When we are alone, I will be hit.
“Tatum?” my mother starts, her voice dripping with sweetness. “K.C. has a doctor’s appointment. Are you okay to make it home on your own?”
Doctor’s appointment?
Tate glances at me, looking as if she’s holding her breath, and then smiles, nodding. “Of course.” She leans in for a hug. “See you tomorrow, K.C.” And then whispers in my ear, “Love you.”
“You, too,” I mumble, because my mom is watching.
Tate walks out the door, and my mother steps in front of me, cocking her head. “Upstairs,” she orders.
I’m not sure what she wants, but my stomach rolls anyway. I’m tired of being afraid of her.
I still remember my dad being home and cuddling on the couch with him, watching Barney. He hated the show, but he’d sit with me for hours, because he knew it was the only way I was allowed to watch TV.
My mother never takes me anywhere unless it’s to pretty me up shopping or to the salon, or to smarten me up at a museum. She rarely laughs with me, and I don’t remember ever being squeeze-hugged, tickled, or gushed over.
I wish she loved me. Like K.C. I hear her cry sometimes in her room, but I don’t dare tell her. She’d get mad.
I walk upstairs, glancing back out of the corner of my eye every so often to see her behind me. I’m afraid to turn my back on her.
Opening the door to my bedroom, I stop.
Our family doctor is standing by the window in his suit minus the jacket.
“No,” I choke out, and turn for the door again.
But my mother grabs me, yanks me into the room, and slams the door.
“No!” I cry.
The tears that pooled at the memory didn’t spill over. I wouldn’t allow it. This twisted house wasn’t mine anymore, and I didn’t have to stay once I got my journals. I would forget the slaps. I would forget the harsh words. I would forget the doctor’s visits.
I wouldn’t spend another day giving any of it more attention than I already had done.
I rang the doorbell.
Moments later, a light came on inside and then the front porch light. I shifted, immediately wondering how I looked, but then I stilled again. I was still dressed in my pajama shorts and Jax’s T-shirt, looking completely out of sorts, and it didn’t fucking matter.
My mother opened the door slowly, eyes narrowed as she took us in. “K.C.?” She looked between me and Shane and Fallon. “What is the meaning of this?”
“I need my journals.”
Her confused and annoyed expression turned to a scowl. “You will most certainly not get your journals right now. How dare—”
I pushed past her, barging through the front door, and spun around.
“Fallon? Shane?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “My journals are tucked in a secret compartment at the bottom of my hope chest. Would you mind?” I asked, and then looked to my mother. “My mother has things to say to me in private.”
I knew the word “private” would buy me some time. My mother’s back straightened, and her gaze barely flickered to them as they darted past her and up the stairs.
My mother closed the door and walked toward me. “How dare you? It is the middle of the night, and I told you you could have your journals when you came home.”
“I’m not coming home.” I hoped I sounded defiant.
“K.C.—”
“My name is Juliet.”
And I sucked in air as she grabbed my upper arm. “You will do as you’re told,” she growled, jerking me closer.
My skin burned where she buried her nails, and I clamped my mouth shut and held her eyes. I wouldn’t let her see me falter.
I got in her face. “No,” I countered.
Her eyes flickered upstairs, and I knew she was gauging whether or not to hit me.
I dropped my voice to a whisper. “You can’t hurt me anymore.”
Her mouth twisted up, and she went for it. She dropped the hand from my arm and whipped it across my face, sending me stumbling back into the wall.
But I shot back up. “Again,” I demanded, holding out my arms, inviting her.
Her eyebrows dug deep, and she looked at me, searching my eyes for what—I don’t know.
Her hand came down again, this time her fingernails catching my lip, and I squeezed my eyes shut, wincing.
My breath poured out of me shakily, but I pulled myself up straight. “Come on. You can do better,” I challenged, my eyes pooling with tears, but I wasn’t sad or angry or even hurt. The more she hit me, the more powerful I felt. This was all she had.
“Juliet, what—” I heard Shane at the top of the stairs, and I darted out my hand, signaling her to stop.
I sucked in breath after breath, shaking my head at my mother as I cried. “You can’t hurt me.”
The hardness in her face was like steel, but her voice shook. “I’m calling the police,” she warned, and turned to walk to the living room.
“And tell them what?” I taunted.
I cocked my head and continued. “Sandra Carter. Vice president of the Rotary Club, president of the Shelburne Falls Garden Association, and School Board chairperson?” I listed the many forums on which she could potentially be embarrassed. “What will you tell them that I can’t?”
And she stopped. I knew I had her.
The woman didn’t like unsavory attention, and even though I would never talk about her, my sister, or my father, she thought that I might. And that was enough.
She kept her back to me. “Get out.”
“So you can be alone?” I asked quietly.
She didn’t turn around.
She didn’t look at me.
She just stood there, waiting for me to disappear, so she could sink back into her delusions as if none of this ever happened.
I looked to Fallon and Shane, their arms loaded down with my black-and-white composition books, staring at me wide-eyed.
“Let’s go,” I urged.
As we left the house and walked to the car, Shane sped up next to me. “Are you okay?”
“No.” But I smiled. “Not in the least.”
CHAPTER 11
JAXON
“Dad?” I call, coming into the living room. “Do you want to go to the park?” I hold in my breath and hope I sound nice and quiet. Please, please, please, I pray. I want to go to the park and play someplace pretty.
“No,” he grumbles, not even looking at me. “Not today.”
I stand in the doorway, watching him and a girl play with sugar on the table. They slice it with something sharp, and then they laugh right before they suck it into their noses. They don’t see me, and I don’t know what they’re doing, but I know that I don’t like it. There’s something wrong.
Music comes out of the radio, and it bounces off the walls, hitting me. The blaring sunlight blasts through the windows and warms the garbage in the kitchen, making it stink really bad.
And I know that my dad and the girl will be like this for a while, and I will be alone for the rest of the day.
I don’t like it here, and I want to go home. To my foster family. I lived with them all five years since I was a baby, and I don’t like my dad.
I inch toward them. “What are you doing?” I ask in a quiet voice.
“Nothing.” My father’s voice turns hard. “Go play.”
I don’t know where to play. We don’t have any toys, and there’s no yard. Only a dirty old street outside.
The girl stands up and starts dancing, and my dad smiles at her before sniffling more of the powder.
My eyes ache and burn with tears. I want to scream that I don’t like it here. That I want to go home, but my dad says he’ll hit me again if I say anything bad. I thought I wanted to live with him when he came for me. I thought I’d meet my mom.
But I’m alone, and I’m sad all the time. It’s dirty here, and I don’t like the people that come around. No one cooks. No one plays with me. I cry every day I wake up and reme
mber where I am.
Tears drip down my face, and I try to whisper. “Dad, I’m hungry.”
He looks at me mean, and I back up, my face hurting, because I can’t stop crying. More tears fall, and my shoulders shake.
“Aw, go get the kid some food,” the girl says in a nice voice. “I’ll stay with him.”
“Kid can wait,” my dad grumbles, coming up behind her and putting his hands on her privates. “Show me how good you suck first.”
I stood in the shower, my head bowed and my forearm propped up on the wall. Running my hand over the top of my head, I exhaled breath after breath, releasing shit memories I’d spent day after day trying to forget.
This was why I stayed busy.
School. The Loop. Lacrosse. The club. My computers. My friends. There was hardly any time when I stayed at home—especially alone—and this was why I didn’t get close to people.
Especially women.
I rubbed my hands down my face, feeling the familiar comfort of my hair resting against my back.
To hell with K. C. Carter. She just had to go and get all bitchy again, and why was I even surprised? Jared had warned me, saying she was uptight and whiny, but I still wanted her.
And why? What made her so damn special? I didn’t indulge in nearly as many girls as she probably thought I did, but I could. I could have anyone. Hell, Cameron and I were always on call for each other, so why did I crave K.C.’s piss and vinegar all the time?
Every one of her looks was worth a thousand words. Why did it fill me up so good when she smiled at me or looked at me as if she needed me?
And then last night when I looked into her scared eyes and saw, for once, all the feelings she was so desperate to have but afraid to experience, I knew without a doubt that there was a hell of a lot more to her than what she let people see.
And I knew she’d bring me past the edges of my control.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and shut off the water. Stepping out of the shower, I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around my waist, and walked to the vanity. I wiped off the condensation and leaned in, trying to see what I wanted others to see.
I was good enough. I was strong enough. I was powerful enough. And I was worthy enough. I was clean, and no one looked down on me.
I stood up straight and steeled my jaw. Screw her. Why the fuck did I even care?
Sure, last night was the best sex I’d ever had, and I didn’t even get to come. But then she’d looked at me when we stood outside like the dirty shit son of Thomas Trent, and for the first time in a long while, I felt as if I were back in his house. Unclean. Unsafe. And unworthy.
I didn’t let anyone make me feel like that. Not ever again.
Grabbing a rubber band off the sink, I tied back my hair and walked into the office, where the speakers droned on with Three Days Grace’s “The High Road.” Logging in to Skype, I called my boss, Fallon’s father, and after a few seconds, he picked up.
“Ciaran,” I greeted, opting to stay standing and lean over to the screen.
“Jaxon.”
Ciaran Pierce was late forties, early fifties, but he still looked like a James Bond type. You know, the type who ages like a fine wine, whose personality has just as much style as his clothes, and who has chicks on every continent? That was Ciaran.
Fallon’s father was Irish but wore his heritage like an Italian, all suave and confident and shit. We’d met a couple of years ago when Madoc and Fallon first got together, and as soon as I graduated from high school, he approached me.
No guns. No drugs. No meetings. Those were my stipulations.
I could still get arrested. What I was doing for him was still illegal. But I didn’t have any moral hang-ups about what I was doing. I still felt as though I was coming out on the right side of things. Researching shady campaign donations so Ciaran could blackmail a senator for prime real estate or feeding fake info to his competitors was slightly dangerous, and could get me into trouble, but it wasn’t putting drugs on the street or putting me in situations where I’d be a recognized target.
For the most part it was a small-time game with big-time rewards. The work didn’t take up too much of my day, and I was saving enough to make sure I was safe.
“Doc 17?” Ciaran inquired.
“Tomorrow night.”
“Llien?”
“Uploading now.” And I punched a few buttons, finishing the task.
Ciaran and I kept our online conversations short, simple, and in code. Just in case. Doc 17 referred to a warehouse Ciaran bought whose permits needed to be pushed through, and Llien was the last name spelled backward of someone for whom he’d requested the personal and financial history. The jobs weren’t hard, but they were numerous. He kept me pretty busy.
“Good.” He nodded. “I’ll be in town soon. We can catch up then.”
“Sounds good.”
He brought a glass to his lips, which I knew was Scotch, because the first thing I’d done when I met him was research him.
“My accountant will send payment today,” he stated.
“Don’t bother,” I teased. “I already took it out of your account.”
“You little shit.” The hint of a smile tugged at his lips as he plopped his drink down.
I laughed, shaking my head. “You should trust me better. I wouldn’t do that to you. I can do that to you,” I pointed out. “But I won’t.”
He let out a sigh, and I took a moment to observe how much he looked like Fallon. Light brown hair, dark green eyes, skin that always looked tanned, even in winter. Even the small sprinkle of freckles across their noses.
But whereas Fallon sported some discreet tattoos, Ciaran sported scars from bullet holes.
“You look tired,” he observed. “Someone keep you up last night?”
I wish. “You could say that,” I caged, not wanting to talk about Juliet with him.
“To be young again,” he mused. “Have fun while you can, son. Sooner or later one will come along that has the power to fuck you up.”
Yeah, no shit. “I’ll watch myself.”
He jerked his chin at me. “Take care, kid.”
“You, too.”
Logging back off, I walked out of the office and into my room, throwing on some loose black pants. I usually wore jeans, but since I’d be in the garage today, I knew I’d get stained. Black pants it was.
After working out at the gym earlier this morning, finishing a few of the other projects Ciaran had sent me, and showering, I only had about an hour before my house would be packed with people again. I had two cars, other than my own, running tonight with different drivers, and then a few friends usually brought their cars over here on race day to prep. And they usually brought friends and girlfriends with them. It was part of our warm-up. Hang out, chat, borrow one another’s tools … Since Jared had left all of his here, and I’d acquired lots of my own, I had a decent selection.
And while hostilities still ran hot at the Loop, some of us kept it cool enough to stay friends and still race one another.
I ripped my rubber band out and had grabbed my brush off the dresser, about to head out of the room, when a blast of music hit my ear.
What the hell?
I stalked to the window and yanked it up to peer outside. “We played that game last night, remember?” I yelled at Juliet through Tate’s open French doors. “I won!”
I could just make her out through the trees, frantically hitting buttons on the stereo. “I’m trying to turn it off! Just leave me alone,” she hollered, not looking up.
Sliding out the window, I scaled through the tree, trying to step lightly and quickly, since my weight was making the thick branches creak. Leaves swayed as I grabbed onto parts of the tree, and I made it to Tate’s only-for-show balcony and swung my legs over the bars, hopping into the room.
“Get out.” Juliet’s wide-eyed, defiant expression zoned in on me. “I can handle this, Jax.”
Reaching behind the TV stand, I yanked the cord out
of the wall, and the room fell silent. My heart thumped in my chest, and Juliet’s chest rose and fell in heavy breaths. I didn’t know what it was about her, but my blood always rushed hot whenever she was near me. I wanted to either break shit or fuck her crazy, and it weirded me out. Not the fuck-her-crazy part, but the break-shit part. There was a violent urge around her, and I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t sure if I should be scared of it, either.
I stood up straight and flipped my loose hair back over the top of my head, out of my face. I clenched the brush in my hand, watching her watch me with wary eyes. Her mouth hung open a little, and she didn’t exactly look mad. I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking.
Dropping the cord, I arched an eyebrow. “Use your head,” I ordered. “Just kill the power next time.”
She crossed her arms over her see-through white pullover, and I could make out a white bikini top underneath. “Well, maybe if you hadn’t rushed to stick your nose into things, I would’ve figured it out,” she snarled, tipping her chin up.
I shook my head, letting out a bitter laugh. “You stuck your nose into my business last night. And I was just trying to help,” I said angrily, yanking the brush through the back of my hair.
“By being condescending and telling me to use my head?” she shot back. “I don’t need that kind of help, Jax.”
“Yeah.” I got in her face. “I was nice to you for years, and what did it get me? You start behaving yourself, and I’ll do the same.”
“Then stop looking down on me!” she shouted.
“Ditto!” I growled back, turning around.
I yanked the brush through my hair again and tied the rubber band back in it, getting ready to climb out the window.
“Stop,” Juliet groaned behind me.
I spun around. “What?”
“You’re …” She pinched her lips together and ran her hands down her face. “You’re ripping your hair apart,” she blurted out. “I can’t watch it anymore. You’re not brushing it right.”
I rolled my eyes and turned to crawl back out the window. “Yeah, I know how to brush my hair, Mom.”
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