Return to Poughkeepsie (52 page)

“My father lives there so I’ll never be done. Why are you here? Just to prove you know where I am?” Eve watched him carefully. His coat had fallen open and she could see the weapon strapped there. The art went higher and higher, almost touching the ceiling. “Don’t break shit. I want my security deposit back.” She tapped her foot with impatience—and excess energy, if she was being honest with herself.

He palmed the art and set it down, pulling his feet from the table. “Just checking on you, baby. Seeing if you still want to grind my balls into mulch or what.”

“You can’t just pop up, or pop in. That’s not the way it works. I have a meeting.”

He stood just as Eve went to walk past him, blocking her way. They were way too close. She looked everywhere but at him, but she could feel the heat from his chest.

“But I will. Until the day I die. Which—good news for you—should be soon.” He clicked his tongue and stepped aside.

Eve shook her head, grabbed her suitcase, and left Beckett in her apartment. Everything sexual in her wanted to take him to bed. It actually hurt to close the door between them.

She drove the few miles to the warehouse where she trained, but this time she didn’t change. It was a ghost town, and she headed straight to the locker room.

Shark was in a towel. “What kept you?”

Eve raised her eyebrows instead of responding.

“You’re a hard bitch, you know that?” He stood, dropping his towel.

She shrugged, still silent.

“Fine. What’s going on?” He walked slowly to a locker, dressing and flexing at the same time.

“Tell me everything you know about Beckett Taylor.” Eve sat on a bench.

“I’d say you know more than me, pretty lady. Is he a screamer or a grunter?” Shark slipped on boxer briefs and a T-shirt.

“I’m not giving you any more jerk-off material than you already have.” She gave him a hard stare.

“Fine. You’re a sweetheart, by the fucking way.” He tipped an imaginary hat to her.

“Suck my dick.” She exhaled her frustration.

“Oh, does the princess have somewhere else to be?” He put on a pair of jeans and took his time threading a belt through.

“You have two more minutes before you know what your own ass tastes like.”

“You’re assuming I don’t already know. Now your ass might be a nice snack.”

Eve stood and stepped toward him. “Don’t make this ugly. You’re being a prick for no reason.”

“Fine.” He buttoned his shirt. “Rodolfo is set to test Beckett tonight. Thinks he’s moving too slow on their deal.”

“Blood in, blood out?” Eve was surprised Beckett hadn’t been hazed through a beating already.

“Sort of. It’s bare-knuckles, old-school fisticuffs. Beckett’s men versus Rodolfo’s.” Shark spritzed on too much cologne.

“That’ll work in Taylor’s favor. His guys can hold their own.” She leaned against a locker near Shark.

“Seriously? Are you too damn young to know anything? Rodolfo fights dirty. It’s all a show. He’s notorious. Rodolfo will take half of Beckett’s men. Then Beckett will have to beg the old bastard for the lives of the rest of his guys. It’s a twisted game. But Beckett gave the guy his nuts as a party favor, and evidently his negotiation skills aren’t cutting it.”

“He’ll never take his men into that.” Eve shook her head.

“No. He’s not going to. That’s the thing. Crazy beast is going to the fight tonight alone. Refuses to take his people. Told them he’ll shoot them on sight if they show.” Shark began putting on his shoes.

Beckett’s visit today suddenly made more sense. He was saying goodbye. Eve turned and walked out of the locker room.

Shark rushed to catch up. “Wait, that’s it? What about tit for tat?”

Eve stopped and gave him a look. “I kept Micki safe, and I didn’t just make you wear your dick as a hat. That’s enough tits for you.”

She left the warehouse, ignoring Shark’s protests. Beckett was prepared to die tonight. She got in her car and knew what she had to do. If she could get there in time…

Kyle walked upstairs slowly, clutching the folder. It had been a tense afternoon, a silent dinner. Unable to stop herself, she’d pulled Cole’s research out and paged through it after he went upstairs to shower. He’d done an amazing amount of work. There was a picture of Chery and long transcriptions of their meeting and phone calls. He’d catalogued the prenatal reports by date. Cole had clearly grilled Beckett’s man and seemed to have a very legal-looking route to follow for adopting the baby. He even had a page of carefully printed name choices. John McHugh Bridge seemed to be at the top.

Those details had swirled through her mind for hours, and although she still couldn’t articulate her feelings, she was tired of sorting through them alone. When she got to the top of the stairs, the light from the hallway illuminated her husband where he lay in their bed. The room itself was dark. She could see the scars of the childhood he rarely spoke about littered across his chest. They faded a little every year, she’d noticed.

Though he was perfectly still, she knew he was still awake. She came close to the bed, hugging the folder to her chest, and sat down. “Tell me what it was like—as a boy. What happened?”

There were a whole host of reasons she’d never asked that question in all the years they’d been together. For one, she knew it must have been horrible and she hadn’t wanted him to relive it. It was long in the past, but now it seemed important, relevant to this situation. She could make out his shape as her eyes adjusted. His hands tucked behind his head, his feet crossed at the ankles. Wanting to lay her head on his chest, instead she sat crisscross and waited.

He cleared his throat. “It’s funny. The adults told me not to tell. Now look at me—decades later and my throat still closes at the thought.”

She placed a hand on his knee, and they were silent for a while.

“The lady who gave birth to me…she wasn’t a nice person.” He made the noise of a laugh, but there was no joy in it. “It was drugs, they said. The counselors. But she was cruel. Her eyes? There was nothing like compassion there. Like when you see a cute cat or hear a sad story? I look at your face and see the stuff affect you like it’s supposed to. She was concrete—her face, her eyes. I look back on her, any memory I have, and that’s all I see. Flat. Flat hair, flat eyes, flat ass.”

His tone was strange, like he was sliding into those very memories as he spoke. She crawled to him and rested her head on his bare chest, petting the soft hair there.

“I was a means to an end. That’s how it was for her. Anyone was a piece in a puzzle. A way to get: get more money, get more drugs, get more money again. I was a pawn for her. I remember the times the state came to get me. She’d fight so hard. But it was never for me the person, you know? It was for this body, this human body she felt entitled to.”

He waved a hand over his scars. “There were things she did to me that most people wouldn’t have the heart to do to an animal.”

Kyle knew he could tell she was crying. He had to feel the tears that fell on his chest. She hugged him tightly.

“There was a cage. It was really a closet they’d rigged with dog crates. Anyone who gave her money…well, they got the keys to the cage.”

Kyle’s fury engulfed her. He had been right not to tell her, because right now she was vicious for that little boy. Thinking of her husband so helpless made her crazy.

“And then I went to Evergreen. The bitch still wouldn’t sign me over, so I had to do home visits. I’d be at the school, taking classes, talking to my teachers. They’d take us to see movies or to a restaurant. It felt like another planet. And the other kids there? We were all shell-shocked, amazed that crazy crap didn’t have to happen all the time. That someone would wash your clothes? Care where the fuck you were? Remember if you were in one place or another? They never forgot us in a cage for days at a time.”

He was barely a shadow now—his voice, the look in his eyes. She touched his face.

“You know, I had Mrs. D. She’s the closest I’d ever had to a mom. She let me know I was going to have more someday, that there would be a day I’d make my own choices. She knew it was hell when I went home. I know now she went to bat for me a billion times, and eventually that woman who birthed me signed away her rights. And that’s when I made enough of a change that I could go to a foster home.”

“Where you met your brothers…” Kyle added for him. Even though that foster home had been shit, at least he’d made a family for himself.

“Yes. There was Beckett. He just knew there was more to me. And Blake had an aura, you know? Like he was something special. You just wanted to help him. But Beckett, he wanted to help us both. He
did
help us both. And I know he’s a criminal. I know that. He’s made terrible choices, but sometimes I know he didn’t really have a choice.”

Cole sat up a bit, scooting up against the headboard and pulling her with him. “But whatever Beckett had done, I knew with everything in me that he’d never let anyone lock me in a damn cage again. And I’m a grown man, and this sounds ridiculous, but I trust him. I know he wouldn’t hurt me with this. He’d never hurt you either.”

“Not on purpose. I agree with that.” Kyle nodded.

“That’s it. Right there. Not on purpose. That, to me, is goodness. When you’re caring by default.” Cole hugged her back. “I’m sorry if this wasn’t the right choice for you. Here I was thinking I’d save you worry, and I’ve upset you.”

“I think we should do it.” Kyle pulled away from him enough to see his face as his eyes went wide.

“Don’t say that because you feel bad for me.” Cole watched her carefully.

“No. I was going to say it before you told me what you went through. I think I was—and am—afraid to get my hopes up. If this Chery decides she wants her baby back, or to not give him to us at all…I’m just scared.” Kyle sighed. “But that could happen with any adoption, and even with any pregnancy. Sometimes things don’t go as planned.”

Cole swallowed. “So?”

“So I’d really love to try and see if we can make this work.” Kyle patted his cheek and kissed him. “I’m ready for a baby, even if my body isn’t. And this—you and me and little John? Let’s try. Let’s hope and pray and figure it out. We’ll talk to Chery, and I’ll try not to curse my face off. Let’s have a baby, Cole Bridge.” She kissed him again with all the hope she had. With her hands she willed him new memories—just love, only caring. This body of his, which heartbreakingly had been currency for someone else, she would treasure and value.

“Will we do okay, you and me, do you think?” He kissed her before she could answer.

When they took a breath, she let him know the only thing that mattered. “Always.”

40

Hell and Gasoline

B
ECKETT
W
AS
G
OING
T
O
F
IGHT
without his douchebags. He’d convinced the fuck out of them that he’d be fine, that he had a deal with Rodolfo and this was all for show.

He didn’t, and it wasn’t.

Yet he wasn’t about to drive them to a bloody fucking death. Bad enough that he’d done it to himself, but really, what did he expect? After the life he’d lived? The choices he’d made? Perhaps this was best for everyone. To make sure of it, he’d arranged a few things: set up trust funds for his brothers and pulled a few listings for available property clear on the other side of the country. A letter detailing how they could all live there and who to call to manage their money would arrive by courier tomorrow at noon, unless he was by some miracle alive to stop it. He’d planned for everything he could think of, including a birth suite for Chery and a specialist to help Cole and Kyle with the adoption. He’d done everything he could to make it legal now, and that gave him peace.

He’d dressed like the fine motherfucker he was and didn’t bother to pack heat. He’d be outnumbered a hundred to one, so what was the point? Seeing Eve had been a kick in the nuts, but a necessary one. He needed to know she was okay—moving out and moving on. It gave him a sick pleasure to know Ryan was past tense, but damn it, once he was dead he’d probably be half rooting for the bastard. She needed someone good in her life. Someone better than him.