him.”
I giggled. “Sounds like a son any mother would be proud of. Do you talk to them at all? To Roo or Jared?”
She shook her head before she turned to look out the window just above her twin-size bed. “I don’t. I don't want to bring them into this mess with me. They deserve a mother that’s sober. A mother that can be there for them. And I’m just not there yet.”
I watched as she peered over my shoulder and the look that overcame her face made me turn around. I didn’t see anyone or anything behind me, so I wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but whatever the hell she tumbled around in her mind made her face go white as a sheet.
She’s nervous, and I have to find a way to get her to open up about it.
“Lori,” I said as I took her hand, “are you sure you don’t want t—”
She pulled her hand away from mine. “I just need to lie down and rest for a bit. I didn’t sleep well last night and I’m a bit delirious.”
I peeked over my shoulder as she tucked herself into bed while I tried my damnedest to figure out why the hell she had shut down on me so quickly.
I turned back around and watched her pull the covers over her head, so I took the liberty of turning the light off.
I sat in the corner in a chair, waiting until her wood-sawing snores filled the room before I slipped out to do some investigating.
And it didn’t take me long to realize why she had grown so nervous.
Where the hell did all of these men in black suits come from?