by Raven Scott
“Natasha, Valerie isn’t the source of all your bitterness and self-hatred, and I think you know that.” Snorting roughly, I poured my joe into a large mug, and some spilled and sloshed over the edge to splatter on the countertop. Disgust soured my tongue, and I sniffed hard as I jerked my head and swiped my hair away from my face with my free hand.
“Of course, I do. I’m me. But you know what, Carlyle? I don’t know anything about myself. You probably know more about me than I do. Okay, so I have two choices. Either I find a way to accept that I’m a disgusting, emotionally stunted, terrified thing.” Tightening my grip on the coffee pot handle, my lip curled as dark determination seared through my chest, and Carlyle’s stare became heavy. Glaring at my reflection in the mug, I ground my teeth together as black seeped into the edges of my vision. “Or I don’t accept it, and at that point, there’s no use living anymore. Death is only painful for those left behind and even then . . . I’ll be dead. It won’t be my problem.”
“You have a point.” Reluctance deepened his baritone, and Carlyle sighed heavily before shuffling to get his feet on the floor. “I won’t tell Valerie, but if she comes to you, you should, Natasha.”
“She won’t.” The air became frosty at my murmur, and Carlyle didn’t say anything more before walking out. Grabbing my burning hot mug, I frowned at my reflection before lifting it to my lips.
20
Erik
“Donald, what’s going on?” Casting a curious glance at my former boss, I leaned on the doorframe to cross my arms as he held up a hand and continued talking on the phone. Ignoring the conversation, I tilted my head as quiet determination permeated the entire squad room. The detectives I’d barely gotten to memorize the names of were all hunched over their desks, and confusion furrowed my brows. This city had a sizeable police force but not nearly as many detectives. There wasn’t much crime here to investigate, probably thanks to Carlyle Santino.
“Erik, come on in. Sorry about that.” Donald set the phone on the receiver to stand, holding out his hand, and I nodded as he shot me a stress-wrinkled, tired smile. “It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with. There was a murder last night. So, you’re here for . . . what, exactly? Your last check should’ve been deposited already.”
“Uh, yeah, no. I came by because I was wondering what day, exactly, you’re going to kick me out of that rental.” Understanding flickered in Donald’s eyes as he sat down, and I gripped the back of the chair across his desk to lean on it slightly. “I’m gonna head back down south for a bit. My parents want me to come see them and stuff. I figured that since I was jobless, I might as well.”
“Good . . . good . . . I don’t blame you for having a bad taste in your mouth after what happened, Erik. It’s even better that this is kinda a backwater, so we can bend the rules a little when it comes down to it. That’s a good thing about being in the shadows of New York City, at least.” Typing away as he talked, Donald squinted at the computer screen, and I ground my teeth lightly in anticipation. Once I knew the date of the eviction, I could let my father know when to expect the truck with my shit in it. “It says here you’re accommodation will be terminated on the twenty-sixth.”
“Oh, that’s convenient. I’m actually planning to be in South Caroline around then.” Honestly, there wasn’t much of a plan, and Natasha hadn’t even agreed out loud to go along with this insane idea. Donald nodded with a grunt, leaning back in his chair, and I tapped the pleather of my own before speaking up again. “That’s all I wanted to know, really. I’m heading to the gym, now, but this is on the way.”
“I hope you find something that fits, Erik. You deserve it.” Nodding as a slight awkwardness wiggled between my shoulder blades, I turned to walk out of the precinct. I hadn’t been around long enough for anything to feel familiar, but the sensation was strange. I might not ever be back here, and the relief that knowledge brought me was indescribable.
My cell phone pinged loudly in the lobby, and I fished the thing out of my pocket to scan Natasha’s text message. Even this way, somehow, she came off as a little desperate, agreeing with only two words: I’ll go. Nodding to myself, I stepped into the frigid ugliness of late winter and pulled my collar up against the wind.
Erik: Awesome. Do you want to meet up for lunch later?
Truth be told, I didn’t understand how things had progressed from me being the bad guy to this. Ours was a relationship born of desperation— if ‘relationship’ could even be the term to use. Natasha was sick, and I hesitated to really see her as someone healthy and available. She swung wildly between acting okay to the point that even she believed it and incredible despair and suicidal ideation.
I knew that, more than likely, Natasha had some truly good days, but those were few and far between, and I had yet to see one for myself. Hopefully, with a change of scenery, she’d get a little better. She wasn’t tied down by a bad employment decision, and I knew that her sister wasn’t talking to her. These past few days, she hadn’t slept at all, but she didn’t invite me back over, either.
A couple of times a night, Natasha would talk through the bugged jacket at me, as if she needed to release some pressure. Everything she alluded to was horrific, and I was ashamed to say I’d developed some sort of morbid fascination with her story.
My phone pinged again, tearing me from my thoughts, and I swiped around on the screen as I pulled out my keys to twirl them around my finger.
Natasha: What are you doing right now?
“Well, I guess I’m not going to the gym.” Texting her back that I was available, my brows furrowed in consternation when she replied instantly. She suggested meeting at the coffee place, and I typed a quick affirmative before climbing into my car. Pulling out of my spot easily, I turned onto the street to drive the two blocks to my destination. Surprise twitched my brows when I saw Natasha already standing by the door when I passed, and she lifted a hand to stop me on the curb.
Confusion masked my face when she hopped in the back seat, not the passenger seat, and I flexed my hands around the wheel. Her hair fluffed from the wind, a cold rosiness in her cheeks, and she clung close to the door as I waited on bated breath for her to speak.
“Um, hi. So, did you go to the precinct?” Natasha sputtered a little, and I arched a brow quizzically as I caught her eye in the rearview mirror. Her face stained red, and she brushed back her hair to pull it over her shoulder as anxiety sparkled in her eyes. “What?”
“Why are you sitting back there?” I hadn’t pulled off the curb yet, and Natasha went a little wide-eyed as her face pinched. “I’m not going to make you sit in the front.”
“Oh, good, yeah. I take a lot of Lyfts and stuff. It’s a habit.” I could practically taste the lie in her tone, but I didn’t question her further. “I didn’t get a car when we moved here because we lived within blocks of everything, so— but, anyway, I thought that maybe we could . . . hang out.”
“What do you want to do?” Warmth suffused my chest when Natasha’s deer-in-the-headlights look intensified, and I turned my attention to the street. There was so much under that thick veil of dissatisfaction, and she probably knew it. She didn’t know how to get out of the hole that she’d been thrown in. Content to just drive around slowly, I took a turn that led into another turn, and the irony of it didn’t escape me. I was going around in circles with her, and I wasn’t sure how this happened to play out this way.
Was Natasha craving something so badly that I seemed like a good guy, even after bugging her when she was all fucked up? Did she somehow manage to rationalize it away as ‘if he thought he could use me, it means he cares in some capacity’?
How messed up is that? And considering the shitstorm that got kicked up . . .
“Actually . . . ” Speaking up absently, I glanced in my driver’s side mirror before taking the second turn, and Natasha hummed softly from the back seat. “Everyone was busy at the station, so I asked my questions and left. It wasn’t anything grand. What about you, Natasha
? What were you doing out?”
“I was getting coffee, but there was a really long line.” Glancing at her in the rearview, I pursed my lips at the drawn expression on her face. Natasha looked so uncomfortable, and she hugged the door like she could jump tuck and roll at any second. “I talked to Carlyle this morning since Val . . . she’s ignoring me. I think she’s hurt because I didn’t tell her how bad I was getting. I mean, I don’t get it. Why would she feel betrayed and not hound me for answers?”
“Maybe, she needs time to find the right questions.” Spouting out some shit, my lips twitched down at the sudden dip in her voice, and Natasha frowned fully before I turned my gaze back to the road. “I honestly don’t know, either. I only met her the once, but from what I saw . . . you lie to her a lot more than she realized.”
“Yeah, well, there’s things she doesn’t tell me, so . . . ” I had a nagging feeling Natasha was about to launch into a rant about how she wasn’t obligated to speak her every emotion to her sister. Bracing myself when she took a breath in preparation, I tightened my grip on the wheel.
And she didn’t prove me wrong.
21
Natasha
“I don’t think you’re being unreasonable, but all lies aren’t equal lies, Nat. Lying about your PTSD is a lot worse than lying about hanging around all day in your pajamas and being lazy.” Erik’s words sunk deep into my mind, and I slumped in the seat as I crossed my arms tightly over my chest. “So, what did Carlyle say?”
“Um, he asked me if I thought I needed to be hospitalized. But I really think that a change of scenery will help a lot.” My lips thinned as Erik caught my gaze in the rearview mirror and held it, and I slid down deeper until my chin pressed against my sternum. “So, I want to try it, at least, before . . . ”
“Okay. Do you want to get, like, a map, a real physical map, and we can sit somewhere and figure out all the places we want to go?” I nodded dumbly, and Erik tore his eyes off me to focus on the road as he weaved through downtown toward the suburbs. “Have you ever used a map before?”
“I’ve used Google Maps.” He smirked a little at my grumble, and my face flushed as embarrassment closed my throat. “You use a lot of maps in the military?”
“Well, you have to know how to read one, but it’s mostly GPS. The only time you really use a map in the traditional sense is for training exercises so if shit goes FUBAR, you can get to where you need to go without it.” That really made no sense, and Erik chuckled lightly at my furrowed brows before I sat up a little. “Basically, you read the map, know where on it you’re supposed to be at what time, and the best way to get back in one piece. One time, during an exercise, my team and I got dropped in this jungle in Venezuela, and Ben . . . ”
Cutting himself off abruptly, Erik’s whole face closed in on itself and became stony, and I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth. For a moment, the tense silence threatened to suffocate me, but he sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head as my heart jumped into my throat.
“Ah, my best friend, Ben. Nathan and Ben were brothers, and Nathan was the oldest and also our team leader person. After our last mission in Syria went south, and Ben died, Nathan killed himself right there in the rubble.” My heart squeezed painfully, and a horrified gasp escaped me as Erik noticeably tightened his grip on the wheel until his knuckles were white. “Fucking sucked. I was second in command, and if I had said something before, they’d both be alive. I wouldn’t have a bullet an inch from my spine, and I’d still be in right now.”
“What happened?” I knew I shouldn’t have, but I had to know. I had to know someone suffered as much if not more than me. Maybe, it was different, but the guilt, the shame, the horrific memories . . . those were all the same. “I . . . I mean . . . ”
“It’s fine, Natasha. Honestly, I know I’m not entirely to blame.” By your tone, you don’t really believe that, though. “It still sucks ass. It was too difficult at the wrong points- like we were being led into a trap. And Nathan’s dumbshit self was too trusting of the packet. We don’t ask too many questions— we do our job, and that’s it. But that was a moment we should’ve stopped and reassessed. In the end, we lost Ben and Nathan, another guy got permanently crippled by the rubble, and me, well, I guess I’m lucky.”
“That’s awful.” Erik sounded so bitter in that last statement, and my heart filled as goosebumps washed my arms and across my chest. “What happened to you?”
“I got shot, and it traveled up and lodged really close to my spine. I could either transfer out into a position that wouldn’t agitate it, or I could get medically discharged with honors. I took the discharge. My dad only recently started talking to me again, and that’s just to be an asshole.” I hadn’t really caught most of Erik’s conversation with his dad that day at the coffee shop, and I nodded mutely. Emotions battered my chest, some for him but most for me, and I licked my lips as my mouth dried and my stomach roiled.
“My dad faked his death to get away from us.” The gross oversimplification earned me a curious, dark glance, and I frowned ugly under tightly knit brows. “He witnessed a murder, and got put in witness protection for the trial, and they faked his death. He never came back afterwards. He met someone, got married, and ignored us. He ‘died’ when we were twelve and a half, maybe. I saw him when I was touring for college, so I dug him up.”
“Do you blame him for what happened to you?” Puffing out my lips thoughtfully, I rolled my jaw, and I sat up fully to sniffle a shallow breath. Did I blame him? No, not really. Not for what happened to me, at least.
“I hate him for not bringing us. I hate him for so grossly misjudging our mom’s heroin addiction, because I have absolutely no doubt he knew about it. I hate him for not coming back for us, because it wouldn’t have been too late for Valerie, but I don’t think I blame him for leaving. I think he was right to run away. I blame my mom because it’s her fault. It was her drug dealer and his gang, and it was her addiction, and it was her agreement. Maybe, she even instigated it. But like I said, she’s dead, so there’s no point in blaming her anymore.” Everything was so complicated, and I sighed as my tangent faded into exhaustion. “Carlyle was good for that, at least. He was able to find her pretty fast.”
“Okay.” I could hear the tension in Erik’s tone. He wanted to ask me about it, but he didn’t think it was a good idea. For a fraction of a second, I debated not continuing the conversation, but why be hesitant at this point? Why hold back?
“I shot her in the head.” The car jostled slightly when Erik jammed down the gas pedal from his shock, and he quickly hit the brakes. A strange sort of emptiness pushed out from my chest, and I sniffed as I rested my head back against the seat. My seatbelt burned only faintly against my collar bone, and he caught my eyes in the rearview to narrow into tight points. “I’m not lying. I did kill her. I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t even feel relief. She was so high. You know what she said to me? I was the ‘good one’ and she needed rent money. She didn’t even know where she was or anything.”
“Why are you telling me this, Natasha?” Propping my elbow on the window to hold my chin on my palm, I watched Erik pulled onto the curb sharply to jerk the emergency break. He twisted to face me fully, and I tensed at the dark shadows that played on his face. “You murdered someone— you realize that, right?”
“I’d do it again without hesitating. I murdered her? I took her life? At least I don’t have to worry about what information she may be feeding those pigs.” Erik’s eyes widened in surprise, and a scornful snort escaped my nose even as I frowned nastily. “They were onto us long before Carlyle entered the picture, Erik. Valerie never knew why we moved here, and yeah, I fucking lied to her a lot. Everything I ever said to her is probably a lie. But you know what? I was right, and we had a year— a whole year— of peace and normalcy.”
“They were chasing you down? Why?” I shrugged, refusing to blink as dread flooded my chest and twisted my insides. Those were questions I couldn’t answer— didn’
t want to answer— and it didn’t matter anymore, anyway. They were all dead or in hiding. Carlyle made sure of that. “What happened?”
“It was really convenient, actually. Her boyfriend cheated on her, and she found out the same day that I got a phone call from my mom saying she needed money. She called all the time— from prison, from her drug dealer, from pay phones— and I didn’t change my number because I was scared that if they couldn’t call me, they’d come find me. Valerie never knew how much Mom would call me. So, she called a couple hours after Valerie found out about the guy cheating on her, and she said . . . she needed my help. She was in a lot of debt, and they were gonna kill her if she couldn’t pay. She needed me to go down to Dallas and help her out. It’ll just take a day, maybe even less!” Scoffing loudly as Erik’s eyes glittered dangerously, I dug my nails into my cheek as a hollow laugh escaped me to release some of the pressure on my heart. “I convinced Valerie to move here. We were living in Utah at the time, and it was way too close. I spent a long, long time making sure that Valerie thought the move was natural, but . . . anyway, so when they realized I wasn’t going to, they targeted Valerie.”
“It seems like a really long and difficult thing to go through for you and your sister. I don’t get why they didn’t just use your mother when they already had her.” I shrugged again, and Erik frowned under the deep crease between his brows. “That doesn’t make sense at all, Natasha. What gang was it? You’ve obviously seen what’s going on in Dallas on the news, right?”