Hammered: A Shadows of Chicago Novel

by Rose Hudson

  “You know, I’ve always wondered something. Why have I been the one to work with you boys and not Jerry?” I look over at him, confused.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why not Jerry? He knows everything I know and has a hell of a lot more energy to do this type of shit than I do anymore.” I scoot to the edge of the couch, turning my body to face him completely.

  “Betting on fights doesn’t give him the knowledge to train. You train us because we need someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing.”

  “Shit, boy. He hasn’t always been a spectator. I used to train him, too. He was one of the better fighters of his day.” What did he just say?

  “Hold on a minute.” I stand, shoving my hands in my pockets because I don’t know what the fuck else to do with them. “I’ve never heard that mentioned before. He or Celia hasn’t ever told us that Jerry fought.”

  “He damn sure did and I trained him. You think I’m a liar or what?”

  “I’m not calling you a liar, I’m saying that’s news to me. And for what reason? Why would he send us to you to be trained, get us into the underground, and never once mention that he fought.”

  “That’s something you’d have to ask him.”

  I can’t imagine why he, or at least Celia wouldn’t mention that to us at some point in all these years. Not even in passing. Not even by way of advice or criticism, and believe me, Jerry never misses an opportunity to criticize.

  If I didn’t know there was a reason behind it, it wouldn’t make me as angry as it does. But I know when something isn’t right.

  “You need to shut that damn window before you get sick, or worse.” I walk toward the front door. “I’ll see you at the gym.”

  When we were growing up, Jerry worked at a textiles factory that was closed after a major fire left it irreparable. After the fire was when I was introduced to Casper and started training to fight. I get it. We were broke, Jerry was out of work, and I had a skill and temper to fuel it.

  What I don’t get is why, if Jerry was a skilled fighter himself, would he not train me? I can’t help but think I may have learned a thing or two from him—that it may have given me a reason to respect him.

  The next day, I don’t go to the house to find him. I go to C.C. Ferns Coffee Shop because that’s where he goes every day when his shift ends with a couple of the other guards on the graveyard shift. I’ve only come here to find him a couple of times before, so the look on his face says he knows I’m not here for coffee.

  I slide into the empty bench in the booth across from him.

  “The other guys still here?” I ask, jaw clenched. He shakes his head.

  “They just left. I was about to make my way to the house, too. But I take it this isn’t a friendly visit.”

  My response is quick. “Why did I have to find out from Jenkins that he trained you—that you fought period?”

  He doesn’t even look at me as he takes his time, sipping the last of his coffee from the cup in his hands. “What does it matter if I fought or not? It doesn’t have any bearing on you.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But it would’ve been nice to know that we had at least one fucking thing in common. Why would I even have to ask that? Do you not see how that would be pertinent information?”

  “I did what I thought was best.”

  “There’s been plenty of times that I didn’t understand your reasoning behind shit, but I think this takes the cake. I mean, damn, Jerry. Are we really that insignificant to you?”

  He finally looks up at me. “If that were the case I would’ve let your little bad ass get thrown back into the system.”

  “Then why not get involved?”

  “Maybe I wanted you to do it for yourself. Maybe I didn’t want you to feel like you had expectations to live up to or to feel like I was throwing you into it because it was what I wanted you to do. Maybe I saw a little bit of myself in you and wanted you to walk your own path.”

  “No, you threw me into it because you needed the money.”

  “You’re exactly fucking right. It took all of us to keep our heads above water. I didn’t mean for it to become a permanent gig for you or Thorn either one, but we didn’t have much of a choice when they quit giving us benefits for the three of you.”

  A pounding like the sound of bass drums begins in my head and I have to close my eyes briefly to keep my frustrated temper at bay. I consider everything he’s said.

  “What did you have to go see Jenkins for, anyway? He come to the gym?”

  It’s hard for me to even answer such a simple question while siphoning through such a pile of information.

  “I went to his house. Got a fight in two weeks. When did they stop our benefits?”

  “A fight?” He scrunches his brow at me.

  I nod, not feeling the need to elaborate. It’s a fucking fight, enough said.

  “He say he’d come help you train?”

  “Who knows how reliable that is. He’s getting too old for it, but I’ve got too much shit going on to do it without push from somewhere.”

  He nods, thumb running the rim of his empty cup.

  “When did they stop our benefits?” I ask again, confused as to why he didn’t answer in the first place.

  “After the adoption was finalized.”

  In the days between my mother’s suicide and our emergency placement with Celia and Jerry, I had this feeling I never could understand, and one I’ve never been necessarily proud of. I was anxious, excited, hopeful. I loved Mom and I knew she had issues she couldn’t deal with alone that eventually led to her taking her life, but the prospect of having a mother that wanted us made me happy. I hated myself for feeling like that.

  My jaw clenches in secession with my chest, that familiar feeling coursing through me now. But why? What the fuck does it matter if they adopted us, I’m twenty-seven years old, a grown-ass man. It doesn’t change the way I fill out paperwork. It doesn’t change my birth certificate. It doesn’t change my life.

  That’s why it makes me angry at myself for letting the thought bring me any sort of happiness or hope. Jerry fucking Sorrels is legally my father. Has been for years and I’m just now finding out. Sure, there’s a list of shit I could ask him right now, but fuck that and the lump in my chest.

  “I know it doesn’t amount to much now, but I could help if you don’t have any other options,” he says.

  Something about this whole day feels foreign and exhausting. I don’t like this shit.

  “Look, I gotta get to work, but you know where the gym is. Come if you want.”

  That feeling grows as I scoot out of the booth, the look on Jerry’s face reflecting his distaste for the experience, too. Guess we’ll see if he shows.

  AS AN ATTORNEY, YOUR LIFE revolves around a courtroom, surrounded by jurors, high emotions, and scum of the Earth criminals. As depressing as much of what you hear and see is, the hunger for justice is stronger. I’ve heard people say lawyers live for the thrill of the kill, but I’d say the opposite. I think our main objective is to find life in dismal situations, whether it be murder, abuse or petty thievery.

  And for me and the attorney I soon hope to become. Sure, we’re there to defend or prosecute someone for a crime that falls somewhere on the spectrum of wrong, but I think helping those who can’t help themselves is your main goal as an attorney. It is if you’re there for the right reasons.

  I haven’t been in a court setting in months, but as soon as I walk through the double doors with Dad, I feel revived and I remember what I love so much about it. Unless it’s traffic court and misdemeanors. In the words of my younger self—gag me with a spoon. But other cases, the ones that keep you up late at night knowing in your core that you can make a difference, those are the cases that hold the key to my drive to do this.

  A recent case that has plagued my mind, maybe because of friends like Jessica and Madison, is that of a sixteen-year-old girl charged with the murder of her stepfather. When the file fir
st came across my desk, the only things included were the initial police and coroner reports that painted a picture of a man who’d been shot in his sleep by his teenage stepdaughter. But within days, more and more papers were added to the collection; background checks, financial statements, and finally, the statement the girl had given to my father when her mother obtained him to represent her daughter.

  Detailed recounts of daily sexual and physical abuse dealt to both her and her mother by this man for three years. The two miscarriages she’d endured after him taking her innocence and continuing to do so nearly every day for much of the time he was present in their lives. But the breaking point, and possibly most life altering part of her statement, or anything else I’d ever read in my life, was the night before she took his life, when he tied them both up and forced them to watch as he raped her eleven-year-old sister. She recounts in detail each thing he did to her as she cried and begged him to stop while mere feet away from the two women he’d done this to for years, the two women who endured these heinous acts because they’d convinced themselves that if they did, they could somehow protect her from it, from him, from all of it.

  She said that she knew then, this sixteen-year-old girl who’d had to endure more than most people endure in a lifetime, that he would never stop and even if they somehow finally got away from him, this man would never stop. She had already allowed her sister’s innocence to be ripped away, and she would rather spend every day of the rest of her life locked away in a prison cell than to know that she let him get away with doing it to another human being ever again. So, she managed to concoct and follow through with a plan that would ensure that it never did.

  My father asked for clarification, if the act was premeditated and her answer to him was swift, direct, and carried the absolution of a woman who’d lived a lifetime. “Hell yes it was. And I’d do it all over again if he were still breathing.”

  I’ll carry those words with me wherever I go, and I will see that girl’s face every time I see a victim of abuse. And I will never apologize for agreeing with her. What that girl needs isn’t prison, although, even with my father at her side, I’m certain that’s what she will receive.

  I think of her often, pulling out her file from time to time to remind myself what it is I’m doing—what it is I hope to achieve and all the young victims of abuse that I hope to one day fight for. That girl brought me out of my black and white world and into the gray shadows of what is real life for more people than many of us would like to acknowledge.

  Is murder wrong? Yes. I wish instead of killing him she’d managed to break free of those chains, leaving him to spend every waking minute staring at the block walls of a solitary cell.

  But I hope to one day tell her that she changed my view of this world and the true nature of humanity which is to protect those we love.

  I’ve caught myself comparing her situation with Stone’s today. No, they aren’t the same, but their reasons hold the same meaning for me—protect those you love.

  As soon as we return to the office, I sit at my desk and pull up my browser, typing Joseph Cameron, Illinois Senator into the box. Instantly, pictures and article after article of his achievements and accolades come up and I can’t help the immature roll of my eyes. I don’t know what I’m looking for, or if I’ll even find anything. But I do know that he isn’t what the public perceives him to be and I intend on finding some missing pieces of the puzzle to show the real picture.

  I go over the few bits of information I’ve been given, which is hardly anything to go on, but in the beginning, there usually isn’t. Minutes turn to hours and all I manage to come up with is a headache and a sore back.

  “Got any lunch plans today?” I turn to see my father standing in the doorway of my office and my smile is weak but immediate. He looks at his watch. “Or should I say an early dinner.”

  “Hey, Dad. No court tomorrow? I saw the schedule had been blocked off.”

  “Filed a continuance last week, so it looks like I’m free until Tuesday. Thought about taking your mother somewhere for the weekend. What do you think?”

  “Sorry, Dad. Guess my mind’s a little all over the place. I think that’s an excellent idea. Need me to make some reservations for you?”

  “She mentioned going back to Miami. You might look at some flights leaving tomorrow morning. Of course, I’ll have to tell her so she can make arrangements for the gallery to be closed.”

  I type flight information into the search engine as he speaks. “Yeah, it looks like there’s actually some direct flights.”

  “I’ll let you know for sure after I speak to Mom. Meet me downstairs in thirty?” It’s been a while since we’ve had a meal together, so I nod.

  “Sounds good.”

  When he leaves, I click back into the browser I’d been using to research Cameron. Scrolling through images I’ve looked at over and over, I spot something I hadn’t seen before; a picture of Joseph Cameron and the Mayor of Chicago, Mark Collins. I lean back in my chair, going over the couple of conversations Kelli and I’ve had recently; her almost imperceptive nervousness in her office, the phone call. It couldn’t all be coincidence, could it?

  I pull out my phone and shoot her a text.

  I lean back, palms flat against my full stomach.

  “Wow. I feel like that’s the first real meal I’ve had in weeks. Thanks, Dad.”

  “We should be ashamed of ourselves for not doing it every week. We need to make it a point. After all, I’m not getting any younger.” He smiles up at me, the creases at the corners of his blue eyes appearing deeper than the last time I noticed them. Regardless, my father is still stunningly handsome as he nears sixty. I can only hope that I age as gracefully as he and my mother both have managed. He looks from me to his hands atop the table, shoulders slumping almost imperceptibly, and I know the direction our conversation is about to go.

  “I know you hate it when I bring it up, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned that you are going to just let your law degree go untouched. I love having you as my assistant, but it’s been six months, Lydia.”

  I’ve thought a lot about this very thing in recent days since this whole deal with Rush Keeling found its way into our office and my world. My mind’s been miles away for months, and even though I’m concerned, this case and all it entails has captured my attention. It reminds me of someone I once knew.

  “Do you remember Jessica? From high school?”

  “I remember her father better.”

  “I’ve got this same feeling for Rush, well really, Stone, the way I did with her back then. Something’s going on and I can’t put my finger on it. But I want to.”

  “Stone is a grown man and he isn’t our client. You need to focus on building a defense for Rush.”

  “That’s just it, Dad. I’ve been working on Rush’s case and the more I dig, the more I find out about Senator Cameron that screams corruption.”

  “Joseph Cameron isn’t the one facing charges, Lydia. And I thought you said Stone was the one in trouble?”

  “Cameron’s involved in the underground. He says he’ll drop the charges against Rush if Stone fights some Russian.”

  That gets his attention.

  “Cameron wants Stone to fight.” His question comes out as a statement. “This sounds exactly like the type of thing you do not need to get involved with. If Cameron has a stake in some street fight, it’s probably something you need to stay far away from.”

  “Rush is our client. It’s our job to ensure he is protected in that courtroom. How am I supposed to do that if I don’t have all the information pertinent to the case? And apparently, it is or Cameron wouldn’t be so willing to drop these so-called charges.”

  “Yes, in the courtroom. Need I remind you that you are days away from having a baby to care for? Your life is about to change exponentially. That’s what you should be focused on, not this.” He pulls his napkin from his lap and motions for the waiter. “Check, please.”


  “Right away, sir.” The waiter leaves as quickly as he arrived and my father looks back to me.

  “I think maybe it’s best if I take over the case from here. I should’ve trusted my gut in the conference room, because looking between the two of you I had a feeling this would be a conflict of interest.”

  “This is not a conflict of interest, it’s me doing my job. Thoroughly.”

  “Your job is to be an attorney, not a detective. Build a defense to the case presented. No more, no less.”

  “Maybe you and Mom should leave tonight, take a few days and really clear your mind, because I think you’ve forgotten what it’s all about, Dad. To be the best at this job, sometimes you have to be both.”

  He blows out a heavy breath. “If he’s a fighter, then why doesn’t he just take the fight, solve the problem?”

  “If I don’t do my job, he will. And you know as well as I do it won’t stop there.”

  “So, what do you propose, Lydia? You risk your safety and that of this baby by getting involved with this mess—these people?”

  I consider what he’s said. I’ve never had to stop and think. When it comes to this job I just do what needs to be done. But right now, I feel defeated, alone in my beliefs.

  “I don’t know, Dad. But I sure thought coming to you would prove helpful in figuring it out. My mistake.”

  The waiter places the check before my father and my father takes a money clip from his pocket, dropping cash inside. I stand, pulling my coat from the chair.

  “I tried to convince myself that we didn’t, but the three of us passed judgment on Stone in the meeting that day, and we were wrong. He’s not some hood rat, Dad. He’s a good person who deserves our help, and he may not receive it from you, but he will from me.”

  Instead of going home after mine and Dad’s heated discussion, I decided to head back into the office and finish up some work as well as digging a little more into the life of Joseph Cameron. A spark has ignited a flame, and one I doubt will smolder until I get some answers.