by Levine, Nina
“We’ll fucking see about that.” King slammed his face into the table and then jerked it right back up again.
Blood streamed from Dean’s nose, and I figured King had broken it with the force he’d used. Dean glared up at King as he kicked and thrashed his legs in an attempt to move off the chair. I reached down to grab his legs to prevent him from breaking free.
“I’ve got all fucking day, asshole,” King said. “Longer if needed. And I’m in the kind of mood to inflict some pain, so I suggest you stop fighting us and start fucking talking or this isn’t gonna go well for you.”
Dean didn’t reply. He simply sat there staring at King defiantly. I knew then that my itch for violence was about to get scratched. King did, too. His eyes met mine and he nodded at the knife block sitting on the kitchen counter. “Time for some Jekyll time.”
“You read my mind, brother.”
I selected a knife from the block and stood in front of Dean after King swung the chair around to face me. I undid the binding holding his wrists together and splayed his hands out on the table, holding them down in place with my free hand. I then dug the tip of the knife into the back of one of his hands. “You want that through your hand, Dean?”
When he didn’t answer, I sliced into his hand. Not too deep, but enough to give him a reason to start talking.
“Fuck!” His body jerked and he tried to pull his hand away, but I pressed my hand down on his harder keeping them there.
“I can go deeper if you want.”
His eyes met mine, and I saw some of the fear I was aiming for. “You’re fucking crazy! I don’t know anything that you want to know.”
I bent and pushed my face close to his. “Your reaction to us showing up here tells me otherwise.” To give him more incentive to start talking, I ran the blade of the knife along his throat, making sure to draw some blood there too.
His hostility intensified at that, and instead of volunteering information, he spat at me like he’d spat at King. “Fuck. You.”
Anger rolled through me, and the fine line I walked between surviving in this world with a touch of rage and sliding over the edge into full-blown madness was crossed. Slamming the knife down, I grabbed his shirt with both hands and lifted him out of the chair. The adrenaline coursing through me gave me the kind of strength that took over and achieved my goal. Barrelling him into the wall, I shoved him with enough force that he dented it. Not giving him a second to catch up with what was going on, I smashed my fist into his face. Again. And again. Over and over, until his face was a bloody, unrecognisable mess.
My mind ceased to process my actions. Instead, my rage controlled me.
I wanted to inflict as much pain as I could.
Misery and blood fuelled me.
To cause it and to see it.
I wanted to inhale his pain.
I wanted to draw it in to my soul and breathe through it.
All I lived for right then was his torment. It would match my own raging storm of pain. Being in the moment with him—with his agony—would ease mine for a brief time. I would be able to forget it. His suffering would wipe mine, even for just a moment.
“Hyde. Enough.” King stepped in and dragged me off Dean.
I blinked a few times as my surroundings came back into focus. I’d beaten Dean so badly that he’d slumped to the ground, covered in blood, half unconscious.
After he had pushed me out of the way, King crouched down and slapped Dean’s face a few times. “You still with us, asshole? Ready to talk? Or do I need to finish what Hyde started?”
Dean coughed a couple of times and attempted to sit up straight, but he cried out in pain and swore as he failed. After spitting some blood out onto the ground, he managed to get out, “I’ve never met Marx, but I’m pretty sure he’s tied to that murder. I overheard my dealer talking about it yesterday. That’s all I fucking know.”
King shook his head as he took hold of Dean’s throat. “No, you know something else. Keep fucking talking.”
Barely able to talk thanks to the unyielding grip King had on his throat, Dean choked out, “Whoever organised the murder is Italian.”
King grunted and let Dean go, shoving him hard as he did so. Standing, he looked at me and said, “Well that narrows it down.”
By my count, there were six major Italian players in Sydney. “Shouldn’t take us too long to go through them all.”
King pulled his phone out. “I’ve got something I’ve gotta do for the next couple of hours and then I want you, me, Nitro and Devil on this. I want to find that motherfucker and end this shit now.”
* * *
An hour later, I entered my house after leaving King and grabbing some food on the way home. I hadn’t restocked after being away in Melbourne, and I figured Charlie would be hungry.
The house I’d left a couple of hours earlier and the house I walked into were like two completely different places. I stood in silence at the living room entry when I found Charlie in there. I was silent, the room was not. She had rap music blaring from the speakers and was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room smoking and drinking what I was pretty fucking sure was whisky from my cupboard.
“What the fuck?” I barked loud enough that she heard me over the music. Any attempt at keeping my outrage in check would have been futile so I skipped that. The sight of my sixteen-year-old daughter smoking and drinking slapped me in the face with a level of shock I found confusing. I didn’t give a shit if people did those things—teens even—but not my fucking kid.
Her head whipped around so she faced me. After she had taken a swig of her drink, she said, “What?”
I stalked into the room and turned the music down. “You don’t smoke or drink. Not in this house. Not fucking ever.”
Her brows lifted and it appeared she was settling in for a fight by the way her shoulders squared and her back straightened. “Yeah, I do.”
Shaking my head, I snapped, “No, you don’t.” I motioned for the glass. “Give me that.”
She held her drink close. “No. And you can’t tell me what to do.”
“Oh yes I can. This is my house and you are my kid. I make the rules here. Not you.”
Pushing up and onto her feet, she threw back, “If this is how it’s gonna be around here, I’m out. I can get this at home from Mum. I don’t need it from you too.”
I reached for her arm as she turned to exit the room, halting her. “You’re fucking sixteen, Charlie. Don’t fuck your life up this early by drinking and smoking. I can promise you that’s the last thing you’ll be happy about when you look back on your life as you get older.”
“So that’s why you’ve got a kitchen full of booze then? You are so full of shit.”
“No, I’m full of honesty. I want so much better for you than I have in life. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.”
She rolled her eyes as she shrugged out of my grip. “You and Mum must have taken parenting lessons from the same manual. That’s exactly what she says.”
I raked my fingers through my hair. I wasn’t sure if I was fucking shit up here or not, but no way would I stand back and watch her do what she was doing. “Do you know why we both say the same shit? Because we both came from families who didn’t give a fuck about us. They let us do whatever the hell we wanted and couldn’t care less what the consequences were for us. My mother was a drug addict from the age of fifteen and she died from a drug overdose when she was thirty-eight. She was a selfish woman whose only desire in life was to make herself feel good. Taking time for me wasn’t in those plans. And she sure as shit never worried about whether I was taking drugs or drinking. I’m not that kind of parent, Charlie. I will always care about what you’re doing with your life.”
Something I said hit a nerve with her because she took the time to process my words and think about them. “Your mum did drugs?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Coke mainly, but she didn’t discriminate when she was desperate.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Did you ever do drugs?”
“Yes.”
“What? When?”
“After I left you and your mum, I started on the coke. I did it for about a year, and it almost killed me.”
“As in you almost overdosed on it?”
“No. I was taking so much of the shit that it brought out my violent side. I was getting into fights almost every night, taking on anyone who pissed me off. If I hadn’t kicked my habit, I would have ended up killing myself in a fight.”
“So, what, now you just drink? No drugs anymore?”
“Yeah. I haven’t touched anything besides alcohol since then.”
She was quiet for a beat before blurting out, “I’ve smoked pot, but I haven’t tried anything else.”
Fucking hell. I was definitely not ready for this conversation. But, I had to be. And I had to keep my fucking cool or else I knew she’d walk. At least she wasn’t arguing with me anymore. “You still smoking it?”
“My boyfriend smokes, so sometimes I do it with him. But I don’t really love it. Usually it just makes me feel sick. I’d rather drink.”
I inhaled sharply. “Your boyfriend?” I should have been prepared for that. Charlie was a beautiful girl, so I really should have expected a boyfriend to be kicking around. The fact she’d chosen a fucking stoner didn’t impress me, though.
“Yeah, Jamie.”
“How long you been with him?”
“About seven months. Mum and Dad hate him, but he’s amazing.”
No shit her mother hated him. I did too, and I didn’t even know the little fucker.
“What makes him so amazing?”
A defensive look crossed her face, and I guessed that came from always having to defend him to her family. “He’s the one who gave me the money to catch the bus here, and he’s always there for me when I fight with Mum.”
“He works?”
“No. I guess his family gives him money or something.”
Or something. I bet the little shit was either dealing or stealing stuff. Jesus, it just reminded me how young and naïve Charlie was.
My phone buzzed with a text, and I quickly checked it.
Tenille: Everything going okay there?
Me: Yeah. She’s okay.
Tenille: Keep me in the loop. This is doing my head in.
Me: Will do.
Shoving my phone back in my pocket, I said, “Look, I know you’re gonna drink at your age. I don’t like it, but I get it. But don’t do it here, okay? And quit the smokes. That shit’ll kill you eventually.”
I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to do it, but all the fight had left her. She didn’t argue with me, but she didn’t let me have the last word. “We’ve all gotta die from something, Aiden.”
I pointed my finger at her. “Not in the house.”
She bent and picked her drink up off the floor. Passing it to me, she said, “Now go. I’m gonna watch some reality TV and I’m pretty sure you’d hate it.”
I took the drink and left her to it. I figured I’d won half the battle for now. The fact she was still talking to me was the biggest win of it all, but hell, I felt like I’d been to war and back with her today. My respect for Tenille leapt. If this was what she dealt with day in, day out, I had mad fucking respect for her. Which reminded me that I needed to find an ice-skating rink. I was going to take King’s suggestion and do stuff with her that she loved, in order to win her over.
Chapter 13
Monroe
As I sat and watched Bree ice skate on Tuesday night, I wished I’d taken it up when I was a kid. She seemed to really love it, and it looked like so much fun. Hell, maybe I should take lessons myself. It’d kill two birds with one stone—fun and exercise. There were plenty of adults out on the rink taking a class, many of them older than me. Bree was about fifteen minutes into her lesson, and I’d spent that time watching both her and a man who had to be at least sixty. He moved like he was my age. If he could do it, surely I could.
A waitress interrupted me when she delivered my order of hot chips to the table where I sat in the tiny café at the rink. The heating in there coaxed me in. I’d rather watch Bree from the warmth than sit on the bleachers and freeze.
“Thanks,” I said as she placed the bowl of chips in front of me.
“Just let me know if you want anything else, love. I’m serving hot food for another half hour and then closing down the kitchen.”
“Will do.” I wouldn’t want anything else, though. God, I shouldn’t even be having these chips. I’d hit the gym at lunchtime, so I was probably undoing all that work. Story of my life.
As I watched her walk away, I caught a glimpse of a guy entering the café—the kind of glimpse that made me keep looking. I did a double take when I realised it was Hyde. What the hell was he doing at an ice-skating rink? He didn’t strike me as the type of man to skate.
Oh, God, my belly started doing somersaults. And all I’d done was look at the man. I needed to get myself under control. But damn, these kinds of somersaults weren’t common for me. Why, why, why did he have to cause them?
He took a few steps into the café before turning to look out at the rink. I watched intently as his gaze stayed pinned there and his mouth curled up into a smile. He wasn’t here to skate; he was here with someone.
I looked away and focused on my chips and Facebook. Anything to take my attention off him and those muscles of his that made me want to do dirty things with him. Not to mention that ass. Fuck, I wondered if his cock was pierced.
Stop it, Monroe.
Enough.
He is not the man for you.
A girl could daydream, though, right?
Scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed, I discovered my sister had started another online marketing course that day. Savannah was a twenty-nine-year-old uni dropout who had quit her teaching degree about a year ago after coming home from two months of overseas travel and declaring teaching wasn’t for her. She’d decided to try internet marketing instead, and was convinced she’d make her fortune in that field. Our father was concerned about this change in direction, and that she was throwing money away by buying a multitude of online training courses, but Mum told him to let her be. Mum believed that everyone eventually found their calling in life, some just found it later than others. Dad didn’t agree, but he’d let it go for now. This new course had to be, by my count, her sixth one this year. I kinda believed the same as Mum—Savannah would find herself eventually.
“This seat taken?”
My head snapped up at the sound of Hyde’s deep, gravelly voice. Oh dear Lord. Mother of all things holy. This man had it all going on. Especially when he flashed that smile at me that he was currently flashing.
“It’s all yours,” I said against my better judgement. But really, it’d be weird if I told him to find a different table to sit at. The café was tiny and there were only about four other spare seats.
He pulled the chair out and folded his huge body onto it, his long legs stretched out in front of him and his arms crossed over his chest. “I figured you’d say no after that tongue lashing you gave me the other day.”
“Trust me, I wanted to.” The words fell out of my mouth before I could censor them.
His lips twitched. “I like a woman who’s honest.”
“Yeah, well I’m not sharing my chips with you, so don’t ask for any.”
This time a smile spread out across his face. “Message received loud and clear, sugar.” He uncrossed his arms and leant towards me. “You should probably know, though, that you’ve got tomato sauce on your face.” Taking hold of my jaw, his thumb swiped the sauce from under my lip. He then placed his thumb in his mouth and sucked the sauce from it while I sat mesmerised by his moves. The man made cleaning my face look sexy as hell. I wanted to squirt sauce all over my face after that.
“Thanks,” I said, but it came out like a bloody croak. What the hell was happening to me? I didn’t get nervous around men, but Hyde
made me act all kinds of weird.
His smile turned into a grin, but he didn’t say anything else. He simply lounged back in his seat and crossed his arms again.
I ate a few more chips in silence and tried to focus all my attention on Bree, but just having Hyde sitting next to me made that difficult. As much as I avoided looking at him, I could smell him and sense his presence. And he smelt so bloody good with whatever scent he was wearing. Damn him.
“Who are you here with?” he asked, giving me a reason to turn back to him.
I found him watching me closely, which I both loved and hated all at the same time. “My friend’s daughter, Bree. You?”
“My daughter.”
Colour me shocked. That was the most unexpected thing to come out of his mouth. I hadn’t picked him for being a father, and certainly not one who spent Tuesday nights taking his kid ice skating. But I loved that he did. “How old is she?”
“Sixteen.”
“Oh God, you must be in hell. Bree’s fifteen and she’s more of a handful than she’s ever been. How are you even managing to look so cool and calm? I mean, we’ve spoken a few times now and besides being a bit of an asshole the last time I saw you, you didn’t seem run down or beaten to a pulp by your kid.” God, I was fucking rambling. Would someone take a shoe and shove it in my mouth to shut me the hell up?
He chuckled, and that surprised me too. Hyde always seemed so intense and serious. I had to admit, I liked this side of him. A lot. “She lives in Melbourne with her mother, so she hasn’t had the opportunity to beat me to a pulp yet. I’m sure it’s coming, though. We’ve already gone two rounds today.”
“Any bloodshed?”
“Only mine so far.”
I laughed. “When did she arrive?”
“Three days ago.”
“Oh man, strap on some combat gear. You’re in for a wild ride.”
“Yeah, I figured that after the first day.”
“How long have you got her for?” It wasn’t school holidays, so I wondered if she’d moved in with him.