30DaystoSyn (29 page)

“Dr. Tonika is on his way over,” the nurse
said. “He ordered a shot for you.” She pulled a syringe from the pocket of her
uniform, looking at Melina as she did. “Would you wait outside please?”

“No,” he said, his voice as firm as he
could make it. “She stays.”

The nurse pursed her lips but did not
argue. “Which hip do you want it in?”

He tried to roll over and couldn’t. Every
inch of him hurt. He tried again and gasped as the pain in his chest doubled.

“I’ll help you, Kiwi,” she said. She put
her hands on his shoulder and hip and gently eased him to his side.

He had to bite his lip to keep from crying
out. She had inadvertently rolled him onto the broken ribs and he could hear
them, feel them grating against one another.

The nurse pushed the hospital gown out of
her way, dabbed his arse with a cotton pad. “A little stick,” she said.

There was nothing little about the stick.
It hurt—as it always did—and he tensed, drawing in his breath.

“Wiggle your toes,” he was instructed. “It
helps.”

As she helped him lie flat again, he felt
Melina’s fingers lightly digging into his shoulder and knew it was her silent
way of disagreeing with the nurse. Nothing helped the fiery pain of the Demerol
and Vistaril mix.

After applying a two dollar and fifty cent
plaster he was sure he didn’t need, the nurse fluffed his covers. He saw her
level a pointed look at Melina.

“You need to go home, take a shower, and
come back tomorrow morning,” she said. “Visiting hours are—”

“She stays,” he said.

The nurse squared her shoulders. “I’m sure
Dr. Tonika will have something to say about that.”

“She stays,” he repeated, his voice
stronger this time.

“Thank you for your concern,” Melina told
the nurse. “If Dr. Tonika asks me to leave, I will.”

“No, the fuck you won’t,” he stated.

Heaving an irritated sigh, the nurse rolled
her eyes and departed, leaving the door wide open in her wake.

“I think you pissed her off, Kiwi,” she
told him.

“She can lie down and I’ll fry her an egg,”
he replied.

Melina gave him a look that said she had no
idea what he meant and was too afraid to ask. He grinned at her. That seemed to
reassure her that he hadn’t gone down the road to the funny farm from the
thrashing he’d taken.

“Is the shot kicking in?” she asked.

“Not yet,” he said. He still couldn’t lift
his arm without experiencing excruciating pain though he had an itch in the
center of his chest that was driving him mad.

“Why don’t you close your eyes and…”

“I just woke up, woman,” he grumbled.

“You are a dickwhacker,” Craigie said as he
came strolling in. “My nurse said you think you’re the head sherang ‘round
here, bro. I’m here to tell you that you ain’t. Mind your manners with my
girls.” He bent over and kissed Melina on the cheek.

“The gunga ordered my woman to leave,” he
told Craigie.

“Your woman is it?” Craigie repeated then
held up a hand. “Don’t pack a shitty with me, bro. The little beaut has been
here since we brought your arse in. She needs a break, don’t you think?”

“I want her here,” he said. Without warning
the wool coating began to creep down his body from the narcotic.

“What you want ain’t worth two knobs of
goat shit. She needs to go home and rest.” Craigie looked at his watch. “It’s
after visiting hours anyway.”

“I want her
here
,” he said between
clenched teeth. “With me. Where I know she’s safe.”

Craigie grunted. “When I said home I didn’t
mean
her
home. Kit and Jono have a place set up for her and there will
be guards 24/7, bro. Did you really think we’d allow her to be put in harm’s
way?”

“Go and dunk your left eye in cow shit,” he
said, his words beginning to slur.

“Now, that made absolutely no sense
whatsoever. I think the shot is taking effect,” he heard her say.

“He told me to go away,” Craigie said.

“Well, that makes perfect sense now that
you explained it,” she said with a shake of her head.

Craigie pulled a pen light out of his
pocket, leaned over and pried his eyelid back.

“Fuck off with that.” The light was agony
shining in his eyes. “You’re killing me, Craigie!” he protested.

“Shut up, you pussy,” Craigie ordered.
“Those pricks used your head for a soccer ball. I want to make sure there’s no
intracranial bleeding.”

The pain vanished and he smiled dreamily as
the drug took complete control of him. “No wucking furries,” he mumbled.

“I got that one,” she said. “I think.”

“He’s going under,” Craigie told her.

“I’ll stay until he’s asleep,” she said.

“Jono will drive you home. He and Spike are
downstairs waiting for you.”

He turned his head on the pillow, trying to
focus. Her face kept skittering away. “Stay with me,” he asked. He tried to
tighten his grip on her hand but his strength had completely evaporated.

“I’ll be back after Mass tomorrow morning,”
she said and leaned over to kiss him on the forehead.

He couldn’t hold on to consciousness and
was sinking beneath the warm blanket the drug was dragging over him but as he
went under he distinctly heard Kit’s voice from the doorway.

“They’re on their way to arrest her. The
man we needed came forward and is down at the station right now giving evidence
against her.”

Night Twenty-Four

It was after seven p.m. She’d been with him
for over nine hours and he was finally sitting up, slurping on the bowl of
orange sherbet the nurse had brought in for his snack. Between them on the
rolling table was a backgammon set. She had lost ten out of ten games to the
man.

“You haven’t said anything about Olivia,”
he said as he licked the last of the sherbet from the back of his spoon. He was
looking at her through the fringe of his long lashes.

“What about her?”

“I heard Kit when he came in last night,”
he said. He dropped the spoon into the bowl and set it aside. “I’ve been
waiting all day for you to say something.”

“About what?” she hedged.

“Don’t,” he said in a stern voice. “Don’t
do that. You know fucking well about what.”

“We wanted her leathery old ass in jail for
what she did to you,” she told him.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” he said.
“Did you think I would?”

“Yes,” she told him. “She’s your mother.”

He cocked his mouth to one side. “Giving
birth to someone and being a mother to them are two separate things. Olivia was
never a mother to me. As far as I’m concerned she was the laying hen and I was
the egg she dropped in the nest then hopped down to scratch around in the dirt
with the next rooster.”

She could not stop the wince that shifted
through her. “That’s a cold way to look at it, Kiwi.”

“So what did Kit mean about the man you needed
coming forward?” he asked.

Releasing a long sigh, she sat back in the
chair. “We knew Olivia was in the room when you were being beaten. There were
cigarettes on the table beside your chair. The police collected and tested
them, lifting her DNA from the butts. But knowing she was there and knowing for
sure she hired the men who beat you were two different things. We needed
testimony from someone else who was there.”

“One of the bastards who punched my lights
out,” he stated.

She nodded. “In order to find that man, we
put an ad in the paper. We offered a reward and immunity from prosecution to
the man willing to testify against her.”

“How much did that cost me?” he asked.

“Not a thin red cent,” she said. “Between
them, Jonny, Craig, Jake and Spike chipped in to pay it.”

“How much?”

“$100,000,” she said and when his eyes
widened, she shrugged. “We had to make it high enough to get his attention and
make him greedy enough to come forward. He did and now Olivia is in jail.”

He was silent so long she began to fidget.
His intense stare began to unnerve her.

“Say something,” she said.

“What do you want me to say?”

“That you aren’t mad about what we did,”
she replied. “If you’re going to blame someone, blame me. It was my idea.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Why would I be mad,
baby?” he asked. “You guys had my back and I appreciate that.”

“Are you upset about us paying one of the
guys who beat you up?”

“Well, I’m not jumping for joy about
rewarding the prick for trouncing me but that’s neither here nor there. If you had
waited it wouldn’t have cost them anything at all.”

“It would have been your word against
hers,” she said.

“It would have been more than that,” he
said quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“I have the beating on video.”

She felt a tingle down her spine then her
entire world tilted off its axis. “The Room is wired?”

He nodded.

All the moisture left her mouth. “You taped
everything we did in there?”

“Yes.”

Stunned, she put a hand over her mouth and
stared at him. She spoke through the constriction of her fingers. “Why?”

“Why do you think? I tape all the sessions
because I don’t want some woman claiming what we did in the Room wasn’t
consensual. It was to protect me from someone like the Ukrainian bitch.”

“All the sessions,” she echoed, bile rising
in her throat.

“Melina, you had to know you weren’t the
first woman I’ve been there with,” he said gently. “Why do you think the Room
exists?”

What Craig said came back to her, rolling
down on her like a ton of brick:
“The Room where he takes all his hoors.”

“How many?” she asked, bile rising in her
throat. “How many women have you brought there?”

“I don’t know, baby. I honestly don’t.”

“Did you pay those women, too?”

He shook his head and lied, unable to tell
her the truth. “No, Melina. I didn’t.”

“Just me.”

His expression filled with pain. “You were
special.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “You were
buying my innocence, my virginity.”

He flinched. “Please don’t look at it in
that way. It might have started out as…”

“Why didn’t Kit mention anything about the
Room being wired?” she interrupted.

“Because he didn’t install the cameras,” he
told her. “I did. I never intended for anyone to know about them. The vids are
for my eyes only.”

“To look at later?” she questioned.

“I watch some of them again, yes.”

“Those of you and me?” she pressed. “Do you
watch them?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered then felt the
blood drain from her face as another thought crashed into her. “Did you record
me at home? Is that on a hard drive somewhere?”

“No,” he said firmly. “That I did not do.”

“I guess I should be thankful for small
miracles,” she said bitterly.

“Don’t make this out to be something it’s
not,” he said.

“What is it you think it is, Kiwi?” she
demanded. “This whole mess is sordid and immoral and depraved.” She got to her
feet. “And just plain sick!”

“Where are you going?” he asked when she
headed for the door.

“Home! I have to work tomorrow and don’t
you say a fucking word about you owning the fucking company!”

“Melina, stop,” he ordered.

She turned to face him.

“Will you be back tomorrow?” he asked and
there was terrible uncertainty in his wounded eyes.

“Today is the twenty-fourth day out of
thirty,” she said. “There are six more days left on the contract. I will
fulfill our bargain as I promised then it will be finished.”

She watched his face turn white.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“You have me until Sunday the thirtieth,”
she said, snatching open the door. “That’s the day the contract ends.”

“What does that mean?” he repeated as she
left him. “Melina! What the hell does that mean?”

Night Twenty-Five

They got him out of bed and walking—slowly
and uncomfortably—the next morning. He still had the IV in his arm and had to
drag the stand along beside him but at least he was ambulatory and not stuck
flat on his back. He’d spent a restless night wondering what Melina was
thinking, needing to talk to her, wanting to see her. At least a dozen times
he’d picked up the phone to call her then put it down again.

While he ached to see her, he dreaded what
she might say to him the next time they met. He wasn’t sure he was ready for
her to tell him what she had meant the night before.

He spent the day being shuffled from one
test to another before Craigie told him he was mending well and could go home
the next day. He called her to tell her the news but could not reach her.

Breakfast was returned half-eaten. Lunch
wasn’t touched. Dinner still sat on the rolling table when Jono and Spike came
to visit. By the time Jake arrived and Craigie had finished his rounds, he was
pacing from the bathroom door to the bed and back again.

Over and over and over—his friends bearing
mute witness to his nervousness.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, bro?
You’re acting like a maggot on a hotplate,” Jono finally demanded.

“I’ve tried calling her all day,” he said.
“She won’t take my calls and she won’t return them.”

“What did you do?” Jake asked, looking up.
He was sitting on the couch with Spike.

“He’s only got one sheep to an acre,”
Craigie said. “There’s no telling what stupidity he’s perpetrated this time.”

“Did you piss her off, then?” Jono
inquired.

“If she’s not answering his calls, he did,”
Craigie said.

“Then he’s in the dog box for sure,” Jake
said.

“Eh, when it comes to knowing how to
properly handle a lady he couldn’t poke a stick up a dead dog’s arse,” Craig
said with a snort.

He glared at his friend. “I’m right here,
you know.” When they ignored him, he plopped down on the bed. “I might as well
speak to my bum—at least it talks back,” he grumbled.

“Feeling like a spare prick at a wedding,
are you?” Jake asked with a wink.

“Maybe she wasn’t all that impressed when
he sank the sausage,” Craigie suggested.

“Can’t say as I blame her,” Jono said.
“It’s not much bigger than a sliver.”

“
I haven’t rooted her
!” he shouted
to get their attention.

It worked. Their heads snapped toward him.

“You haven’t rooted her?” Spike asked.
She’d been quiet up until then.

“No,” he said, looking down at the sheet.

Craigie’s eyes widened. “Well, fuck me
sideways!” he said.

“Not while there’s cats,” Jake and Jono
said in tandem.

“Why the fuck not?” Spike asked, leaving
the couch to stand beside the bed.

He shrugged. “I had a timetable.”

Craigie cocked his head to the side. “You
had a what?”

“A timetable,” he mumbled.

“What the fuck is a timetable?” Jono asked.

“A schedule listing events and the times at
which they will take place,” Jake explaining.

“If bullshit was music, you’d have your own
orchestra,” Craigie snapped. “Jeez.”

“Does she know about this timetable?” Spike
asked.

“Yeah.”

“And?” she prompted. “What does she think
of it?”

“That it’s rubbish,” he admitted. “She’d
have done it a week or so ago if I had allowed it.”

“Allowed it?” Spike queried with disbelief.

“Allowed what?” Jono asked.

“Rooting,” Jake and Spike replied.

“That just goes to prove he’s a chop short
of the barbie,” Craigie stated.

“I’m afraid I’ve lost her,” he said, lying
back and flinging an arm over his eyes.

“Would serve you right if you did,” Spike
told him.

“Well, when the contract’s done it’s back
to flogging the log for you,” Jake said.

“Fuck off, Jakey. What time is it?” he
asked.

“A quarter to seven,” Jono said. “I should
get going.” He headed for the door.

“You think she’ll be waiting for him to
pick her up?” Spike asked no one in particular when Jono had gone.

He let his arm fall behind his head. “Why
wouldn’t she?” he asked and when none of his friends answered, he pushed
himself up on his elbows, wincing at the pain that lanced through his rib cage.
“Answer me. Why wouldn’t she?”

“If you pissed her off, bro, she might not
be up for seeing you,” Jake said.

“It’s something you should consider,” Spike
proposed. “She could be done with you.”

“
Ou
t,” he snarled. “All of you. Get
the
fuck
out of my room and leave me alone!”

“You can’t put a cow cover over a horse and
expect to get milk in the morning, bro,” Craigie said of his refusal to think
rationally about the situation.

“
Get the fuck out. Now
!” he
bellowed.

The trio exited the room without another
word. In the hall, Spike reached out to take both Craigie’s and Jake’s arms,
drawing them to a halt. She lowered her voice. “You know what’s happening here,
don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Craigie said. “Synnie McGregor is
well gone.”

Jake nodded in agreement.

“What does that mean?” Kit asked. He’d been
outside the door and about to enter when the shouting stopped him in his
tracks.

“It means our head sherang is deeply in
love and doesn’t even know it,” Spike replied.

* * * * *

He heard the quiet shush of the door
opening and turned over, tightening his jaw to hide the discomfort of his broken
ribs. She was standing framed in the doorway wearing the blouse and skirt she
had told him she disliked so much.

“Hey,” he said. He sat up, pushing his
pillow higher along the incline of the raised head of the bed.

“Hello,” she said. She didn’t advance any
farther into the room.

“I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

“The ad stated—”

“I know what the ad stated,” he interrupted
in a tone harsher than he intended. He tried to modulate his voice. “I wrote
it.”

“Jonny said Craig is letting you go home
tomorrow.”

“Do you care?”

“Yes, Kiwi, I do. I’m glad you’re all
right.”

“Are you?”

She drew in a long breath, pursed her lips
then exhaled slowly. “Yes.”

“Well, I feel munted,” he complained then
tossed out a hand. “Wiped out.”

“You look like a raccoon with those two black
eyes,” she said and her lips twitched.

“Yeah well, if I fell into a barrel of
tits, I’d come out sucking my thumb,” he grumbled.

“Which means…?”

“I’m a very unlucky person,” he
interpreted. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

She walked to the chair beside the bed and
sat, folding her hands primly in her lap.

“Why didn’t you answer when I called?” he
asked.

“I wasn’t at the office today,” she said.
“I was with Drew. Today’s his birthday. I didn’t know you’d called until Jonny
told me in the car.” She looked down at her hands. “I can imagine the thoughts
going through your head when I didn’t return your calls.”

“Can you?” he pressed.

She sighed again. “Yes, Kiwi,” she said,
brushing lint from her skirt.

“What happens on Sunday?”

Her head came up. There was no expression
on her face as she stared at him for a long moment before finally answering. “I
assume that’s when you will take what you put the ad in the paper for.”

“Take?” he questioned. “
Take
?”

“What else would you call what you plan to
do?”

“Making love to you?” he replied.

“That’s how you see it unfolding?”

“That was my intent, yes.”

“You’re going to take my cherry on Sunday
night.”

He shook his head. “No. On Thursday night.”

Her forehead crinkled. “Thursday? The 28th?”

“Yes.”

“That’s Thanksgiving night.”

“Yes.”

“Do you realize how cheesy that sounds?”

“Whatcha mean?” he asked

“Think about it, Kiwi. Did you think I
would be thankful that you popped my cherry on Thanksgiving night 2013?”

“You would always remember it,” he said.
“And me.”

“Oh, I’m not likely to forget it, Kiwi,”
she said, eyes flashing. “Trust me on that one. Didn’t you think I might be a
tad insulted that you chose a day of national thanks on which to lose my
cherry?”

Her censure made him look away. “I do now.
But it’s more than that. You’re still mad at me about the cameras in the Room,”
he said quietly.

“I thought about it and I understand why
you did it. I don’t like that you taped me but there’s nothing I can do about
it.”

“You’re mad,” he said.

“Frigging livid,” she said, “but—as I
said—there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“We won’t be going back there,” he told
her. “If I never step foot in that place again it would be okay with me.”

“I guess you’ll just have to find somewhere
else to do your role playing from now on,” she replied.

“Would it help if I apologized to you?” he
asked.

Her eyebrows shot up. “You? Apologize?” The
eyebrows came down. “They must have hit you harder than I thought.”

“They hit me hard enough to have almost
killed me,” he said, beginning to lose his temper.

She got to her feet. “Coming here tonight
wasn’t such a good idea,” she said.

“Sit down.”

“No, I’m going—”

“You are going to sit your arse down,
woman!” he snapped. He’d learned the only way to handle her was sternly even
though he really didn’t want to do it that way.

She slowly sat down again—eyes flashing,
lips thinned.

“You can get all lemon-lipped on me all you
want but we’re on my dime and you aren’t leaving until I tell you that you
can.”

“Don’t—”

“Stop talking!”

Her beautiful mouth formed a perfect O then
her eyes narrowed, her lips closed and he watched her jaw muscles flexing.

“I said I was sorry and I am,” he stated.
“Apologies don’t come easy to me so you can bloody well take it for what it’s
worth.”

Her eyes were locked on his.

“Do you still want the money?”

She lifted her chin. “Yes.”

“Then get up and come here.”

For a second or two he thought she would
refuse but then she shot up from the chair and took the few steps it took to
reach his bedside. To give her her due, she held her ground as he swung his
legs off the side of the bed and reached out to take her arms, drawing her
between his spread thighs.

“They hit me hard enough to have almost
killed me,” he said again. “Take a damn good look at my face and imagine how it
felt to get hit this hard time and time again.”

Her gaze roamed over his face and he knew
what she was seeing. He’d seen it, himself, in the bathroom mirror. There were
cuts to either side of his mouth, across his right cheekbone, along his
forehead and down one temple. Both eyes were black and blue underscored with a
sickening shade of greenish-yellow. His broken nose was swollen. All in all, he
looked as though he’d stuck his face into the blades of an electric fan.

“I lay on that floor with my wrists tied
behind me with duct tape. My legs were bound and I could barely breathe through
my nose but I had to because my mouth was taped. I kept passing out from the
pain and the inability to draw a decent breath into my burning lungs. I pissed
myself and had to lie in it the entire day because I couldn’t move. They’d
stuck the leg of the desk between my legs so I couldn’t crawl.” He lightly
shook her. “And you know what I thought about while I was lying there thinking
I might cark it there on that dirty carpet?”

She shook her head.

“You, Melina,” he said. “I thought about
you. About you and that goddamn fucking ad!”

“I wish you’d never written that ad,” she
said.

“So do I,” he growled and saw hurt flash
through her eyes.

That was what he had hoped to see.

He slid his arms under her arms and pulled
her gently against him—splaying his hands along her back—then laid his cheek to
her chest.

“But if I hadn’t put that ad in the paper,
I might never have met you,” he said. Beneath his ear he could have sworn he
felt her heartbeat speed up at his words.

He felt her hand smoothing over his head
and closed his eyes.

“Don’t leave me, Melina,” he asked. “I need
you to stay with me.”

“For tonight?” she questioned.

Baby steps, he cautioned himself. Don’t
scare her away.

“Yeah, for tonight.”

And for every night from then until the day
after forever, he thought.

She was quiet for so long he was afraid
she’d say no, but then he heard her sigh.

“All right, Kiwi. I’ll stay with you
tonight.”

He pulled back and looked at her. He was
afraid if he asked permission she would deny him so he took the decision out of
her hands and reached for the buttons of her blouse.

For a split second she thought about
stopping him. His knuckles were grazing her skin as he worked the buttons. A
part of her was annoyed that he would dare to end their discussion in such an
arrogant way but then again—she reminded herself—she was his possession to do
with as he pleased.

At least for the next five days. After
that?

She didn’t want to think about what would
happen after Sunday night. How she would feel on Monday night when the contract
had been fulfilled and she had his money in hand.

Staring down at the top of his head as he
undid the last button and pushed the two sides of her blouse aside, she wished
his hair was longer so she could rake her fingers through it. She had been
longing to do that since their first night together and she had been terrified
of him.

She was no longer terrified. She was
deeply—and she admitted it to herself—irrevocably in love with the high handed,
conceited, overconfident, full-of-himself bastard.