Chapter 18
D evi startled as she heard noises from the other side of her bedroom door.
Shit. She’d fallen asleep? Where was the bat? She looked around frantically.
There! It must have fallen onto the floor while she’d been asleep. Picking it up, she unlocked her door and stepped into the living room.
Devi hated violence, but she was also sick of being pushed around and hurt.
So she raised it over her shoulder as she rushed into the other room. There was a man crouched on the floor in front of the kitchen sink with the cupboard door open.
She wasn’t sure what he was doing but she was certain it couldn’t be good.
“What the fuck do you want?” she screamed.
Her father turned to stare at her with his hands up. Then his face filled with recognition. “Mouse? What the fuck are you doing? You could have fucking hurt me with that!”
“What am I doing? What the h-hell are you doing?” she cried, lowering the bat slightly.
Then he lumbered to his feet and she tensed. She wasn’t sure what sort of mood he was in, but experience had taught her that when he came home after days away he was generally in a foul one.
So she watched him warily as he moved toward her.
“What are you doing? What are you looking for? Where have you been?” she asked.
“You need to shut the fuck up,” he told her, jabbing a finger in her direction.
God, she felt terrible. Her head was swimming and she needed to lie down before she fell down.
But first she had to work out what the hell to do about Derick.
Call me when he returns.
Vega’s words swam through her mind. But what did he want with her father? And what would he do if she did call him?
Nothing good, she was certain.
But what happens if you don’t call him?
What if he hurts you instead?
Better Derick than you.
Oh God. What to do?
“Derick, where have you been? People have been here looking for you.”
“Who?” He rushed to the curtains, carefully pulling them back. “Who has been looking for me?”
Did he think they were out there right now? What the heck had he done?
What sort of trouble was he in? And how was that going to come back on her?
Oh God.
Maybe she should call Vega, perhaps she could be done with Derick once and for all.
But how would she live with that on her conscience?
“Vega.”
“What the fuck? Vega? Shit.” Her father looked terrible. He had bloodshot eyes and his shirt was covered in stains with old sweat stains in the pits.
God. He stunk so bad that she could smell him from here.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing! I didn’t do fucking anything! Their games are rigged is all. Rigged. I was winning for a start, but then I don’t know what happened . . . my luck changed. No, it’s their fault. They did it. They got me hooked and they rigged it so they won.”
“You’ve been gambling? With what?”
“I have to pay them. Went to Mars, but he wouldn’t help.
Said he’d already given me a loan and because of Rohan, he would give me more time to pay him back.
But that he wouldn’t lend me anything more.
Can you fucking believe that? Rohan is one of his .
. . and he couldn’t give his old man an extra loan? ”
“You w-went to Freddy?” she whispered.
She didn’t like Freddy much. He’d always had this weird vibe about him. But Rohan insisted that they were friends. And she’d been grateful to him for paying for Rohan’s lawyer.
Not that things had worked out
Still, she couldn’t believe that Derick had gone to Freddy for a loan. And he’d already given him money?
God. He wasn’t going to see that again. And how would Freddy take that? He might be Rohan’s friend but he was also a bad guy who couldn’t just let things like that slip.
Jesus.
This was worse than she thought.
“Not Freddy. Lucan.”
“You . . . you went to Lucan Mars?” she asked, stumbling over to the sofa to sit.
She couldn’t stay on her feet any longer. And not because she was exhausted.
Because she couldn’t believe the stupidity of this man. How was she related to him? She really wished she wasn’t.
“So you’ve been gambling and you need money to pay those debts. You’ve already b-borrowed from the Scorpions and you thought that it was a good idea to go back there and ask for more?” Damn stupid stutter. She hated how it came when she was worked up.
“They owe me! My only boy is in jail!”
“How do they owe you for that?” she asked in bewilderment.
“Because if he was here he’d keep his old man safe.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” she replied incredulously. “He hates you.”
“He does not!” her father roared.
Crap.
“Why does Vega want to talk to you?” she asked. “Why did he help you home the other night?”
“Vega? Well, uh, he offered to help me home after I lost a whole lot of money at a place run by Satan’s Sons. Yeah, that’s why I was with him.”
Satan’s Sons? Holy shit. That’s who he owed money to?
But why did he sound so odd? Like he was lying? Or leaving something out?
“You do know that Vega is a bad guy, right?”
“Don’t pretend to know shit about this. I need money. Where is my stash? It was under the sink! You moved it!”
“I didn’t move any money,” she said. “You probably removed it and forgot.”
“I didn’t fucking move it, girl!” He swung toward her and she was too sluggish and tired to move.
Smack!
The back of his hand landed against the side of her face. Pain engulfed her and she leaned over with a groan, trying to protect her face in case he came at her again.
Shock held her immobile. No one had ever hit her before. Grabbed her roughly, sure. But never smacked her.
Nothing followed and she carefully sat up as he started searching around the trailer. He moved stuff around, throwing it.
“I have to find some money. Got to find it . . . got a tip off . . . sure thing . . . got to win big.”
Right.
A sure thing?
Cynicism filled her as she watched him. He was such an asshole. Getting up, she picked up the bat and moved into her room. As she was stepping through, something shoved her and she sprawled on the floor.
She gaped up at her father in shock. “What are you doing?”
“Get out of my way! You’ve got to have money in here. I know you do.”
Panic threatened to engulf her and she took shallow breaths to counter it. He didn’t know where her stash of money was and as long as she didn’t give herself away he’d never find it.
She stared at the bat as he started ripping up her room, searching.
What she wouldn’t give to pick it up and start hitting him with it.
Do it, Devi.
What if he finds the money? You need that money.
It’s yours. You owe him nothing.
He whirled toward her, breathing heavily and sweating. “I know you have money. I know you’re holding out on me.”
Shit. Fuck. She should have taken the chance to run when she could. He had that mean look in his eyes.
Rohan was right.
She should have left already. But she couldn’t leave her brother.
And she’d promised her mom to take care of Derick.
But would her lovely, sweet mom have condoned the way he’d treated her? Honestly, he’d grown worse since she’d had to move back in here.
Time to do something.
She couldn’t put up with this any longer. Picking up the baseball bat, she ran at him with a scream and whacked it against his arm.
Crack!
He let out a roar of pain, falling on the floor.
Oh my God.
What had she done? She didn’t believe in violence. She wasn’t a violent person.
Was she? Maybe she was. Maybe she had more of him in her than she would like to admit.
She dropped the bat in horror.
“You stupid bitch!” he yelled. “You broke my fucking arm!”
Holy crap.
Had she?
This was bad . . . really, really bad. She could get into a lot of trouble for this.
It was self-defense.
Right. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt her if he could catch her.
Turning, Devi raced out of the bedroom door. Derick let out a roar of fury behind her. But she knew she could easily out-run him.
She’d leave and wait. Circle back later once he was gone and get her stuff.
Then she was out of here.
She was done. Rohan was right. She didn’t owe her mom this.
Let’s see how he did without her paying the bills and rent.
Asshole.
Opening the front door, she flew through it, only to land against someone who grabbed her hard and shoved her back through the door.
She landed on the floor with a cry. Pain shot up her back as she tried to breathe through the pain.
What the heck had just happened? Was that Vega?
But as she opened her eyes, looking up through her blurred vision, she saw it wasn’t Vega.
Who it was . . . was much, much worse.