Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
HARPER
“If you ever want to see the light of day again,” comes Z’s voice I don’t know how many hours later—maybe the next day.
I woozily shoot up to a sitting position at the sound of his voice from where I’ve fallen asleep on clothes I pulled from hangers above to use as a pillow, blinking in the dark.
Of course, I pounded on the door for a long time with my good hand and screamed my lungs out for I don’t know how many hours before I eventually gave up and fell asleep.
My limbs are cramped. My tongue is thick and spongy, completely dried out because I am so, so thirsty.
The hand he slammed in the door is bruised and hurts whenever I move my thumb, in a way that tells me something’s probably broken.
I wrapped it in the ripped hem of one of the long-sleeved shirts to try to stabilize it, but it’s a laughable excuse for a brace.
I can’t believe I ever gave this man my body. Or allowed my son to call him his father for almost a decade.
“Where’s Bruiser?” I ask, my throat so dry it hurts to talk. “I—I—”
“He’s still at Ximena’s, but I’m sure he’ll be wanting to come home soon.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I wanted to have a wife and a family,” he says, still with that manic edge like it’s been the couple times he’s snorted coke around me before I banned it from the house, “but you never would give me that! Would you? So I guess it’s time you give me my due.
Like the guys always said it should be. You giving me what I tell you, when I tell you.
Like real men do with their bitches. So now you’re gonna sign over Silas’s club to me. ”
“My dad’s club?” I’m completely bewildered. For a second, I’m so scrambled I can’t even figure out what he’s talking about. “What club?”
“The one that idiot’s using as a sex dungeon. In Dallas. Carnal or whatever.” Z’s voice darkens. “You know the one. You were there, just there, betraying me. Probably letting that fucker bend you over and break your back the way you never let me.”
“Betraying you?” I laugh so hard it trills all the way up an octave. “I betrayed you—?” I break off because it hurts too much to talk.
Still, I manage to squeak out, “You locked me in a closet with no water, psycho. You’re the shitty partner here.”
I slam the door with the soles of my feet, even though I know it’s stupid to let him see me get too angry. I told myself I’d be nice and placating and whatever the hell else it takes to get out of this Goddamn closet. I have to go find my son.
But naturally Z only heard one word of that.
“Partner—” he shouts, a fist landing on the heavy wooden door from the other side.
JD really put thoughtful details into the interior of this place—or his girlfriend of the time did—with excellent fixtures, heavy barn doors instead of particle board, and beautiful finishings.
I thought, oh sure, on the outside it looks like a trailer, but inside it feels fancy.
“That word always pissed me the fuck off,” he growls. “I offered to marry you plenty of times.”
“Well, maybe deep down something told me I shouldn’t marry you.
” My voice gains strength the more I talk, even if I sound like I’ve been smoking a pack a day for twenty years.
“Because even though I’m clearly a fucking idiot, some animal part of me deep down knew you weren’t safe. Huh. Looks like I was right.”
“I am safe.” Z slams the wooden door again so hard it shudders. “We both could have been safe if you would’ve just—”
“If I would’ve what?” I shout back hoarsely.
Fuck, what I’d give for a swallow of water.
“Followed the rules? If I would’ve just fucked you nice and acted like the perfect little submissive wife you expected me to be?
Did you even know me? Ever? Did you hear a word I said about how that was the last thing I ever wanted for myself? ”
“You sure decided you wanted it when Bruiser came along.”
“Because if there’s a baby in front of me, I’m gonna do right by it. I’m not my mother!”
I can hear Z’s nasty smirk in his next words. “You so sure? Hopping from one man’s bed right into the next? Sounds a lot like her to me.”
My hand flies out to smack the wood again. “Fuck you. Let me out of here!”
Z just chuckles.
“Not until you give me what I need.”
“You want me to give you Dad’s club, but it’s not even mine!
” Although I don’t know if it’s Caleb’s either, even though he’s been managing it all this time in Silas’s stead.
Has he just been waiting until Silas got out of prison?
Because that place was tapped in and up to date.
Caleb’s clearly put his own money into it over the years, but how could he do that if he never even had equity in it?
“All you gotta do is get Silas to sign it over to you. You’re the only one who’s been visiting him. Surely he’ll do it for his baby girl. Just twist him around your little finger. You’re good at that.”
“Why haven’t you just—”
I stop my running mouth, not wanting to give them ideas if they haven’t thought of them. Maybe they’re all high off their own product like Z.
But seriously, if they just need Silas to sign something, why haven’t they pressured him with guys on the inside? But then I realize as the seconds tick by that, of course, I’m the one late to this party.
The real question is: Who the hell is Z working for?
Because there’s no way he came up with this on his own. And he keeps talking about “them.”
So who are they and what do they want with some random Dallas downtown club? It can’t be anything hidden in the building itself. Else why didn’t they just break in and take it? Is there some special attachment along with the deed?
My head’s spinning too much, and I still haven’t gotten water.
“Z, come on.” I try to make my voice as pathetic as possible, along with some of that old cajoling tone that sometimes got through the hard stare he’d get when we were kids. Through to the tiny spark I always thought was his humanity.
“Z, I’m really thirsty. And okay, we can figure out whatever this is.
Together, like always. You and me against the world.
” My voice cracks as I say the words, and I hurry on.
“Even if you feel like you need to keep me in this closet for now. But I’ve got to get something to drink, or I’m not going to be okay. ”
Now that I see the real Z, I doubt I’ll be getting sympathy. Showing weakness to a predator sometimes puts them at ease, though.
It’s how Z expects me to be—making myself small so his ego can stay big—and it’s better to be exactly what he expects me to be.
Even if I’m a little sickened by the thought.
Because of course it’s what he expects—it’s how you always act around him.
He’s read all your kindness and empathy toward him this whole time as weakness.
Was there ever a spark of humanity to get through to? Even when we were kids? Maybe that spark was just his interest in me as a new treasure to collect.
Z always liked collecting treasures. It’s how he came across that big fat blunt he was holding up that day we first met in the woods. He stole the blunt off some kids at the high school—snuck it off them while they were hot-boxing in the car nearby, then ran like hell.
He was always proud of how he could find nice things and acquire them for himself. Aka, steal them.
Why did it take me this long to see that I was just one more pretty stolen thing he was putting up on his shelf to admire as his own?
“If you own the club,” Z says, still with that warning edge in his voice, “then it will ease the pressure on Silas.”
There’s pressure on Dad?
“Pressure from who? Who do you work for, Z?”
“I’m the one making demands here! Don’t you get it, Harp?
I’m in the power position and it’s time you realize that.
Silas has been meeting with a lawyer, drawing up papers like he’s been thinking about splitting the club between you and Caleb.
You’re gonna go in there and convince him to give it 100% to you. ”
“How do you know all this?” I lean against the wall, baffled about all that’s been going on behind my back.
“His lawyer actually works for us, not that Silas knows it.”
Us. Who the fuck is us?
But he’s going on before I can ask again. “That ratfucker Caleb got himself some powerful friends, so we couldn’t go directly at him. And I was protecting you.”
He says it so pompously, but I happen to intimately know his shit lack of work ethic and substance abuse problems, so I doubt whatever reason the shadowy “us” had for not striking until now had anything to do with him.
There are bigger things at play around me—like an undercurrent in an ocean that I’m suddenly being swept away in, when I had no idea I’d been tossed in the deep end.
Holy shit, exactly how much of this life I’ve been living is a lie, and for how long?
“Who are you working for?” I ask again.
“Clearly not the trucking company,” Z says smugly, and I can tell he’s smoking a cigarette because the stale air of the closet is starting to cloud with cigarette smoke sneaking in underneath the door.
I shake my head. There’s about three guesses who he’s working for, really:
A local gang he got himself caught up with.
Or bosses from the gambling halls where he got into trouble last time.
Or a Motorcycle Club that sometimes lets idiots like him hang around when they need cannon fodder.
Oh shit. It clicks.
Cannon fodder like drivers willing to smuggle drugs over the border from Mexico hidden in their big rigs.
My face falls into my hands.
No wonder Z has kept such steady work in spite of being such a fuck-up. The real shocker is that he hasn’t gotten caught yet.
I cough, choking from the smoke.
“Z!” I pound the door, coughing again. “Let me out. The smoke! I need water.”
“If I let you out, you’re gonna go have a talk with daddy and say exactly what I tell you. Is that understood?”