by Mj Fields
“No. He didn’t mention my citizenship at all. I just know what I have been told my entire life.”
“Well, your old man wasn’t the most upstanding of people, so maybe he was holding that over your head and it’s not an issue. Until someone comes knocking, try not to worry about it.”
“I can’t get sent back there,” I whisper, letting the fear win.
“I’m not going to let that happen, little one.”
I wish I could be so sure. I wish I could feel like everything is going to be okay. I can’t, though. This is just another way my father still has a hold on me.
Moving through the space, I wonder to myself what a real home would feel like. I used to dream of having one of the empty apartments to myself. I could wear my slippers and I could display my treasures. More than anything, I could breathe. I wouldn’t be counting the day away, wondering what the evening would bring when he arrived home. I wouldn’t have to worry about him coming and going and getting everything just right. As I think of the future, I wonder what it would really feel like to be excited in anticipation for someone’s return home. How would I feel to enjoy the company of another person each evening rather than feel the dread of what was certain to come?
Jagger’s phone starts ringing. While he answers, I go to my father’s room, where his bed is a complete mess and his clothes are everywhere. Absently, I start picking them up and making the bed. Then I gather everything I can into a basket and start to head to the door.
Jagger stops me. “Where are you going?”
“To the first floor to do laundry.”
He looks into the basket. “Totty, are those his clothes?”
I nod.
“He’s not coming back.”
I drop the basket and sob, and Jagger wraps his arms around me.
“Shhh,” he whispers, stroking my hair.
I know he’s not coming back. Old habits die hard, though. Will I ever be normal? I shouldn’t feel sad. I should be filled with happiness that I don’t have to be at his beck and call.
I am free. I am free to be me.
Only I don’t know how to be me without being the person he wanted me to be. Clothes washed, house clean, food prepared, and good grades—that was my life. Now what?
“It’s okay to be lost, little one.”
Once again, Jagger Caldwell soothes my problems away, and I hold him a little more securely. Could I find a way to hold on to him, hold on to this for the rest of my life?
“Together, Totty. Together, we will pick up the pieces. I lost my momma. My brothers and I have fought hard to pick up the pieces. We did it along with helping Livi, Hailey, and Marisa. I’m here, Totty. We all are. We’ll help you pick up the pieces, too.”
I squeeze him. “Good touch, Jagger Caldwell.”
He groans, kissing the top of my head.
“Everything good,” I whisper into his chest. “You are everything good.”
Chapter 19
Jagger
I hold her, allowing her words to settle in.
“I haven’t always been a good man,” I finally say.
She sighs and looks up at me. “The fights?”
I nod.
“The women?” she whispers, tensing in my arms.
“None like you, little one, not one whose blood I can claim.”
She looks up at me.
“Virgin. Never had one before,” I admit.
“Is it…different?” she whispers.
I push her hair away from her eyes. “You are different.”
“Will you want to touch me like that again?”
A smile creeps up on my face, and I let out a long, slow breath. “Probably more than you’re going to want.”
“Probably not.” Her eyes smile.
“Good.”
“Good touch.” Her smile hits her lips now.
“Really good touch,” I growl, then bend to kiss her, but someone knocks on the door to her shitty little apartment.
She pulls back and takes a step toward the door.
“No.” I move in front of her. “Someone murdered your old man,” I answer due to the confused look she gives me. “We know it’s not us, so that person is out there, and until they find out who the hell it was, you and I are gonna be stuck like glue.”
I walk to the door and open it slowly, keeping one foot behind it so I can stop it from fully opening if whoever is at the door tries something. Then I see Old Lady Simmons and relax.
“Tatiana?”
I nod. “Come in.” I open the door and let the old woman who gave Totty the baked goods in.
“I am so sorry about your father.” She hugs a confused-looking Tatiana.
“Thank you.” She steps back.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t put an end to him myself.” She starts crying.
This time Tatiana hugs her, and it’s an awkward hug that pisses me off. How does someone go a lifetime without affection? Without…good touch?
“I should have, but I was frightened he would turn me in.”
“For what?” Tatiana asks.
“He threatened to tell the authorities I didn’t have papers, that I was an illegal immigrant. My children, although grown, need me here. I don’t want to go back. I will live with my shame for the rest of my—”
“No, Marisol, no. No shame. You showed me kindness.”
“Not enough.”
“More than I knew before then.”
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”
“I beg you to take it.”
The old woman hugs her again. “In your father’s room, under the bed, a floorboard is not nailed down. There is a safe. He said it was to go to you. I was to make sure you knew this. I didn’t tell the authorities. He told me not to.”
Tatiana looks up at me, afraid.
“He can’t do a damn thing to you, Totty. You get that?”
“I don’t want to go in there alone.”
“You want me to—”
“Yes,” she says, taking my hand.
When we are standing at the bed, her hold on my hand becomes a death grip.
“Little one, I can’t move the bed if you don’t let go.” I stroke her knuckles with my thumb, and she sighs, then lets go.
I move the bed and immediately see the loose plank of wood. I grab my pocketknife out of my pants, push the blade between the planks, and lift it up. I see the safe and lift it out. It is about the length and width of a piece of paper and about seven inches deep.
Old Lady Simmons hands Totty a key. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
When Old Lady Simmons leaves, I sit on the floor and pat the spot between my legs, and Tatiana sits and pushes herself back against me. Her hand trembles slightly as she reaches back to hand me the key. I don’t take it. Instead I hold her hand.
“You can do this.”
“I’m afraid of what I’ll find,” she whispers.
“Little one, I’m here, but there is nothing, not one thing, you need to be afraid of even if I wasn’t. Your old man is dead. He’s never gonna touch you again.” I place a kiss on her head and push the heavy box in front of her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“With me,” she says, linking her pinky around my thumb as she pushes the key in, turns the lock, and then slowly, as if something may jump out at her, opens the box.
Inside is a ton of cash. Bundles of hundred-dollar bills wrapped with bank slips that say ten thousand dollars.
“Holy shit, Totty!” I gasp as she pulls them out, one after another.
“It’s a lot,” she says quietly.
I have already counted up to thirty-four, and they are still coming. In the end, there are fifty-seven. More than half a million dollars if the shit is real.
“That’s an understatement.” I sigh. “Someone was looking down on you.”
“What would I even do with all this?” She looks back at me, confused.
“You could buy a car. Hell, you could buy twenty and a house and—”
<
br /> “I don’t know how to drive,” she says, scowling.
“Oh, babe, I’m gonna teach you how to do every fucking thing that bastard didn’t that will make you strong and free. Hell, I’d teach you to fly if I could.”
She sits back against me, looking at all the cash. Then one hand reaches up and grabs the back of my neck. “Good touch.”
“If you need me, I’m here.” I kiss her softly.
She pulls me down and kisses me harder. When she pulls back, she closes her eyes.
“This is mine, and this place is mine. I don’t deserve—”
“You deserve even more.” I rub her arms up and down, trying not to squeeze too hard.
“I never asked for this.”
“The fucker owes you,” I remind her.
She nods, sitting forward to reach in the box. She pulls out a bundle of papers.
“Jackpot, Tatiana,” I say when I see her US citizenship paperwork. “Nothing to worry about. You’re legal. Shouldn’t have doubted it to begin with. Johnny already knew that, or we wouldn’t be sitting here now.”
She nods again, looking at the next sheet—her birth certificate. Her finger caresses the spot that says her mother’s name. I can’t read it, don’t need to. She is relaxing again. That’s all I need.
After that are pictures of a woman with a baby. I know immediately it is her and her mother. Tatiana looks just like her.
A sob escapes as she quickly goes through them, one after another. Once she is done, she trembles, holding them close to her as her sobs become cries.
I pull her to me and try to hold her together, and her emotions seep into my soul. I feel them deeply, and tears fill my own eyes.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I hold them back as I tighten my grip. We sit like that for only a moment before I see the door open, and Old Lady Simmons peeks in. She is crying too.
“What can I do?” she asks.
“She’ll be okay. Just needs to let it out.”
Tatiana sobs, and I turn her tiny little body to me, holding her as I stroke her hair. The door closes, Old Lady Simmons leaving us alone again.
Her tears finally stop falling, but her body still shakes.
“Tell me what I can do for you.”
“Get me out of here,” she pleads quietly.
“No problem.” I stand with her in my arms and sit her down on the bed. “You have a bag?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve gotta do something with this cash till we can get you a bank account.”
She nods. “I’ll be back.”
She walks out the door, and I put the plank back, covering his fucking hiding spot, the place where he hid things from her that would have made her life easier, better. I start to shove the old wrought iron bed back to where it was, yet find another plank seems to be loose. I move the bed back, grab my knife off the floor where I left it, and pop it up. Inside is an old shoebox. I grab it as Tatiana walks in with the bag.
“There’s more?” she asks nervously.
“Yeah,” I say, taking the bag and handing her the box.
“I don’t know if I can handle more.”
“Then we put it away and wait till later. No one says you have to do it all at once.” I don’t think I could handle more right now, either.
I take the box and shove it deep inside the duffel bag she handed me. Then I toss in the half a million in cash.
Fuck me running. She is gonna have everything she ever dreamed of. I hope to hell it’s still gonna include me, but if not, for her, I would walk. However, I would sure as hell hide in the background, making sure this little one, who can bring a champ to the verge of tears, was always protected.
When everything is shoved in the bag, I sling it over my shoulder and take her hand.
“Where are we going?”
“Home,” I answer as I lead her out.
When we get to the bottom of the stairs, she looks around. I know she is thinking of her old man lying there, dead.
She looks up. “I hope it wasn’t too painful.”
I want to tell her I hope it fucking was an eternal pain. I hope the fucker who bruised and scarred my beautiful little one is in hell after falling down an eternity of stairs with brains and blood spilling from the strike he took to the back of his head by someone I hope I get the chance to shake hands with someday.
We are heading out when she sees Old Lady Simmons coming out of her apartment. Tatiana jerks my hand and then lets it go.
“Are you okay?” she asks Tatiana.
She looks up at me. “I will be. Right, Jagger?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I will make sure of it.”
“What can I do to help?” Old Lady Simmons asks. She reaches in her apron and pulls out a piece of paper. “My number. I just got a cellular phone. Call me with anything.”
Tatiana turns and opens the bag hanging off my side. She takes out a bundle of cash. “Can you throw everything he owns away? I don’t want to come back here and see any of it.”
“Of course. I can donate it to the church to—”
“Whatever you do is fine. I just want it all gone.” She hands her the money. “Can you watch over the place until I am strong enough to return?”
Old Lady Simmons looks down. “I couldn’t—”
“I won’t have it any other way.”
Simmons looks up at me. “Tell her this is too much.”
“It’s hers. She can do whatever she wants with it.”
“I want you to have it.” Tatiana closes her hand around the old lady’s. “Please. I don’t want to come back until he wants me to.”
I huff. “How does never sound?”
The look of need on her face when she turns back to me is overwhelming. It also makes me start to get hard. Not fucking good. Not here.
“It sounds like heaven.”
After leaving the apartment building, I hold her hand as I drive slowly. We will be staying at Shaw’s place. Kid has already staked his claim on the apartment above the gym, saying he doesn’t want a house to take care of. I could take her to Hendrix’s place, but that isn’t gonna work with what I have in mind. I have some serious making up to do for the way I took her this morning.
I run my fingers through my hair, steering with my knee.
It isn’t long before I pull in between the gym and the brick house Shaw and his wife lived in.
“Are we going to the gym?”
“Nah, the house right here.” I point left.
“Is this where you live?” she asks, sitting forward.
“I guess now I do.”
“It’s not far from my…um…my—”
“You really wanna live there, Totty?” I ask, throwing the car in park.
She shakes her head.
“Where do you want to live? You have all that cash and can have anything you want, so where do you want to live?” I take the key out, then look over at her.
When she lets go of my hand, gets out, and walks toward the house, I grab the duffel bag and get out.
“Totty?”
“Here.” She points at the house, and my heart warms, but I don’t want her settling. She looks at me and shrugs. “I want to live here.”
I don’t say anything, because I can’t say shit right now. My head is spinning. I’m feeling things I never have and never wanted to. Hell, shit I have avoided. I don’t want to turn it off like I did with Cobra’s old lady. I fell fucking hard back then too. I did bounce back, but with Tatiana…There is no fucking way I would bounce back.
“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. I just thought you wanted—”
I take three steps and swoop her up, and she gasps, then laughs. I punch the door code, reminding myself to change the thing, open the door, and then kick it shut behind me.
“I want it, Totty. I want it really badly. Too badly. So b—”
“Never bad, Jagger, not with us. Not with you and me.”
“Good touch,” we say at the same time. Then I can’t keep my lips off he
r.
When we finally break away, her eyes are glued to mine as she smiles.
“You look so beautiful when you smile. So beautiful all the damn time.”
“I have no idea what I did to deserve a man like you, but I swear—”
“Little one, you deserve so much more than me, but I’ll be damned if I don’t use every trick in the book to keep you believing that shit.”
I walk into the spare bedroom, one I stayed in when I was too afraid of what my brothers would say if they saw me after some of my fights. I lay her on the bed.
Her eyes widen as I reach behind me and pull my shirt over my head, then toss it to the floor. She moans, and I make damn sure I flex a bit while I unbutton and unzip my pants. She licks her lips, then bites down on her lower lip before slowly releasing it.
“You are no less deserving. You have given me so much. To me, you’re a prince—my prince. You want a girl like me? A girl who is scarred and so—”
I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take her talking about herself like that.
“I’m no prince, little one. Look at me. I’m scarred too, but when you look at me like you do, I instantly want to own your body, your heart, your soul. I gave myself these scars. You had no choice, but fuck if it isn’t something I know I’ll never get enough of looking at, admiring. You endured all of that, and when you found a way out, you took it. You are so good, so kind, so willing to please a man like me. I would willingly bow down in front of you and give you everything I have.”
“Good touch,” she whispers.
“I’m gonna give you the best I can. Exactly what you deserve. Not that alley, not—”
“Please,” she pleads.
I kick off my jeans, then grab a condom, throwing it on the bed. Then I lean over and pull her up.
“Arms up.”
As I take my time lifting her shirt, I kiss each inch of skin I expose, my heart beating against my chest more and more rapidly. Throwing the shirt on the ground, I kiss her again, placing my hand behind her back as I lower her onto the bed. Then I sprinkle kisses sweetly, softly, lazily from her mouth down her jaw to her tits, where I suck gently, using all the restraint I never knew I had in order to give her what she deserves—adoration.
I pull away and kiss down her belly, making sure I kiss the fading yellow bruises on her ribs, and she squirms.