My Whole World

by Davidson King

  “How about we lighten things up a little. Tell me more about the party tonight.” He lifted one side of his mouth, which normally would be adorable, but any movement just looked painful on him.

  “Sure.” I sat with him for another half hour, telling him everything. From the drinks to the cake. How Sparkles was there and started everyone on a dance-off and how Sam and Jeremy were ridiculously in love. He smiled, and I noticed his blinks getting longer. And by the time I was done, he was asleep.

  “He fell asleep on you, huh?” I hadn’t heard the door open so when Poppy spoke, I jumped. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “It’s fine.”

  She looked over at her brother and then to me. “I hated him working for Vick. I’d tell him all the time to quit, but he wouldn’t. We needed the money. My job just doesn’t pay enough. For the most part, he just worked and came home. Vick never bothered him. But one day, that changed.”

  “The day Vick confronted him?”

  She nodded. “Desi actually explained a lot more to me than Toby ever did, but Toby’s always been quite protective of me.” She appeared amused, not angry with her brother. “Desi told me how Vick threatened me. Had someone following me around. Of course Toby was going to do anything for me he could.”

  She met my eyes, sharp, assessing. “Toby and I only have each other. It’s been just the two of us for a while. And yeah, Toby has always been enamored by you. The Atlas Durand. But you were like a dream for him, something out of reach. He never wanted to hurt you or your club, but he was backed into a corner. Please, don’t be angry with him.”

  I’d loosened my grip on Toby’s hand after he’d fallen asleep, but our fingers were still wrapped together, entwined. I stared at them, at the contrast of our skin. It was beautiful and we fit. Perfectly.

  “You’re a good sister, Poppy. And yeah, I was mad at Toby, but I do understand. It’s just not easy for me to forget and trust.”

  “I hope you work it out.” She wheeled over to the other side of the bed and placed her hand on her brother’s knee.

  “Work it out with Toby?” I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “No. I didn’t mean my brother; I mean yeah, that would be ideal, but I meant work it out with you. You’re all jigsaw pieces with no picture.”

  She was right. I was a mess. I loved my life, my club, my friends. But when it came to my love life, it was endless fucks and no sustainability, and I knew why.

  “I’m going to head home and get some rest. Tell Toby I’ll come back in the morning.”

  “You will?” She smiled so brightly, it was contagious.

  “Yeah.”

  As I left, Desi said he’d stay the night in the room with Toby and Poppy, and I told him when I returned in the morning, he could take a break for a few hours.

  When I pulled into the parking garage of my building, the exhaustion of the evening began to really slam into me. In the elevator up to my floor, I rested my head against the wall the whole time. The doors opened and when I stepped onto my floor, George, one of the building’s security guys, was there.

  “Good evening, Mr. Durand. I’m sorry to bother you so late. You had a visitor this evening, but because you weren’t here and they weren’t on the list of people, I didn’t let him up. He was a little belligerent, but when I agreed to at least let him leave you a note, he was okay with that.” He handed me a piece of paper.

  “Who was the guy?”

  I opened the note. At the same time George said, “Vick Keller.”

  I’m done playing games, was all the note said.

  “I didn’t think you associated with Mr. Keller,” George said.

  “I don’t.” I crumpled the note in my fist and met George’s eyes. “And don’t be respectful of the man; he hasn’t earned that. Next time he comes here, if he comes here, call the police. He’s not welcome.”

  “Understood.”

  I went into my place, the lights turning on automatically, and I immediately called Ciro. Told him everything going on and he said we really needed to figure out how we were going to handle this.

  “He has police on his payroll. Any idea which officers they might be?”

  “No,” he said. “But I happen to know a detective I can trust who would likely have a good idea.”

  “Give ’em a call and see if they’d be willing to help us.”

  “Will do. Stay safe, Atlas.”

  “You too.”

  When someone like Vick Keller said he was done playing games, and you didn’t even know you were playing one, that was something to take seriously. He didn’t get offended and slap your hand. He got angry and destroyed your life.

  There was nothing more I could do tonight, so I took a quick shower, threw on some silk pajama pants, and lay in bed. I stared at the ceiling for hours, replaying everything Toby said, the note Vick left, and when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of all the heartache Joker had tattooed onto my heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Toby

  One thing about hospitals was, they started their mornings way too early—like advanced morning. The doctor from yesterday walked in while the sky was just brightening. He was smiling and chipper and clearly Satan.

  “Good morning, Mr. St. Claire.” He went right over to my machines, smiling at my sister and Desi. His jacket said his name, which I kept forgetting.

  “Good morning, Dr. Toth.”

  “You remembered my name.” He was so happy, and I hated to burst his bubble but…

  “No. I can read.” I pointed to his jacket.

  “Ah, clearly you’re feeling better.” He read over a few things before speaking. “The night nurse said you had a quiet night. Everything is looking good. We want to run some tests today, as you know. Nurse Shell here will take your blood, and after some breakfast, we can get those scans in. Sound all right?”

  “Thrilling.”

  Nurse Shell came over and took blood, a lot of vials of it, and said she was off to get my breakfast.

  “Atlas will be here this morning. Once he arrives, Desi and I will go get a bite.”

  “Actually, I’ll be heading out for a few hours after Atlas gets here. He said he’d stay a while, so I’m gonna go do some things.”

  Maybe it was my imagination, but Poppy looked crestfallen. “Are you coming back?” she asked.

  His smile was small, but his cheeks pinked and… Oh, no way!

  “Yes, this afternoon.”

  Poppy seemed happier with that. “Can I ask you to stop at our apartment and get me some clothes and a few things?”

  He nodded, and she grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down a list. “Need anything, Toby?”

  “Maybe my cell phone. I left it at Vick’s, but Poppy said Shane brought it over and left it in our mailbox. Charger too, that’s in my nightstand.”

  “Okay.” He took the list and shoved it into his pocket.

  My breakfast came, and still Atlas hadn’t arrived. “Look, why don’t you two just go. Nothing is happening to me here. I can’t eat while you two stare at me.”

  Desi and Poppy met each other’s eyes. Had some stupid silent conversation, then nodded. “Okay, we’ll go get food and come back up here to eat it,” Desi said. “It’s the best you get.”

  “Oh, ten whole minutes of alone time?” I joked, earning myself the finger from Desi.

  After they left, I ate as quickly as I could. It was oatmeal, fruit, and tea, easy things I only needed one hand for. The food was okay, but I wanted to go home so badly. I’d just finished my oatmeal when the door opened, and a police officer entered.

  “Mr. St. Claire?” he said.

  “Hi, yes.” I knew they were likely going to be coming to talk to me, so it had been just a matter of time.

  “I’m Officer Milne. I wanted to speak with you about what happened to put you in that bed there.” He smiled, seemingly harmless. Cops in Haven Hart weren’t revered. Too much corruption so I knew right off the bat I would be giving h
im the bare minimum.

  “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be much help, Officer.”

  “And why’s that?” He stood next to my bed, eyes narrowed.

  “I was mugged. Guy, or guys maybe, came up behind me. Took my things and kept hitting me. I didn’t see anything.”

  “Hmm. You’re sure? Maybe something one of them said or maybe how they smelled?”

  I shook my head slowly as there was a throb lingering, so moving it was painful. “No. I remember getting up and being just a block from home. When I got there, my sister saw me and called the police and ambulance.”

  Officer Milne leaned down then, very close to my face. “It’s probably best you remember it that way.” And this was why no one trusted the cops in Haven Hart. The bad outweighed the good by too much.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is there a problem here, Officer?” Atlas’s voice had the cop moving away from the bed and turning. Relief washed over me when I saw him standing by the door. Dressed in jeans and a white shirt, he looked just as amazing as he did when he wore his fancy clothes.

  “Mr. Durand. No, I was just asking Mr. St. Claire about the night he was mugged.”

  “Mugged?” Atlas said, eyes moving from me back to the cop.

  “That’s right. Mugged.” He said the last word slowly.

  “I see.” Atlas walked fully into the room and came over to the other side of my bed. “Well, if you have everything, I think it’s best you go.”

  “I’m the police officer here, Mr. Durand. I’ll decide when I go.”

  Atlas shrugged, fearless in the face of corruption. “So, if I paid you five hundred bucks right now to get the fuck out of this hospital room, you wouldn’t go?” He pulled out his wallet, and the cop eyed it. “Isn’t that how you roll, Officer?”

  When the door opened again, my sister and Desi came in, and now the officer took a few steps back.

  “I have all I need here, I’ll just be going.” He made a hasty retreat and once he was gone, it was as if we all released one collective breath.

  “Where were you?” Atlas asked Desi.

  “I told them to go get breakfast. I didn’t think anything would happen, and it didn’t. That cop wasn’t going to touch me—he was likely sent by Vick to see if I was talking.”

  “I don’t need to be at the club until five, Desi. Why don’t you get out of here, relax or whatever.” Atlas grabbed a chair and pulled it up to my bed.

  “He has scans soon,” Desi said as he chomped on some toast. “I’ll go after I eat and…” He looked at me, then Poppy. “Maybe Poppy, if you want, you can come with me? Get you out of here for a little?”

  “Is that safe?” I asked.

  “I won’t leave her side.” Desi smiled.

  “Not to be negative or anything, but two times now, Toby’s been in danger when you were supposed to be watching him.” Atlas sat back, glaring at Desi.

  “And you think I’ll let someone hurt Poppy or you think I’m incompetent?”

  Poppy and I smiled and rolled our eyes. “Guys, shut up. I would love to go with Desi. Hospitals are exhausting, and I’d rather get all those things on that list myself.”

  So, after they finished eating, they both said good-bye, and then Atlas and I were alone.

  “It seems we have hours with each other,” I said, sipping my now-cold tea. “What do you want to do?”

  He cocked his head, his expression unreadable. “We’re gonna talk in between the doctors sticking you with things and scanning you.”

  “Talk about what?”

  He huffed, and I knew whatever it was, it was hard for him. “I think I’m gonna tell you why I’m all jigsaw pieces inside my head.”

  I laughed the second he said that. “Sweet lord, you’ve been talking to Poppy, haven’t you?”

  This made him echo my laughter and nod. “The girl is scary.”

  “That she is.” I waved my hand toward him. “The floor is yours. Say whatever it is you want to tell me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Atlas

  “I was Joker’s sin. Literally. I spent so much time thinking if it wasn’t for me, he’d still be here, and we’d still be tearing shit up.” I closed my eyes and like always, his face appeared behind my lids…the last time I ever saw him.

  “We were young and stupid, mostly. But we were okay. My mom wasn’t the greatest mother and like so many kids, I was tossed into the system when I was fifteen, thinking that was a better choice. I met Joker there.”

  Toby squeezed my hand and I opened my eyes, keeping them downcast and focused on our fingers.

  “We ran away on my seventeenth birthday. He was a year younger, and we’d had enough of the crappy foster homes and beatings we didn’t deserve. Social workers didn’t give a shit, so we had to do something ourselves. It was street life for us for a long time. Drugs, sex, a lot I’m not proud of, but we did what we had to do to survive, and one night we got lucky.…Well, we thought we did. This guy, Sal, in a stupid fancy car asked us if we wanted to go to a party. It was fucking cold that night, and the thought of being warm was everything. So we said yes. That of course, came with a price, and the next thing we knew, we were running cons and scams for him. Anything he asked for, we did it.”

  I could hear carts rolling by out in the hall, nurses and doctors chattering, but it was quiet in Toby’s room, and he was simply listening. I never thought getting this off my chest to him would feel so good.

  “That was the beginning of the end for us. Parties melded together. We were swimming in cash after a year. It was like we traded one drug for another. Joker was always so charismatic and funny, he was pulling in twice as much as I was. He was also getting hooked on coke and whatever else he could get his hands on.” Toby gave my fingers another squeeze.

  “We had this place where we were living, and one night he overdosed. But I got him to the hospital, and he went into rehab and yeah, for years we had a life. We were able to get away from that cesspool, and we did real work. Made honest money. We still had all the money we’d earned doing all that shit, but we wanted to hold on to it.” Shaking my head, I remembered how bad it had gotten at one point.

  “Then Joker came home one day, said he was promoted. I was happy and it was great, and suddenly he was bringing in three times his regular money. He was also getting distant, and I knew something was up.

  “I was with him for twelve years before it all went to shit. Can you imagine loving someone that long, only to have it all end with one bad choice?”

  I met Toby’s eyes, and they glistened with tears; he knew this wasn’t going to end well. “That’s hard, Atlas.”

  Nodding, I went on, this time without looking away. “I told him I knew something was up and told him to tell me what it was. We fought. God, how we fought. But he told me he ran into that guy who saved us all those years ago at a bar, Sal. He’d been working with him. See, Joker worked at the airport, so he was fudging shit so this guy could get his drugs into Haven Hart.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. One night he was supposed to meet a plane on the tarmac at a certain time, but it was my birthday. I told him if he went, I wouldn’t be here when he got back. I was done. I couldn’t live like that anymore.” His face was in every blink. His blue eyes filled with worry, fear, and resolution. “I think he knew staying with me would kill him, but he never said anything. He just stayed. In that moment, I was just glad he was with me. I didn’t think anything horrible would happen with missing one night.”

  “He loved you,” Toby whispered.

  “Yeah, well, the next day there was a raid on a couple of hangars at the airport. A shit-ton of drugs were seized, and Joker was to blame because he wasn’t there to shuffle shit around.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Yeah. We were watching the news on our couch, in our fucking house, when the knock came. Not the cops like you’d think. No. Him. Sal had four guys with him, and they held Joker down. I—” I was talking so fast, I ran out of
air and gasped.

  “Breathe, Atlas, please.” A lone tear slid along his cheek, and I knew he was feeling everything I was. The horror, pain, the embedded sadness that choked me in the middle of the night. The reason I never wanted to love again.

  “I sat there as they beat him, and when I’d yell at them to stop, I’d get the same treatment. And when our tormentor kneeled in front of me, I begged him. Begged Sal to let us just run away. Said I’d give him everything we had if he let Joker live.” I shook my head, hearing his laughter in my mind like an earworm. No matter how hard I tried, I always heard it.

  “He told me I was Joker’s sin. Joker stayed that night when he had other commitments and knew it. Staying with me was his sin, and for that he had to pay. Sal then…” I hiccupped, the emotion clogging my throat, my pulse throbbing in my ears, but I had to finish, I needed to. “He went over to Joker, took out a knife, and held it to his throat. He asked Joker if he had anything to say and he…” This time a sob wracked my body, I pressed my face against Toby’s hand, and I cried.

  “I’m here. It’s okay, Atlas, I’m right here.”

  “Joker looked right at me, smiled, and said, ‘I regret nothing and will love you forever.’ And then I watched as he bled out on the floor in my living room. I watched until I blacked out.”

  Toby was quiet as I cried on his hand in his hospital room. When I lifted my head, I knew he had cried right along with me.

  “I’m sorry, Atlas. My lying, it brought all this to the forefront for you.”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s the thing, Toby. It’s always there. Every day. For the last ten years.”

  “Oh, Atlas. You’ve held on to all that guilt for a decade?”

  I didn’t answer that, just continued talking. “A few years after Joker died, using all our money, I bought this plot and started to build the club. Yeah, I needed some investors, and I made some shitty choices. But it’s all mine now, and I owe nobody anything.”