Morrison (Caldwell Brothers #2) (19 page)

by MJ Fields and Chelsea Camaron

Available from Loveswept

Paper-thin walls. Bastard next door. I hear the whimpers, the slaps, and the crashing of shit in the apartment beside mine. Standing at my door, I grip the handle. I need to hold back. This will become another trip to lock up, another case against me. I’m giving my lawyer more of my winnings these days than I get to keep. Leaning my forehead against the door I fight the memories.

The
old man, he used to toss Momma around. He tried to get to us boys, she took the heat for us until Hendrix, and then Morrison, were big enough to step in. I gaze down at my bulging forearm as I fight myself from opening the door. The tattoo dances at me as my muscles flex.

Legacy.

Momma asked us boys to be the legacy of good in a world full of bad. Without a second thought to the consequences
of my actions, I take off.

The apartment complex isn’t upscale by any means. No, it’s a dive. What the hell do I need to live in some nice-ass place for? I’m only here to shit, shower, and sleep occasionally. I storm to my neighbor’s door and halt in front of it as I realize whose it is.

My landlord.

Mr. Rand, the Russian motherfucker who pretends not to speak English when anyone tries to complain,
but can certainly understand the language enough to have you sign on the dotted line and take your money. He’s a dark-haired beer-bellied asshole with one giant chip on his shoulder.

I feel the vibration of a body hitting the door on the other side. I hear the whimper of a female and I see red.

Nothing matters except saving her. Once upon a time I couldn’t save Momma, but I damn sure won’t be
in that position again.

I feel the door give as the weight is removed on the other side, allowing me to open it safely. As the door swings, I am not prepared for the rage inside me to build so rapidly. The apartment is tidy, which is more than I can say for my own place. Though small, someone has put effort into keeping it clean and clutter-free.

I watch as this frail young woman is tossed across
the living room, where she immediately runs down the hall, halting when she finds the end and falling into the corner, planting herself against the wall. She curls into herself, her dark hair stringy and matted in blood, and tears roll down her swollen face. Blood trickles down her nose and off both her lips. Her right eye is swollen shut and multiple shades of red and purple. Her arms are skin
and bones as she holds her knees to her chest. She lifts her head and I see the welts across her neck.

She looks up at me with the one eye that she can open, it’s so glassed over in her tears I’m not sure she can actually see me. There is a slight shake of her head, I assume what is an effort to stop me. Her mouth opens and closes slowly, but no words come out.

I sense movement beside me and
that’s when I see the bear of a man who is my landlord lunging at her, the belt in his arm swinging wildly over his head. Without hesitation, I storm him. He crashes into the wall, pictures fall as the place rattles from the impact.

I grab him by his shirt collar and shake him. “Wanna pick on little ones, huh? Why don’t you try out a real man for size?” I mock him as the anger consumes me. I
can smell the alcohol on him. Cheap bourbon is his poison. I draw back and slam my fist down into his face as he paws at me. I kick out at his knees, bringing him to the ground. Straddling him, I pound away at his head, face, and torso. He lies under me swinging at air, grasping for anything while I continue my onslaught.

I feel the burn in my knuckles at I bust them open on his jaw. Lights out,
motherfucker. He goes limp and I can’t stop the last few hits from being thrown.

Standing, I step back and look at my victim. His face is immediately swelling and I’m pretty sure I broke his nose. Blood runs out of the corner of one eye, his nose, and down his ear. Maybe next time he will think of this before he puts his hands on her.

Her.

I look over to his victim. My eyes meet hers and I
get lost in the depth of emotion coming from the overly large dark circle of the eye I can see. Going over to her, I extend my hand. She takes it, her small fingers are cold sliding into the warmth of mine. Instinctively as she stands, I pull her into me and hold her close for a moment. She tenses in my embrace. I run my large hand over her mess of dark tangles before I kiss the top of her head and
release her.

She looks like him. A younger version of him, but still the resemblance is uncanny. I just beat the hell out of her father, who beats the hell out of her on a regular basis, from the looks of her frail body and the scar on her cheek. Fucking bastard.

Reaching in my back pocket, I pull out my wallet and a business card. Putting my wallet back in place, I look to her. She stares at
me wide-eyed and wild. The blood is drying on her face, so I take her by the hand and walk her to the kitchen sink. Leaving the card on her countertop, I wash my hands and cringe as the soap stings on my open knuckles. Letting my own blood wash down the drain, I wet a paper towel. Tenderly, I wipe around her swollen eye and then her tear-filled one. Her skeleton-like fingers come up and wrap around
my wrist as I clean up under her nose and ever so gently wipe her lips.

I hear the grunt of her father waking. My exit cue, time to go before we have round two.

“He’ll most likely be angry, but too exhausted to fight you. Let him sleep it off and you find a way to get the hell out. You need anything, call me at Caldwell’s.” I end it by pointing at the business card.

Hastily, I kiss her forehead,
hating leaving her behind to clean up my mess, but knowing if she’s going to leave it has to be on her terms. That is the one thing I learned from Momma. Neither hell or high water would make her give up everything she had worked for, even if she lived in the worst nightmare of her life day in and day out.

“I have nowhere to go.” She whispers and my heart beats loudly into my ears. “I’ve only
just turned seventeen.”

Fuck! This man is beating on a minor who is helpless to leave. What the hell have I gotten myself into now?

“I’ll help you.” I pick up the card and hand it to her, then close her tiny little hand around it. “Name?”

“Tatiana,” she whispers, and he stirs again.

“Come with me. We can call the cops, his ass can go to jail. Social services—”

“You have to leave.”

“But—”

“Thank you,” she says as she pulls her hand away and walks toward the open door.

I follow her even though everything in my head is telling me to finish this asshole off. “Come with me, Tatiana. I swear I will help you.”

She steps into the hall and I think she is going to follow me. Hell, I wanna pick her up and put her in my pocket so that fucker can never touch her again without going through
me first. Then she steps back inside and starts to close the door.

“What are you doing?” I know the shock registers on my face.

“I know where to find you.”

The door shuts and my stomach turns. I want to smash it open and take her away. But I remember her words; maybe she just has to grab some things.

I beat feet to the bar. I know she’ll show. I know she will. She has to. I walk in as Lola
the bartender walks past me all teary-eyed.

“Lost another one?” I laugh.

“Maybe,” my brother Hendrix shrugs.

“Seriously, bro, you need to learn to play nice with others.” So do other assholes in this ugly fucking world, I think as I look toward the window to see if she followed.

“Look, unless you’re here to take on another night—step it up a bit—I don’t wanna hear shit.”

“I liked Lola.” I
sit down on the other side of the bar.

“You hear heels clicking up the wooden stairs into the apartment?”

I give him the ‘What the hell are you talking about’ look. Then I hear them. He raises his eyebrows and I shake my head.

“No shit?” Lola is in the apartment above the bar, the apartment our asshole father still lives in because Hendrix allowed him to stay, a promise to our dying momma.

“Just found ’em in my fucking office. Told him a month ago, when I caught him skimming from the till, he was out. Not to step foot in my fucking place again, or he could pack his shit.”

I shake my head and clench my fists. I fucking hate my father, abusive assholes, I hate all of them. I look at the window,
Come on, little Tatiana,
I think to myself.
Be brave.

“What are you gonna do?” I ask Hendrix,
still looking for the tiny little one.

“He’s packing his shit,” he answers.

“You for real, man?” Music to my ears, a win for the good guys.

“As fucking real as terminal cancer.”

Momma died of cancer, and although some people wouldn’t find that statement funny, we laugh, because, well, sometimes you have to find humor in your misfortune. Unfortunately, I am finding no motherfucking humor in
the fact that Tatiana isn’t showing up, and that I wish someone would superglue my ass to this barstool because I know if she isn’t here in about ten minutes, I’m gonna fuck shit up.

I look back at Hendrix. I know he’s fighting inside, he holds shit in, whereas I am a little less…introverted.

I look up when the door opens to see Hendrix’s buddy Johnny, the cop.

Fuck,
I think to myself when
I see the pissed-off look on his face, and the angry eyes directed toward, well, me.

I know what’s next so I make it easy on all of them, I stand up. “Got bail?” I ask Hendrix.

“You’re fucking joking, right?” He looks down at my knuckles and shakes his head.

“Jagger, you know I have to take you in.” Johnny is pissed. “You beat the shit out of your landlord.”

“His kid was crying. Heard her
through the wall, opened the door, and she’s running down the hall. Fucker came out chasing her with a belt.”

“So you beat him to the ground?” Johnny asks, taking the cup of coffee Hendrix slides across the bar. “How about call 911? That’s my job, man. Now she’s so scared she’s not talking and won’t press charges—”

“What do you mean, ‘won’t press charges’? She had switch marks across her goddamned
neck, Johnny. She’s a fucking kid. She needs someone—”

“She’s seventeen. Can’t make her do shit, you hear me?” Johnny states, then points to the door. “Restraining order, so now you got nowhere to live, and when the judge asks where you work, what are you gonna say? ‘I smash people up in abandoned warehouses while others stand around and watch’? It’s fucking illegal.”

I am pissed, so fucking
pissed, I should have just snatched her up and shoved her in my fucking pocket. “Nah, man, I got a job. I’m a motherfucking astronaut. Just got back from the moon last night. Shit looks good up there.”

“Last time, you told the judge you were a fucking ob-gyn apprentice, and that got you a week in county.”

I look at Hendrix. “Do I have a place to live?”

“Of course you do.” Hendrix nods.

“I
work here, right?”

“Yeah, man, you do. Call me after your photo shoot and fingerprints. I’ll be down to pick you up.” Hendrix smirks as he shakes his head.

I walk outside and have to laugh. I mean, fuck, what else can I do? I’m going to jail because I tried to do the right thing. Momma would be proud, though. I did good. I am her legacy.

I rub my tattoo as I hop in the back of the squad car
and chuckle again. “It’s like you’re my own personal driver, Johnny.”

He shakes his head and I know he’s trying his best not to smile. “Only you, Jagger, only you.”

This isn’t my first ride in the back of Johnny’s patrol car, and I can’t promise it will be my last, but at least he doesn’t bother with the cuffs anymore. I sit back and see my old man and Lola walking out of the alley with garbage
bags. I give him the old one-finger salute and he gives it back.

Good riddance, fucker.

“You gonna leave it alone?” I hear Johnny ask.

“What?”

“The kid, the old man, your old man? You gonna start trying to think of yourself someday, Jag, your future?”

“Not sure,” I answer honestly.

“You’re not Batman, or some sort of vigilante, you are a mere mortal, like the rest of us,” he says as he pulls
out onto the street. When I don’t answer he sighs loudly. “You gotta leave it alone.”

“Mhm.”

Love stories you’ll never forget

By authors you’ll always remember

eOriginal Romance from Random House

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