Rough Love

by Laura Morgan

  “Hey Dad, everything okay?” I asked him, feeling on edge. He didn’t answer me right away, he just closed the door behind him and stepped closer, eyeing me with that hardened stare.

  “No,” he answered, coming closer. “You’re not yourself. You haven’t been since Nico’s accident. All you do is hide yourself away and everyone is beginning to notice. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I answered a little too quickly and saw the disappointment on my father’s face.

  “I thought you knew better than to try and lie to me, Dahlia?” he said, reaching out and taking my hand in his. He then pressed his forefinger into the same spot on my wrist where he’d held me before. The place he could use to determine my innermost reactions via his craftily honed skills at reading people. I wasn’t about to let him repeat the exercise though, so yanked it back without a care for my usual calm nature.

  “Enough with the weird lie-detector thing! I’m sad and angry and I’m allowed to be, okay?” He was understandably shocked and stood there, his dark brown eyes boring into mine.

  “Why?” he eventually breathed and I had to look away. There was no lie I could tell him. No truth I could exploit. I had to do it. To tell him at least part of what I’d learned about Dita’s torment. He had to know, for my safety as well as my need for the truth.

  “Because under your roof, Dita was raped and beaten over and over again without you or anyone else putting a stop to it. Without you helping her. You sat back and did nothing while she was hurting. While she was in pain day after day.” I felt a sob rattle my chest and let it out as I rubbed my stinging eyes. “Not even when she begged you to…”

  “What?” he asked me, and his deep voice more like a whisper. “How do you know all this?” I couldn’t answer without giving up the precious laptop I was still hoping Jane Doe might message me on, but I also didn’t want to give up Dita’s diaries. They were private. Something only she and I had read and I wanted it to stay that way.

  Sensing my refusal, Dad took a deep breath and sat down on my bed, his body sagging as though he was exhausted. “I knew she was seeing someone behind Tobin’s back and yes, I saw the bruises. I figured she liked it rough with the guy she was cheating with but thought it was consensual. She and I weren’t close like we are, Dahlia. I couldn’t just come right out and ask her, so I left it for a while, but decided to take Tobin away on a run with me so they could have some space. I got him laid and made it clear I was behind him if he wanted to break things off with Dita and he was glad. He knew they were over but hadn’t known how to tell me.”

  “So you just left them to continue the façade of their relationship while suffering at the hands of her abuser? She was riddled with guilt because of it and that burden drove her crazy.”

  “I didn’t know!” Dad bellowed, raising his voice to me for the first time in years. I crumbled. Taking a seat next to him atop my thick duvet, I took his hand in mine and leaned my head down onto his shoulder, curling my body against his. It wasn’t the sort of hugs we used to always have, but it was the closest to it I felt comfortable doing. “I didn’t know,” he repeated.

  “None of it adds up, Dad. She told me she begged you to stop him and you agreed to it. That she had completed her punishment so you stepped in?”

  “You’re believing a one-sided version of events, Dahlia. She asked me to stop punishing her, I remember that night, but I thought she meant something else. I figured I’d been being too hard on her so lessened my hold a little. I decided to let her make her own decisions and was surprised when she then strengthened her relationship with Tobin rather than walk away.”

  “She did it out of fear,” I murmured, feeling sadder than ever.

  “I didn’t know. Please believe me,” Dad said again and his words had been so heartfelt I had to. I realised then that perhaps things really weren’t as they’d seemed. No matter how much I wanted to believe every word of Dita’s account, I knew I was seeing the world through her eyes. Through the eyes of a woman who had lost the love of her life and had been abused.

  Of course things would be skewed.

  I also realised in that moment how much older my father had become. As if overnight, he’d aged a decade and the all knowing man atop our empire seemed lost. The mighty strongman was suddenly weak. The all powerful patriarch had been defeated. Trodden on by life itself and with no one to turn to because he was a lone wolf—the alpha at the head of his pack.

  “I do believe you,” I told him, and meant it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nico came out of hospital the following afternoon and I went with Dad to collect him. Jodie was by his side as he walked slowly towards us and they snuggled against one another so lovingly that I knew my brother’s near death experience had brought them even closer. They’d been together for years and even though I had been told their exciting news, they hadn’t told anyone outside the family yet so I hadn’t been able to celebrate the impending arrival of my first niece or nephew. Nico still had some healing to do and so they’d focussed on his care first and foremost, which was understandable given how his insides were still mending after being given a battering in the crash.

  I turned my head back and watched the pair of them as they left the revolving door of the hospital and approached the truck. They took the back seat, our father evidently having checked in with Nico and told him the plan beforehand, and then we got ready to set off.

  Nico folded his still huge body into the seat, moving slowly and carefully, and I realised then just why Dad had made the purchase. It wasn’t just for Nico to drive while he was recuperating, but also something strong and big. A vehicle sturdy, like the son Garret Proctor had almost lost. It was beyond important that Nico stay safe but now that he was heading home, I foolishly thought the danger had passed. So, when the conversation turned dark on the drive back, I was understandably shocked.

  “The police haven’t found any clues, but they’ve confirmed how the engine failure was initially caused by a fault in the cooling system,” Nico said, updating us and I bit my tongue. I’d had no idea they were even treating the crash as suspicious, let alone having had it investigated. As far as I’d known, Nico had lost control. End of story. “I cleaned that bike and gave it a tune up every other week. There’s no way I would’ve missed a fault. It was tampered with, Dad. I know it.”

  Jodie gave a little yelp and Nico tucked her under his arm, sheltering her from the truth it seemed he needed to get off his chest while we had some quiet time to talk.

  “Who?” I asked, turning in my seat to glare at Nico. He and I both knew Calvin was a threat to our safety and his words came back to me from that night by the trucks. He said I didn’t know the things he had done. Could he have been the one to tamper with Nico’s bike? Perhaps he’d thought Nico was the one who had sprayed Dita’s perfume in his room and tossed his pile of clothes? If so, it stood to reason that he would’ve been out for revenge. Had he then retaliated by messing with his bike? It could easily have been the case, but Dad trusted Calvin, as did Nico. Even having known the truth about his treatment of our sister, Nico had still favoured him but surely he was suspect number one?

  Nico shrugged, narrowing his eyes at me. I knew he was telling me to leave it, that he was onto my train of thought, so I turned back and stared out the front windscreen. We’d talk about my suspicions eventually, I knew, but not there in the car with the others.

  “It can’t have happened the day of the accident as I was parked at Dahlia’s all along, but the evening before I’d been running errands for Jodie in town. Maybe one of the Red’s spotted me and took a shot at messing with my bike? They’ve been getting cocky lately?”

  Dad hummed and it came out like a growl. There had been more and more trouble with the rival gang and regardless of my surety that it had to have been Calvin, I began to wonder if I was being a little blind sighted. I was so convinced we had the monster I needed to watch out for in our midst, but considered how I was missing all of thos
e who still lurked on the periphery. Those who my father had sent us to the new clubhouse to hide from a couple of times already.

  He himself had told me to steer clear of the Red’s. But then again, he’d also told me time and again that he and the President, Alexander, were on good terms. Their club was younger but also family run just like ours and it seemed to me like they felt they had something to prove, when surely it wasn’t necessary. I couldn’t understand why the shows of force or the fighting between their guys and ours even happened. I guess my gentler nature was testament to that naïveté but I still couldn’t see why we didn’t just get along. It had to be more about business than bikes and turf. I still wasn’t one hundred per-cent sure what my family did for a living, but remembered back to my conversations with Dita such a long time before. Was my brother still a dealer? If so, did that make my father a drug lord? Were the Red Reapers creating competition for the drug money in our city? They had to be, otherwise I couldn’t fathom what else might be causing their rifts.

  We reached Dad’s house and I was still none the wiser, but decided against grilling Nico about the answer he’d offered up in the car. He had enough on his plate, and I was feeling tired. We’d been so busy I was exhausted, especially with all the back and forth to the new clubhouse, so I gave Tobin a kiss and headed for my room, deciding to take a nap before dinner.

  I awoke to the sound of my mobile phone ringing, which was unusual given only a dozen or so people knew the number and they were all downstairs.

  “Hello?” I asked as I answered the call from a withheld number, feeling groggy but alert.

  “I got your message,” said a voice from the other end. It certainly wasn’t anyone genuinely called Jane Doe, so I knew right away I had to have been right. It was L. It had to be. He was rough sounding, deep and raw. There was also an edge to his voice that I didn’t recognise. Something not from our area of the UK, that much I was sure of. I wondered if he might be foreign, maybe Eastern European.

  “I need to talk with you. I have to know if she truly suffered, or whether you made her happy towards the end.” Words were tumbling from my mouth at an alarming rate and I forced myself to slow down. To calm my anxious unease. “I… I read her diaries.” L sucked in a hiss.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” he told me, and my blood ran cold. “You should have left it. Burned that laptop so no one could ever know what she went through. How she suffered.”

  “Why? Don’t you want me to avenge her?” I demanded, growing annoyed at how he could possibly have wanted me to forget all about my sister and the truths she had told me via her diary entries.

  “There is no such thing as vengeance, Dahlia. Only pain and torment. We can love one another and hope for more, but it does nothing other than tear us all apart in the end. The monsters always win. The only way to put an end to your useless suffering is to let them.” L sounded so defeated. As broken as Dita had seemed in the end and my heart broke for him.

  “I can’t. Don’t you understand? I’m lost and afraid, but I need to know the truth. I need to do right by her.”

  “There is no truth. No right. Only wrong,” he answered, before hanging up the call.

  ***

  I was out of sorts for days after that phone call. Who the hell was he and why hadn’t he at least put my mind at ease? If all he was calling for was to tell me to drop it, what was the point? He had to have loved her, otherwise there was no way he would’ve spoken about his broken hopes and dreams so dejectedly. Not that I would’ve believed him if he’d told me he hadn’t cared for her. That Dita was nothing more than a diva with a crazy crush on her forbidden fuck-buddy. If anything, L had only succeeded in making me worse. My need for the truth only more powerful.

  I went through the motions while I replayed our conversation in my head over and over again, running on autopilot with everything and everyone around me. Tobin could tell I was off, but didn’t pressure me to talk. For a fiery guy with an open and honest way about him, he didn’t seem to want to lash out with me or force me to be someone I wasn’t. He made me believe he respected the woman I was on the inside and I loved him more for it.

  “I have to go to college for an exam tomorrow,” I informed him as we climbed into bed and snuggled against each other’s naked bodies. It was for an end of term assessment to see how both myself and the other people on the course were doing, which wasn’t anything new to me, given my numerous A-levels and the couple of degree’s already under my belt. God, I’d been bored all those years. There had been nothing better to do so I’d studied hard, passing the time with my head in books and on my laptop working towards the next goal and the next.

  None of those successes had meant a thing. I wasn’t going to jet off to other countries where I could put my learned languages to good use. There would be no chance of me ever writing my first novel or ever putting my hand to poetry utilising the philosophy I’d learned. I came to realise it was all something I’d used to pass the time, but not any more. Not after my life had changed dramatically following Dita’s death and my time with Tobin. The new course was something entirely different to my others. It was something I could see myself pursuing. A job I wanted to do when I was ‘grown up.’

  “I’ll drop you off, okay?” Tobin answered and I nodded.

  “That’d be great, thanks. We’ll have to drive though because I need to take some coursework with me,” I replied.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing much, just some mock-ups for graphic design and stuff,” I said, remaining blasé. I’d still not told him or any of the others about my website and blog, or my plans for the future business I wanted to create utilising them. For some reason I wanted to keep it all to myself, I guess a lot like Dita had kept her diaries to herself. Maybe one day I’d come clean, but only when it felt safe. Only when I felt safe.

  “Sure thing, Dahl,” he said, running his rough hands over my body. I knew what he wanted and curled into him, pressing my back against his stomach. He was rock hard and ready for me, but held back, his pale blue eyes piercing me with a serious stare. “I’ll stay until you’re done though. The others will be fine without me.”

  “No, baby,” I replied, and shook my head. “I’ll be there all day ‘cos I have to have a tutor appraisal as well. I’ll just call you when I’m done.”

  The matter agreed, Tobin took me in his embrace and buried himself inside of me. He had me moaning his name in moments and delivered my pleasure readily. There was no holding back or hesitating. Not any more, and it was perfect.

  Tobin dropped me off and I carried my printouts and laptop with presentation at the ready into the busy college foyer. There, I knew exactly where I was going and found the IT suite with ease, having been to it numerous times before.

  After settling in behind one of the school PC’s, I took a look around, spying some faces I recognised from induction day. One was a girl a couple of years younger than me and she grinned over before heading in my direction, her own laptop pressed to her chest like I often carried mine. She had kind eyes and her hair was that type of blonde that had been shaded with a dull grey, but I liked it. She suited the look.

  “Hey, are you here for the exam too?” she asked and I nodded, offering her the seat next to me. “I’m Jemma,” she added, offering me her hand.

  “Dahlia,” I replied, taking her in. She had to only just be eighteen, and while she was dressed in a way that showed off her slim body in skinny jeans and a tight shirt, she seemed shy. I wondered if perhaps she too had chosen a distance learning based course like me because she couldn’t bear to be around people too much. Either that, or she was just another geek like me and most of the other guys in our group. Many of the others seemed so socially inept it was cringe worthy, but I didn’t think we were the same, or at least I hoped not.

  As the morning went on, I barely stressed over the examination or my usually introvert ways. I breezed through it and during the quiet times, Jemma and I chatted a little, both
of us stopping here and there when the conversation reached a natural pause, but I found I liked talking with her. We didn’t make small talk. We talked about HTML and the coding we’d tried out so far. We debated the best platforms for social media reach and compared notes on our tried and tested methods in graphic design. Jemma was the first person I’d ever spoken to that way and it was refreshing.

  “I’m working on a fully illustrated graphic novel for my coursework assignment,” she told me, showing off her impressive work after she’d completed her appraisal with our tutor. “How about you?”

  I showed her my portfolio of various website designs and the graphic work I had done so far.

  “I want to branch out more, but I just haven’t had the time,” I answered honestly, which felt good. I genuinely hadn’t been able to throw myself into the studying and was glad the reason for that had been a more than worthy one. Tobin had kept me nice and busy the past few months, which was fine by me.

  We ended up staying in the IT suite so long we missed lunch, so when we were knocked off mid-afternoon, I offered to take Jemma over the road to a pub I had visited with Bradley the last time I’d been at the college. “They do amazing all-day breakfasts,” I said, and had to contain my happiness when she nodded her head.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m so pleased I came over,” she said as we walked across the courtyard and out of the college grounds. I frowned, thinking how I could’ve taken it the wrong way, when Jemma elaborated. “I mean, I wasn’t sure ‘cos you looked kinda mean. Like you didn’t want to be approached, but when you smiled back at me I thought I’d take the plunge and I’m glad I did.” She giggled and I couldn’t help but join in.

  “Me, mean? I wouldn’t know how to be!” I cried, still laughing. “Maybe I have that bitchy resting face thing?”