Cayden pulled his hand back and nodded. He was around my age, but he seemed younger. The newest partner at our firm. He was one of those pretty boys I never would have agreed to hire, not to mention he wasn’t all that great when it came to practicing law, but his daddy owned the firm and I had no choice but to accept his presence.
I’d been avoiding what I was about to do for almost a week. Faye had been home for about four days and this was the first time I left her side. I’d been doing everything from home, and when I went anywhere, she came with me, not that I’d been doing anything exciting.
I didn’t want to see my father. I couldn’t bear it. The thought of him, just his image in my head made so fucking angry I wanted to break something. And I had. I’d broken numerous pens, snapping them between my fingers when I should have been writing with them. I’d shattered one of Sarah’s favorite china pitchers when I was in the kitchen. I was going to make tea for all of us one evening, but as I reached for it, all I could see was my dad. His body on top of Faye’s. That was all it took. I turned and hurled the expensive pitcher at the wall. It exploded into hundreds of pieces scattering everywhere.
Sarah had jumped up to help, panic in her eyes and voice as she fluttered around me picking up the big pieces and fetching the broom. Faye hadn’t though. She hadn’t even moved a muscle from where she sat on the couch. A show played on TV, but she wasn’t watching it. She was watching me. I wondered what she saw. Did she see my father when she looked at me? I didn’t look like him, not even the slightest, but that’s what ate at me the most. That no matter what, I would always be the man who didn’t save her. The spawn of that piece of shit. And she would always see that.
“This is important, even Roger said it was something you should do.”
I glanced at Cayden. We were standing just in front of the door that would take us to the visitation check-in area. He had his hands in his pockets and he looked a little freaked out. It made me wonder what I had been saying and doing while lost in my mind thinking about how fucked up things had become.
“I know it’s what I should do.” I took a step forward, my legs moving on their own accord toward the doors. “I just can’t promise it will be pretty.”
I clutched my hands in my lap, my thumbs fidgeting while I waited. Other inmates had already started to file in, sitting across from their loved ones. Their orange jumpsuits bright against the stale gray room.
If anyone looked at me now they would think I was the loved one, visiting the unfortunate person in jail. None of them knew about the hate that festered inside me. Cayden didn’t get to come in with me and I was more troubled about that than anything else. With each passing second the hate, the anger bubbled and roiled around inside me, multiplying until it was out of control. My leg bounced.
And then he was there, being led in. He looked the same. Calm. Collected. Though his hair wasn’t as smooth and he looked stupid in orange. Satisfaction snaked through me at the evidence of healing black eyes that bled from purple into a hideous yellow around his nose. Even with the injury, he still wore an arrogant expression on his face that made my leg bounce faster.
The prison guard hooked his cuffs to the table when he sat, the metal chair scraping on the concrete floor.
“You got twenty minutes,” he said leaving us there. I didn’t watch the guard walk away. I couldn’t look away from him, my father.
“You came.” His blue eyes stared daggers at me, seeming to bore into my very skull. I imagined how his mind was working, how he was spinning his lies to convince me that he wasn’t in the wrong. He was good at that, deceptive.
“I don’t know why you would want me to represent you. We both know you’re guilty.”
I expected him to yell at me. To pop off and put me in my place. It’s what he always did when I said something he didn’t like. He was a man who had things done his way and his way alone. There was no room for anyone else’s wants or needs. Just his. He controlled everything in his world.
But he didn’t yell at me. He kept looking at me, his eyes hard, his lips pressed together in a thin line. “She wanted it.”
My heart pounded in my chest. “Fuck you.”
“She did, son.” He leaned toward me, his eyes certain, boring into mine. “She always wanted it.”
My leg was bouncing out of control and my hands were clutched so tightly in my lap they started to tingle.
“She wanted it? When she was nine years old?”
He leaned in closer and I could smell the sweat on his skin. “She loves me.” He seemed so certain, so sure of his words, as if he had never spoken anything more true. And that’s when it hit me. He believes it.
“Do you really think that?”
“She does.”
“If she loved you then why were you hurting her?” I hated that my voice cracked. That I was here at all in this fucked up place, my heart in my throat, begging my father, desperate to know why he raped my little sister.
“She hurt me.” He bit the words out like they were poison. His eyes were red now, tears rimming them. “She broke my heart.”
I shook my head back and forth, reality sinking in, really sinking in. “You’re sick. You don’t hurt the people you love. Not like that. Not the way you hurt Faye. She told me about the baby.”
Dad’s eyes widened and he leaned back. “My baby.”
“Her baby.” I found myself much in the same boat with Faye, any thought of that baby belonging to him, burning away at my skin. It was what I thought about as I laid in bed every night. How I left that day when she propositioned me. The things that happened to her in the months following that event. How I had no idea. How I left her there for him to ruin, to destroy. I let it happen.
“She broke my heart. And I hurt her back. That’s all. She loved it. Even when I hurt her. She loved it.”
“Stop.” I held my hand up. I didn’t want to hear anymore. I didn’t think I could stand it. “I’m not doing this. I’m not representing you.” I looked him right in the eyes. “I am going to do everything I can to bring you down. I am already working hand in hand with the prosecution.”
He chuckled, the red rim of tears around his eyes gone, as if they had never been. It was that hideous sound he made in the bathroom. “So you’re gonna put me away, huh? For beating up on a known prostitute in a bathroom. I’ll just twist it, say that she was into pain and shit. I’m sure I could get someone to testify that that’s what she likes. I’ll get some bogus charges and I’ll be out of here.” He leaned forward, a cruel grin spreading across his face. “And she will come back to me. She always does. Always.”
“He always wins, Rhett. Always.” Faye’s words rang in my head. I clenched my hands tighter, knowing if I didn’t I would swing them at him. I would pummel his face until there was nothing left. Until he was a bloody useless pulp.
“You want to hit me, don’t you?” He smirked.
I shook my head hard, sucking in a deep breath. “You won’t get that lucky, old man.” I stood up. “I’m done here.” I nodded to the guard. “I won’t be representing you and neither will anyone at my firm.”
“Doesn’t matter. I just wanted to see if you cared about her as much as I thought you did. I just wanted to see it in your face.”
I paused mid turn and looked down at him.
“And that’s fine. You can have her while I’m in here. But when I’m out of this shit hole, you’re dead and she’s mine.”
I pressed my palms on the table and leaned in, putting my face only inches from his, my breathing was labored, my pulse racing, my hands throbbed, desperate to tear him apart. But instead I took a deep breath and looked right into his eyes. “You’re never getting out of here. I know how dirty your hands are. And soon the world will know. Everything.”
He knew what I meant, what I was referring to, and for a moment, the barest, smallest moment, I saw it. The falter in his gaze, the panic and fear that my words ignited. Something dark rose up inside me and laughed. The look wa
s gone a moment later, covered with that cocky arrogance I was used to, but it didn’t matter. I knew deep down Taylor Hale was terrified, fucking scared of what I knew, what I would reveal. What I would find when I dug deeper into the shady life he’d been living all these years. If he could fuck a little girl, he could do anything. And I would prove it. I would fucking prove it. I would eat him alive.
And when I turned away from him I was smiling and I was certain it was the most sinister smile to ever cross my face.
FOUR
Faye.
How did someone pick up the broken pieces of themself? Where would they begin? I didn’t know the answer to those questions. But I’d been wondering it since I came home from the hospital three weeks ago. I was getting better, physically. The bruises were practically gone and my cheek was healing just fine.
But this time was different. When I came home to Sarah and Rhett’s apartment, I didn’t get my hopes up that I had a future, something bright and shiny waiting for me down the road. I knew better than to hope for something like that. It didn’t matter that Taylor was in jail. None of that mattered because he would find a way out. He would find his way back to me. He always did. It didn’t matter the time that elapsed; he would always come for me. It was just a waiting game.
I belonged to Taylor. I always had and I always would.
It didn’t matter that Rhett knew the truth, that the world knew the truth. It only made everything worse. Now every time I looked at Rhett I could see it. The pity reflecting back at me. The sorrow. It disgusted me. Was this what my life had come to? I didn’t think I could feel worse, but I had been wrong. That pity in his eyes, in everyone’s, but especially his. It turned me into something more. I wasn’t just the fucked up step-sister, drug addict, prostitute that he wanted to fuck. I was the girl who had fucked her daddy since she was nine years old. I was the girl who had been raped. It didn’t matter how many men I had fucked or how many lines of coke I had consumed because I would always be defined by the things Taylor had done to me.
And that gutted me, destroyed me in these weeks. It was seeing that in their eyes. Rhett’s eyes. Sarah’s. The pity. They didn’t blame me, but I was ruined now. I was nothing more than a victim. And I hated that more than anything.
“It’s getting pretty late, maybe you should stop for the day and come watch TV with us.” Sarah’s voice was kind and pleading as she patted Rhett on the shoulder. I watched the interaction openly. I didn’t like it when she touched him. It was stupid and irrational, but I still couldn’t stand it. Her hands on him made my skin itch.
I shouldn’t have cared. I shouldn’t have thought anything about it. They were a couple. They could touch each other. I was the intruder in their life. I was the person who had come in and changed everything.
But I did care.
“No. I’m not done.”
A thrill of something shot through me when he twisted out of Sarah’s touch. Even more of a thrill when I saw the hurt on her face.
She was an open book. She still cried. Sometimes even just looking at me made her cry.
An ache bloomed in my chest when her gaze met mine. The sadness there, it ripped at me. I didn’t want Sarah to hurt. She wasn’t a bad person, if anything she was the epitome of the perfect person. Sure, she was a little emotional, but loved hard and cared so much. Someone like her should hate me for coming into their life and turning everything upside down, but she didn’t. Somehow she loved me. I wouldn’t have thought she did if I didn’t see it in her eyes. It was there with that hated pity. She loved me and wanted me to get better.
It made me loathe myself that much more. Because I wanted Rhett now, more than ever. I hadn’t thought that was possible—that I was capable of craving him even more. In my head I knew he would never want me sexually again, not after what he had seen done to me. Not after he knew who had been inside me. And maybe that’s why—because I knew I could never have him.
But the things I wanted from him weren’t just sexual. My hand missed the feel of his. I had still been plagued with the nightmares and he would come in and talk to me about them, but he never touched me again. Not my stomach, not anywhere. He sat at the end of my bed and listened as I told him the horrors of my dream, and then he would go to bed and I would fall asleep like the dead.
“O-okay.” Sarah’s voice cracked as she hurried into their bedroom, quickly followed by quiet sobs. I stared at the closed door. It was just a plain white door, but I had stared at it many times, knowing Rhett and Sarah were on the other side—
thinking of what they were doing would eat at me.
I expected him to get up and follow her in there. Comfort her. But he didn’t. He still sat at the kitchen table staring at a multitude of papers spread out in front of him. His brow was creased in concentration. Aside from the times he came into my bedroom after a nightmare, this was the only place I ever saw him. Hunched over his work, utterly focused. He’d been working from home. Some of the guys from his firm came over to help when they had time. I knew it was Taylor’s case they were working on, helping the prosecution put him away. I’d heard them say it, but I’d never asked any questions.
What would I ask if I did?
They wouldn’t win. He would win. That’s how it worked.
“Do you need any help?” The words were out of my mouth before I realized I was standing and moving toward the table from the couch.
“What?” He glanced up. I noticed there were dark circles under his eyes.
“You’re tired,” I said before I could think about it.
“No.” He shook his head, but I didn’t miss the pity in his eyes before he looked away. It burned me.
“I want to help you.” I pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.
“There’s nothing you can do.” His gaze focused on the document in front of him.
“But I want to.” I couldn’t explain this burning need in my gut to help him. It hadn’t been there before. But suddenly it raged inside me like a sweltering inferno. Maybe it was the fact that he did pity me so much, I wanted to prove to him that I was more than that. Deserving of more than just pity.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“I do. Please.” I hated that I was practically begging. Didn’t that make me even more pathetic?
He eyed me with so much pity I could have drowned a thousands deaths in its pool. “Fine.” He shuffled through a box by his feet and pulled out a stack of papers, setting them in front of me. He handed me a red pen and a highlighter. “Okay. These are Taylor’s business bank statements from eight years ago. I’ve been looking through them for any time there is an unexplained deduction of funds, particularly large amounts of money, or surplus’s of money.” He moved closer, so close that I could smell his musky aftershave. He tapped the top of the paper with his finger. “I also want you to look for consistent check deposits from people who are not on the list.” He reached across the table, his arm brushing against mine, sending a wave goose bumps rolling across my skin. “These are his verified business partners from that year. Monetary deposits and withdrawals from these companies are normal, so disregard them. They are the people he contracted with, but anything else you highlight and let me know. Okay?”
His words were stiff, precise. He seemed almost like he didn’t want to be telling me these things, but was doing it anyway.
I nodded and he moved back around the table and focused on the paper in front of him. I watched him for a minute. It was pathetic how helpless I was when it came to him. He wore sweat pants and white v-neck shirt. His hair was messy because he hadn’t fixed it today, but he was one of those guys who could just wake up and leave and everyone would copy his hairstyle even if it was just a mess, that’s how handsome he was. So handsome it hurt.
“You okay?”
I jumped and stared down at the papers in front of me to avoid his gaze. I’d been so lost in thought I hadn’t noticed that he was watching me, watching him. Did he see it, the wa
y I wanted him? Was he disgusted by it?
“Yep.”
He didn’t say anything else and we settled into silence, each pouring over the bank statements in front of us. There was nothing interesting about them. Taylor seemed to have kept his P’s and Q’s in line. There was nothing abnormal about the statements. No unexplained deposits. The longer I looked at the numbers, the names of the companies, the sicker I started to feel about all of it. Taylor was a brilliant man. A horrible man, but he was smart. We would never find anything. Nothing in the numbers would reveal the things he had done to me, or anything else.
After finishing my calendar year, I sat back and sighed.
“Find anything?”
I glanced up at Rhett. “Nope.”
“That’s okay.” He stood up and grabbed the stack in front of me and deposited it back into the box.
“You’re not going to find anything.”
“You don’t think so?” His tone wasn’t condescending, but curious rather, and perhaps a little tired.
“No. He’s good, Rhett. He doesn’t make mistakes.”
“Yes, he does, Faye. Everyone makes mistakes.” He shook his head back and forth. “I shouldn’t have let you look through those. You shouldn’t be involved in this.”
I stood up, nearly knocking my chair over backward. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I didn’t think there could be more pity in his eyes, but I was wrong. I watched it multiply like a virus in his irises. “He hurt you. You shouldn’t have to look at the outline of his life, even if it is just bank statements.”
“I’m not fragile or whatever.” That’s exactly what he thought I was.
“You’re upset,” he said blandly.
“Yeah, cause you’re a dick.” I turned away from him in a huff. I didn’t know why I was so frustrated, but I knew I needed a cigarette and some fresh air. Ironic, right? I hurried to my room and grabbed my pack and headed out the front door.
I’d made it a habit to sit on the corner of the little porch they had on their apartment. I didn’t sit in their lawn chair. There was something strangely comforting about plopping down on the pavement. Maybe it was because I had spent three years of my life smoking cigarettes just like this, sitting on a curb, waiting for my next John.
Filthy 5: A Dark Erotic Serial Page 2