Chapter 19
“Momma?” Lola says as I tuck in the blanket around her.
“Yes, baby?”
It’s eleven, much too late for her to go to bed on a school night. But she’s been restless ever since dinner. More than everything that’s happened, what Gavin said really shook her. And though she’s been her happy talkative self for the most part, the worried little lines between her brows remained.
Then, when I put her to two hours ago the first time, she got up and padded to the living room in search of me.
“I’m scared,” Lola whispers.
“Everything will be okay. I will be okay.”
“Do you promise?”
I nod and lean in to kiss her warm cheek. Throwing an arm around her, I snuggle in close. “I’m here, baby. Go to sleep.”
“How is she?” Gavin asks when I return to the living room. He’s on the couch, his tall frame making it seem so much smaller than it is.
“She’s finally asleep.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “If I messed things up. I’m not used to children. Actually,” he seems to think on it. “I don’t think I’ve had any conversations with a child since I was one.”
“You were a kid once?” I ask in mock shock.
He chuckles, but only for a moment before his expression turns somber. “Not sure about a kid, but I was small once.”
My chest tightens at the thought of him living through my daughter’s worst fears. I take the gun out from the holster under my shirt. It’s been digging into my skin for hours, and I’m not sure I could use it against Gavin anyway. Setting it on the coffee table, I sit beside him, placing my clasped hands on my lap.
“Lola is quite advanced for her age,” I say. “The way she acts, thinks. She’s incredible.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“It means I have to keep her busy. She has a lot of extracurricular classes and activities. Math club, two classes she’s taking at high school level, chess. She tutors and is tutored as well. Her mind is just always going.” I give him a sad smile. “But she doesn’t just think about school stuff. She also thinks about life stuff. About a year ago, she was teased by this girl for not having a father?—”
“The same one you told me about before?” he grinds out between his teeth.
I’m taken aback by his reaction. Had I spoken about Kenzie before?
“Maybe,” I say. “Unfortunately we’ve had to deal with her for a while. Anyway, she wouldn’t tell me more beyond that she teased her about it. But whatever she said must have triggered that obsessive thinking Lola does, because she began considering the possibility that something might happen to me and the fact that we have no one.”
I have to stop because my throat tightens as I recall that conversation. All the questions she’d come up with that I didn’t have the answers to.
Who would she end up with? Would she become a ward of the state? Not sure where she even came up with that. Would she go to foster parents or live on the streets and eat out of garbage cans? Who would kiss her goodnight?
“It wasn’t anything you did,” I continue. “It’s what I haven’t done.”
He stares at me intensely, the way he does as if he’s trying to read more than I’m giving.
“You’ve done everything you can for her, Andie,” he says.
“Have I?” I ask him, almost supplicant, wanting to know if I’ve done enough. If I am enough. “She’s scared to be alone, Gavin. No child should wonder what will happen if their only family member dies. And to be honest, I’m afraid of that too. What if something does happen to me? Who will she end up with? I’ve named Miri as her guardian, but there are no guarantees.”
“Andie.”
I shake my head and stand. “I should have done more. Made more of an effort to date. Maybe formed a new family. Remarried. Maybe everything would have been better for her.”
“The fuck it would have.” Suddenly he’s standing beside me, his hands grasping my arms, his gaze furious. Then, just as suddenly, he releases me and wipes a hand down his face. When he composes himself, he says, “Marrying some fuck wouldn’t have made anything better.”
“If something happens to me?—”
“Lola would be fine. She will be safe. She will always have a home,” he affirms as if it’s a promise. An oath that leaves no room for doubt or further questioning. As if his word is law.
“Okay.” I sit again and tug him down with me. “Okay.”
He lets out a breath. “Miri seemed less angry with me by the time she left.”
“Miri?” I laugh at his use of her nickname. “Yeah, she doesn’t think you’re so bad anymore because you have some things in common. What you said at the table? Was that real? You grew up on the streets?”
“Does it surprise you?”
“Honestly, yes.”
His lips tug up in a rueful smile. “It’s true. My father died before I was born. And my mother… She shouldn’t have been one in the first place. Didn’t want the responsibility, so she left me with a much older brother who didn’t give two shits about me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry for the things you’re not responsible for.”
“I just meant…”
“I know what you meant.” He sits back, more relaxed now, and throws an arm over the back of the couch, resting his hand right behind my head. “What about you? Do I have things in common with you too?”
Shrugging, I say, “I didn’t eat out of garbage cans. I found ways to pay for my food.”
“What ways?”
I peer at the carpet. “Shameful ways.”
“Stealing.”
“Among other things.”
“Tell me,” he says. It’s not an order, but I feel compelled to obey.
It could be lingering effects from the time I spent at his penthouse, or the hypnotic way his finger is drawing circles on the nape of my neck, or the way he’s so focused on me as if it matters to him what I went through, that has my lips parting, ready to spill all the secrets I’ve kept for so long.
“I sold drugs.” I don’t look at him when I say it. “I sold my body.”
He tenses beside me, his fingers freezing on my skin. “You were a prostitute.”
“Yes.” I swallow hard. “Are you disgusted by me?”
“I’m only disgusted by the people that put you in that situation.” He sounds sincere. “Is that how you met Johnny Rusk?”
I turn to him, shocked. “How did you…”
“The day of the explosion. You were afraid of him.”
“I am afraid.” I blow out a shaky breath.
“Is he why you can’t look at me when we have sex?”
“Yes,” I admit.
“What did he do? Tell me, Andie,” he says calmly, but there is still an undertone of urgency. “Was he a client?”
“He wasn’t.” I wring my hands nervously. “Gavin…” I clear my throat. “You said you saw my records. How did you if they were sealed?”
“I have my ways.”
“And you still hired me even though you claim to hate thieves.”
He nods slowly, as if he can’t believe it himself. “I did.”
“Why?”
His nod turns into an even slower head shake. Then his blue eyes roam over my face, as if he’ll find the answer to that question there.
Jaw tense, he shifts his gaze to his hand at the back of my head as he lifts it and gently runs his fingers over my ponytail. “Tell me what that fuck, Johnny, did to you.” His stare goes icy cold and a shiver crawls over my skin at the deadliness imbedded in his tone. It’s a controlled rage, not for me, I don’t feel it toward me. But it’s there, vibrating, barely contained.
“If you saw my record, you know why I was in jail,” I say. “I was sentenced to twenty years for grand larceny.”
“What does it have to do with Johnny?”
“He’s the man I stole from.”
Gavin stares at me long enough that I look away for fear he’ll see the truth. But it’s too late.
“There’s more to that story, Andie. I felt your fear at the casino. I’m only going to ask once more. What did that fuck do to you?”
I glance at him, wondering how much more to share, if anything at all. However, when I do, his intense expression says he’ll get it out of me one way or another.
Blowing out a breath, I brace myself for the impact that reliving those moments will have on me. I swallow down the knot that threatens to form at the base of my throat, and force out the first few words. “He raped me.”
Gavin’s hands roll into fists and the veins on his forearms bulge as if he’s using all his strength to remain still. “I need you to tell me everything, Andie.”
“Why?”
“So that I know exactly how far to go when I kill him.” He’s peering at the wall across from us, but even with only his profile to me, I can see the furry in his face. The way it hardens every edge.
“Why would you kill him?”
He turns to me. “I have a rule. No one touches what belongs to me. Remember?”
“I don’t belong to you, Gavin.”
Shaking his head, he cups my cheek in his large hand. “You will always belong to me.”
Something inside me suddenly gives. I can feel it, as if a dam within my chest breaks and releases the pressure that’s been suffocating me.
I should hate what he’s saying because in so many ways, I’ve been owned for years. Yet, it’s the way he says it that holds all the meaning.
You will always belong to me. I will take care of you.
You will always belong to me. I will keep you safe.
You will always belong to me. I will kill anyone that hurts you.
And it all spills out of me, like a flood that can’t be stopped once it starts. A tsunami of horror and pain.
I tell him about my mother, and how she left me orphaned on the streets of Los Angeles. I tell him about my boyfriend Orlando that pimped me out, the one that introduced me to cocaine and taught me to steal. And I told him about his boss, Johnny Rusk.
It’s when I get to that part that I pause, but only for a moment.
“Orlando got mixed up with another drug dealer,” I say. “He ended up owing him money. So he got the bright idea to steal from Johnny. Or better yet, to have me steal for him. I didn’t want to, but he insisted I would be better at it. And if I didn’t do it, he’d be taken out and it would be all my fault.
“I was so young and stupid. Orlando was the only person that showed me affection. So, I did it. I broke into Johnny’s house, went directly to where Orlando told me the coke was stashed and took a pound. But I didn’t make it out. Johnny caught me.”
This is where I wish I could stop. Wish I had an eject button for the video that plays in my mind, a movie that can’t be erased.
I begin to tremble uncontrollably as I recount those minutes that seemed like an eternity. Though I shut my eyes, I still see it.
Johnny yanking me away from the window I’d broken in through. His evil smile as he realized who I was. The brute force with which he flung me to the floor and the weight of his body on me.
He wasn’t as big as he is now, but he was big enough that I couldn’t move. Strong too. I can still feel the sting of his slaps on my face, something I believe he did to distract me from the fact that he was tearing my clothes. I can still feel him inside me.
A wave of nausea hits me and I finally stop to take several breaths. I wipe the tears that have been free flowing down my cheeks.
“When it was over, he called the cops himself. They took me away for theft, knowing full well what he’d done. But they were on his payroll and got rid of any evidence that he’d raped me.”
“Did you tell anyone,” Gavin asks.
“Anyone that would listen. Thing was, I had a record. And there was no proof. Even though I became pregnant with his child, it was my word against his that it was rape.”
“Lola is Johnny’s?”
I look at him. “She doesn’t know. He threatened to take her from me if I ever asked for child support. I couldn’t bear the thought of her with him.” God no! The things he’d do to her. “So after I served my time and my parole was over, I ran. I only made it as far as Vegas before my money ran out. That was seven years ago.”
“What about Orlando?”
Laughing at the irony of it, I say, “Johnny took him out.”
Gavin remains silent for a while as he processes what I’ve told him. But I can sense him simmering beneath the surface.
“Say something,” I urge.
“I changed my mind,” he finally speaks. “I’m not going to kill him.”
“You’re not?” My heart sinks, not because I want someone to die, but because I liked that Gavin wanted to avenge me.
“I’m not,” he says with severity. “You are.”