Risk: A Military Stepbrother Bad Boy Romance (3 page)

And then my mom turned to me, looking hard, right in my eye.

“Listen, you boy, you don’t go making trouble this time.”

“Ma, if Harry hits you…”

“It’s his house, he do what he wants. I got a house, I got a business, I’m fine. I don’t need you fighting my fights for me, you understand?”

I scowled. “Fine. Whatever. Be his punching bag if you like.”

My mother poured us all glasses of wine and began cooking as Sarah and I sat at the kitchen table. The kitchen as surprisingly warm, sunny even—my mother had made it her own over the years and that made me happy. Maybe even Harry had changed.

I felt Sarah’s leg against mine as we chatted and giggled. From the blush on her cheeks, I could tell that she wasn’t used to wine. After her first glass, she was leaning on me, giggling over every little thing.

This continued for an hour, and then two hours, with my mother having us taste the sauce for her, teaching Sarah Italian words for spices and herbs. Suddenly, though, we heard the front door open and slam shut.

“That’ll be dad,” Sarah whispered, her flushed face suddenly going pale.

SARAH

I can’t help but have a mini-panic attack every time my father comes home. I never know if he’s going to be a jerk or not. One day, he’ll be sweet and loving, every girl’s dream daddy. Another day, he’ll be cold, cruel, drunk.

Without thinking, I grabbed Damien’s hand under that table.

“That’ll be dad,” I whispered.

“What’s wrong, kiddo?” he asked. “You act like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I didn’t even feel like correcting him or fighting him on kiddo.

“Harry, papa,” Maria cried as he entered the kitchen. “Look, look—my boy is home.”

My father is a tall man, about Damien’s height, though without Damien’s dark, Mediterranean complexion. He’s got a ruddy face from years of drinking in the unforgiving Georgia sun and a pot-belly for the same reason. Still, he cuts a strong, imposing figure in his suits, held up with suspenders.

“Well, well, well…” he said with a not-totally-happy grin. “Look who we’ve got here.”

I realized I was still holding Damien’s hand under the table. I let it go, hoping no one had noticed as he stood up and approached my father.

“We’re not going to have anymore trouble this time, are we, boy?” my dad asked as Damien shook his hand.

“I don’t know. Are we?” Damien asked, looking my dad coolly in the eyes. The two men stared each other down. I felt my own heart pounding in my chest.

My father broke the silence first.

“I expect we won’t, boy. You done us proud in the service. Purple Heart, Bronze Star, everything!”

“He done dangerous things!” Maria cried, swatting at Damien. “I wish you never joined up!”

“Well, I’m here now, ma,” Damien said with a sigh, shooting a grin at me.

My father retired to the living room where he lit up a cigar and poured himself a glass of bourbon. Dinner was soon ready and the four of us gathered at the table in the dining room. I noted that my dad had already finished his first glass of bourbon sometime in between the kitchen and the table.

“Sarah, where in the hell is your sister?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her all day.”

He scowled. I saw the anger beginning on his face.

“This is a family dinner and she’s part of the family.”

“Dad, I didn’t know it was going to be a… Special occasion,” I said, feeling my stomach clench as the anger burned brighter and brighter on his face. I looked at Damien and then I looked down at my plate of lasagna.

“You’re always on your goddamned iPhone and I pay through the nose for it every month. Why don’t you text her and find out where she is?”

“I thought you had a rule against phones at the dinner table.”

He scowled. “I don’t appreciate the lip, young lady.”

“If you had told anyone that I would be home today, maybe Dakota would have known to be home for dinner,” Damien cut in. “I don’t think it’s Sarah’s fault.”

“Boy, I respect what you’ve done in the service, but that don’t mean it’s your place to tell me how to raise my girls.”

“Ain’t nothing about telling you how to raise your girls. It’s about you keeping it a secret, apparently, from my sisters that I was coming home,” Damien replied coldly.

“Is the lasagna too spicy?” Maria cried out. “I know Damien like it spicy since he was a little kiddo.”

“It’s great, ma.”

“Yeah, Maria,” I put in. “Really tasty. Like always.”

I liked Maria, but she tended to be pretty distant at home. She worked long hours and she had to cook and clean at home too. I had no idea why she and my father ended up together, but she didn’t seem to like him much. But she was a whole different person when Damien was home.

The men cooled off, but I could tell that the tension which had just been on the verge of erupting was still present, still ready to explode all over my life. Dinner proceeded as if nothing had happened, except for the dark looks on their faces.

After dinner, I was assigned to take Damien to his new room. It used to be Christina’s room, back when she still lived with us. It had been years since she lived there, but her stuff was still there.

“This is my room?” Damien asked with a casual drawl, raising an eyebrow as I showed him his new home. Christina wasn’t a girly-girl by any means, but it was very obviously a girls’ room: an old Justin Bieber poster over the bed, several framed photos of horses, pink curtains, half a dozen Gossip Girl books still scattered over the desk.

“Yeah… Yeah, I guess it is,” I said with a shrug. He hadn’t brought much of anything and I couldn’t think of anything I could tell him to make it better—he didn’t have anything with him to redecorate with.

“Whatever,” Damien said with another sigh. “It’s better than a tent. Or barracks.”

He stripped off his jacket and tossed it on the bed. I felt a shiver go up my spine as I saw his muscular, tattooed arms.

“So, what do you say…” Damien started to murmur, drawing near to me, but I never got to hear what he had in mind. Shouts and yells had already begun to drift upstairs.

“This is the last fucking time, Dakota…” my father was yelling.

“Dad, you don’t fucking own me…” Dakota slurred back at him. I heard Maria’s sobbing. A usual night.

“What the fuck?” Damien asked, turning to me. I shook my head, sadly.

“It’s the same old shit… They do this all the time. Dakota stays out late, comes home drunk, dad screams at her, but nothing ever changes.”

“Jesus Christ.”

We heard the hollow slap of my father’s hand colliding with my little sister’s face.

“Fucking hell…” Damien muttered and started downstairs.

“No, you’ll just make it worse!” I cried, grabbing his arm. God, but it felt strong. He pushed me off.

“I’m not going to let my little sister get pushed around like that,” Damien growled and before I could do anything, he was already stalking downstairs like a wild animal freed from his cage.

DAMIEN

“Harry, lighten up on the kid!” I roared as I stormed into the kitchen, ready, no, itching for a fight. Just let him fucking try it.

Dakota sat at the kitchen table, slumped over and sulking. Her face was puffy and red—partially from crying, it looked like, but just as much from drinking.

“Who the fuck are you?” she slurred when she saw me.

“That’s your brother,” Harry grunted. He was nursing his left hand. The wall next to him had a dent in it; that’d be a bitch to fix. But I put the puzzles pieces together immediately: he hadn’t hit her. He’d hit the wall instead.

Well, I couldn’t get too worked up over the destruction of antebellum interior design, I guess.

Sarah came tumbling down the stairs after me.

“Dakota, I told you not to be staying out so late…” she murmured, running over to her sister. Dakota pushed her off.

The two girls looked terribly similar, even though they were otherwise totally different creatures—Sarah was dressed fairly modestly, besides those jeans that clung to her fantastic ass. But that wasn’t something she could control. Dakota, on the other hand… She wore a little girl’s spaghetti tank top that stopped at her belly, revealing a pierced naked. Below that? A skirt so tight and so short that it had to be a joke. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it on her right then and there. She looked like a pedophile’s dream: a barely pubescent version of Sarah dressed up to the nines like Lolita ready to go out on the town.

“I hate all of you!” Dakota squealed, stumbling to her feet and dashing clumsily up the stairs. Presumably to her room. No one followed her.

“Fucking kid…” Harry muttered. I noticed another glass of bourbon in his hand. It was already half-empty. He downed it, poured another, and downed that.

And then, it was like Sarah and I were invisible. I glanced back at her, shook my head, and started back upstairs.

“Where are you going?” she hissed.

“I’m going to go tell Dakota to cut it out.”

“She’ll just curse you out.”

I shrugged.

“That’s fine. What kind of idea is she getting if no one tells her not to do this shit? That tells her that no one gives a fuck about her. And she’ll just keep doing it.”

Sarah followed me up the stairs and pointed to one of the doors. It had a kid’s name plate on it: Dakota, in big, loopy pink letters, with butterflies.

I knocked.

“Go away!” Dakota screamed from inside.

“Dakota, it’s Damien. I’m coming in.”

If it were the Marines, I just would have busted in. But there’s a difference between breaching a door with hostiles behind it and talking to an angry teenager, I figured.

I eased the door open and Sarah followed me silently. Dakota was sitting on her window sill, smoking out the window, her phone lying in her lap.

“This is my fucking room—“ she started off.

“Dakota, don’t talk to our brother like that…” Sarah murmured lamely from behind me.

“What the fuck is her doing here?”

“He just got out of the Marines and he’s going to be staying here for a while.”

“I’m going to be finishing up high school,” I told Dakota. “And if you keep acting like this, you’re going to be in my position when you’re my age too.”

“Fuck if I care,” Dakota scowled, taking a drag off her cigarette. I sighed, caught her hand, and plucked the cigarette out of her fingers.

“Hey, that’s mine!”

“From now on, no more smoking,” I told her.

“You’re not the boss of me. “

“Nope,” I agreed. “But if I catch anyone buying cigarettes for you or selling cigarettes to you, I’m going to kick their teeth in.”

“Fuck you.”

“From now on, you’re home for dinners.”

“Fuck you.”

“If I catch you out with anyone, I’m going to beat them to within an inch of their lives. I’m not going to touch you, but I’m going to make your friends’ lives a living hell. The guys who give you booze, who drive you around—Dakota, listen to me.”

I took her face in my hand, holding her by her cheeks.

“I will end them. No one is going to want to hang out with you. They will be scared shitless.”

“You’re a fucking asshole. You can’t beat up anyone.”

“That’s right. I’m a fucking asshole,” I whispered. “And I’ve seen people way meaner and scarier than anything this shit hole of a town can even fathom. And do you know what I did to them, Dakota?”

By now, Dakota didn’t have an answer.

“I killed them. And the Marines gave me medals for it. I’m not proud of it, but don’t you think for a second that your dealer or whatever scares me. I’m the one who scares him. He doesn’t even know it yet, but I’m his worst fucking nightmare.”

Dakota’s eyes were wide. She looked like the child she was. Good.

“Now, go downstairs and have some of the lasagna my mom made. I bet she’ll still warm it up for you. And then go to bed, because you have school tomorrow.”

“I hate you.”

“I don’t care,” I replied with a shrug as I turned and left, shooting a grin at Sarah as I did so.