TWENTY
Carlo doesn’t seem at all surprised when I rock through the bar trailing three small kids and a pissed bodyguard behind me. He doesn’t appear impressed that I arrive two hours early for once either, but when Aiden insists we drive to the bar as quickly as possible, that’s what we do. The kids each carry a box-meal from the drive-through where Aiden grabbed all kinds of fast-food for all of us to share; more than we can eat. His selection smacks of desperation and speed, choosing items already on the stands and nothing that needed to be made especially.
“Through to my office,” Carlo directs us, then whistles for Niall to quit wiping the tables and take over at the bar.
I lead everyone to the back room, Aiden bringing up the rear like he expects someone or something to be on our backs. I open the door to Carlo’s office.
“Come in, Jules,” Dax insists. He sits behind Carlo’s desk, his elbows resting on the worn-leather top and his fingers intertwined, steepled under his chin. He watches me carefully, only looking away once to throw a steely glare at Aiden. I bristle. Something has happened, but Aiden was with me and the kids, he’s done nothing to warrant that glare…that I know of, anyway.
In the corner, sitting on the edge of the ugly sofa Carlo sleeps on between shifts, rests my mother. Her little leather purse lies sideways on the floor at her feet. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her cheek is a mottled Rorschach splash of blue and dark purple bruising.
The children run to her and shout over each other to tell her about their day. Aiden walks over to talk with Dax. He leans down and the two men speak in hushed whispers.
“Juliet, you’d better come in,” Mum warns, trying to smile and nod at each of the kids but not really paying attention to what they are telling her.
“Okay, what’s going on? Why are we all here?”
“Two men came to the factory and demanded my boss call me into work and threaten to sack me if I didn’t show.”
“So?”
“So, these weren’t Feelan’s drinking buddies, they were armed, suited and fucking dangerous!” Carlo shouts, storming into the office and closing the door behind him. He looks ready to tear someone a new asshole until my mum calls out his name and his fight drains in a flash. He sits beside her on the couch, his body too big for the small sofa. She leans closer to him. It’s an unconscious movement that both comforts her and calms Carlo. His arm swoops around her shoulders as he pulls her to his side in a fierce hug. Tears stream down her face, and I can’t tell if they’re because something worse has happened or because she’s finally where she really wants to be. I’m less than impressed with Cue-ball. He seems to have forgiven her way too easily considering everything she said back at the apartment.
Casey stumbles over to Carlo and raises her arms, clenching and unclenching her fists to be picked up. Carlo sweeps her off the floor and onto his lap, placing a small kiss against her forehead. The boys climb over my mum, AJ playing with her hair and TJ telling Carlo all about their day at the zoo. He listens attentively, asking questions and cooing in all the right places.
What confuses me isn’t just that they respond so easily to him, but that they do so with familiarity. I almost laugh at the bitter taste of betrayal that floods me as I watch them. All three of my siblings are aware of Carlo and Mum. They’ve built bonds with a man I barely knew. A man who by rights should have been my father first. It’s childish, petty, ludicrous, and unfortunately true, but I can’t lay any blame with them.
“What is this?” I ask. The words came out cold, but I simply can’t get my head around the scene in front of me. Dax and Aiden stop mumbling behind me to listen.
“Juliet—” my mum begins.
“Jules…” Carlo says warningly. They both try to speak at the same time and then stare at each other, communicating only with their eyes which of them should deal with me.
“Honey,” Mum tries again, but I shoot her a warning glance. She’s not Honey-ing me into forgiving her. She’s not even being sweet for my sake. It’s only so she looks good in front of Carlo. “Carlo and I…”
“Are shacking up together. Yep, we all got that memo.”
“Yes, that is exactly what we’re doing. I have no choice now. I’m permanently leaving your father...Eric…after what happened today. There is no way we can safely go back to that apartment, neither can you.”
I shake my head incredulously; I’m still considered a separate entity. There’s them and then there’s me.
“What about you, Cue? You ready to take on a wife and kids? Kids that aren’t even yours? You’re a big man, but this is a heavy load to carry for a man who loved a teenager he ditched once upon a time. Have either of you thought this through?”
“I’ve never wanted anything more than I’ve wanted this. We’ve been planning for this for years,” he confesses. Years. Years of knowing Casey was his. Years of sneaking moments with Mum and the kids. Years of structuring a future. Years where she refused to tell him about me. I swallow the bitterness and suck in a deep breath.
“If it’s been years, then why are you only doing this now?”
“Because now they have the financial backing they need to take Eric Feelan to court for custody of the twins,” Dax interrupts at my back. I spin to face him.
Financial backing? He’s the only one with the money to support them, but why would he do this for them? Is this his way of fulfilling his promise? Because I can’t see how this helps me. And yes, I’m being a selfish bitch, but why should they benefit off my kindness when they’d never even considered me as part of their happy little future.
“You?” I ask Dax.
“Yes.” His response is blunt and invites me not to argue it.
I take a long look at my siblings. Sitting here wrapped around Mum and Carlo they almost look happy, like the shitty part of our day didn’t happen. There’s no mistaking that Casey is Cue’s daughter. I see it now, she has his eyes, a beautiful blue that twinkles with mischief. She has his temperament too, tough as old boots and a little bit crazy. It makes perfect sense, and yet I still feel as though my world has been stirred up by a tornado. Things that I thought were real are shredding around me and here I stand in the eye of the storm, pretending to be calm and collected, while filled with an urgency that I can’t place.
“He’ll never let the boys go. You’ll never get him to agree to it. Is that why you tried to give them back?” I state, but Mum flinches as though I’ve struck her across the face.
Mum’s expression sours, lips thinning as she prepares to attack back, not for a second willing to admit I’m right about this.
“Eric loves nothing more than money. Not even the boys,” she snaps.
“That’s not quite true, is it though?” I fire back. I think of the times we were forced to take days off work when he’d gone too far with a beating. He didn’t care about the money then. “There’s one thing he loves more.”
She catches my eye this time and the anger contorting her features melts away to understanding.
She nods. “Cruelty.”
“He’ll refuse just to hurt you. Just to pour his poison in the heart of your new life together. He’d rather watch you rot than take any sum offered.”
“She’s right.” Mum sighs.
“And now that he has some powerful friends onside—” Aiden adds.
All heads turn to Aiden. No one has the nerve to ask for the truth except me and I’m not sure I want it.
I ask anyway. “What do you mean?”
Dax is the one who explains. “This afternoon, a rather expensively dressed lawyer from Bennington Ridges met with your father at the police station. It’s a firm well known for its affiliations with Diverprop and Barry Franz.”
A thrumming in my temples, warns me that the truth isn’t going to set me free. I can’t take it.
No more. I can’t bear to hear what I know he’s going to say. We were safe. He was going to jail. He attacked Mum and me. There were witnesses—reliable upstanding witnesses. He set me up to be raped and planned to do the same to Mum…How much more did they need to keep him away from us?
Please, no more.
With my eyes so wide I feel the dry air in the room sting them all over, and tears welling in the corners, I turn back to Aiden and try to tell him. I try to make someone see that it is all too much. I knew it. I knew he’d get away with it. I knew he’d not be punished for what he did to us, but I still can’t hear it confirmed.
No. No more. I’m not ready.
“Jules? Breathe,” Aiden instructs, but I can still hear Mum speaking behind me. Her desperation to know the truth forces her to get it all out in the open regardless of whether I’m ready to hear it or not.
“In and out, kid. Just breathe!”
“Jules?” Dax whispers. His eyes widen, hearing both Aiden and my mother talking over one another, and he knows something is really wrong. I spare him a glance, tearing my eyes away from Aiden who seems the only one able to help. The horror and pity in Dax’s face nearly brings me to my knees. How bad must I look to him with my hair unkempt and part-missing, the soft shadow of bruises around my throat and the torn clothing from this morning’s fiasco with the biker-kidnappers? It hasn’t bothered me all day, I was too happy watching the kids, but I guess I look as horrendous as I feel.
“He’s not going to prison, is he? He’s getting out,” Mum demands to know. Her words stumble from her mouth unsteadily but hang in the air.
Aiden tries to cover my ears. Cocooning my face between his hands. He holds me firmly so that I can only see his face, but I still hear Dax’s reply regardless.
“I’m sorry. Our lawyers are fighting to keep him as far away from you all as possible, but it looks like Franz is calling on his connections. Eric’s going to walk away from this. He’ll likely be back home by the end of the day.”
“And hunting us,” Mum adds.
Silence swallows me. I close my eyes, open my fists, and let my screams fall silently to the floor. Four stickers. Four lots of grief and pain that never needed to exist. Four parts of my life that were born out of lies and bad judgments and desperation. I keep the final sticker in my pocket where it belongs. The dying scream in my heart is stronger now and weaker too all at the same time. It screeches out in silence and clutches my chest tight.
I need to move. I need out of here. I give Dax one last look, and, accepting his infinitesimal nod as acceptance.
I run.
I run, alone, out into the Vale, determined not to stop until my body or my mind breaks.