by Shandi Boyes
“Do you know what they did?” I ask, my eyes blazing.
My lungs burn as my body battles to cool the furious heat of the blood scorching my veins. I’m spiraling out of control as a range of reactions crash into me. Anger, remorse, devastation. It all hammers into me in a flurry, nearly sprawling me onto my ass.
When Brandon remains quiet, I scream, “Do you know what they did to me?!”
“Yes,” Brandon replies, his head jerking in a nod.
My whole body is trembling, my nostrils are flaring, anger is burning me alive. Brandon stares into my eyes, exposing his guilt and remorse. His shame.
“I'm nothing like them,” he pleads, his eyes rocketing between mine. “I didn’t change my name because I didn’t want people to know who my father is. I changed it because I'm ashamed of it. I’m ashamed of them.”
His wholesome eyes stare into mine, begging for me to believe him. I know what he's saying is true. Even with his eyes hazed by sorrow, I can see the truth relayed by them. I can feel his shame, his remorse, but it doesn’t lessen my anger. I want to lay my fists into him. I want to make him suffer the way Gemma suffered. The way I suffered, but then, I'd be just as much a coward as they were.
So instead, I release my grip on his collar and stalk to my car.
Sixteen
Hugo
I stumble out of my room with my head pounding as fitfully as my heart. My confrontation with Brandon last night turned my mood woeful. Instead of remembering the lessons Avery has taught me the past five years, I once again sought the aid of a liquor bottle to guide me through the storm. I was desperate, doing anything I could to wash away the memories asphyxiating the joyful mood I’d been in the past four days. I wanted the grim memories that haunt my dreams to vanish. Normally, I could only achieve that with a bottle. Last night, alcohol did nothing. The only people who have the chance to stop my nightmares are seven hundred miles away. Just looking in Ava’s eyes can appease any storm brewing on the horizon.
Noticing my stagger, Hawke opens a bottle of whiskey and pours two glasses, sliding one across the marble counter to me. The inexpensive brown liquor sloshes over the rim, landing on the glistening countertop.
“Hair of the dog?” I mutter, securing the glass.
Hawke arches his brow. Every man knows there's only one cure for a hangover – keep drinking. The bitter-tasting bile sitting in the back of my throat washes into my stomach when I lift the whiskey glass to my mouth and down the generous nip in quick succession. My face grimaces when the familiar burn scorches my throat before settling in my churning stomach. Hawke props his elbows onto the kitchen counter. His movements allow me to see the time on the microwave. It is nearly five PM. My brows hit my hairline. I slept for over twelve hours.
Hawke peers at me with uncertain eyes. “I wasn’t expecting you back so early. Didn’t go as you hoped?”
By the time Hawke walked in the front door of my apartment last night, I was well past tipsy. Assuming I was drowning my sorrows about my trip to Rochdale, Hawke gathered a second bottle of whiskey from the bar and joined my silent commiserations. We didn’t talk; we just sat, side by side, staring into space, drinking in silence.
“Rochdale was good,” I say, rubbing my temples, praying for the pounding drilling my skull into the next century to settle so I can get back on the road. Back to my family. “Actually, Rochdale was more than good. It was fucking great.”
Hawke’s eyes missile to mine. His brow is arched, and the expression on his face is even more uncertain than the glint in his eyes.
“I have a son,” I enlighten him. Even having a hangover that rivals all hangovers, I can’t stop an ecstatic smile stretching across my face. Joel has captured my soul even more quickly than Ava stole my heart.
Hawke’s eyes bulge as his looks at me in utter shock. “Who’s the mom?”
My brain screams blue murder when I throw my head back and boisterously chuckle. My hearty laugh booms off the laminated cabinets and ricochets into my ears. Hawke doesn’t see the hilarity of the situation. His brows are stitched, and his lips are screwed. He looks utterly confused.
“Who do you think?” I ask once my laughter dies down.
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking,” he replies, his tone deadly serious.
When I waggle my brows and smile, clarity forms in his baffled eyes.
“Ava?” His voice is super-alto.
I bite on my lip and nod. If I’d slapped Hawke in the face with a cold fish, it wouldn’t have shocked him more. I slant my head to the side and eye him curiously when his eyes get a spark in them I haven’t seen since the day he married Jorgie.
“She was right,” he says, pushing off the counter and crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Jorgie always said you and Ava were destined to be together. Your son proves it. You can’t--”
“Fight fate,” I fill in, smiling.
Hawke nods and smiles. His eyes get a gloss of sheen in them.
A tingling sensation scratches my throat when Hawke lifts his gaze from the bench to lock his glistening eyes with mine. “I’m really happy for you, man.”
I’m not going to lie, my eyes are welling with tears. Hawke may have only said six little words, but his eyes are expressing much more than his mouth ever could. His normally unreadable eyes expose fragments of a Hawke I haven’t seen in years. The pre-heartbroken Hawke.
“Thanks.”
After coughing to clear his voice of any hindrance, Hawke says, “I’m going to squeeze in a workout at the gym before heading to Nick and Jenni’s. I’m on night watch.”
He smacks me on the back before ambling to the door. Just before he exits, he cranks his head back and peers at me. His mouth is carved in a lopsided grin, and his eyes are sparked with mischief.
“You should consider heading to the gym yourself,” he suggests, waggling his brows. “Get some testosterone pumping through your veins. I don’t want you to run the risk of waking up in the morning with a vagina, since you're getting all sentimental and shit.”
Catching sight of his shit-eating grin, I pick up an apple from the fruit bowl in the middle of the counter and peg it at his head. He chuckles raucously before darting out the front door. I snarl when my throw narrowly misses hitting his head and slams into the mirror hanging in the entranceway, shattering it into tiny shards.
Darn it. The last thing I need is seven years of bad luck.
After having a shower to wash off the funk of a heavy night of drinking, I clean up the shards of glass in the foyer. Half of me was tempted to leave it for Catherine’s arrival tomorrow afternoon, but my laziness only lasted as long as it took for me to remember a quote my mom has always said: A real man knows how to respect a woman. Because he knows the feeling if someone would disrespect his mother.
While picking up the last shard of glass, my eyes catch sight of a white envelope sitting on the entranceway table. My heart smashes against my ribs. It isn’t the fact I don’t get any mail delivered to my home address that piques my interest. It is the fact it has my full name scribbled on the envelope. My full deceased name: Hugo Joel Marshall.
Snatching the lightweight envelope off the table, I rip it open and upend the contents onto the table. My eyes scan the official-looking document before I’ve even gathered it in my hands. The more my eyes speed-read the paper, the more my blood boils. Shoving the document under my arm, I snatch my keys and cell phone out of the crystal bowl on the entranceway table and race to the elevator at the end of my hallway. When the elevator dashboard announces the elevator car is still in the lobby, I push open the fire door and sprint down the stairs.
By the time I make it to the my car, I’m sweating profusely and shaking. Neither is from the effects of running down thirty flights of stairs. I jump into my car, crank the ignition and reverse out of my parking space. The smell of burning rubber and gasoline infiltrate my nostrils as I throw baby into gear and fly out of the underground garage, narrowly missing a blue BMW entering.
I don’t miss Brandon’s curious glance as my car whizzes by, but I’ve got more important matters to deal with right now than him and his guilty conscience.
Drifting my eyes between the road and my phone, I dial Ava’s cell phone. Ignoring the shake encroaching my hands, I press the phone against my ear.
“Hey, you’ve reached Ava; leave a message.”
“Ava, please don’t do this. Please don’t take my son away from me,” I beg, lowering my eyes to the paperwork sitting on the passenger seat. “I know I hurt you and broke your heart. I know you may never forgive me, but please don’t do this. I need him. I need you. I’ll do anything you want, anything at all, but I can’t sign those forms, Ava. I can’t give him up. I can’t give you up.”
I continue pleading into her voicemail until a message comes over the line saying her voicemail is full. I snap my untraceable cell phone shut and throw it onto the forms requesting my signature to sign away my parental rights to Joel, relinquishing full custody to Ava and Marvin. No request for child support has been included and no visitation rights have been stipulated.
As if that weren’t already a low blow, the very last page gutted me. It is requesting a paternity test, wanting to prove Joel is my biological son. I know he's my son. I’ve never doubted it from the moment I laid my eyes on him, but now Ava is trying to deny it, pretending he isn’t mine. It doesn’t make any sense. I can’t comprehend why her perspective has altered so greatly the past two days. She said Joel would be there waiting for me when I came back, that he wasn’t going anywhere, but this paperwork says different.
Approximately two hundred miles outside of Ravenshoe, my untraceable cell phone rings. Not bothering to look at the screen, I flick it open and push it against my ear.
“Ava, please--”
“Who’s Ava?” Hunter’s voice is laced with mockery.
“Hunter, I don’t have time. I’m—”
My words stop when Hunter says, “Izzy needs you.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, apprehension heard in my voice.
“Travis called to say she arrived at the Dungeon an hour ago. She's fairly intoxicated.”
I smirk. Sounds like something Izzy would do. “Where's Isaac?”
After Izzy was cleared of murder charges, Isaac gave me the month off, clearly stipulating Izzy wasn’t going to leave his sight until he “had his fill.” Reading his coded statement, I was more than happy to take a leave of absence from my position. It is my first official vacation in nearly five years.
“Isaac is in Tiburon,” Hunter replies. I hear him run his hand along his scruff beard. “I don’t know when he's coming back. I’ve been trying his cell phones all day, they keep going straight to his voicemail.”
My brow arches. Isaac is never unreachable. His cells are an extension of his body.
“Can you send Roger to keep an eye on her? He’s as boring as bat shit, but he’s good at his job. He’ll make sure Izzy stays out of mischief.”
“Can’t,” Hunter retorts. “He’s at Vegas helping Parker secure Isaac’s asset.”
My eyes squint when a semi-trailer comes over the horizon, blinding me with its high beams.
After flashing my lights at the truck driver and flipping him the bird, I say, “What about you?”
Hunter sheepishly chuckles. It is a laugh I only hear when he is in trouble or causing it. “I’m a little indisposed right now.”
He’s not the only one.
“I’m two hundred miles out,” I explain.
Normally, I wouldn’t hesitate, but it going to take me at least three hours to get to Izzy, someone else in Isaac’s team might be closer.
“That’s means you’re fifteen hundred miles closer to Izzy than me. I’ve tried everyone, but being New Year’s Eve, I’m running out of options. Besides, you’re the only man Isaac trusts with Izzy.”
Muffled voices sound down the line before Hunter says, “I got to go; can you do this or not, Hugo?”
My eyes flick to the clock on my dashboard, displaying it is a little after nine PM. Even if I continue on my trip, I won’t reach Rochdale until 3 AM. I don’t think Ava would appreciate me rocking up to her door that early in the morning, and I don’t need to add any more nails to my coffin by pissing her off.
“I’ll do it,” I say, pulling my car over to the side of the road. “But you're going to fucking owe me, Hunter.”
Hunter chuckles. “I’ll add it to the long list of favors.”
Not giving me a chance to reply, he disconnects the call.
By the time I’m turning onto the street the Dungeon nightclub is located on, I’m exhausted and beyond pissed. I promised Isaac I'd always protect Izzy, and I will, but her timing couldn’t be anymore fucked.
I pull my Chevelle to the curb at the front of the club and peel out of my car. Travis, the bouncer, greets me with a dip of his head as I storm toward him.
“Cormack sent a town car to collect Cate,” Travis advises. “That only leaves you Izzy to deal with.”
I roll my eyes before entering the double doors he's holding open for me. The intoxicating scent of alcohol infused with sweat smacks me in the face when I enter the main section of the Dungeon. It is crammed to the rafters with patrons out enjoying the end of another year. A year that packed more punch than I was prepared for. I extend to my full height, seeking Izzy amongst the crowd. The quicker I get her out of here, the quicker I can get back onto the road. My brows furrow when I spot Izzy dancing with a man who has sandy blond hair. He either has a death wish or isn’t a local, because no man in this town is brave enough to talk to Izzy, let alone dance with her.
“He has a death wish,” I mutter, pacing closer to Izzy.
Not only is Izzy wearing a dress that leaves nothing to the imagination, he’s grinding up on her like Robin Thicke grinded up on Miley Cyrus at the MTV Video Music Awards. Isaac will kill him. As the final minute of the year counts down on the clock shackled to the ceiling, I barge my way through the mass of sweating bodies cavorting on the dance floor. Just as the cheer of “Forty-eight” seeps from Izzy’s mouth, I seize her elbow and drag to the edge of the dance space.
“What the hell are you doing, Izzy?” I ask, staring into massively dilated eyes that clearly expose the extent of her intoxication. She's well past tipsy.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m dancing,” she replies, her slur not impeding her sassy attitude.
When she attempts to stumble away, I grab her wrist. Her head rockets back to me.
“Dancing? You're not dancing. You're provoking Isaac, trying to force his hand.”
Izzy snarls, baring teeth before she shakes her head. Beads of sweat fling off her drenched nape and land on the floor.
“You don’t know what you're talking about. He left, Hugo. He walked straight out of the house without a backward glance. He left me. So I’m free to do whatever I please.”
Whatever or whomever?
With the determination of the little ninja she is, Izzy squirms out of my grip and stumbles back to her blond dance partner. I count backward to ten, trying to keep a grip on the anger bristling my spine.
Once I have a small sense of rationality, I step in front of Izzy, halting her wobbly steps. “Bullshit, Izzy. You, yourself, had to see if the claims were true, but you don’t expect Isaac to react the same? You're using that guy all because you want to antagonize Isaac. All because you want to force him to react.”
Her face scrunches as she shakes her head, denying my statement.
“If it isn’t that, then why are you going to all this effort? What is the purpose? A free drink? A grope on the dance floor? A stupid midnight kiss?!”
“Yes!” she screams, her loud voice projecting over the blare of music booming out of the speakers. “Because that is probably what he's doing to her right now. He's probably kissing her right now!”
“That’s what you want? A kiss? All of this heartache for a pathetic kiss on New Year’s Eve?!”
Ange
r blackens my blood. I could lose everything because she wants a stupid midnight kiss. My son, the woman who owns my heart, I could lose them both because she's acting like a selfish little brat who didn’t get every item on her Christmas wish list.
If she wants a stupid midnight kiss, I’ll give her a fucking kiss.
I snag Izzy’s wrist and pull her back to me. Her nipples pebble when her chest crashes into mine. A surprised gasp escapes her lips and flutters my mouth with a fruity cocktail scent when I press my lips against hers. I feel the quickening of her pulse through her wrist I’m still clasping. I run my tongue along the seam of her lips before plunging it inside her warm and inviting mouth. Weaving my fingers through her hair, I secure her mouth to mine and increase the intensity of our kiss. I kiss the living hell out of her. Not holding anything back. Giving it my all.
When she pulls away from my embrace, her lust-filled eyes wildly dart between mine. She runs the back of her hand over her red, swollen lips, vainly trying to remove the evidence of our kiss.
“Isaac will kill you,” she mutters as tears well in her eyes.
I smirk and nod. “Yeah, well, at least I know what I'm getting myself into. That dumb fuck had no clue you were in the process of signing his death certificate.”
I know Isaac. I know him better than he thinks I do. He won’t let anyone come between him and Izzy. Just like I’m no longer willing to let anyone come between me and my family.
Seventeen
Hugo
I feel Isaac’s presence before I see him. His anger is so paramount, I feel it all the way in the guest bedroom I’m emerging from. I pull a shirt over my head before rounding the corner of the hallway and entering the main living area. After dumping my duffle bag near the entranceway, I lift my eyes. Isaac is standing in the middle of the sunken living room. He has his back facing me, his fists clenched and hanging at his side. I don’t need to see his face to know he's aware of the kiss Izzy and I shared. I can feel his anger vibrating out of him. I also wouldn’t have expected anything less. Isaac knows everything, especially when it comes to Izzy.