I made my way down the long hallway toward the rest of the offices, but voices coming from the open section of the warehouse caught my ear. I followed the sound, realizing the closer I got that one of the voices was Kayla’s.
When I reached wide entrance, I stopped in my tracks, anger and another emotion I didn’t want to name crashing over me like a tidal wave.
Kayla stood in the middle of the boxing ring wrapped in Mickey’s arms, the remnants of a romantic dinner all around them. Every instinct came roaring to life, compelling me to charge at him. Take him down and beat him until he was bloody for putting his slimy hands on her.
Then it registered that she was hugging him back.
Just as I was about to turn around and walk out…go somewhere and burn off the fury pounding inside me, she lifted her head from its resting place in the crook of his neck and drew back as she met my gaze.
“Matty? What are y-”
"Are you fucking him?" I spat, wondering if I looked as disgusted as I felt and then realizing I didn’t give a shit. Just being around the guy made me want to take a shower he was so fucking slick, and to think of him touching Kayla made my skin crawl.
"Watch yourself, kid," Mickey muttered, his eyes going cold, like a snake.
"I'm not going to do this with you here. Go outside, I'll be there in two minutes and we can talk about this like adults, okay?" Her wide brown eyes pleaded with me, but I wasn't having it.
"We can talk about it right now. Are. You. Fucking. Him?"
"Son, I'm not going to tell you again,” Mickey said, crossing the ring and gripping the rope between us. “Watch your language or you're going to have a much bigger problem than Kayla on your hands."
"Don't call me son, you piece of shit. You're not my father."
He tipped his head with a grim smile. "Maybe not, but I'm hers and I'm not going to have some little prick talking to her that way in front of me."
The room seemed like it was closing in on me as his words sank in.
Her father.
Kayla James was Mickey Flynn's daughter.
"Jesus, Mick, that wasn't your secret to tell," Kayla said, her already pale face going milky white. "Look, Matty, I-"
I held up a hand and backed out of the room, still shaking with rage. So she wasn’t fucking him. Great. At least that meant she wasn’t a total idiot. She couldn’t help who her father was. I was a prime example that you couldn’t choose your parents. But she had the choice to tell me, and she chose not to, over and over again. When would I learn that trusting people was always, always a mistake?
"I don't want to hear it. Everything you've told me up until now was utter and complete bullshit, so listening to you is a waste of my time."
She was still calling after me as I jogged down the hallway and out the exit.
Chapter Seven
Matty
Please pick up the phone.
Kayla’s latest text blinked up from my phone on the bench beside me and I stuffed it into my pocket. They were coming fast and furious now, along with the phone calls. I probably should’ve turned the thing off, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
But I couldn’t bring myself to answer either.
After a grueling three hours lifting and pounding the bags, even my brothers had gotten sick of my miserable mug and had gone out for drinks with Olivia. Now it was just me, alone in my gym, angry as a wounded bear and wallowing in misery. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I knew Mickey had kids, I’d even seen pictures of them on his desk. A boy and a girl, one looked to be around seven, the other ten at most.
She called him Mickey, not Dad, and they didn’t look alike. At least, not enough that I noted a resemblance. And at least two times she mentioned meeting him when she was thirteen.
If I’d missed the clues it was only because there weren’t any. There was no denying Kayla had done her best to make sure that I stayed in the dark about her relationship to Mickey. I had to wonder if she ever planned to tell me. And then I had to wonder what I would’ve done if she had.
I stood and punched the bag one more time for good measure. Maybe tonight would be a night of discovery for me all around. I’d go out and discover what it felt like to get rip-roaring drunk for the first time in my life.
I swiped the sweat from my forehead with a towel just as the phone in my pocket buzzed again. Ignoring it, I took the stairs two at a time, pausing at the top when I heard a loud banging noise from downstairs. Backtracking, I could feel my blood-pressure rising. Maybe Mickey had decided to revisit an old favorite and sent his goons to break in again. I’d been so caught up in my feelings and the look on Kayla’s face, I hadn’t even considered how old Mick was handling things. He could easily have decided that I’d overstepped my station. That blood was thicker than money and now, instead of wanting to be in business with me, he’d be better off if I disappeared. For good.
I probably should’ve been scared, but I was so over Mickey Flynn and all his bullshit, part of me relished the thought of sending his flying monkeys home with broken wings just to see what he would do.
I reached the bottom of the steps and the sound came again. Banging, but like fists on the door. Just in case, I grabbed a baseball bat I kept behind the front desk and made for the door. My phone buzzed again right as I reached it and peered through the glass. Kayla stood there, rain pelting her red head as she hunched over her cell phone. She was damp and shivering, and when she looked up at me through the pane, I could tell she’d been crying.
Fuck.
I stood there for longer than I should have before setting down the bat, unlocking the door and opening it to let her in.
She closed the door behind her and wrapped her arms around her waist. "I was wrong,” she blurted, before I could say a word. “And I’m sorry.”
Her breath smelled like wine and I looked over her shoulder into the parking lot. “Did you drive here?”
She shook her head and pushed a wet hank of hair from her cheek. “No. I took a cab.”
“And you had him leave?” I snagged my phone from my pocket and thumbed in the number for the local cab company.
“Can’t you at least hear me out?” She grabbed my wrist and gazed up at me through bloodshot, puffy eyes. “I’m here. I’m admitting I was wrong. I’m begging you to listen and at least let me apologize. What else do you want from me, Matty?"
I squeezed my eyes closed and leaned back with my ass against the desk. That was a great question. What did I want? I wanted everything to be like it was before I'd ever met Mickey Flynn or his fucking daughter. I wanted to run my little gym and work toward being a fighter on my own, with my brothers at my side. So unless she had a time machine, I was shit out of luck. I pressed the red end button on my phone and yanked my wrist from her grasp.
"You have nothing I want. Not anymore."
She flinched and I couldn't even muster any sympathy. This whole thing was a nightmare of my own making. I'd told her I didn't want her around. That she'd be nothing but a distraction and I was right, but I let it happen anyway. I should've put my foot down with Mickey right then and there, but I let my dick do my thinking for me, whether I was willing to admit it or not. And look where it had gotten me.
"You don't know me. You don't know my life," she whispered. The pleading in her eyes was gone, and now they were empty except for dull resignation. "You don't want anything to do with me anymore, that's fine. No one does after a while. No one except Mick. So if you can't handle me and the baggage that comes with me, then I’ll go because you know what? I don't want you either." She turned, shoved the door open and then walked out, leaving me there with my head in my hand.
I didn't chase her —because what was there to say, anyway?— and then I did. Because she was outside walking alone in the rain, and as much as I wanted to hate her guts, the thought of something happening to her made my stomach churn.
By the time I caught up with her in my car a few minutes later, she was five blo
cks away and soaked to the skin. I leaned over and pushed open the passenger’s side door and called her name until she stopped and looked my way.
“Get in.”
I half expected her to fight me because that was all we seemed capable of doing, but she climbed in without hesitation, taking the towel I handed her with a soft “thank you.”
I wanted to tell her that I was just there to make sure she got home safe. That I didn’t want to talk about anything and I sure as fuck didn’t want to listen, but she never gave me a chance. She just started talking.
"When I was thirteen, my mother went to jail one last time. She never came out. Died five years ago of ovarian cancer after four years in prison for drug trafficking. She'd gone from hooker to drug mule, and got caught her first time moving product.”
Her voice was monotone, which made it all the harder to listen to. I kept my eyes pinned on the road and willed myself not to picture Kayla as a little girl, living through that. Forcing myself not to draw comparisons from my past to hers or empathize with how hard it must have been for her to lose her mother at such a young age.
Having her in my life was a mistake and had been from the beginning. She was Mickey Flynn’s daughter. The daughter of the man who had made my family’s life a living hell these past few months. Nothing she said now changed that.
“There was no one at home to care for me,” she continued, staring blankly out the windshield as she spoke. “I didn't know who my real father was other than that he'd been a john, and the state called my aunt to take me. She came from Wisconsin and picked me up in her station wagon. Her husband was a preacher at their local church and they had two little boys.”
She shifted restlessly in the seat and clutched the towel to her chest. “It was okay at first. I liked the space. The quiet. The cows. But that summer, I hit puberty. The country air and the three squares a day…I stopped looking like a coat hanger and suddenly Uncle Cal start ed paying attention to me.”
My hands had started to shake and I gripped the wheel tighter. I didn't want to hear the rest. I wanted to pull over and abandon the fucking car before she said the words.
"He wasn't mean before that, just...uninterested. Once I got tits, though, he was very interested.” She let out a humorless, harsh laugh. “So interested that Aunt Deedee started to notice, making little comments here and there. I didn't think all that much of it, because whatever she said to me, she was still providing for me more than my mother ever had and I was grateful. But one night that summer, it all came to a head. I was in the barn feeding the horses he came out to call me in for supper. Aunt Deedee was at bible study, but she'd left a casserole in the oven."
She shook her head slowly and shrugged.
"Shepherd’s pie. I don't know why I remember that so well. I can still smell it. When he led me inside I realized that my cousins weren't at the table. He’d sent them to a friend’s house.” She paused and pursed her lips together before pressing on. “He...touched me. Pushed his body against mine. He smelled sickly sweet...like beeswax candles and butterscotch. When he stuck his tongue into my mouth, I gagged. He slapped me hard in the face and told me that he loved me, and I was a wicked little slut for making him feel these things. If I wanted him to forgive me, I had to,” she stopped and swallowed hard, "kiss it and make it better. He made me take my clothes off and stand in front of him, and then he put my hand on his…on it. I don’t know what happened that night, but the gods were looking out for me, because my Aunt came home early. She found me in the kitchen with my underwear around my ankles.”
She cleared her throat and laid the towel on her lap like a blanket before she turned to face me. I tried to keep the emotion from my face. I’d never been so close to the edge of reason as I was at that moment. I wanted to sell my car, buy a plane ticket and murder the motherfucker. Instead, I kept driving and listening.
“She was furious, and kept me locked in my room until Mickey showed up a week later. I don't know the details, but I saw him hand my Aunt a briefcase. She signed some papers and we were off. I was sure things were only going to get worse for me. That I could expect more of the same. I was wrong. Mickey promised me he'd never let anyone touch me again that way, and he kept his promise. I couldn't stay at his house, he had a young new wife who wasn't keen on the idea of the daughter of a whore living there, but he set me up with a sweet apartment and a nanny of sorts. Came to visit, bought me birthday gifts.”
Today, I realized for the first time, with a start. The cake and the dinner with her father and the gift box. Today was Kayla’s birthday. Jesus, I was a fucking asshole, for so many reasons.
“If it wasn't for Mickey, I'd have hung myself inside a month at that house. I know you think he's like some bad guy from a movie. A villain tying up women onto train tracks twirling his mustache, but you only know part of him. I owe him my life, Matty. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I was afraid you’d hate me. And I would’ve had to tell you it all, and…well, I just couldn’t.” She shifted and sucked in a shuddering breath. “That’s me.” She pointed to a tall apartment building half a block away. “You can pull up front and let me out there.”
I could. And then I could drive away and call Mickey. Tell him I’d do whatever it took to get out of the deal and away from him and his girl before they really did ruin my life. Offer to give up the deed on the gym and move far away. Get a fresh start.
But suddenly that wasn’t an option anymore. I felt like I owed it to Kayla to tell her some truths of my own. To let her know there was no shame in what she’d lived through, and that I understood. And if she’d let me comfort her, I would.
***
Kayla
"You don’t have to park,” I said again. Maybe I’d been talking so quiet, he hadn’t heard me the first time. God knew I’d said far more than I wanted to already. Now that it was all out and I’d said my piece, I just wanted him to go so I could crawl into bed and fade away for a while.
"You've been drinking. It’s been an emotional night, and I want to get you in your place and settled before I leave."
"I had a few glasses of wine.” Probably more like a bottle before I’d gotten up the nerve to go to his gym to find him, but that was none of his business. I’d hit close to rock bottom and, after a screaming fight with Mickey, I’d shed a few tears, but I knew the mother lode was coming and I wanted to be alone when it did. “It's not a big deal. I can take care of myself."
"If I didn’t walk you up and something happened to you, how do you think that would make me feel?”
“What’s going to happen to me in my own apartment?”
“Who knows?” He put the car in park and turned off the ignition. “Maybe you’ll get woozy and fall down the stairs and break your neck. Or maybe you drank more than you think and you’ll get sick and wish you weren’t alone.”
“Is that why you don't drink? You’re afraid of something happening to you?" I asked, not willing to give in yet, but not wanting to argue because I was tired of fighting with him.
"No. I did have a friend who was killed by a drunk driver when I was in high school but that's not why I don't drink."
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned my head against the warm glass of the window, wondering if he would continue. I'd almost given up on him answering when he finally spoke.
"My family life was pretty fucked up, too. My dad was a junkie, but we never knew it growing up. Mostly because we were too busy tap-dancing around my mom to really worry about what was going on with him much."
"Was your mom an alcoholic or…?" That would make a lot of sense, given his apparent distaste for booze.
"She’s a lot of things —sadistic, cruel, cunning, strong, and evil as fuck— but no, she isn't a drunk. Or, at least, she wasn’t then. A drink or two actually made her a little more pleasant. Plus, when she was buzzed she tended to get lazy. So, say I forgot to take the trash out. She’d slap me in the face when I walked by if she was drinking, where, on a normal day, she
'd burn me with a curling iron.
"Why?” I whispered, unable to contain my horror. “Why would she do that?"
"Why do cruel people do things? I don't know. Maybe it made her feel more powerful. She had a hard life herself and I'm pretty sure her parents wouldn't have won any awards."
"Then don't have kids if you don't want them. If you're only going to hurt them and continue the cycle."
"I agree with you, which is why I never plan to have any."
"You would never be like her if you had kids, Matty."
"How do you know? We’ve only known each other a few weeks."
"I can tell. You want to be hard and maybe you keep people at a distance, but I don't see you hurting someone for the sake of it. You have too much compassion."
"Is that what you think?"
I licked my lips, knowing he'd tossed a challenge my way, but not sure how to respond. I believed in what I'd said, so I stuck to my guns. "I do. I think that you're a good person." Which was why, as mad as he’d been at me, he’d heard me out, and wouldn’t let me walk upstairs alone.
"Sometimes I think so. It’s there, though. That mean streak. I feel like I have a nest of hot coals in my stomach burning all the time, hotter and hotter, ready to explode at any second. I joke around and smile and try to play nice, but I'm so fucking angry all the time. That's why I don't drink. I'm afraid, if I lose control for even one second, it's all going to come spewing out, like magma from a volcano and it’s going to obliterate anyone close to me."
That told me more about him than anything he'd said so far. He wasn't just depriving himself of alcohol. He was also depriving himself of human companionship.
"But you have your brothers."
"Yeah, well, they're stuck with me. Besides, they're both fighters and depending on the day, could whip my ass or at least hold their own. It's...other people I worry about. When I look in the mirror and I see her eyes looking back at me, it makes me sick to my stomach. All I see is the potential to bring pain. I hate it."
Trust Me: Matty and Kayla, Book 1 of 3 (The McDaniels Brothers) Page 6