31
“Dinner could mean anything,”I mutter to myself as I kneel in the dirt, pulling grasses growing under the giant oak. Several bird feeders hang from the boughs, containing germinating seeds, and as a result, we have all these species of grasses growing in the garden from fallen seeds that have no business being here.
“He might mean dinner as a family with Cormac, the three of us. Or even worse, he could mean dinner as a family of four if Gabe brings his girlfriend, whom I’ve decided he must have, because how can a man like him possibly be single after all this time? His wife died when Cormac was eleven, so that’s nine years ago, and I stupidly forgot to give him my condolences for sadly losing a wife. I suspect, however, that the conversation was meant to be about Cormac, his son.”
I sense someone standing over me, and since my instincts are often on edge, I snap my head with the trowel in my hand, prepared to use it as a weapon.
“Lucy?” she stands four feet away, dithering and shuffling on her feet in a non-committed fashion.
“Josh doesn’t know,” she tells me, gazing at the great oak branches.
“It’s your business. I didn’t mean to barge in like that, but the door was left open a crack, and my friend wanted to speak to the coach,” I explain, but she seems distant, not really listening or at least not interested in what I’m saying.
“So, don’t tell Cormac because he’s good friends with Josh,” she says, swinging her bag while still gazing up at the branches.
“Er, I already mentioned it to Cormac, but he didn’t believe me,” I confess. “But you should know that others have seen you and Lyons…”
Now I have her attention. “Where?” she snaps, hostile.
“In a classroom in the Sports School,” I tell her.
Lucy leans against the oak trunk, watching students walking by toward the Art School. “He said I remind him of you.”
My body tenses, and nausea stirs in repulsion, but I see it now. Her hair is a similar color to mine, except mine is wavy and hers is straight, but our features and body size are also similar. I see it now, and I don’t like it one bit. “I was a good swimmer like you-”
“I didn’t mean swimming technique,” she barks, playing with the engagement ring on her finger. “He doesn’t care about my swim strokes or race times.”
“Lucy, is he making you do something you don’t want to do?” my question strikes like a ton of bricks.
“I’m what you’d call an average swimmer with average times, not even good enough to be on the team. Everyone wonders why I’m there.” The anguish is evident on her face, and with every word she utters, the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach intensifies.
“Look, Lucy.” I rise from my knees to speak to her at eye level, but she seems threatened by this.
“Don’t. Just tell Cormac not to say anything to Josh, okay? I can’t have him…” she starts walking away, “knowing. It’ll break him.”
“Lucy,” I call after her, but she storms off at such a quick pace that I doubt she heard me.
Left disturbed by the cryptic conversation, I pull my garden gloves off, toss them in the bucket, and start pacing irritably. I have another thirty minutes left of the shift, but I must go now to cure the malaise in my heart.
The heat from the sun burns the back of my neck as I go from a slow jog to a pounding run toward the Sports Science School. Sweat pours from my brow as my thigh muscles shudder with every movement, and my breath adjusts to the adrenaline surge. I’ve got a bug on my shoe that needs squashing, and there’s only one way to fix it.
I swing open the entrance into the Sports Science School admin building, home to the tutors, professors, and lecturers” offices. A shudder travels down my spine as a flash of a memory invades my mind of the last time I stepped inside this building. It was over two years ago, but that was then, and this is now. I had done my research, and I know exactly where he likes to play, but the thing is…he doesn’t realize that he is the toy and I am the bitch who’s going blow his fucking brains out.
Running swiftly up the stairs with hot blood pumping through my veins, I avoid the eye of everyone who passes me because of avenges on my mind.
I come to his door at the end of the hall of offices and pause to raise my fist against the wood, but instead, I turn the handle and push the door open.
Sitting at his desk, he looks up briefly before grunting smugly, “You forgot to knock.”
Boldly, I stride in, slam the door behind me, pull up a chair, and sit directly opposite him behind his desk.
We sit silently for several moments as I stare at his lowered head, knowing he’s trying to control this situation by ignoring me. So to piss him off, I lift my feet clad in muddy work boots onto his desk, cross them over at the ankle, and relax back into the chair.
He exhales impatiently. “I knew you couldn’t resist,” he says without looking up. I’m unsure what he means by that, and I don’t care.
“So, how much did you pay the peabrain heavies to threaten me with their sour breaths?” I throw the question at him, knowing he can’t deny it, so he may as well be honest. “Now, what was it they said?” I scratch my head. “If you think about squealing on Coach, you better think again,” using a doofus dumbass voice to sound like the doofus dumbass who threatened me.
“I’m glad you received the message,” he states evenly, outwardly unaffected by my presence. It’s almost as if he was expecting me.
Cutting to the chase, “What are you doing to Lucy?”
He grunts. “I suspect you already saw what I was doing to her.”
“No, you sick fuck, what are you blackmailing her with?” I growl, tapping my work boots together to loosen mud from the treads to fall on his tidy desk. “There has to be something because she sure as fuck wouldn’t willingly bend over for you. Just like I refused to cave to your coercions, so your only option left was to use force.”
He graces me with a sinister look, and I must compose myself not to react to his taunts. “I’m not interested in your stories, Rae,” he exhales impatiently again.
I hiss angrily, “Stories? Are you saying that you and your friends didn’t cage me in that fuckin-”
“See, this is what I mean. Tsk, tsk, tsk. That imagination of yours needs to be…contained,” he’s saying the quiet part out loud.
“It’s weird how you hired lackeys to threaten me to keep my mouth shut over an” air quotes, “imagined story,” I hit back.
“Innocent men have been imprisoned for false accusations, Rae,” his voice is stern, but I sense doubt underneath.
“False? Oh, I get it. This is how we’re going to play the game?” I say sarcastically. “Young, stupid girl with a crush on an older coach, blah blah. Yeah, your buddy, Gav, already filled me in. I guess you must keep to the story so no one trips up. Gotcha.”
“No one will believe your lies,” he affirms. “And rubbing shoulders with that detective will not help your case either.”
It takes a second for me to realize that he’s talking about Gabe, who happens to be the father of his fastest competitive swimmer in the 200 and 300-meter freestyle. Does he really want to piss off the Bernardis’?
“We have careers and family to provide for,” he adds. “We don’t need a little girl with fairytail fantasies trying to ruin our lives.”
“I haven’t tried to do anything,” I argue, relieved that I don’t have Til with me because I would’ve shot him after he said the words ‘imagined stories.’
“The warning still stands,” he says evenly. “And it’s your word against ours.”
“The reason I didn’t go to the police was because you threatened to destroy my family, and I believed you,” I confess. “I’m not so young and na?ve anymore.”
He scoffs. “That’s debatable.”
Dragging my boots off his desk, I stand to leave. “Stay the fuck away from Lucy.”
His voice rings in my ears as I lay my hand on the doorknob. “And how is Gavin? I hear he’s getting real cozy with your brother.”
A shiver grips the small of my spine as I flee from the room. I had always suspected that Gavin had moved to the coast to be near my family so he could watch over them—keep your friends close and enemies closer. Of course, my family is completely unaware of his intentions, and I must keep it that way.
“Damn it,” I curse under my breath as I run down the stairs to the foyer. “They’re covering all basis.”
He’s got something over Lucy, just like he had something over me. The real problem is The Four”s influence and power, notably The Snake. Even thinking about that creep makes the hair on my arms stand on end. My head is spinning so much that I slam into a tutor and have to apologize for knocking the books from her arms.
The doubts tumble into my mind on whether I should kill him or walk away and try to put this behind me. This is a constant internal battle that keeps me up at night. If I kill him and The Snake finds out it was me, what would they do to my family? But now, another woman is under their controlling grip, and I’m looking at the situation differently. Even though Lucy won’t reveal her story to me, I know I’m not alone and the only one. I may never know how far they’ve gone with her because, like me, she’s likely being threatened to keep her mouth shut.
My pace is slower as I head back to the great oak, where I left my weed bucket and trowel, and I cannot ignore what Lyons was insinuating. They’re protecting their backs to take advantage of the freedoms of who and what they are. In other words, they have the privilege of doing whatever they like and exploiting whoever they choose and will always get away with it.
Until now.