She let out another whimper as she dropped her hand, giving me a full view of the black and swollen-shut eye. The sight brought another wave of rage that I had to fight back. She didn't need me angry. She needed me calm and controlled.
"Everything hurts," she admitted, her good eye losing the battle with tears and they started streaming down her face.
"I know. I know, honey," I said, reaching down for her, glad when she didn't shy away as I pulled her half up onto my lap. When she didn't scream at the way I twisted her slightly, I figured her ribs were fine, that the pain to her center was likely just muscular, not bone. "Who were they?" I found myself asking, brushing some of her soft blonde hair away from her face. "What did they want?"
It was like I shot a gun off in her apartment.
The tears stopped, her eye went huge, and then she flew upward, letting out a loud cry of pain at doing so, but getting up and crawling across the room to under the TV cabinet, scrambling inside.
"Dusty, calm down," I urged, moving down beside her, watching with drawn-together brows as she found a box, pulled it out, and opened it.
"No. No no no no no," she cried, rocking back and forth slightly, going back into the cabinet and feeling around. "God, no."
"Alright," I said, reaching out and taking her hands, pulling them in front of her and holding them in place.
"Let me go."
"Not until you tell me what you're looking for."
"Five hundred 30s," she said in a desperate hiss.
30s meant thirty-milligrams of Percocet.
A single pill at that dose would go for twenty on the street.
Five hundred of those meant that she had just lost ten thousand dollars worth of drugs.
Ten thousand.
Jesus Christ.
"You understand what I'm saying, right?" she asked, swallowing hard, tone desperate.
"I know exactly what you're saying," I agreed, nodding.
"Bry might be a friend of mine, but he can't just... let me lose ten thousand dollars of his."
That was the damn truth.
When it came to drug dealers, old friend or not, business was fucking business.
And she just lost a huge stash of drugs the day before New Years Eve when everyone would be scrambling to feel good all night.
"Who were those guys, Dusty?" I asked, wanting to take care of her but knowing there would be nothing that could ease her mind until we figured some shit out.
"I have no idea. I've never seen them before. I thought it was Bry showing up early so I went to pull the door open and it crashed in and..." she trailed off, shrugging a shoulder.
"Alright, honey, listen," I said, ducking my head a little to catch her troubled gaze. "I know this is a huge fucking deal and it needs to be handled, but right now, I need you to let me clean you up and look you over. Figure the hospital is out of the question," I added, though I would have preferred a CAT scan to make sure she didn't have a concussion and an x-ray for her ribs, but I wasn't going to push. She'd been through enough trauma for one night.
"Maybe you should patch yourself up first," she said, reaching out tentatively and putting her fingers on the side of my hand.
Looking down, I saw my knuckles busted open. But, likely because my body was used to trauma, the bleeding had already long stopped and I would be scabbed over before the end of the night. "This is nothing," I said, shaking my head, moving to slowly stand, pulling her up with me gently "Can you take a deep breath?"
"I'm assuming you mean am I physically capable," she mused with a small self-deprecating smile, moving her one hand to her belly and expanding it with air. "Yeah."
"Alright. How stocked is your medicine cabinet?" I asked, glancing down the hall to the open door to her bathroom.
"Bandaids and triple antibiotics?" she half-asked, half-declared, looking unsure.
"Alright, I will grab some stuff from my place. You alright to stay here?"
"Can I come?" she shocked me by asking, making me turn fully to look at her, my brows drawn together.
"To my apartment?" I clarified, watching her.
"I kinda just don't... want to be in here right now," she admitted, looking around like she didn't recognize it anymore. Given the utter disaster it was in, I imagined it was more anxiety-inducing for her to stay than leave. "If that's okay," she added, looking down at her feet.
"Honey, you can stay with me as long as you need," I offered, reaching down to take her hand, only somewhat surprised when she not only let me, but squeezed tight. "Come on," I added when she hesitated, looking around. "I'll find Rocky once we get you patched up," I said, knowing that was what was holding her back.
"Thanks," she said, voice quiet as I led her across the hall and unlocked my door. "Are those your bags?" she added, nodding down the hall.
"Nothing important. I'll get it when I get the cat. Come on," I urged, pulling her inside and closing the door.
"Has anyone ever told you that your apartment sort of screams 'bachelor'?"
I smiled at that. "My brother's woman, constantly." I led her toward the hall only to have her yank back, stopping and looking at the canvas she had given me that I had found a spot for in the hallway.
"You hung it already."
"Of course I did. Come on, stop stalling. We need to get your face treated."
With that, I led her into my bathroom and went straight for the linen closet, dragging out the big plastic container full of every medical supply you could get in a store (and a few you couldn't) and put it down on the counter.
When I looked back at her, she was staring at herself in the mirror, her lower lip quivering at the mess her face had been turned into. "It will all go down, Dusty," I offered. "The eye and the cheek and the lip. They look so bad because they're swollen. The bruises will fade. The cuts, well, you might have a scar or two, but even those will fade eventually. Trust me," I added when she just kept staring.
"You fight like someone who does it often," she said, catching my gaze in the mirror.
"Not as often as I used to." I didn't want to lie, but I didn't want to give her the full truth yet either.
Luckily she didn't press. "I'm sorry about your hands."
"It's nothing," I said, grabbing a sterile gauze and coating it with peroxide then reaching for her hip to turn her to face me. I felt myself wince, steeling my stomach. "This is going to hurt," I warned.
She gave me a small nod and took a deep breath.
She pressed her lips together and tried to bite the bullet about it, but by the time I had all the cuts cleaned out, her tears were mixing with the peroxide.
"Sorry," I said, stroking a finger down her jaw. "This will help," I added, reaching for the triple antibiotic and a Q-tip, sliding the gloppy shit all over her face. "Okay," I said when I was done. "I need to check your ribs," I went on, wondering how much of an issue that might be.
She swallowed hard and nodded tightly. "Okay."
That was it- okay.
She didn't reach for her shirt to lift it.
"Can I?" I asked, touching the hem of the tee.
She gave me another tight nod and I slowly moved the material up, revealing more of her pale skin, marred in several spots with light bruising that, while it didn't look like much, probably hurt like a bitch and would hurt more given a night to really set in. But it wasn't too bad. Better than I expected. When I caught sight of her gray and white polka-dotted bra, I stopped, pressing the material of her tee under the band with one hand and reaching out with the other, sliding across her belly and seeing the muscles under the skin contract at the contact as her air rushed out of her. She was so fucking sensitive and I had hoped to explore more of that on New Years. But not like this. Not hurt. My hand pressed into her ribs gently at first. With no reaction, I pushed harder. "Nothing?" I asked, angling my head up to look at her.
"No," she said in a breathless little voice that shot right to my dick in a completely inappropriate response given the shit situation.
<
br /> "Okay," I said, forcing my hand to move and pulling the material back down to cover her. "Here," I added, moving out of the bathroom for a second and coming back with one of my tees a second later. "There's blood all over yours," I added as she took it.
Granted, I could have gone across the hall and gotten her her own clothes, but somehow I wanted her in my shirt and she didn't object. "Take your time," I added as I went to the hall and reached to close the door. "I'll be right back."
With that, I shot out into the hall and grabbed the bags, dropping them carelessly onto the kitchen island then going back across the hall to find her damn cat. I found the carrier and brought it with me through the apartment until I finally found him sitting in the corner of her bedroom closet. When I got close, he let out a hiss and struck out with his little razorblades claw. "Like it or not, scratch me to hell or not, your ass is getting in this carrier," I told him, snorting when he immediately seemed to shut up. I stowed him away, grabbed the obsessively clean litter box out of the bathroom, and headed back toward my own apartment.
And I found her in the kitchen in my tee, carefully unpacking my bags.
"You were really planning a special night, huh?" she asked, her tone sad.
"Still am," I said, putting the carrier and cat box down and opening the door, watching the little flat-faced ball of fur dart off to explore and hoping he wasn't the type to scratch things all to hell.
"That's... nice, Ryan," she said, shaking her head, not able to keep eye-contact. "But I can't expect you to keep that promise now that you know I, ah..." she waved a hand, unable to say it even.
"Look," I said, exhaling hard, not the type to really sugarcoat shit and wanting to be straight with her. But there was another part of me that just wanted to say fuck all that and tell her not to worry about that. For better or worse, the logical part of me won out. "I don't fuck with drugs. I don't like them. I don't like what they do to the people who use them and how that affects the people around them. It's not my scene. That being said, I'm not judging you for doing what you needed to do to survive. Trust me, I fucking get that. It doesn't change the fact that I want to drink champagne and watch some stupid fucking ball drop in Times Square tomorrow night."
I swear you could see the tension draining from her. Her shoulders lowered; her jaw unclenched; she stopped frantically trying to organize the mess of bags.
"Okay?" I asked when she said nothing.
"Okay," she agreed, nothing more than a squeak of a sound.
"Once more and make me believe you believe it," I said, smirking as I moved toward the kitchen and started putting away the food.
"I believe it," she said, handing me the hummus I had picked up to go with either the pita, vegetables, or four different kinds of chips I had also grabbed. Not being a snack person, usually too busy to do so and just eating two or three whole meals a day, I had fuck-all idea of what I was doing in that damn food store.
"Ryan?" her small voice met me a few minutes later as I bunched up the plastic bags and shoved them into some plastic thing Anita stuck inside my cabinet for collecting them, a purchase I thought was asinine at the time, but turned out to be pretty practical.
"Yeah?" I asked, turning back to find her watching me.
"What am I supposed to tell Bry?" she asked, genuinely sounding like she needed an answer to that.
And, well, when a woman with a busted face who kissed you like she fucking meant it down to her soul was worried about something, yeah, you fucking handled it for her.
"Don't worry about Bry. I'll handle him."
"No, Ryan. That's..."
"I'm handling it," I cut her off. "No use arguing about it. You've got to have a killer headache right about now," I added, reaching into the cabinet beside the sink where I kept a bottle of aspirin. "Here, take a couple of these and go lay down with an ice pack," I said, handing her the pills and going for the icepack, wrapping it in paper towels and handing that to her as well. "I need to make a couple phone calls and then I will check on you."
"You don't need to..."
"I'll check on you," I cut her off again, voice a little firm and she gave me a grateful smile and headed down toward the bedrooms.
I reached for my cell and went toward the hall, slipping into her apartment for privacy and hitting the first number that came to me.
The other end picked up and my ear was assaulted with music and a woman's laughter. "Yeah?" Mark's voice asked, still half-laughing about something that I had interrupted.
But there was no time for guilt.
"Got a problem," I said and I could hear him immediately moving away from the noise until there was nothing.
"What's up?" he asked, tone serious.
"Remember my neighbor and the guys she got herself wrapped up with?"
There was a short pause and a very tentative, "Yeah?"
"They're drug dealers and she held the stash. Tonight she was robbed and busted up and, well..."
"That shit ain't gonna fly," he supplied for me.
Exactly.
"Yeah."
"Give me a name for the dealer and I will do some digging."
"Bry. That's all she gave me. They've been friends since they were kids. It's 30s so I don't think you have to worry about it being Third Street. They're more into their cheap street shit. Who is running pharmaceuticals around here anymore?"
It wasn't something I often had a need to know, to keep up to date on. We all kept an eye and ear on the bigger players in town- The Henchmen, Hailstorm, the Grassis, Richard Lyon, and...
"Oh, fuck. Tell me it's not fucking Lex, man," I said, raking a hand down my face, my calloused palms catching on the stubble there.
Mark paused. "I can't say for sure. He has his hands in everything, but I doubt he would have his shit sitting in some apartment with no protection."
True.
"Here's hoping," I agreed.
"How is she?" Mark asked into the silence.
I exhaled. "Holding it together. Looks like hell. But nothing seems serious. She's staying with me until she can stomach her own place again."
"Good," he said, uncharacteristically missing an opportunity to rib me. "So, I'm assuming that when you find out who these guys were..."
"They're going to pay," I agreed, hanging up.
There were some goddamn basic rules every decent person followed in life- you tipped your serving staff, you gave money to the people with bells at Christmas, you held doors, and you fucking never put your hands on a woman in anger.
It was time they learned that lesson the hard way.
And I was a really good fucking teacher.
EIGHT
Dusty
Is it bad that my first thought when they charged into my apartment and I knew exactly what I was in for was worrying about what Ryan would think when I saw him the next day?
I was pretty sure that was not the right thing for me to be thinking at that particular moment- men I had never met or even seen before screaming at me, shoving me, demanding to know where the pills were.
It wasn't that I hadn't been scared. But I found that all my years stressing over invisible monsters somehow made it easier for me to focus through the fear than maybe most would be able to in that situation.
So when the bigger guy slammed his fingers into my chest, making me stumble back and slam into my wall, knocking my lamp over in the process, I had somehow been able to realize that giving them that information wasn't going to help me.
Someone was going to hurt me.
The question really was would I rather my beating come from total strangers... or a man I had known my whole life?
The answer was simple.
I wasn't sure I could handle having Bry hit me.
I was under no delusions. He would have to hit me. He would have to make an example of me. Not because he wanted to. Not even because it was my fault. But because that was what was expected of him. He wasn't the boss in his little organization. He was a high mid-level
guy. He had someone to answer to, someone who would want me to cough up some blood so everyone else knew that they had to do a better job of protecting the supply.
Because if he didn't beat me, he might get himself killed.
So I pressed my lips together and I didn't tell them.
Unfortunately, they apparently found them anyway.
I would like to say that hearing Ryan, seeing Ryan, had given me an overwhelming sense of relief. And there was some of that- he made the beating stop. He prevented something that might have been worse.
But him walking in on that, well, it took whatever image he had of me and shattered it. I wasn't just the nice, shut-in, shy neighbor he seemed at least somewhat into. No, I was some lowlife who got herself involved with freaking drug dealers.
Drug dealers.
God, I had sunk so low.
The me I had been three years before, yeah, she never would have believed such a thing was possible.
It was amazing what a crippling mental disorder could do. It was crazy the lengths one would go to to save their pride, to not have to grovel to the only person they had in the world to take care of them.
But the fact of the matter was, when every other person I had in the world gave up on me, Bry had been there. And Bry had an idea. He had too much of a record to ever be caught with pills on him, especially at a large enough scale to be considered distribution, so he offered me a 'job' sort of. I held the product, he gave me a little cash to do so, and that was that.
His money paid about half my rent.
The other half, well, I found a way online to make the rest up.
See, the one cool thing that happens when you're locked up all the goddamn time and can't see or talk to or experience anything or anyone new, well... the mind wanders. You create these huge, epic ideas in your mind.
Eventually, I just started writing mine down. And when I figured out how to, I started selling them online. I had a mediocre little following among the young adult paranormal crowd and they kept me off the streets and with food in my pantry. I had to pinch pennies and there seemed no end in sight for holding drugs for Bry, but I got by.
Ryan (The Mallick Brothers #2) Page 7