FOURTEEN
Lenny
I went back to work the next day, figuring that I could stand around doing nothing there instead of home, but get paid for it. Bills were piling up. Life had to go on. No matter how weird it felt for that to happen with such a piece of me missing.
"Len," Meryl greeted me with that voice. Anyone who had ever heard it knew it. That mix of pity and insecurity, like they were sorry, but didn't know what to say.
"We aren't going to talk about it, Meryl," I told him, shaking my head. "I am going to stand here, pissing off customers, breaking egos, and doing the bare minimum of work. You are going to give me shit about it, but let it slide. This has always worked for us. Let's not change it with some touchy-feely bullshit."
The look of relief on him was comical.
I actually felt my lips curling up at that, almost meeting my eyes, which made his brows draw together.
"I've never seen you smile, Len."
I shrugged at that, trying to make light of it, though I knew he wasn't exaggerating.
If I had a dollar for every time someone told me I would be prettier if I smiled, I could quit this hellhole and retire.
"You've never looked so fucking relieved at the idea of not having to comfort me before."
"Well, that's true," he agreed, knowing me well enough to know to let it go as well. "I will go get the cigarette cases," he told me, walking away. "Lord knows your lazy fucking ass won't do it."
I felt my breath move out of me, decompressing the weight in my chest.
Things could go back to normal.
It had started to feel like everything would change, nothing could ever feel as it once did.
But Meryl could still just barely tolerate me.
And I could just be my normal bitch self while inside these walls, even if that side of me would slip off as soon as I walked out the door.
Because Edison wouldn't allow me to keep that mask on.
And, what's more, I didn't want to around him.
Things were changing.
Somehow, I wasn't fighting it. I wasn't terrified of what it could mean.
I guess maybe Edison had a lot to do with that.
The next several hours were just completely, boringly, comfortingly normal. It seemed that Meryl had not shared the reason I had been out of work for so long, as none of the regulars gave me the eyes or the voice I had been dreading. I don't know what he told them about where I was. Probably intensive anger management classes or some shit.
I had never been more grateful to the man.
It wasn't until I was walking down the street toward my car after closing up that shit changed again.
Not necessarily in a good way.
But in a life-altering way.
I saw him.
It had been easy in my despair not to focus on the thing that had been at the forefront of my mind since the day my sister found herself in that hospital bed.
But there he was.
Driving past me, likely on his way home.
Where he used to abuse my sister in every way he could.
And the rage was crippling.
It boiled.
It coursed through my veins like battery acid, burning, eroding, overtaking me completely.
My hands curled into fists until my knuckles ached.
My breath got caught under the weight of my chest until I felt lightheaded.
My heart pounded against the confines of my ribcage.
And I knew.
I couldn't wait.
I had to do it.
Tonight.
Just as I suspected, losing my sister was hard.
The hardest.
This?
This was fucking easy.
I had read thirty pages of her journal detailing every awful, evil thing he had done to her, followed by pages about how he swore it wasn't going to happen again.
Until it did.
Again and again and again.
Until she decided that dying was better than living.
I swallowed back the bile those thoughts sent up my throat, cracking my neck, turning away from my car, and going back toward the building where I stashed it.
The bag that had everything I needed in it. From a change of clothes, hairnet, and wig, to knives and duct tape.
Nothing had been anywhere near my apartment.
Nothing had so much as one of my hairs on it.
Everything was clean.
Paid for in cash a whole county over months before.
Nothing could trace back.
Because they would look.
They would look no matter what because he had been murdered.
But they would especially look because of who this fuckhead was.
I was giving myself every chance possible to walk away from this free.
An hour later, I was in a cab that had picked me up outside Chaz's where I had walked after getting myself changed in a gas station bathroom, tossing my clothes into the garbage, then throwing the bag into their dumpster.
Careful.
I had been planning this for too long to forget the steps now.
My makeup was heavy; the wig was blonde and believable. I had glasses on. And three layers of clothes that made me look much bulkier than I was.
No one could give the cops an accurate description for a sketch.
I felt strange as I watched the meter tick as we made our way across town, dropping me at the train station which was only two blocks away from where I needed to go.
Detached.
I could still feel the rage, but it felt like there was something else there too. A wall. Something that was making me feel almost alarmingly calm considering the situation.
Maybe that was a self-preservation thing.
Maybe you could only get so hot before you went ice cold.
I didn't know.
All I knew was I was in the world, but not, at the same time as I made my way into his backyard as I had planned.
He had a nice, sprawling two-acre lot on a dead-end street.
He was practically asking to have someone kill him without anyone around to hear and alert the police.
And because he was a bully, he, like all bullies, thought he was invincible.
No security system.
He didn't even lock his damn door.
I knew that he didn't have a dog because when Letha had once mentioned loving them, he had told her that dogs were filthy and she could never have one.
Never mind that she had her own place, even if being with him meant that she hardly ever got to spend any time there.
And that it was none of his fucking business if she wanted a dog or not.
As soon as I stepped inside, I could hear the shower up above me, making my lips curl up a little evilly as I moved my ballet-flat feet across his quiet home, hoping the stairs didn't squeak enough for it to be heard over the drip of the water and his off-key rendition of some shitty radio song.
Singing.
Without a care in the world.
While Letha was in the ground.
Because of him.
I wasn't even sure if I was actually breathing by the time I closed in on the door to the bathroom, left open so the steam could escape.
The window, luckily, was closed.
I didn't intend for this to be painless.
Letha never got that luxury.
Why should he?
I wanted him to feel what it was like to be helpless, to be at someone else's mercy. I wanted him to hurt.
Then and only then would I end it.
How?
I didn't exactly decide on that.
I planned for it.
I had knives if I needed them.
I had a bag tucked into my back pocket.
And I had a room full of hard surfaces to bang his head against.
I was worried that if I had limited myself to one killing method, that I wouldn't be prepared if the situation went south and I - say - lost my knife. What if I panicked after that and he got the upper hand, and could take me down?
That was not a situation I wanted to find myself in.
So I prepared, but decided that everything that happened between me and this scumbag would be off the cuff, steeped in the knowledge of all my different training classes, but instinctive.
I slowly closed the door behind me, feeling the humid air make my hair under my cap and wig start to sweat. Gross. Uncomfortable. But the least of my worries right then.
The water cut out.
So did my heartbeat.
Then the shower door slid, a hand moved out for a towel.
It felt like forever, but couldn't have been more than a minute or two later when a foot moved out.
Then a torso.
Then the whole upper body.
I had never met him personally.
I had seen pictures though.
And I got it.
I got what she saw in him.
He was older by a decade, age making him all the more attractive, as it only ever seemed to happen with men. He was six-two with a wide forehead, square jaw, light, piercing blue eyes, and dark blond, short-cropped hair.
And in only a towel, I got to see the deep etches of muscles in his shoulders, chest, arms, and stomach.
He was good-looking.
If he approached Letha and promised her the world, she would have believed him. She did, after all, have a father who gave her as much of it as possible. She had no reason to be distrustful.
Me, I had nothing but reasons.
Maybe I should have seen his evil.
Maybe I would have if I had insisted on meeting him like a normal sister would do, instead of hoarding our time together, wanting it just to be the two of us.
Maybe I could have saved her.
"Who the fuck—"
He didn't get the chance to finish that sentence before I charged, striking out with my utter uselessness, my guilt, my shame in being so selfish, so blind, my grief that all of it led to the loss of a life too young.
"Fuck," he hissed when my fist landed to his cheek, whipping his head around like on a lever. I could practically hear the snap of his neck at the unusual angle. "You fucking bitch!" he roared, hands reaching out, going for my throat.
I had prepared for this.
Every one of my classes taught me how to get away from chokeholds.
I'd seen Youtube videos of twelve-year-old girls getting out of them from adult men.
Arms up.
Hands clasped.
Slam down your elbows with all your force into one arm.
Use that second of surprise to strike the throat.
Run.
That was what you were supposed to do after the throat.
Run.
But I wasn't running.
I was advancing.
Striking.
Taking the blows back.
My cheekbone exploded with pain as his fist collided, the sensation ricocheting until it took over the entire left side of my head.
My lip split when his thumbnail caught it, making my mouth fill with the metallic taste of my own blood.
He stumbled back, trying to get slightly more out of my reach, though his own would still be able to make contact with his longer arms.
It also meant his feet lost contact with the bathmat.
And this idiot didn't dry them off.
The smooth tile of his floor was an unforgiving foe.
He went down hard, arms flailing for something to break his fall, but the room was too wide, the vanity two feet too far to the side to be of any use.
My heartbeat seemed to skitter into overdrive as I watched him go down, knowing this was it.
This was the end.
If he was down.
That was my chance.
If I wanted to take him down, this was my only chance.
I moved toward him, my hand going for my knife.
I could feel it reassuringly in my palm, familiar as my own switchblade, the knife sharp enough to peel back a single layer of skin.
And I wanted that.
Hell, I was wicked, evil enough to want to flay him for what he had done.
Why then couldn't I convince my hand to raise?
Why couldn't I drive the knife into his chest or throat like I had sat awake in bed imagining for months?
This was what my life had been about.
Revenge.
Vengeance.
Righting a wrong.
Bringing justice to someone who would never face it otherwise.
He deserved to die, damnit.
And I wanted him to know why.
I wanted him to know it was for Letha.
As if sensing my dilemma, his lips curled into a sneer.
"She always said you were like a turtle," he told me, and I stiffened both inside and out. My brain recoiled away from the idea that he knew that. He knew she said that about me. "Got that hard shell to cover all the soft insides. Came here to kill me, but can't fucking do it. Cowardice must be a family trait, huh, Lenore?"
"Don't you ever fucking talk about her to me," I demanded, voice shaking.
Losing it.
I was losing it.
I trained for this.
I wanted this more than anything else, save for my sister back.
Why was I freezing?
"What you gonna do? Hit me in the throat again?" he taunted, moving to sit up. "Gonna need more than that, bitch. Yeah, that's what I thought," he said, reaching for his towel, pulling it back over his lap. I hadn't even noticed it came off.
I needed to raise my hand, then stab it down into him.
I needed to reach for the bag and hold it over his head.
I needed to do something.
But I was frozen.
Literally frozen on the spot.
I couldn't even force my legs to make me retreat toward the door, get the hell out of dodge.
"Family trait, huh? Fucking useless bitches. Can't do anything they set their minds to right. Bet you're a dead fucking fish in bed just like—"
He didn't get to finish that sentence.
Because right there, before my eyes, a boot slammed down on the side of his face, pinning it back down to the floor.
I knew that boot.
But I hadn't even seen him come in.
How had he gotten in?
How did he know I was even here?
Why was he here too?
"Right now would be a good fucking time to shut your mouth, frate," he growled. I had heard him say that word before to his friends, but never in that tone.
My eyes drifted up, finding him watching me, a darkness in those eyes I had never seen there before.
This wasn't the Edison, the man who taught me self-defense.
It wasn't the Edison who tried to charm me.
It wasn't the Edison who fucked me silly, and then called me on my bullshit.
And it damn sure wasn't the Edison who washed my hair, forced food into me, held me when I cried.
No.
This was Edison, the biker, the outlaw.
And, if I wasn't mistaken, the killer.
"Henchmen?" he asked, a mix of fearful and snide, a combination I didn't know how to interpret.
"Partly," Edison agreed, but was still watching me. "Knife?" he asked, jerking his chin toward it.
"I can't do it," I admitted, hating the weakness in my tone, hating myself as a whole for fucking up right in the last moment.
I wasn't having second thoughts.
I wanted him dead.
He deserved death.
If there was a hell, he deserved to burn down there for eternity as well.
I wasn't having a crisis of conscience.
I just couldn't do it.
I wanted to.
But I couldn't make my body follow through with my thoughts.
"I can't do it," I repeated, eyes a little pleading, shaking my head.
"But you want to," he clarified.
"He killed my sister."
Edison nodded, moving to stand next to me, allowing his boot to leave his face, reaching with one hand to hold mine, then reaching behind his back for a second.
He came back with a gun.
Silver.
Shiny.
Fucking big.
"Fac asta in numele Letha."
His finger shifted.
The trigger pulled.
The bang seemed to deafen me for a second.
Then the bullet exploded red everywhere.
"Oh my god. Oh my god."
That was me.
But why was that me?
And why did I sound so hysterical?
This was always the plan.
This was always the end for him.
Why then did it feel like I was going to be sick?
"No," Edison said, clamping a hand over my mouth like he could tell my stomach was rolling, sloshing around the meager dinner of bar peanuts and an energy drink I had forced into me, my body not adjusting as well to my normal shift as it should have. "You need to hold it together," he told me, voice calm.
Too calm.
Way too calm.
He had just shot a man.
A man he didn't even know.
A man who hadn't threatened him or his organization.
And he shot him like it was nothing.
How?
How was that possible?
How could the Edison who stroked my back and whispered to me in Romanian do that?
"Breathe in and out through your mouth," he demanded, voice a little detached as he tucked the gun away and looked around. "This is why you didn't report it," he said, making me turn to find him holding up the silver NBPD badge. "Lenny, look at me," he demanded as I kept trying to focus on the mouth-breathing he demanded. "Did any part of you touch any part of this room?"
"No. But his fists and nails touched my face," I told him, gesturing toward my face.
Reflected in the harsh light above the vanity mirror, it wasn't that bad. A little dried blood. A little purple under the skin. Even if it darkened, I could get away with some bullshit excuse like I was half-asleep making coffee, and whipped myself in the face with the cabinet. Plausible, even if I wasn't known for being clumsy. Shit happened when you were tired. Especially if I played up being hungover after drinking away my sorrows in some cheap gin.
Which, well, I might need after what I had just seen.
"Fuck," Edison growled, leaning down, looking at his hands.
"What?"
"Can't do this."
"Can't do what?"
Oh, God.
Was he going to leave me here to deal with this? To scrape fingernails and wash hands and... whatever else needed to happen.
I could do a lot of awful jobs.
I had been forced to clean the men's room more than once at Meryl's.
For which I had demanded hazard pay.
But I had done it.
This?
I didn't think I could do this.
"Yo. Remember what needed to happen with Bethany's little problems?" He was talking into his cell.
I knew the name Bethany.
That was the woman to one of his brothers.
Laz.
The sober one.
Bethany was clean too.
What were Bethany's little problems?
"Yeah. Exactly. 22 Lone Maple. Yeah. Okay."
"What is going on?" I asked, hearing a certain desperation in my voice.
"Me and the guys, we need to handle this," he told me, looking under the cabinets, fishing out cleaning products.
He called his biker brothers in to help him clean up a crime scene?
That seemed to be going a bit above and beyond the line of duty considering this had nothing to do with the club.
His phone rang again, and he picked up while stopping the sink, then half filling it with scalding water, adding just as much bleach. "In through the back. Hug the wall. Up the stairs. Center. Bathroom. Everywhere. Yeah. See you then."
"What was that?" I heard myself ask, feeling useless on top of everything else. This was my mess. Even if I didn't pull the trigger. No one else should be cleaning it up.
But before he could answer - if he was planning to at all - I heard the boots. Just a few seconds later, I saw the men they belonged to.
Pagan.
And Lazarus.
Neither of them even blinked at the dead man on the floor.
The dead cop on the floor.
"Bring it?" Edison asked, turning to look at his brothers.
Pagan nodded, holding up two bags I had missed since I was watching their faces so closely to see their reactions to my mess.
"Laz, Lenny. Pagan, me."
Those were Edison's orders.
And not a second later, they were obeyed.
"Come on," Laz encouraged, taking me by the bicep, grip a little firm, but then again, I was unable to make myself move without assistance.
"No. Wait. Edis..."
"Later, Lenny," Edison called, slipping on the gloves that had come in a box in one of the bags.
The other bag was given to Laz as he led me out of the bathroom where I could finally breathe through my nose without smelling the metallic odor of blood that filled the bathroom.
"Where are we going?"
"We're getting out of here and into the woods," he explained, meaning the small patch of trees toward the back of the property that maybe, possibly could be called 'woods' if the person was raised in the city or something.
Then, well, we walked into the treeline where he pushed me into the shadows, following, but keeping a respectful distance.
"Everything on you from the clothes to the wig need to go in this bag," he explained, emptying it out. In his hand, he had a tee, some men's pajama pants, and a pair of socks. "I'm turning," he explained as he did so. "Be quick."
Not really having a place to question him seeing as he seemed to be trying to help me cover up a murder that I had planned, I whipped off the wig and my clothes, slipping into the ones supplied with a hard shiver against the cool air.
"Okay," I said, tucking it all inside the bag carefully, reaching down to slide the socks on my cold feet.
"Alright," he said, taking the bag, tying it. "Let's go."
"Where?" I asked even as his hand took my arm again, leading me back the way I had originally come, down the street, then two blocks over to my car.
"You are going to get in your car, drive to the compound, go into Edison's room, discard these clothes, throw them into the hall. Then you are going to walk into the shower, and wash until every part of you squeaks."
Okay.
I could see the logic here.
"What then?"
"Then you find something of Edison's to wear. You go get yourself a drink, some Advil, and an icepack. Then climb into his bed, ice your face, and go to sleep."
"But..."
"Don't worry about all the other details. Just do what I say, Lenny. Do it exactly that way, and nothing will ever come of this, okay?"
There was earnest determination in his voice, something in it telling me to trust him.
And, really, what other choice did I have?
"Okay," I agreed, reaching under my car to fish out my keys where I stashed them.
"They will let you in. I'm calling now."
With that, he was moving back a few feet, watching, waiting for me to turn over and pull away. I could see him in my rearview making a call before he finally turned away to go back toward the house.
The gate was open when I drove up, one of the members I didn't know closing it up after I drove in.
Inside the front door, I was greeted by Reign who was leaning back against the bar, brow raised.
He shook his head at me. "Knew you had trouble written all over you." I stiffened at that, not wanting the president of a biker club to think I was a burden he didn't want his club to bear. But then he pushed off the bar, moved over toward me to snag my chin, turning my head to check out the bruise on my cheek. "This all he got in?"
"Yes."
His smile was approving then. "Good for you. Go and follow whatever instructions they gave you. I'll have Cash bring you a drink and icepack."
With that, things went exactly as they all said it would.
I discarded the clothes, walking across Edison's bedroom naked, then climbing under the water until my skin was reddened and overly sensitive from the heat and the scrubbing. I dried off, got into one of Edison's shirts since his pants wouldn't fit me, and made my way to the door.
The clothes were gone.
And Cash was there with a bottle of gin, a bottle of aspirin, and an icepack.
"You take care of you, honey. Edison will take care of the rest. Then he will come back. I figure you got some questions now."
Boy did I ever.
But I did as I was told.
Downed the Advil with a healthy gulp of gin.
I got under the covers, and put the icepack on my face.
I tried to sleep over and over as the hours passed, failing every time.
Just when I was genuinely feeling sick with worry, the door finally creaked open, and in walked Edison.
His boots were left outside.
And standing in the doorway, he stripped completely bare like I had done, tossing out his clothes, then moving to the bathroom.
I said nothing, knowing he needed to finalize his ritual, had to get clean, had to get rid of the evidence.
He came back to the bedroom, sliding into pajama pants, then moving toward the bed.
"Okay," he said, exhaling.
Okay?
Okay what?
"Okay?"
"It's handled. It's done. Don't worry about it. Life goes back to normal tomorrow. Work. Home. The status quo."
"Okay..."
"Ask," he told me when I didn't say anything else.
His head turned, eyes pinning me, like he knew all the questions rolling around in my head.
I couldn't think of just one thing, just one question that could cover it all.
So, dumbly, all I could seem to manage was, "Who are you?"