Chapter
34

“When Yolanda died, how did you feel?”

Why the fuck did shrinks ask shit like that? “How the fuck do you think I felt?”

“It’s not about what I think, Caesar. There are more facets to emotions than answers like ‘it hurt.’ How you responded to that hurt matters.”

I squinted over at Dr. H and wondered if I should just put a bullet it him or his wife, my therapist. That word sounded unreal, even in my head. But something was fucking wrong with me, and because of Ash, I wanted to get it out. I sighed. Dr. H had been smart enough, at least, to make sure his wife knew the ropes. They talked to anyone, and there wasn’t anywhere in the world I wouldn’t find them. But then, I wouldn’t be telling her any details except for what was public knowledge. The shrink could ask about anything from my prison term and before, that was it.

“How did I feel? Fucking angry. So angry. And I wanted to rip my heart out of my chest.”

She nodded. There were no recorders, pens, or papers allowed during our sessions. She worked with me verbally only, or not at all. I couldn’t risk anything being on paper. The Mrs. Dr. H was a beautiful woman. Her dark eyes were deep and measuring, and she’d pinned her wealth of dark hair into a tight bun. The white pantsuit she wore contrasted with her tanned skin and the small, red dot in the center of her forehead.

But she wasn’t Ash.

She sat on the sofa next to where I lay on the chaise, fucking cliché, and I wanted to erase her. No other woman should be in my home, learning my secrets, being close to me. But Ash was gone. I’d let her go, and she would never come back. I sighed and rubbed my tired eyes.

“Go to the anger. Why were you angry?”

I bit my tongue to stop from lashing out. What the fuck did she think I was angry for?

“Because she was murdered. That bastard killed her, took her away from me, and I was helpless.”

“Were you angry with Yolanda?”

“No,” I said, but it didn’t ring true. Not in the silence that rang after my outburst. She didn’t say anything else, and I knew she knew it was a lie.

Had I been angry at Yolanda?

It wasn’t her fault she’d been murdered. I knew that rationally, but now that the doc had posed the question, I couldn’t ignore it. Maybe I had been angry, twisted up and pissed the entire time because she’d gone off with some guy. She’d left Mom and me behind, faded from our life. She’d kept secrets from us both, about the man she’d been seeing and the child she tried to use as blackmail to get money. She never told me about any of it, and we’d been best friends.

“She didn’t tell me about him, you know? We shared everything. I knew about the stupid football team guy she slept with the first time. I wiped her tears when he broke her heart and started screwing half the cheerleading squad,” I explained.

“The fact she kept secrets angered you?”

“Yeah. We didn’t have secrets, and this was more than just a one-time thing. She was sneaking out for this guy and got money from him. I found out, years later while I was in prison, that she’d paid for her car and those new clothes with his money. The ‘job’ we all thought she had was him. Then she got pregnant by him, and that day she was waiting to see him.”

“That day?”

“The last time I saw her. She was waiting outside for him and purposely messed up the game we were playing so I’d get mad. She was trying to rush me off so she could stay outside and I wouldn’t see anything. I went inside, expecting for her to come in after a few minutes. That’s all it took. Five fucking minutes and my sister was gone.”

I balled up my fists, the same old anger coursing through me. The rage that I’d done nothing but sit inside at my fucking desk playing video games while my sister was dying.

“And I was pissed at myself,” I said before she could ask. “I didn’t even notice the time that had passed. I got so caught up in what I was playing, the new mech-warrior modification had come out and I’d been waiting to try it. By the time I looked up, my mom was at the door with the police because my sister was missing.”

“So you were angry at her, her killer, and yourself. But the killer is the only one you acted out your rage on?”

No. Countless others. That prick just started it all. He was the valve that opened the door. And the ones who came after him? Pale imitations of what I couldn’t do to him anymore, but that wasn’t her business.

“Yeah, he was the only one.”

“You’ve never hurt women?”

I looked over at her. “Why do you ask?”

“Killing anyone takes a toll. I think you’ve been punishing yourself and the man who killed your sister. From that, I’d assume you may want to hurt your sister.”

“She’s dead. I obviously can’t hurt her,” I scoffed.

“There are replacements. The mind does these things.”

I didn’t look at her. Sort of like that moment when I got called down to the principal’s office as a kid. My stomach dropped, and I knew I’d have to tread carefully or shit was going to go downhill. I sat up slowly on the chaise and looked out onto Miami. It unfurled as far as I could see. My city, my stronghold. But what I wanted to see wasn’t there. Not what, but who. She was alive, I knew that. Franco kept tabs, and I’d been alerted she’d accessed the account. No money had been withdrawn, but at least I knew she’d looked at it.

She understood now, I hoped, what I tried to give to her. I couldn’t erase the fucked-up shit that happened to us, and—to be honest—I didn’t want to. Erasing that shit would mean our time together would be gone, too. Selfish bastard that I was, I didn’t want that. I wanted her to feel me, deep inside her, where she couldn’t remove me. I wanted her to lie in that bed and feel cold because she didn’t have my heat next to her. I wanted her to fucking miss me as much as I missed her. I hung my head. That didn’t sound like I wanted her to be happy without me, but she didn’t have to know what I thought.

The doctor cleared her throat, a sign I still hadn’t answered her, and my gaze traveled toward her. What answer could I give her? Yes, I’d been fucking women up for years, breaking their bones and splitting their skin to watch them bleed. I’d taken their bodies any way I’d seen fit, and somewhere, in the back of my head, I’d asked them those dark questions I never said out loud.

Did you let him do this to you, Yolanda? Did you like it? Did you crave his fucking shit even when he killed you?

I never got the answers to those questions, and I felt sick to my stomach that I’d even thought them. But they were too tantalizing to ignore, and I’d asked them again and again, even with Ash.

“She made the need fade,” I said aloud.

“Who?”

“The one who got away. Never thought I’d be saying shit like that.”

“Did you want to hurt her?”

“Yeah, and she wanted me to hurt her.”

“So it was consensual.”

Fuck no.

“For us,” I hedged.

“Then why is she gone?”

“Because I let her go, and the shit we did …” I shook my head. “It just couldn’t last.”

My need to control her, my desire to cause her pain, wouldn’t go away. No matter how much I talked to my therapist, I knew that. It was too engrained, and once I’d tasted the sweetness of her tears, I wanted to again. We were broken people, and they’d try to fix what couldn’t be fixed. I sighed.

“Do you still want to hurt her?”

Fucking shrinks, man. All they wanted to talk about were feelings. They asked questions that delved into my insides, just so they could see the meaty shit I tried to hide. They weren’t much better than people like me.

I wondered if they knew they had God complexes? What else could it be, the need to know a person’s deepest secrets, to expose them to the light, and then be the one to help them? She wanted to fix me, and it wouldn’t happen.

“This was a mistake,” I blurted as I stood up.

“Why?”

So fucking calm. I hated her calm voice and relaxed pose. I paced, a caged animal needing to get out, to get away. “Because I can’t be fucking put back together. My sister’s death twisted me, I already know that. Killing the man who took her from me opened a darkness inside I can’t push back. I opened fucking Pandora’s box, and I get it. Talking to you may make me understand all that, but it doesn’t stop any of it, does it?”

“You have me confused, Caesar. I don’t want to fix you. You have to fix yourself. What I can give you are the tools to get better, if you want. But I don’t think you want to.”

I swung around and faced her, my fists clenched. “The fuck you say?”

“You don’t want to change, Caesar. I may not know it all, and you’ll never tell me. I am not stupid. I know what you’ve done in your life is beyond what you went to jail for, and my husband disappearing for days at a time for your care isn’t normal. I have a feeling I’m protecting my life by not knowing everything you’ve done. But I don’t assume I can truly help you.”

“If you’re so damn smart, tell me, what do I want?”

“You want to go after the girl, Caesar. You want to go get her, show her that you tried to change, but you can’t. You want to drag her home, kicking and screaming, and go back to your world.”

I hated shrinks. Whatever magic they learned in school to pick minds apart made me itch. Yes, I wanted to drag Ash home and make her stay. Fuck yeah, I wanted to bury my cock so deep inside her she’d taste my cum. Fuck, maybe the doc was right. I didn’t want to change as much as I wanted to be shown that I couldn’t change, and then it didn’t matter anymore. Or this was all a bunch of fucking bullshit, and what was really wrong with me was I missed Ash. Pure and simple.

“Do you think it’s possible?”

“Do I think what is possible?” she asked.

“That I can find a medium, if I can’t get better?”

“You already have, haven’t you? Would Caesar from a year ago be talking to me? Could you have let her go?”

I shook my head.

“Then the medium may just be on the inside of consent between you,” she finished, and stood.

“Are we done?”

“For now. Call me back when you’ve gotten the girl, and then we can counsel together. I think what you need, more than anything, is to know how to act in a new situation.”

I didn’t say anything as she walked out of the room. There wasn’t anything left to talk about. But soon after she left, Franco came in.

“You want me to keep an eye on her?” he asked.

“No. She doesn’t know anything she could use against me. And her husband knows the ropes.”

Franco nodded and sat down on my couch with a sigh. “She hasn’t left the condo yet.”

I didn’t have to ask him who he was talking about. I made sure he kept an eye on Ash, to keep her safe. She’d been tied to me, and I had enemies who might want to get at me through her, even with the way Lorcan had died out there as a message.

“She will. It takes time to get used to not living in captivity,” I said.

I knew all about that. For the first few months after getting out of prison, I woke up early, stopped at the entrance of doors, waiting for permission, and shoveled my food in my mouth. I didn’t like anyone behind me, and the slightest insult was met with brute force. Another year passed before I trusted myself driving. Eventually, she would find her feet, and then she’d spread her wings. I just had to give her time.

Time I knew would kill me to give.