By now, word had gotten around that Billy was involved with Tony, Angie’s go-to guy, whose territory covered most of the high-traffic tourist area. She’d fielded a lot of pressing questions and demands from her fellow business owners for information and help, everybody thinking she had an in. But she knew little more than anyone else, and was hurting just as badly.
Tony didn’t, and wouldn’t, talk in any detail about the war, but he told her what he could about its consequences. Sadly, there simply were no good answers. He exhorted her to have faith, to hold on and trust that the Paganos would make things right, and to share that optimism with the Chamber. Things would get back to normal, he promised. But he couldn’t say when.
Meanwhile, Billy was almost out of money. Her family was even more adamant that she sell and retreat since the attack, so there was no chance she could swallow her pride and ask an uncle for help. Nor could she leverage her family to procure a regular loan, because her uncles would get in the way of any loan approval.
In fact, Uncle Elliott, in a phone call ostensibly to express the family’s love and concern for her, had gone so far, once she’d insisted that she was staying in the Cove and keeping her club, as to threaten that the family attorneys were investigating every option to challenge her inheritance, in the interest of protecting the Bradford name. They wanted to force her to give up the club by making her give the money back. They meant to argue that her grandfather would never have left her the money to use as she had.
Her attorney told her there was no legal basis for such a challenge, but the Bradfords, if they really meant to turn on her like that, had limitless resources to make her life miserable, and to financially destroy her with a protracted legal fight, thereby accomplishing what they wanted, anyway.
All she could do was hope they loved her enough not to put any weight into that bullying threat.
Typically, Billy’s mother was a lot of fluttering uselessness. She ranted about her brothers’ heavy-handedness and in the same breath asked if it wouldn’t be better to give in and let them help her start over better. That was the carrot, of course—concede, do what the Bradfords wanted, and they would take over all her losses and basically give her a do-over on her inheritance, so long as they approved of how she used it. Id est: drop the mobster boyfriend, close the nightclub, sell the hippie van, move back to Boston, buy a respectable home in an acceptable neighborhood, and go to work in one of the family businesses. Find an Ivy-Leaguer to marry. Behave like a Bradford.
People thought she was so lucky, being born into a family with such wealth. Like she’d won some kind of cosmic natal lottery. And sure, she’d never have to really worry about being homeless or hungry. She’d always have the out that giving in to her uncles would provide. The same out her mother had taken over and over, running away only as far as her leash would let her go, and then trotting right back inside the fence.
Billy didn’t have a single family member who really had her back.
Her phone chimed, and she turned to her desk. Derek was calling.
“Yeah,” she answered.
“Boss, I need you in the kitchen. We got a situation.”
Her heart sank. “What is it?”
“Cain is back. And Tony’s not having it. If I get in the middle of that ...” The news that her father had returned barely registered, because the flare of worry for trouble between Tony and Derek was too acute. Derek was six-eight and over three hundred pounds, but Tony was the one with the real weight. Derek would take a huge risk to put himself in his way.
“Shit. I’m coming right now.”
~oOo~
She was not expecting Tony to be holding Cain at gunpoint, but that was what she found: a kitchen stunned to silence, everybody frozen, staring in the direction of the back door. Tony had her father shoved face-first against the wall, and he was holding his gun at the back of his head.
“Tony ...” she said, keeping her voice low.
“It escalated since I called,” Derek muttered. His deadpan delivery of that sentence, as a caption to this scene, struck her as perversely funny, and she nearly laughed.
“I got this handled, Billy,” Tony said. “Just let me handle it.”
She walked through the kitchen, around the terrified staff, toward the door. “No. I don’t want you to hurt him. Back off, Tony. Please.”
Without easing up on Cain, Tony turned his head to Billy and frowned. “All he does is hurt you.”
“I know. But what you’re doing, that hurts too.”
“Billy ...” Cain gasped through a mouth sandwiched between the wall and Tony’s angry hand.
Tony shoved Cain’s head even harder. “Shut up, sfigato.” There was blood on the wall; Cain had apparently met it with some force.
Billy set her hand on Tony’s arm, the one that held the gun. His muscles were ropes of tension. “Tony, back off. Let him up.”
“I said if I ever saw him again, I’d end him.”
He’d never said any such thing. Not to her. But she knew where it came from. The night Cain left her, yet again, she’d lost her shit completely, and Tony had been there to gather her pieces back together.
She squeezed his arm. “I don’t want that, Tony. This is my father. Let him go, and let me handle it. I love you for wanting to protect me, but this is not what I want.”
He flinched. His eyes went wide, and then his frown deepened. But he stepped back. He didn’t drop the gun, but he made room for Cain to stand straight and turn from the wall. Cain’s cheek was open and already swelling.
“Can somebody get him some ice?” she called to her staff, without taking her eyes from Tony and Cain. “Put the gun down, Tony. Please.”
He was still frowning at her, but he lowered his arm. She focused on Cain.
“What are you doing back here?”
Cain tenderly fingered his cheek. “It was a mistake to leave.”
Yes, it had been, but Billy wasn’t about to simply let him come back, just like that. “Couldn’t find a gig, huh? Well, bad news—I can’t afford an assistant manager anymore. So there’s nothing for you here.”
Malachi brought a bundle of ice in a towel. Cain nodded his thanks and put it to his injured cheek. “I didn’t come for work, Bill. I came because I love you, and I’m tired of it being wrong between us. We were on a good footing this last time—”
“Until you bailed again.”
“You’re right. And I’m so damn sorry about that. I built a lot of bad habits up over the years. It’s hard to quit them all at the same time. All my life I’ve been leaving when things get hard. I’m still tryin’ to figure out how to stick. Tryin’ to do that and stay clean—it ain’t easy, baby girl.”
“Are you still clean?”
He nodded. “Seventy days now. I’ll even pee in a cup to prove it, if you want.”
She shook her head. A test wasn’t required; she actually believed him.
Maybe it was that, at the very same moment that Cain had apparently been pulling into the lot, she’d been thinking about how she had no family at her back. Maybe it was that Cain was still standing here after Tony had roughed him up, again, and threatened—intended—to kill him. Maybe she was just tired and beaten down by the past couple weeks and the looming loss of this dream she’d tried to realize. Whatever it was, she wanted Cain to stay.
But she was wary. He would hurt her. Of course he would. He always had. “What do you want from me?”
“Nothin’, Wild Bill. But I’m here if there’s something you want from me. I got a job in Narragansett, the guitar shop there. Doing repairs. And I found a room to rent, too. There’s a church right across the street there that holds meetings just about every day. I haven’t been farther than that since I last left, but I wanted to give you some time before I tried to see you.”
Tony moved, drawing Billy’s attention and Cain’s. He was holstering his gun.
Cain watched him do it, then turned back to Billy. “Even if you say no, and I’d understan
d if you do, I’m not goin’ farther than that. I won’t get in your way, but I’ll be close when you’re ready.”
“If you expect me to let you be my dad ...”
He shook his head. “I don’t. I hope to earn that back, but if it’s too late to ever have that again, I understand. I want to be in your life if you’ll let me. However you think I fit.”
She wanted him to stay. “We’ll see. For now, let’s get your face fixed.”
Tony stepped out of her way and didn’t protest.
~oOo~
“Why do you keep giving Cain chances?” Tony asked.
They were in his bed a few hours later, still sweaty and tangled together, and they’d been lying quietly, reclaiming their breath. That nitroglycerin question was his first utterance since he’d roared FUCKING CHRIST! when he’d come.
And it pissed Billy off, as if he’d punched her right in her sorest spot—and when she was at her most vulnerable, too, naked and still pulsing with orgasm, having a brief respite from her mounting worries and woes.
She pushed off his chest and sat up at the edge of the bed, putting her back to him. “Fuck you.”
“Hey.” He grabbed her arm. “Don’t run off. I’m just trying to figure out how to think about all that. Because I want to kill him for how he hurts you—and I’m not exaggerating. I see him, and everything goes red and hot in my head.”
She turned and lobbed an equally explosive question his way. “Why do you still have a relationship with your father?”
He frowned, and his hand dropped from her arm. “That’s different.”
“How?”
Now he was pissed, too. He shoved himself up, and rested against the headboard. Before he answered, he snatched his underwear off the floor and used it to wipe himself off. “Because my old man can’t hurt me anymore. Now he’s afraid of me.”
“And that’s better?”
“Yes. I’ve got the control, and he fucking knows it.”
“Now you’re the one who does the hurting, so that makes everything okay? Tony, that’s fucked up. At least Cain and I are trying to talk about it.”
He laughed nastily and jumped out of bed. “Right. You can’t even call him your dad. That’s totally healthy. Forget about it, Wild Bill. You like being a victim, you go right ahead.”
As he stormed toward the bathroom, Billy leapt up and threw her shoe at him. “FUCK YOU!” It hit his shoulder and bounced off, landing on top of his tall dresser and knocking the ceramic bowl he kept the crap from his pockets in. The bowl skidded off the dresser and crashed to the wood floor, breaking and scattering coins and keys.
He stopped and stared at the mess. Then he looked at her. His eyes were somehow full of angry fire and contemptuous ice at the same time. He turned back to the bathroom, went in, and slammed the door so hard his crucifix rattled on the wall.
Fuck this. Just fuck it. She was too tired to deal with Tony’s bullshit on top of everything else. Hypocritical bastard, judging her family relationships when his back was a map to the horror of his own. Fuck him sideways.
A series of loud thumps came from the bathroom. He was punching something in there. Billy felt stupid, standing here naked and panting with rage. She needed to be quiet and try to think. Her life was on some crazy zipline straight at a brick wall, and it was all just happening to her. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was a victim.
She gathered up her clothes, shoved herself into them as fast as she could, and headed for the front door. Over the past couple weeks, she’d spent every night here with Tony, and she’d begun to spread out a little into his space. She was leaving behind a lot of stuff, but she didn’t want to take the time to gather it all up. She needed to get away.
Did that matter? Was she leaving right now for good?
Shit, was this the end of them?
That was too much to think right now. She’d worry about that later. Right now, she needed to get out of here.
Just as she neared the front door, Tony came charging up at a full run. He got past her and put himself between her and the door, slamming his whole body against it. “NO!” He was still naked, and his eyes were still a riot of fire and ice.
“Let me leave, Tony, before this gets worse.”
“You’re bailing? Like father, like daughter?”
“Fuck you!” She threw out her fist, aimed for his chest but not really trying to hit him so much as just lash out. He grabbed her wrist before she connected.
“Stop, Billy. I don’t want to be like this with you.”
“Like what?”
“THIS! Angry and yelling. Hitting. I don’t want this with you.”
“I don’t want this, either. So let me go.”
He shook his head. “No. Stay.” His hand was snug around her wrist, tight enough to hold her, and keep her from hitting, but if she fought him, she could free herself.
“Why?”
He took a beat before he answered, with a question of his own. “Earlier tonight, you said you love me. Is that true?”
“What?”
A spark of hurt flicked through his eyes. “You said you loved me for protecting you. Was that real, or just words?”
Billy did not remember saying that, and she did not know the answer. Her feelings for Tony were wildly complicated and snarled too tightly with the disaster this summer had been.
When she didn’t give him a quick answer, he sighed and let her wrist go. “If you really want to go, go. But I want you to stay.”
“Why?” she asked again.
Again, she saw him compose his words before he began to speak. “I feel better when I’m with you. I don’t know how to explain it. Every way I turn is bloody and hot, there’s so much nasty shit in my head sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in it, but with you, I feel calm. I always thought I needed to act out to deal with my shit, but it’s different with you. I don’t want you to leave, because I like how I feel, how I am, with you. I want to be able to talk things through with you. Like people. I want to be better with you.”
There was likely nothing better that he could have said. She believed him—this was the man under the thick skin of the killer, the man she’d always sensed and sometimes seen. More than sometimes—this was the man he showed her. The man he wanted to be.
But everything had been chaos since they’d come together, and she couldn’t get her thinking straight about him or anything else. Every way she turned was bloody and hot too, it seemed.
“You scare me. Not because of what you do. But this thing between us, I never feel like I understand it.”
He found some ease in her reply; the sharp tension in his shoulders softened. “Me too. I guess I’m scared, too. That’s why I’m standing here with my dick swinging, trying to get you to stay.”
“I don’t know if I love you, Tony. But if I do, that scares me more.”
Somehow, that answer made him smile. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said. He hooked his hand around her neck and pulled her close. When he bent to kiss her, Billy opened her mouth and let him in. She didn’t even think to resist; this was the way they knew each other best—in touch.
His mouth was soft on hers. He demanded nothing. Each slow slide of his tongue with hers, each press of his lips, was a request. He was asking her to trust him, to believe him. To love him.
She wanted to. At her core, beneath all her worries, all the rational reasons, the clear evidence that being with Tony was dangerous, possibly deadly, she wanted him. What she felt for him defied explanation, flaunted reason. And absolutely terrified her.
But now, in his arms, under that gentle, seeking kiss, she could feel the rightness of him. Of them.
Just at the point that the kiss began to deepen, and hold the promise of more, Tony pulled unexpectedly back.
She opened her eyes; he was staring down at her, but the light in his eyes was different. Warmth instead of fire. “I’m sorry I got nasty, but I’m not sorry I asked about your dad. I need to understand where he is in your
life, so I know how to act.”
“I don’t understand where he is in my life. I need to figure that out for myself.” She cupped his cheek; he’d let his stubble grow back, and she relished the soft scratch of it on her skin. “I think we both have some deep shit about our fathers. Can we go a little slower getting into all that? I mean, I haven’t even met your family yet, and you’re asking me to let you all the way in on the most complicated relationship in my life.”
“I’m not. I’m asking so I know how I should be. What I want to do is hurt him.”
“Don’t. I can’t imagine ever wanting you to do that. Just follow my lead. If I let him be around, then be nice. I’m not asking you to like him, just don’t threaten him. And please stop hitting him.”
“He hurts you. I’m supposed to stand by?”
“It’s my choice to let him. Any chances I give him, that’s my call. If I’m a fool, that’s my call. But I’m not a victim. It’s my choice, my risk.”
“Okay.” He nodded, and then followed it with a surprisingly lighthearted smirk. “You know, before he showed up and turned the night upside down, I was gonna ask you to move in. Officially, I mean.”
Billy’s jaw dropped. “Really?”
“Yeah. I like having you with me. I sleep better. I’m calmer. Happier. I think ...” The sentence died off, but the words he’d held back seemed to swell between them. Billy thought they might have been the same ones he’d asked her if she’d meant.
With a sharp shake of his head, his grin settled back into place. “Would you?”
They’d been together only about a month, and that month had been nonstop pandemonium. It seemed ridiculously reckless to merge their lives when they were just beginning to really understand each other. Hell, ten minutes ago, she’d thought she was leaving for good. A couple of hours ago, he’d had a gun at her father’s head.
But she’d been staying here already, and was comfortable. She was happier here, with him, too. This cookie-cutter condo had become a sanctuary from all that was going wrong elsewhere. They didn’t need to make sweeping decisions just yet; they could carry on as they’d been and still have all the perks of a life together. Like a trial run.
Accidental Evils Page 27