CHAPTER 4
The word left Demma’s lips before she could stop it. Was she really going to do this? Was she about to open her closet and yank the moldy, terrifying skeleton out and fling it at Ryker’s feet? She dropped her gaze to his hand as he gently caressed hers. She had to admit. He did make her feel calmer than normal, and the aura of trust buoyed her confidence. She could do this.
“Okay, then.”
He started to pull his hand from hers as he stood. Demma snatched it back. “Please?” If she was going to bare her past to his scrutiny, she wanted him to stay close. She needed the quiet strength this man represented.
He hesitated a moment and pulled his chair over, dropping into it and scooting it closer until their knees almost touched. When he grasped her hand in his again, Demma felt a surge of confidence.
She inhaled and let it out slowly. “Where to start? I guess you need to know how close Zach and I were growing up. Our dads are siblings. We grew up less than three miles apart and were inseparable. He was two years older than me but never made me feel like I was a kid, ya know; not even when he became a teenager and started hanging out with other guys. I’d want to tag along, and he would let me. If someone picked on me, he took care of them. Nothing came between us. ‘Bea, friends aren’t blood. You are. Nobody screws with my blood.’” She harrumphed softly. “He tried to protect me no matter what- even from my own stupidity.”
Ryker’s hand squeezed gently. “Go on.”
“Chicago is hard on teenagers. Either you belong, or you don’t, and I wanted to belong so badly. Zach protected me, but he graduated high school and got a full ride to Columbia. Zach had mad skills when it came to lyrics. He won a couple of contests in school, and it transitioned into a great scholarship. Anyway, the family was so proud of him. The first Greenwood to go to college.”
She watched Ryker’s fingers as they made slow circles on the back of her hand. “Even though Columbia is in Chicago, he decided to stay on campus. When he came home for Christmas, I introduced him to Ellis. He was my first ‘real’ boyfriend. Zach took an instant dislike to him, but I didn’t listen. Ellis made me belong. I just didn’t know how much I would ‘belong’ until the next summer. Zach and I had a huge fight about Ellis over the Fourth of July weekend. He tried to tell me I was getting in over my head. He warned me to stay away, that Ellis’ friends were gang members. I knew, but I didn’t care. Being in the Blood Cobras made me bad-ass.” She guffawed. “Big bad Bea Greenwood, Blood Cobra bitch.” She shook her head sadly. “I was incredibly stupid.” Her gaze drifted as she remembered those formative days. Her bottom lip trembled as she fought against the emotions threatening to overwhelm her.
“If you need to take a minute, it’s ok.”
She smiled tentatively at him. “Can I have some water?”
“Of course.” He rose and left the room. Returning a moment later, he pressed a bottle of cold water into her hand.
Demma cracked open the bottle and took a drink. It gave her a moment to collect her thoughts. She placed the bottle on his desk but quickly snatched it up. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at the water ring. “I didn’t even think.”
He placed a hand on hers. “It’s ok. My desk is for working, not for show. A few water rings are not going to matter.” Ryker chuckled and motioned to the other side. “See, another twenty or so more and it’ll match the collection I have started on the other side.” He took the bottle from her hand and placed it on the edge of his desk within easy reach and sat in his chair.
Instinctually, she took his hand in hers again, needing his strength to get through. Gathering her thoughts, she continued.
“Zach wanted to prove to me how much trouble they were. The problem was, although he knew what they were, he underestimated them. Badly. He thought they were just a bunch of no good punks doing petty robberies and hanging on the corners wearing their colors. They were a lot more. Zach told me if I couldn’t see reason, then he would have to make sure he was there to protect me. He used his relationship with me to get in. They almost killed him during his beat in. I didn’t even know about it until later. He spent three days in the hospital. That was my wake up call. I tried to break up with Ellis, but he wouldn’t let me go. You heard the saying, ‘blood in, blood out’? Well, the Cobras took it a step further. Their motto was ‘blood in, death out.’ The only way you ever left was in a body bag. They didn’t let anyone go. And just to make sure I didn’t get any ideas of running away, Ellis had me marked.” She leaned forward and pulled her hair to the side exposing a thin white line reaching from her shoulder to her hairline along the right side of her neck. “This is where he put the BC brand. I was Blood Cobra property, and he wanted everyone to know it.”
Ryker’s sudden intake surprised her. She didn’t think anything could rattle him but apparently being faced with the visceral evidence of her shady past had. She quickly pulled her hair back around to hide the scar.
“Zach never returned to Columbia. They owned him because they owned me. If I tried to leave, they would kill him before finding me and doing the same. If he tried, then I became an example. We did what we were told, when we were told. Our parents didn’t understand, and we couldn’t explain. It was safer for them not to know. To keep the family safe, we had to distance ourselves from them completely. I can still remember my mother’s face on that last day. She was so hurt by what I was doing. She promised to get me into rehab or whatever it took to get me ‘back right’ again. But, I couldn’t tell them the truth. I couldn’t explain to them the hell I had willingly walked into. When she saw the brand on my neck, she knew it was hopeless. It about killed me to tell her I had asked for it, to be closer to my crew. It was the last straw. The entire family saw their children sinking into the Chicago underbelly. They gave up on us and kicked us out. We both moved into one of the BC cribs.” Demma pulled her hand free and took a drink of her water.
This was the part where she struggled. Though she had lived in the midst of a nightmare for two years, she hadn’t understood what it meant. She ran with the gang, did their bidding, dropped out of high school and alienated her family, but she hadn’t reached the bottom of her proverbial barrel. No, that had happened the night of her eighteenth birthday.
“There was a party. Up until then, they pushed me around but hadn’t really messed with me. I was a BC bitch, but I belonged to Ellis. That meant the others weren’t allowed to touch me without his consent. However, when I became ‘legal’, he didn’t want me anymore. He stood up in the middle of the party, grabbed me and turned me around. ‘Happy Birthday, Bea,’ he whispered in my ear then pushed me toward the middle of the room. ‘Time for you to pay for your initiation.’ Everyone started yelling, ‘Train! Train! Train!’”
Demma shuddered and pulled her arms around herself and rubbed her upper arms. “I’d seen other girls come into the gang. Unless one of the guys claimed them, they had to pull the train for their initiation. The crew had this set of dice as big as a softball. The girls rolled for the number of members who had sex with them that night. It was disgusting, and the thought of having to go through it turned my stomach. Zach grabbed me and pulled me behind him. He tried to claim me, but of course, they wouldn’t allow that. He was family. ‘This ain’t Alabama.’ Slater, the leader, said. Zach pulled a gun and told me to run. I didn’t want to leave him, but I knew things were severely screwed up.”
Those horrible memories she kept suppressed deep inside welled up like the tears which began to drip down Demma’s face. She became lost in them, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Like most of the houses, there was a meth lab in the basement. I’ll never forget that smell. It stank so bad and clung to everything I wore. I ran down the stairs because I knew there was an uncovered window that they used to vent out some of the fumes. The house was built on the side of a hill with one basement wall exposed. There were shots fired and shouts, but I ran as fast as I could. I was halfway out the window when I heard Slater yelling at me to stop. I didn’t. I just kept wiggling until I made it out that window. There was a pop of a gun, and I felt the bullet hit my right calf. I guess the muzzle flash must have ignited the fumes in the room because the whole house went up in a fireball. I remember a hard push in my back which threw me forward. Then nothing. When I woke up, it was days later, and I was in a hospital in the protective custody of the DEA. The blast took out most of the crew along with...” she took a shuddering sob. “Along with Zach. He died because of my stupidity.”
Ryker pulled her into his arms and curled his fingers around her neck, tenderly holding her against him as she cried. He murmured soft words into her hair as great shuddering sobs wracked her body. He held her while she spilled the toxic sludge of her guilt onto his Starpower, Inc. shirt. The tears created dark splotches, and she was sure some was from her mascara. She knew she shouldn’t accept his care, but she couldn’t pull herself away. It felt good, cathartic in fact, to let someone else in, even if only briefly.
After she cried herself out and drank the last of her water, she pulled herself together and out of Ryker’s arms. Sitting back, she assured him she was okay to continue.
“It can wait if you need time,” he told her. His lips were pulled into a thin line, making the severity of his expression even more evident.
“I’m alright. It’s like a band-aid. I’ve ripped it off, just have to let the sting calm a bit.” She shrugged but took his hand again. With a grimace of resolve, she continued.
“I was presumed dead along with several members of the crew. The DEA put pressure on me to become an informant. At that point, I didn’t care. I gladly told the Feds everything I could about the gang activities. I gave them names, locations, the extent of their activities as far as I knew and even my thoughts on whom and what else may be involved. For my safety, I stayed dead. My parents weren’t told I had survived. Knowing how much it hurt them is only thing I ever regretted about becoming an informant. Instead of getting their children back, they had two closed casket funerals for us, but only one contained a body. They told our family that the burns required dental records for identification. I don’t know how they arranged it, but the DEA took care of everything.”
Ryker threw up a hand. “Wait, you were in witness protection? Now you are an actress. That doesn’t make sense. By definition, witness protection requires keeping their clients out of sight. Forgive me for saying this, but becoming an actress seems to be an extremely foolhardy choice. Why tempt fate?”
“In the hospital, I was called Jane Doe because I had no identification when they brought me in. Due to my injuries, I couldn’t tell them my name for a while, and the DEA locked me down fast.” Demma shook her head sadly. “Remember me saying something pushed me in the explosion? Apparently, I landed badly; most likely face first onto an outcropping of rock. The impact crushed my cheekbone, eye socket, nose, and jaw. They had to reconstruct my face from the bottom up. Truth be known, I have few features that resemble Bea Greenwood. Even my hair is somewhat different. The hair on the back of my head was burned off.” She shook his hand free and raised her hands. Gently, she pulled the blond wig from her head and turned to the side, showing him a mass of dark brown hair intermingled with several angry red scars. She heard Ryker’s sharp intake of breath. Yes, now he understood why she wasn’t turned off by his injury.
“Demma,” he whispered as his eyes softened.
She didn’t let him interrupt. Demma needed to get this all out, or she would lose her courage. “The career was a surprise. After the DEA cut me loose, I moved to Dallas to start over. I got a job delivering flowers for a local florist while I studied for my GED. It just happened one of my deliveries was to a hotel downtown. Franklin Dickerson, the Broadway producer, was honeymooning with wife number three, I think it was. He wanted to fill the room with flowers for her, so I delivered them and then helped the hotel decorator arrange them. Mr. Dickerson saw me dancing around and humming. He offered me a contract on the spot. I hadn’t planned on it, but I figured one tiny little role in his play wouldn’t hurt anything. I’d get a little experience and go back to the real world. That part led to another which led to another until here I am today.” She carefully worked the wig back onto her head. “I have a stylist, Monty. He’s the only one who touches my hair and the only one who knows about the scars. I told him I was burned in an automobile accident when I was a child. My facial injuries required getting my jaw wired shut which pretty much put me on a crash diet. I had been chunky as a teen. Six weeks later, I was more than seventy pounds lighter. I had to have a dozen surgeries to repair the damage on my face, but it was never the same. I have plastic cheekbones and chin to go with my new blond hair and blue contacts. The DEA supplied me with a new identity to go with my new looks. You’ve heard how some stars say they remake themselves? I really have been remade. I hadn’t been fingerprinted, so I didn’t have to worry about that coming back to haunt me. Beatrice Greenwood is dead and buried. The DEA did a fantastic job.” She laughed wryly. “Last year, I went to Chicago. While I was there, I made a huge donation to my parent’s church. I stood there smiling and shaking my father’s hand with my mother, sister and the rest of my family and they had no idea who I was.”
“I’m sorry. I know that had to be hard on you.”
“It was excruciating,” she admitted. “But it was for the best. It’s the price I pay for my sins. Their daughter and nephew died as a result of gang violence. Now, they can get on with their lives. I buried my past. The DEA assured me it was locked away and nobody could ever unearth it. Bea was dead. But, someone knows. Blood Cobras have a reputation. If someone betrays them, their family pays the price. If the BC finds out I’m still alive and gave them up, my parents, sister, aunt, uncle, grandparents...” she hesitated and gulped a shaky breath. “All of them will be killed as an example. Now, do you understand, Ryker? Can you see why I don’t want anyone knowing about this? I don’t give a shit about my career. I have more money than I can spend in a lifetime, carefully invested. I don’t have to work another day and could still live comfortably. But I already wear the weight of one family member’s death. I can’t bear to lose the rest of them. I can survive without them in my life as long as I know they are alive and well.”
Ryker gathered her to him again as the second wave of tears took her. He soothed her as she wept. Through her tears and guttural sobs, she heard him murmur, “I’ll take care of you Demma. Nobody is going to touch you or your family. I swear to you, it’ll be okay. Trust me.”
Her determination-filled eyes gazed deeply into his. With a short nod, she affirmed her faith in him. “I do.”