Brawn: Lethal Darkness MC (3 page)

Paris

The house was silent when I walked in. “Daddy?” I called into the musty stillness. “Daddy, are you home?”

No answer. I didn’t see any lights on the ground floor. Dropping my keys into the dish on the island counter in the kitchen and slinging my bag to the floor, I padded upstairs to check his office.

As I reached the top of the stairs, I saw that the door to his office was shut, but I could see a thin sliver of warm light coming out from under the bottom edge. He must be inside.

I stopped in the darkness, one hand on the railing, and closed my eyes.
C’mon, Paris,
I thought to myself.
Just go in there and state your case. Tell him you’re eighteen years old now and all you want to do is go on a simple date with a very nice boy. It’s just dinner, nothing more. Not a thing in the world for a father to worry about.
I let out my breath in a long, slow exhale. Then, steeling myself, I knocked on the door.

“Daddy, it’s me,” I called through the thick wood.

“Come on in, Par Bear,” he said back, using the nickname he’d had for me since I was just a little girl.

I twisted the knob and walked in. His office was fairly sparse, with only a rickety desk and a small lockbox safe tucked in one corner. He was seated behind it, calmly flipping through the folder he held in front of him. With his reading glasses on and a long-sleeved henley shirt covering up most of his tattoos, he looked like the world’s most normal dad. He could have been an accountant or a lawyer or some other ordinary, suburban job like that, the kind of dad who told corny jokes and brought home flowers for his wife in the evenings. He wasn’t any of those things, of course. But sometimes I liked to pretend.

“Hey, sweetie,” he said, looking up and smiling at me as I entered. “How was your day?”

“Fine,” I said. “I just studied at the park for a bit, then I went to Katy’s.”

“Ah, the infamous Katy McClendon. How’s she?”

“She’s good.” I was dying to get past the small talk and discuss what I really wanted to talk about, but I was too nervous to jump straight into it. Besides, maybe it would help to warm him up a little bit first, just so he was in a better mood when I finally got down to it. “Same as always,” I added.

“Which means crazy,” he said with a chuckle. “That girl is a wild child.”

I forced myself to smile. “Most definitely.” I opened my mouth to bring the conversation around to the real subject at hand, but suddenly, fear squeezed my stomach hard and I froze. I felt feverish and claustrophobic, like the walls were closing in around me and I was hurtling forward in time faster than I could possibly handle.

Daddy noticed my discomfort and gave me a quizzical sideways look. “Something wrong, dear?” he asked.

“I, um…” I stuttered, unable to find the words.

He lowered his glasses on the bridge of his nose and looked at me with concern. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” I blabbered. “I know that. I just, I wanted to ask, if, um…” Where was the speech that I’d practiced with Katy? Where were all those perfectly neutral words I’d rehearsed, the ones that made my request seem totally reasonable and normal? I’d forgotten completely how to speak and all my resolve was leaking out of me like sweat. I couldn’t even think straight.

Focus,
said the voice in my head.
One word at a time.

I took a deep breath. I had this under control. I could do it. All I had to do was ask. “I was wondering if—”

But just then, the cell phone lying on top of a stack of papers on his desk came alive, bursting with a ring tone and flashing colors. He picked it up and frowned when he saw the name of the person who was calling. “I’m sorry, doll, just give me one second. I have to answer this. Hello?” he said as he picked up the call.

I stood in front of his desk squirming as he listened intently, eyebrows furrowed. The tinny voice at the end was talking rapidly, although I could hardly understand anything it was saying. I heard the word “warehouse” repeated multiple times, whatever that meant.

Apparently, though, the caller was delivering some very bad news indeed. As the seconds went by, ticked off loudly by the hands of the clock on the wall, my dad’s face went from calm to stormy. His gray eyes took on a swirling anger and the lines in his forehead and around his mouth deepened. By the time the voice quieted down, he looked ready to kill somebody.

“Call a meeting,” he commanded in an acidic tone. “I want everyone involved at the clubhouse tonight.”

The voice squawked again, but he cut it off quickly. “I don’t give a damn,” he said. “If they had plans, cancel them. Somebody fucked up. We’re gonna sort this out immediately.” He hung up the phone without waiting to hear the response. Dropping it on his desk with a
thunk
, he ran a hand through his flowing silver hair and looked back up at me. As he readjusted the glasses to sit properly on his face, he said, “I’m sorry about that, Paris. What were you saying?”

“Is everything, um, okay?” I asked.

He waved a hand in the air. “Fine, fine, don’t worry about it. Just a…disruption at one of our warehouses. Nothing for you to be concerned about. Now, please, finish what you were saying. I didn’t mean to cut you off.”

I faltered, the nice flow of words I’d built up in my head completely gone now, vanished without a trace. “I was at the park, and was, uh, wondering, you know, because this guy asked me if I wanted to, like, you know, go to, like, eat a, what do you call it, a, um, dinner, sometime?” My voice rose to a pipsqueak at the end, but before I had even finished, I knew it was no use at all. Every word had only added to the angry wrinkles on my father’s tanned face, and by the time I was done, he didn’t even need to say a thing. I knew what the answer would be already.

“Paris,” he said, a hint of irritation on the edge of his voice, “you know my rules.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“I’m sick of repeating myself, too. I’m going to say this one last time, and then I don’t ever want you to bring this topic up again. Ever. You are not allowed to go out with any boy, do you hear me? Not now, not ever.”

“It’s just that I was hoping—”

“You shouldn’t have been. With your mother gone, you’re all I have left. I have to keep you safe, and that means keeping you out of situations where I can’t protect you. Who knows who this boy may be working for?”

“Daddy, he’s not working for—”

“Enough. I have lots of enemies. They’ll do anything they can to hurt me and the people I love. I’m not willing to let you expose yourself to that kind of danger.” He stood up and planted his fists on his desk as he looked me down. “That’s a no, Paris. You are not to leave this house tonight. Am I understood?”

I looked down at my feet as I answered, “Yes, Daddy.”

“Good,” he said, straightening up. He walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. I didn’t meet his eyes.

“Look at me, Paris.”

Still, I kept my eyes trained on the ground. He repeated himself. “Paris, look at me.” He tucked two fingers under my chin and gently raised my gaze to his. I was trembling with an exhausting mixture of anger and disappointment. My body felt thin and achy. All I wanted was to lie in bed and cry for a long, long time. That was the only outlet I had left. “You’re precious to me,” he said softly. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

He kissed me on the forehead. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back tonight. Don’t stay up too late; I know you’ve got those exams coming up soon.”

He let me go, then turned and walked out the door without another word. I stood there for a long time, hot tears burning my eyes. I felt so stupid for crying, since it didn’t solve a single one of my problems, but I didn’t know what else to do. So I just stood there in his empty office and cried.

After a while, my phone vibrated twice in my pocket. I had two texts. The first was from Craig.

Football practice got cancelled. Are you free tonight?

I deleted it right away.

The second text message was from Katy.

How’d the talk with Papa T go????

I typed out my response slowly with shaking fingers.
Terrible.

She shot back,
I’m coming over.

I tucked my phone back into my pocket and walked downstairs. Without bothering to turn on any of the lights in the living room, I slumped onto a couch and closed my eyes while resting my head back against the armrest. I focused on breathing deeply and evenly. In through my nose, out through my mouth, then repeat until I stopped feeling like I was going to puke or pass out or break something. Eventually, the blood stopped pounding in my temples and my breath started to come a little more easily.

The door flew open, introducing a wide swath of light into the dark room. Katy burst inside and scanned the room. She saw me and leaped over towards the couch to sit next to me where I was lying down.

“You okay, Paris?” she said as she brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen over my face.

I kept my eyes closed gently. “I hate him.”

“I know. It’s not fair.”

I sat up straight and locked eyes with my best friend. “It’s not fair at all! Why am I cooped up in here all the time? Why can’t I ever just do what I want? Is going to
dinner
such a big freaking deal? Would it be better if I had a fucking security patrol to go with me? God, I hate it so much!”

Katy cooed wordlessly and kept stroking my hair as I buried my head in my knees. I wanted to cry some more, to help relieve the savage pressure built up behind my eyes, but the tears just weren’t coming. I’d exhausted the supply.

“I just don’t get it,” I said after I’d regained my composure. “He goes flying off at all hours of the night to do his job, which he doesn’t ever even bother to explain to me, and I’m just stuck here alone, not allowed to go out or do anything fun with my life. Maybe I should just run away.”

She tilted her head to the side and looked at me. “You know what?” she said. “Fuck your dad. Let’s do something fun tonight.”

I looked at her curiously. “Like what?”

“Well,” she began slowly, “don’t freak out…”

“That’s never a good way to start something, Katy,” I said cautiously.

“I know, I know, but listen. On my way over here, I ran into my friend, Hawk, from the tattoo shop. He told me about some awesome party that’s happening tonight. If you wanted to, we could go.”

“What kind of party?”

She waved her hands evasively, trying to convince me that it didn’t matter. “Oh, you know, just, like, a party. People drinking, dancing, talking, all that stuff.”

“What kind of people?” I said, my voice wary. I knew Katy well enough to know that when she was avoiding the subject, it meant that there was something I wasn’t going to like lurking beneath the surface.

“Just, people, come on,” she demurred.

“Katy,” I warned.

She bit her lip. “Okay, so, like I said, don’t freak out, but Hawk might have mentioned that it’s being thrown by the Lethal Darkness guys.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “Are you insane?” I exclaimed. “Are you actively trying to get raped and killed?”

“Okay, okay, Paris—breathe. You said you wouldn’t freak out.”

“I did not! And I’m definitely going to freak out!”

“Just listen! It’s going to be an awesome party. Hawk is a great guy; he won’t let anything bad happen to us. And we’ll leave the second you feel uncomfortable. But come on,” she said, pleading and tugging on my arm, “it’s going to be so much fun!”