Reggie
I was concentrating on the books for the bar when Gavin called, saying all the liquor delivered was damaged and the driver was getting an attitude with him. I quickly grabbed my stuff and drove to the bar. Gavin was right, I ordered four cases of liquor and at least three bottles in each case are damaged. I grab the phone and contact the distributor, letting him have a piece of my mind; plus, informing him of his dickhead delivery guy. Problem adverted.
Gavin is stocking the bar with the undamaged bottles, glasses and organizing everything for tomorrow night. We are closed on Sundays and Mondays for recuperation, but Gavin comes in for a couple of hours on Monday to get everything ready. We’ve been busier than we ever have been and typically have a line waiting to get in. I’m in the process of looking for another bartender and waitress for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This will help me stay out from behind the bar and help Big Mike control the crowd.
“Hey, Gavin, I’m heading back home. Let me know if you need anything. Don’t stay too long. I can do it tomorrow when I come in.”He waves me goodbye and I make my way to the car and head home. When I pull in the garage, the guys are hovered around the Challenger, working under the hood. Jeremy’s car is in perfect condition, but he’s constantly trying to tweak something to make it better.
“Hey, guys,” I say as I exit the Camaro.
They all wave their hand, too engrossed into what their looking at to care about me. I trot up the stairs and push through the back door. The house is quiet and all the lights are turned off. An uneasy feeling grows inside me as I make my way down the hall to Darcie’s room. As I push open the door, I see she’s sitting in her chair, staring out the window. The only light is coming from her bathroom and she’s rubbing her thumb into the scar on her wrist. I can tell instantly she is upset and trying to deal with it.
I move into the room and her head snaps. Her eyes are stabbing me and she’s not upset, she’s livid. Darcie pushes herself out of the chair and she makes her way over to me. Her eyes are puffy and red from crying and the scar on her wrist has been rubbed raw. She stands in front of me with her hands shaking at her sides. I reach out to hold her hand and as soon as our skin touches, she snags it way.
“What’s the matter with you?” I ask.
Darcie doesn’t say anything as the tears well up in her eyes, on the edge of rolling down her cheeks. She pulls her hand up and I think she’s about to touch my face, instead she closes her fist and cracks me on the side of the head.
My hand flies up to my jaw and I rub it with the pad of my fingers. Anger erupts inside me. “What the fuck was that for? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“How could you do this to me, Reggie? I thought you loved me?” Darcie screams as she keeps pounding her fists into my chest.
I snatch her by the wrist and secure them down by her sides, baffled at her questions. “I do love you, angel, but you need to be little more specific as to what I’ve done.” She keeps jerking her wrists, trying to get out of my grasp and really pissing me off. “Stop! I will let you go as soon as you stop hitting me.”
“I can’t make any promises because right now, I’m ready to kill you.” Her chest is heaving with anger and her voice seethes as she speaks to me. What the hell is her problem?
“Fair enough. Now tell me what the hell is going on?”
Darcie moves to her chair and pulls a ledger from under the cushion. I instantly recognize the book and my heart sinks. I wanted to avoid this conversation, never telling her about the blackmail between me and her stepfather. My instinct was right. I knew she was going to flip out. She slams the ledger into my chest with all her strength. I look at the book and toss it onto the bed.
“Why were you in my office, Darcie? I told you I don’t want people in my business and that includes you.” My voice is short as I get more aggravated that she was snooping through my things.
“I was in the office to give you this.” She slaps a yellow sticky note on my chest, scrolled with her perfect handwriting.
To my knight in shining armor,
Here’s a little thank you note for working so hard for all of us.
Love Always ~D
I read the note and smile. She has such a kind heart and I need to keep this in mind as the anger of the situation still boils inside me.
“This is nice, Darcie, but it doesn’t explain what you were doing in my desk.”
“Don’t! Don’t talk to me like I’m a petulant child. Why didn’t you tell me about this? Why would you do it, Reggie?”
I’m completely baffled. How does she know about the money I’ve been paying Robert. There’s nothing in this book that explains anything. Only numbers scribbled on a lined page. Something I’ve done to keep track of how much I was paying him, possibly to use for evidence if needed. I answer her honestly. I’m not keeping secrets from her, not anymore. “I had no choice, Darcie.”
“What do you mean you had no choice? You’re a greedy asshole. Get the hell out of my room!” She pushes against my chest, trying to push me away.
“Greedy!?” My temper lights with fury. “After everything I’ve done for you and the boys, you have the fucking nerve to call me greedy!” I can feel my face redden from the anger. I grab a hold of her shoulders and make her look me in the eye. “I’ve given up everything for you the moment you came into this house. I stopped my fighting career because I knew you needed me at home with you. I stayed up with you every night for a damn year to make sure you were okay before you went to bed at night, and I give you whatever you want. You want for nothing and you’re calling me GREEDY!” I scream in her face. “You’re fucking selfish and ungrateful.”
I turn to exit the room. My anger is at dangerous levels right now and I don’t want anything to happen because all I’m seeing is red. I’m teetering on the edge, about to fall into a pit of fury, when Darcie keeps pushing.
“Really, I’m selfish, Reggie? At least I’m not blackmailing a pedophile for money.”
I stop in my tracks and turn to look at her. The dam in her eyes has cracked as a few tears have escaped, rolling down her cheeks. “What?!”
“Isn’t that what this is, Reggie? You keeping tabs of the money Robert’s paid you over the last two years? Was I that horrible to be around that you had to receive compensation for me living with you? So, do you get a bonus if you fuck me?”
Holy shit! She has this completely wrong. When I think of the ledger, it doesn’t explain who is on the receiving end of the money so I can understand why she misunderstood what she read. My anger melts away as I move toward her. I lift my arms, attempting to wrap her into my chest, but she steps back.
“Don’t. Fucking. Touch. Me.” She’s still livid from her accusations.
“This isn’t what you think, Darcie. He’s not paying me anything. I—I’ve been—”
Darcie interrupts, “Then what is it, Reggie!”
“Jesus, sit down and I’ll tell you.” Darcie moves to the bed and sits on the edge. I begin to pace, ready to tell her my secret. “When I took you from that house, I had no idea who you were related to. Not that it would have changed anything because it wouldn’t. You would’ve still come home with me, but it would have given me a better understanding of who I was dealing with.”
I release a breath and move on. “For the first year you lived here, your stepfather threatened to take you away from me; he would call me, leave ransom notes and pretty much torment me. That’s why I was so insistent to know where you were and would not let you go anywhere without Jake or Jeremy. He was waiting to take you away from me. Then one day, an envelope was left on the back stairs…and the ball suddenly was in Robert’s court. He knew I had a case against him and, if I convinced you to testify against him, his life would’ve been over, but he wanted insurance I wasn’t going to go to the authorities.
“That’s when my past caught up to me. What Robert had against me would have sent me away for a long time. The boys would be put into foster care and you wou
ld’ve gone back to him, so I had to fold. He said if I wanted to keep what I had, meaning you and the boys, then I needed to pay him monthly installments. He was blackmailing me.”
Darcie’s face turns white when I tell her the truth. She allows the harbored tears to trickle their way down her cheeks and drip onto her lap. Defeated, I sit down next to her and intertwine her fingers with mine. We sit like that for several minutes, and then she asks, “You’ve paid him almost fifty thousand dollars to keep him away from me?”
“Yes.”
Darcie lays her head against my shoulder, but I lift my arm and tuck her into me. “What did he have against you that made you pay?”
“You don’t want to know.” I can’t tell her what I’ve done. The only people who know, beside Robert, were there that night, otherwise they wouldn’t know.
“Please, just tell me Reggie.” Her voice is quiet yet pleading, but I can’t do it.
“No. It’s in the past and that’s where I want it to stay.”
“It’s apparently not in the past if it’s still haunting you. Just tell me.”
Irritated once again, I push myself off her bed and begin to pace while running my fingers through my hair. I try to think of a way to avoid her question without lying to her about it, but I come up with nothing and that pisses me off.
“Why are you acting like this? Quit being stupid and just tell me.” Her temper is flaring, matching mine. “Or do you like keeping things from me?”
“I’m not keeping things from you. I just don’t think you need to know. It’s not something I talk about…”
“Coward!” Darcie interrupts. “Did you know how hard it was for me to tell you about my first scar? I’ve never talked about it with anyone, but I wanted you to know. So stop trying to decide what’s best for me and let me do that myself!”
“Fuck!” I ball up my fist and punch it through her door.
“Jesus, Reggie! Just fucking tell me before you destroy the damn house!”
“I killed someone! Is that what you want to hear? Right out there on the living room carpet while the boys watched. I beat the shit out of a guy until I was covered in blood and he was dead. The sick part, angel, is that I don’t regret it, either. I will never have any kind of remorse for ending his life.”
Her mouth drops to the ground from astonishment. After everything she’s been through, Darcie knows what a monster looks like and it is the look I was trying to avoid. The reason I didn’t want to tell her because, with her knowing, I will be no different than Grady and it’s written all over her face.
I can’t deal with this right now. I storm from her room and slam my door. As quickly as possible I change into my workout clothes, grab my gloves, and then head to the garage. I need to beat out the anger in my body, the disappointment in myself because I’m no longer her knight in shining armor, I’m nothing except evil.
I enter through the side door and slam it behind me. Three heads pop up from behind the hood of the Challenger and briefly glare in my direction. My face is red and my eyes are cold as ice. “Get out.”
Jeremy shuts the hood of the car and they file out the door just as fast as I came in. I crank up the stereo as Linkin Park pours from the speakers. The smell of dirt and grease floods my nostrils. Tools are strung across the work bench and larger ones litter the cold, concrete floor. I kick any hazards out of the way, stalking my way over to the intended target. Then I begin to circle it.
One foot in front of the other, I slowly stride in a circle, wearing an invisible path into the floor, like I’ve done so many times in the ring, I circle around the octagon and size up my contender. The one hundred pound bag hangs suspended on a steel hook from the ceiling and I feel like it is mocking me. I keep methodically moving around the black leather bag, transporting my anger into it. This inanimate object is now my opponent and I want to kill it.
When I look at this bag, I see every, single person who’s tried to destroy Darcie one way or another. I see Robert Stein, Grady McGuire and myself; our faces are all over it because we are all responsible for causing her pain. I stop moving, square up my shoulders and start shuffling my feet, allowing the blood to travel through my limbs. Then, like a cobra hunting its prey, I strike; connecting my fist with unimaginable force.
I fucking hate what I’ve done. I fucking hate you, Robert Stein! I fucking hate you, Grady McGuire! I scream in my head as I work the bag. My teeth are gritted and muscles tight as I continue with the assault.
As I pound the bag with my fists, Darcie’s face flashes into my mind. Her entire world seemed to crash around her when she saw me for who I really am, a murderer. When I walked into her room tonight, her jade eyes were lit with anger, but it was the gut-wrenching sadness looking back at me that proved I’m no longer her knight in shining armor. From the moment we met, Darcie has always put me high on a pedestal and has given me this perfectly untouchable status, yet tonight, I simply proved to her how completely opposite her feelings should be.
What I did to Vinnie Trampoli was done to protect my family, but it also showcases my inability to restrain my anger once it’s been unleashed. I should have stopped pounding his face, but the fury was too intense and my fists couldn’t stop. The pleading cry from my mother or the terror plastered across my brothers’ faces should have been enough for me to stop, but it wasn’t. What I walked in on that night made me blackout with rage. The nine millimeter glock pointed at the little boys sitting on the couch was enough for me to lose control, and killing Vinnie was the only thing my mind could rationalize. As satisfying as it was to destroy Vinnie, it doesn’t excuse me from what I did. Robert has made sure of that I don’t forget it every damn day of my life for the last two years.
My muscles begin to burn and the sweat is dripping from my body, but I can’t stop. I slam my knees, legs and fists into the black leather bag with brute force because the anger is still festering inside. Darcie is my life, I can’t lose her, I refuse to lose her, but will this be our deal breaker? Will she now look at me the same way she looks at Grady, as a monstrous human being? My mind begins to shut down as I work the bag over and over until I have nothing left inside or out.
Chapter 29
Darcie
I can’t believe what I heard. Reggie has…killed someone? I know his MMA fighting was lethal enough that it was possible to kill someone, but to have actually done it without it having anything to do with his former career is unnerving. To think of all the times I put myself between his anger and another person. It was equivalent to standing on the tracks, waiting for the train to collide with your body. One wrong move and I could have been dead. I close my eyes and try to see what he’s done, but I can’t wrap my brain around it. It’s not the Reggie I know and it’s definitely not the Reggie I love.
I need a drink. This has been an emotionally challenging day and I want to feel numb. I push myself off the bed and go toward the kitchen. The cupboard above the sink houses all the glass bottles of liquor and I pull out the one closest to my hand, vodka. Perfect. Unscrewing the cap I tip my head back and feel the burn as it drenches my throat while I gag down the clear fluid.
Jake, Jeremy and Drake make their way into the kitchen as I down my second shot from the bottle. “Whoa, rough day, Darcie?” Drake asks.
I nod and tip my head back yet again, looking for the numbness to take over. Jake snatches the bottle from my hand and I give him a vicious glare. “What the hell is this about, Darcie? Did you and Reggie break it off? Because you’re both acting insane.”
“No…well. I…I don’t know.”
Drake grabs my hand and pulls me into the living room. “What happened?”
I start to retell the story. I tell them about the ledger and about Reggie telling me the truth about the money. Then I get to the part of his deep dark secret and I can’t speak because I don’t want to believe it. I look down at the floor and wonder where exactly the guy he killed died. My eyes are scanning the carpet for a stain, any trace of the violence,
but all I see is the dark brown, shag carpet, nothing more.
Jeremy’s voice fills the silence as they all stare at me. “Did Reggie tell you why he has to pay the money to your stepfather?”
I nod my head yes. “He said he killed someone. Robert found out and is blackmailing him, but the part that gets to me is Reggie doesn’t regret it. That you guys had to see it. How frightening for a child, it scares the shit out of me. I can’t imagine how it was for you guys.”
“It’s true, seeing Reggie do that was terrifying, but did he tell you why he killed that guy?”
I shake my head no. I’m not sure I want to know, I’m not sure I can handle it. Before his revelation, he was perfect in my eyes. A man who would do anything to protect me and his brothers from Robert and now I find out he’s no better than Grady. It’s infuriating. Why do I always get involved with guys like this?
Jeremy moves to my side and grabs my hand in his. He looks over to Jake and says, “I’m gonna tell her. She deserves to know and she is a part of our family.”
Jake shakes his head in disapproval. “Whatever, man. It’s your neck if Reggie finds out.”
“Right before our mom died, she was involved with this dirt bag named Vinnie Tampoli. He was a dealer and she would do anything he asked just to get her fix. She thought she was in love with him or some shit, but really, all she loved was meth. Once night, Vinnie freaked out and pulled a gun on all of us and was about to kill my mom when Reggie walked in. Just like that, he took down Vinnie and beat the shit out of him. Reggie and mom rolled Vinnie in an old blanket then tossed him in the woods. She blamed him until the day she died for killing Vinnie. She made his life a living hell. Once she died, the guilt seemed to die, too, until Robert came along and now he’s had to pay him every month in order to keep his secret from going to the police. The Reggie I know would never let someone take advantage of him the way Robert is, he would face the consequences, but he is forced to let Robert blackmail him because he’s trying to protect us…protect you.”
Scarred Love Page 19