Chapter Fourteen #2
I watch the pen move and tell myself not to get annoyed by the fact that even that bothers me. Not because I mind her taking notes. Because it makes this feel too much like what it’s pretending to be.
A session.
An ordinary one.
It isn’t.
I know that. She knows that. Still, we both keep reaching for the structure of it because it makes more sense.
“We got inside, no problem,” I say. “No complications at first. Took a bit to find the merch. There were three pallets, so we needed to move them out slowly with a jack. Avoid cameras, avoid all security measures.”
I look past her for a second, toward the strip of blue through the windows, then back to Teresa waiting patiently for me to continue.
I nod once. “Yeah. With the jack.”
“We weren’t alone in there,” I say. “We thought we were at first, but…”
I shrug. No big deal.
I can see the confusion on her face before she asks.
“You knew there were other men in the warehouse.”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because we needed to get the job done,” I say simply.
She doesn’t say anything right away. As brilliant as she is, I’m not quite sure she understands this.
She’s a dedicated woman who is obviously used to making sacrifices for her job, but no one outside of the life understands what it takes to be in it.
Yes, there was risk, but it was risk worth taking.
“We had the merchandise moving,” I say. “We had two pallets out, and we were going for the third. Something happened, and the jack broke.”
I feel my body tense as the same feeling surges through me.
Teresa’s brows draw together slightly. “And how did that make you feel?”
The question draws a laugh completely devoid of amusement out of me. “You serious, Doc? You a cliché now?”
“It’s a cliché for a reason,” she says. “Just now, when you told me the jack broke, you felt something. What was it?”
I look at her. “It pissed me off.”
That one she doesn’t write down immediately. She just studies me a beat, then says, “Why?”
“Because it slowed the job down. Because it meant staying longer, and we’d already been in there too long.”
“Why didn’t you just leave it behind and go? You already had two out of the three, right?” she asks.
“Yeah, we were almost done,” I say, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We only had one left.”
She writes that down.
“So, you wanted the job finished.”
“Yes.”
“Even though you knew you weren’t alone.”
“Yes.”
“And did your brother agree?”
“Yes.”
“So, the jack broke,” she says, prompting me to continue.
“The jack broke,” I say again. “We needed to get the pallet out. The next closest jack squeaked, so we needed a different one. I told him to wait there, and I’d get another one. There had to be one somewhere in the warehouse.”
“And Nico?”
“He tried to stop me, but I was already walking away, and I pretended I didn’t hear him. He couldn’t talk any louder or argue, otherwise, he’d draw attention to us. I used that to my advantage and walked away.”
The words are rotten coming out of my mouth.
I knew at the time that Nico wouldn’t be able to argue with me or reason with me like usual, not when there were other people in the warehouse who might hear us. I used it to my advantage and walked away to find another jack. I left him alone and walked away.
I’ve stopped talking at this point, but Teresa is waiting me out.
There’s no judgment on her face. That’s the interesting part. Just attention. I wonder if she really isn’t judging me or if she’s professional enough to hide it that well.
I tune back in, and she must sense it because she asks, “What were you feeling at that point?”
“Frustrated,” I say. “Impatient. Certain I was right.”
She nods slowly. “Certain the bigger risk was leaving the job unfinished.”
My jaw tightens. “Yes.”
The air-conditioning kicks in somewhere overhead. Beyond the windows, the palms shift in the light wind. The whole house feels too quiet and still.
I brace my forearms on my thighs and look down at my hands.
“I went to find another jack,” I say. “I wasn’t gone long. Only a few minutes.”
“That matters to you.”
I look up. “What?”
“The length of time.”
I stare at her for a second.
Then look away again.
“Yeah,” I say. “It matters to me.”
“Because if it was only a few minutes, then maybe it feels less like abandonment.”
I don’t like that word.
She sees that too, but she doesn’t back off it.
I say, “I didn’t abandon him.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then what would you call it?”
Bad call.
Wrong choice.
Stupid.
I drag a hand over my mouth.
“I left him exposed,” I say finally.
She writes that down too.
I hate that I’m aware of every line she puts on that page.
“I hadn’t gone far,” I say. “Then I heard it.”
“Heard what?”
“The fighting.”
That comes out rougher than I intend.
Because I can still hear it if I let myself.
The sharp echo of impact in the metal building. The sound of a hard strike of metal on human flesh, the dull thud of impact against human bone. A skull.
A killing strike.
Teresa stays quiet.
Good.
I don’t think I could keep going if she interrupted right there.
“I dropped all efforts to stay quiet,” I say. “Just ran. Even in just those few minutes, I’d gotten pretty far.”
Her gaze doesn’t leave my face.
“When I got back, Nico was in bad shape.”
The image of Nico, banged up, bruises already forming across his face and other exposed parts of his body. The obvious strike against his head was angry and red, already starting to swell. I could tell right away that something was wrong with his jaw.
“How bad?” she asks.
I let out a slow breath through my nose.
“Bad enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I almost smile at that.
Almost.
“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”
She waits.
Again.
Always with the waiting.
It’s irritating how effective it is.
“There were men on him,” I say. “Five, I counted later. He’d already taken down two of them by the time I got there.”
Her brows lift. “He was fighting five men on his own?”
I hate that she seems impressed.
Teresa’s pen is still now, and I know what she’s imagining as I talk. Nico bloodied and hurt and still on his feet, still fighting five men because I’d walked away from him over a fucking jack.
“He was holding his own,” I say. “But he was losing steam fast.”
I look at Teresa then, and my voice turns harder without meaning to.
“That was on me.”
She doesn’t argue.
Good.
Because if she tried to soften that, I’d walk out.
“I got there in time to take down two of them,” I say. “Nico took down one more. Then it was done.”
“You make it sound so quick,” she says.
“Fights usually are.” I look past her out the window at the rolling blue. “They’re not the long drawn-out brawls people think they are. They’re usually over within seconds. Longer if more people are involved.”
She waits for me to continue. When I don’t, she prompts. “What did you do after?”
“We finished the job.”
That stops her for a second. Her brows lift.
“You finished the job? After fighting off five men?”
“Yeah,” I say, matter-of-fact. “We were nearly done. We just had to get the last pallet out and load them all up into the van.”
She leans back in her seat. “This being the catalyst for you seeking help, I expected this to go a little differently.”
I almost laugh. Not because it’s funny.
“The first hit was a surprise right to his head.”
That changes her expression.
“If he hadn’t been so fast,” I say, “it would’ve hit him full on. But he managed to block the worst of the hit with his arm, and it only glanced off his temple and jaw.”
I meet her eyes and hold them. “If he hadn’t, he’d be dead.”
There’s no point softening any of it.
“The only reason we were able to finish the job is because we were both running on pure adrenaline and because we didn’t care about security measures anymore. We just loaded the pallets up and left before anyone else could show up.”
I stand up.
I didn’t plan to. But one second, I’m in the chair and the next I’m on my feet, crossing to the window because sitting there feels impossible all of a sudden.
“Tell me what happened after,” she says.
She doesn’t tell me to sit.
Doesn’t tell me to calm down.
Good.
Because I’d throw the chair through the glass if she did.
I stand there with my back to her, looking out at the bright white strip of beach and the hard blue water beyond it.
“I took him home and dropped the merch off at one of our warehouses,” I say.
I know that’s not really the answer she’s looking for, but I don’t know how much more I’m willing to give her today.
But apparently that’s not enough because she asks: “You took him to his home?”
“Yes.”
“Not the hospital?”
I laugh once, sharp and humorless. “We save the hospital trips for bullet wounds not bruises.”
The image of Antonio lying in the hospital bed, unconscious and pale, recovering from a close-range bullet wounded flashes through my mind.
“What did he look like?” she asks.
For a second, I think she’s asking about Antonio. I have to focus.
“Bruised,” I say. “Cut up. Barely able to open his jaw. Barely able to walk.”
I can see it while I’m saying it. Nico getting out of the car stiff and half-folded from pain. Blood drying on his skin. His cheek and temple already swelling. The way he tried to stand straighter anyway because that’s what he does.
The way that I moved to get out of the car after him, intending on helping him get cleaned up and patched up, and the way he waved me back. The way he didn’t want my help.
The way he would have rather walked into an empty house and deal with it himself, than accept my help.
Luckily, Erica had come over and was waiting for him. If she hadn’t been there, he would’ve been alone.
And that was preferable to him than having me around.
I swallow once and keep going.
“How did the rest of the family react to that?”
She knows she hit the nail on the head with that one because when I don’t answer, she doesn’t move on. She just waits quietly.
“With disappointment.”