THE COMPULSION GROWING inside me that I tried to keep silent was becoming hard to shut down. I almost killed the three of us, because I couldn’t live in a world without Nikki in it. Having a family put a different spin on everything.
I tried to tell myself I could control myself around her, show her just enough to keep her near, but not too much to make her recoil from me. I thought if I could become the Eric she fell in love with—no—the Ethan she fell in love with, things would be what they were between us.
The need is like a gaping hole inside me, eroding from the inside out, reminding me of her lies. It was extremely hard not to say fuck it and punish her “my” way. There were two things holding me back: hope and our future. The change would have to wait, because right now, I had to do something to keep myself in check, or else I would’ve given her a real reason to hate me.
I nodded to Charlie, culling his need to subdue me permanently like he promised. I slid my phone from my back pocket and looked at Nikki. “Are you ready to act again?” I asked, reminding her of the time she found the bug in the lamp. “I need you to scream for me.”
She looked lost for a moment but eventually understood and nodded at me.
Vic answered the phone on the first ring.
“You were right about everything.” I looked at Nik, nodded, and put my hand over her mouth. On cue, she began to scream. “Nikki is fucking with my nature. I’ve solved that problem, and I’m ready. We need to get rid of a few issues and I know how.”
“There’s my boy.” He stopped short. “Is that Nikki I hear screaming in the background?”
“Don’t worry about her,” I assured him, “she’s handled and no longer a deterrent to me working for you.”
“Not good enough, boy.”
“What do you want me to say, Vic? She’s not a problem anymore. I told you her death would be slow. Let me have that.”
“Seems you’ve finally listened to me about how to deal with women.” He seemed to calm, indicating he would let it go for now.
“So what if I had? She’s a danger because of what she knows about you and me. I need the resources to make sure I can keep her the way I want her. Are you ready?”
“I heard what you said, but I thought you’d see the grand picture and end her, boy.”
“She’s more entertaining alive. Move on, Vic.”
“You sure you’re ready for this?”
“I was made for it.” I hit end call and palmed my hair back from my forehead, trying to pull myself together. I glanced at Charlie. “Can you give me the common courtesy of letting me talk to my wife alone?”
Pete held up a gun to my head and pulled Nikki’s arm, moving her away from me. “Sorry, can’t do that.”
I gritted my teeth, because him touching her…it took every iota of self-control I had to not punch him in his face.
Ignoring him, I held her head and whispered something only she could here. “We need to talk about us, and we will. Soon.”
She was yanked away before I could kiss her and remind her of what she tried to pretend she didn’t feel.
I bit my lip so hard I can taste the metallic flavor of my blood. I watched fucking helplessly as Charlie guided her into the car.
I stood there for a few minutes after they drove away, feeling like a chump.
How the fuck didn’t I know or feel it? I touched her and I didn’t even fucking think. Goddamn, I was so stuck on anger, I was blind to the things I should’ve noticed. Victor fucked me up. She fucked me up.
I had to be with her now more than ever. I was like an alcoholic facing withdrawal, needing an ethanol intravenous drip.
I waited at Vic’s place to keep up appearances, but I couldn’t sleep. I walked the halls for hours. I played the nosy bit until I saw one more reason to hate the house.
I visited Vic’s place in Dallas several months after I got there, and shortly after the visit, my so-called great family stopped being so great. They weren’t assholes to me at first. Sure, Eamon’s wife was standoffish and Thaddeus ribbed on me every chance he had, but they were nowhere near an insufferable level until I saw something I shouldn’t have.
The door to the steel room was open, and I remembered standing there, watching Vic torture some woman tied to the ceiling with a burlap sack over her head. I remembered the bite marks, the blood on her thighs and cuts so deep, the layers of skin and muscles were ripped away and exposed the bone.
I questioned Eamon about it, and it was the first time he beat the shit out of me. It became the end of the family being anything close to the slightest degree of nice to me.