by Stacy Gail
That was the moment when he’d found out he was responsible. He was the one who had let the monster in. If he’d brought a rabid tiger into their midst and set it loose, he couldn’t have done more damage to his family. Or to Essie.
“When my sister was born,” he said into the quiet, seeing not Angel but the first time he had seen his baby sister, “I remember how my dad sat Nick and me down in his big La-Z-Boy recliner and placed her in our laps. She was so tiny she didn’t even seem real,” he added with a half-laugh. “She looked like this perfect little doll wrapped up in a pink blanket. That was when my dad told us that we were very lucky, because we were now big brothers, and big brothers had been trusted through birth order with the privilege of being the protectors of a little sister. Nick and I had been given this honor. I’ll never forget the pride I felt that day.” Or the depth of despair he’d plunged into when he realized he’d let his little sister down in the worst possible way.
He’d brought a monster right to her. God, right the fuck to her. After all these years, he could still barely tolerate that thought. And he sure as hell couldn’t take it if fate decided to punish him more by making history repeat itself. Maybe he deserved that punishment, but Angel didn’t. Like Essie, she was an innocent.
“Will I be meeting Essie at your family’s Sunday dinner?”
The gentle sound of Angel’s voice dragged him out of the darkness of his thoughts, and he shook his head. “Essie moved down to Texas eight years ago, where our mom has family. Houston suits her better than Humboldt Park, which is a much more close-knit community where everyone knows everybody else’s business.”
“That’s Chicago for you—the biggest collection of small towns this side of New York. There are no real secrets.”
“True that,” he agreed absently, while the ramifications of what they were saying set in. “That being the case, it’d probably be best if you didn’t go to dinner with my family.”
Her eyes went wide with shock and a flash of something he didn’t immediately pick up on. “What?”
“That’s a huge-ass statement, taking a woman to a family dinner,” he went on, needing for her to understand that they were now playing with some seriously dangerous fire and he didn’t want her to get burned. “It’s like announcing to the world that you mean something to me, especially since I’ve never brought a woman to Sunday dinner in my life. I’m thinking that isn’t the kind of statement I want to make right now. Not while this crazy pen pal of yours is on the loose.”
Her eyes were open windows to a chaos of emotion—shock, confusion, anger, worry. And hurt. A world of hurt. Too late, he remembered her tendency to take things personally, and his hands on her shoulders tightened.
“After this letter-writing dick is caught and we’ve put all this in the rearview mirror, we’ll make this happen, yeah? I just think we should play it safe for now and not make a big scene about what’s going on between us.”
“A big scene?”
“We know he’s watching you. So it’d be smart to make it appear to that asshole that we’re not that involved. We should play it cool for now, but I promise after we find out who he is and put him in his place, there will be more Sunday dinners than you can shake a stick at. You got my word on that.”
“I get it. I’m good.” She dropped her gaze in tandem with her hands dropping from around his waist, and she took a step back from him. “You’ll explain my absence to your mother, won’t you? I know she’s expecting me, and I wouldn’t want her to think I’m rude by not showing up.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Some deep-seated instinct screamed at him to bring her back into his arms, to not let that chasm grow between them, and hold onto her until she believed this wasn’t personal. But cold, hard logic and the memory of how horribly he’d let his sister down kept him statue-still.
For now, it was better this way.
It was shocking how contrary a human being could be, Angel decided as she curled up on one end of the couch in her living room and surfed through the channels. The sun’s dying rays filtered in through the back patio’s sliding glass door, and there was a bag of corn chips leaning against her hip that she was calling dinner. Then, when that made her think of what Twist’s reaction would be to that, she lost her appetite and tossed the bag onto the coffee table.
Twist.
He’d been so gung-ho on the idea of having her come to Sunday family dinner with him, while she’d worked herself into a nervous tizzy over the very idea. It didn’t help that Joey and Novak had also made a mountain out of that dinner molehill, so that ultimately she’d been on the verge of dreading it.
Then, like that, Twist threw the boat into full reverse, and suddenly the one and only place she wanted to be was right beside him at the supper table, trying to impress the crap out of his parents.
Contrary to the point of insanity. That was who she was now.
No. That wasn’t true. What she had become was deeply devoted to being a part of Twist’s life. Once she’d lowered her defenses enough to admit she’d fallen in love with him, everything inside her had swan-dived headfirst into making that emotional connection into a total, no-holds-barred commitment. He drove her crazy half the time with his control-freak ways, but he was funny and sweet and thought only of her wellbeing before anything else. She wasn’t a fan of being taken care of, because from the age of seventeen she had thrived while taking care of herself. But it felt good, more than good, to know he was there to lean on if she needed a breather, and together they would get through anything the world tossed their way.
But it wasn’t working out that way.
I just know a thing like love only works right when it’s balanced between two people who’re giving it their all, in equal amounts. Otherwise the balance is off and everything falls to shit.
Twist’s words came back to her as clearly as if he were right there in the room with her. She loved him absolutely, and she was willing to give him her all. But with this one little hiccup rocking their boat, he seemed like he was looking for any excuse to bail. She was no expert when it came to relationships. But she was pretty sure that bailing at the first sign of trouble wasn’t how to succeed in one.
Though for all she knew, this was just an aberration with him. He seemed to think it was necessary to uninvite her to dinner in order to keep her safe, and that was very much like the overprotective Twist she knew so well. The thing was, she just didn’t get how he believed that going their separate ways tonight was safer for her. Wasn’t she safer when she was with him?
But if this was what he needed to do while her pen pal was apparently watching over her, then she’d go along with it.
She just hoped she wasn’t being as blind as her mother had been when her father had begun readying himself to leave the family that he said was smothering him. As far as Angel was concerned, there was nothing worse than being a clichéd, willfully blind woman desperately clinging to a man who didn’t want to be there anymore.
“…candlelight vigil for fourteen-year-old Daphne Nester, whose body was found in Garfield Park earlier this week. According to sources, the Westinghouse High School freshman was raped and beaten to death with a rock, then partially hidden in the bushes. Police have made an arrest in this incident, but have yet to release a name of the suspect. In lieu of flowers, the Nester family is asking for donations to cover the cost of burying their only daughter.”
Okay, Angel thought, biting her lip to try and quell the sudden stinging in her eyes, while a wave of shame hit her hard. She was wrong. There were worse things in life than being stupid about a man. Much, much worse.
The sudden ringing of her cell phone lying on the sofa’s armrest had her flipping it over to read the screen. Then her breath backed up when she saw Twist’s name before she brought it up to her ear. “Hey.”
“Angel, honey, it’s Lynette,” came the very recognizable female voice of Twist’s mother. “I stole my son’s phone and dashed into the bathroom to give you a qui
ck call. Why aren’t you here? Did you two have a fight?”
Her jaw dropped. Then the thought of what Lynette Santiago might be like as a mother-in-law flashed briefly through her mind before she could stuff it in a box and throw it into a bottomless pit. “Uh, didn’t Twist tell you?” It was weak, as far as responses went, but Lynette had caught her unprepared.
“He said you have a stalker because of him, and he’s afraid of the two of you being seen together,” came the huffy reply. “Which sounds like a load of poppycock to me. I mean, how does it make sense to leave you all alone when you could be here, safe and surrounded by people?”
Her thoughts exactly. “Twist actually thought I would be with my neighbors while he was at dinner.”
“And are you?”
“Nope. Novak had an early playoff game this evening, so I’m flying solo.” And calling a bag of corn chips dinner, because that’s how I roll.
“See? I knew it was poppycock. You had a fight, didn’t you? What’d he do?”
Angel had to laugh at Lynette’s assumption. She might be Twist’s mother, but there was no shaking the understanding of women when it came to dealing with men. “I swear, we didn’t have a fight. It’s true that I’ve picked up what I’m calling a pen pal who may or may not have stalker-like tendencies. But my anonymous letter writer seems to be more interested in warning me off of Twist than hurting me.”
“What?”
Angel quickly filled in the apparent holes of what Twist had told his mother, trying to downplay it as no big deal, but by the time she was done there was a long silence that greeted her. “Lynette? Are you still there?”
“Honey.” Though it could have been a trick of the cell signal, it seemed to Angel’s ears that the other woman’s voice had aged during their talk. “I’m so sorry. And how awful that this is happening to the first woman he’s dared to show any real interest in. I’ve been so worried that my boy had lost all hope of meeting someone special and settling down, since he felt his past shadowed his every step. He even told me once that he’d never want to be the kind of man that a woman would be ashamed of having in her life, can you imagine? Then he introduced us to you, his Angel that we’ve heard so much about, and I was giddy with happiness, you have no idea. And now this. God, I could cry.”
Crap. No wonder Twist hadn’t told his mom everything. “Lynette—”
“You have to listen to me,” she said urgently. “There are reasons why Oliver acts the way he does.”
“I’m sure there are.” She just had a lurking fear the reason he’d uninvited her was his way of scraping her off before they got too deep into the “meet the family” quagmire.
“My son was born with an oversized need to protect,” Lynette went on, as if sensing Angel was nowhere near convinced. “Has he told you about his sister Essie?”
Angel paused, unsure of what the other woman was referring to. “Um…”
“He hasn’t,” the other woman decided flatly. “That boy. All right, this next question is a little tricky, because if you don’t know… Angel, has my son told you that he has a, uh… well, that he has a record?”
“Yes, and he told me what it was for—assault with intent.” Finally she could give an answer that had some merit to it. “He told me he was guilty of the crime, and that he’d confessed to it freely to the judge.”
“But did he tell you why he did it?”
Again she hesitated. “The time wasn’t right for him to tell, or for me to ask.”
Lynette sighed. “Eight years ago, Oliver brought a friend home from work—back then he had a part-time job at my uncle’s construction company while going to school to get a degree in graphic design. This friend of his quickly became a regular fixture at our house, and he certainly seemed nice enough. There was never any indication that there was something evil lurking beneath his friendly smile.”
“Evil?” Angel repeated, while a sudden chill scuttled down her spine.
“I don’t use that word lightly,” came the grim response. “I promise you, there was no hint of just how awful this boy was. He ate with us, stayed with us, played touch football in the backyard with us. We all trusted him, and that turned out to be the biggest mistake that ever hit our family.”
Angel almost didn’t want to ask. “What happened?”
“It was summer, so the kids were out of school. Ed and I were at work, as was Oliver, and Nick had left for the lake with some friends. Essie, who was sixteen at the time, wanted a lazy day, so she stayed home. This so-called friend came over, presumably looking for Oliver. My Essie thought that was strange because he and Oliver worked together, so she figured he should know exactly where Oliver was. That was when he forced his way into the house and… and tortured my baby girl for hours.”
“Oh, my God.” The strangled words whispered out of her as the horror of what the Santiago family had endured—Essie in particular—hit her like a physical blow.
“I think he would have killed her if Nick hadn’t come home early. They scuffled before that monster managed to get away. Once the family gathered at the hospital and Nick told us who was responsible for raping and beating my girl, Oliver went looking for him.”
“Of course he did.” With his overprotective streak, she couldn’t imagine him doing anything else.
“Oliver couldn’t forgive himself for bringing this boy into our lives,” Lynette went on, her voice going so low it was hard for Angel to hear her. “He’s too good for his own good. What happened to Essie wasn’t his responsibility, but he took it upon himself to try and get retribution because he felt so guilty about it. And once he’d caught up to that bastard and made him pay, my son called the police and waited to be picked up, along with Essie’s attacker.”
Angel had to swallow hard to get her throat unlocked. “I can’t believe Twist got sentenced to five years for doing what any grief-stricken family member would do. There were extenuating circumstances—”
“Honey, he wanted to be punished. Not for beating that guy to within an inch of his life. No, my boy wanted to burn for bringing that thing into Essie’s world. He told the judge who heard his case that he wanted the maximum sentence for the crime he committed, because he hadn’t been a good enough big brother. I cried so hard when he said those words, because that was when I knew that in his own way, my son was just as damaged by this horrible event as my daughter.”
In that moment, Angel could picture the scene as clearly as if she’d been there to witness it, and the weight of the tragedy that had hit the Santiago family nearly crushed her. “How is Essie now?”
“After several reconstructive surgeries and years of all sorts of therapy, she’s better than ever. She’s in grad school down in Texas, something Oliver takes great pride in paying for, though Essie swears she’s going to pay him back every single penny.”
“He won’t accept it. That’s not how he is.”
“I love that you know this about him, and I love that you obviously weren’t afraid of his record,” Lynette added, and Angel could hear the gratitude in her voice. “But the one thing you might not realize about Oliver is that he doesn’t always know what’s best for him. He’s great at doing what’s best for others—even when they don’t want him to make the effort.”
All too easily she thought of the healthy food he’d tried to force on her. “Tell me about it.”
“But when it comes to doing what’s best for himself, Oliver always gives himself the short end of the stick. And he doesn’t deserve that. He deserves the best.”
She bit her lip, hard, and focused on the pain to keep from giving in to the tears clogging her throat. “I agree.”
“You’re what’s best for my son, Angel. I know this because we’ve heard about you for years, so whatever you do—or whatever he does—please don’t lose sight of that. Don’t forget that he needs you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Angel barely slept, staying up until one in the morning waiting for Twist, before falling into a s
leep that was troubled with crazy dreams. The only dream she clearly remembered was the one where she couldn’t get out of her car. Twist was on the outside, holding up the car keys for her to see but otherwise not moving as she tried the locks and pulled on the door handle, but nothing happened. When she yelled to him to help her by pulling from his side or hitting the lock on the key fob, he didn’t move, didn’t help. He just stood there.
She didn’t need a shrink to figure out what her subconscious was trying to tell her. Twist held the key to what she wanted most of all—to be with him. But at the moment he didn’t seem to want to help her to make this a reality, and though she hated herself for the weakness, doubts about how real their relationship was kept pushing to the surface. After all, only a week of being lovers was far outweighed by four years of being enemies.
But oh, how she wanted to believe.
Believing, however, was a little harder to do when she woke alone for the first time in a week.
Icy dread sank its needle-sharp teeth into her when she sat up and looked to the other side of the bed.
Empty, and as neatly made as when she had gone to bed.
Considering that she was no longer suffering any symptoms from her concussion, she supposed on the surface it was understandable that Twist wouldn’t feel the need to look out for her around the clock. So, yeah. On the surface, this could have meant nothing.
But their closeness was no longer about her concussion. It hadn’t been since the first time they’d made love. So surface be damned, this was a big freaking deal. Their newfound closeness was supposed to be all about them now, and figuring out how two separate people can become a single, harmoniously working unit.
Being absent wasn’t any way to make a unit work.
Flinging back the covers, Angel grabbed for her robe, but paused when she noted her alarm clock ticking away on the table beside the bed. She frowned at it, unsure if it had been there the night before. She was almost sure it hadn’t been.