The little girl relaxed, her nerves easing. She didn’t know if she’d ever love him, honestly, but maybe, if her mother loved him and he found his heart, it could happen.
Everyone around them laughed and joked, growing louder as time wore on. The little girl watched them.
The Tin Man grabbed a bottle of that clear stuff, pouring some into his glass.
“What’s that?” she asked.
He held out the bottle, bumping her arm. “Try it.”
She just stared.
“Aw, my kitten is a scaredy-cat?”
People around them laughed, that ugly laugh, the mean one she didn’t like. Her face turned red as she took the bottle and put it to her lips. The second it touched her tongue, she gagged, her mouth on fire. It burned. Coughing, she couldn’t catch her breath, swallowing a mouthful before she dropped the bottle, spilling it all over herself. The Tin Man caught it, laughing, as he slapped her on the back.
“Breathe,” he said, slipping out of the chair, shifting her onto it alone. “Vodka is not for the weak.”
“You’re so cruel,” the brown-haired woman said, still sitting on the floor. “She’s just a little girl. She shouldn’t even be here.”
“She is my little girl. I say where she should be. Besides, what do you know about being a parent?”
“Probably more than you ever will,” the woman mumbled. “Poor girl.”
The moment those words were out of her mouth, something snapped. The Tin Man grabbed the woman, fisting her long locks, and yanked her away from the chair, her shriek loud.
The little girl tensed, tears in her eyes, as the Tin Man slammed the woman’s head into the table in front of them, over and over, white powder flying like dust all around, coating her face, as blood poured from her nose and her mouth. She choked on it, begging, but he didn’t stop.
BAM.
BAM.
BAM.
The woman went limp as he continued to grip her by the hair, raising her face up to look at her, whispering, “poor girl,” before dropping her to the floor in front of the chair.
Everyone around them watched, the other women disturbed, but the men acted like it was normal. The little girl shook and sobbed, wetting her nightgown as she clutched Buster to her chest, staring down at the floor.
The woman’s eyes were closed, as if she was sleeping, just like the little girl’s mother had been.
She’d wake up, wouldn’t she?
The Tin Man turned to her. His eyes were still black. He tipped back the bottle of vodka, taking a drink straight from it, before he pointed it at her. “Go back to your room, kitten. Be a good girl for Papa. Clean yourself up.”
The little girl stood, running from the room, going up the stairs as fast as she could.
Chapter Seventeen
I know what it’s like to be a teenage mother.
Okay, fuck, hear me out before you string me up.
I was only eighteen years old when I took custody of my little brother. He was two at the time, still in diapers. He doesn’t remember the before, doesn’t remember life with our mother, his father, but I remember every harrowing second of it.
I especially remember the sickening relief I felt when I watched them both bleed out...
At eighteen, I didn’t know shit. My mind had been warped, my face fucked up, and I might’ve given up on life if it weren’t for him needing somebody. I was all he had left in the world, and I vowed I’d make it right. I potty-trained him, sent him off to school, and helped him with his homework. I was there when he started kindergarten, and I was still there the day he graduated from high school. I taught him manners, gave him medicine, and made him eat his vegetables. I made the boy a man... the man I wasn’t. The one I’d never be.
So while I don’t really know what it’s like being a teenage mother, calling me his father isn’t enough, because you’d be hard pressed to find another ‘father’ who did as much as I did for that little fucker. I poured what was left of my soul into him.
“Don’t start with me,” I say as soon as I step into the living room, coming face-to-face with Leo, who is sitting on the couch. The duct tape patch is beside his head, blatantly obvious. I know he saw it. He’s smart, that kid. He can riddle out what happened while he was in bed, and I know he’s going to give me shit about it. “I’m not in the mood.”
“When are you ever in the mood?” he asks.
“Every other Friday and twice on Saturday.”
“It’s Saturday,” he points out.
“Yeah, well, try again later,” I say. “I’m not in the mood right now.”
He laughs, glancing at the duct tape. The son of a bitch never listens. “So I hear you put a hole in the couch.”
“Respect your elders,” I say. “Didn’t someone teach you that?”
“I vaguely remember my brother saying it,” he says, “but I mostly remember him telling me never to bow down to anybody.”
“Except for me.”
“I don’t remember any exceptions.”
“Your memory’s shit.”
“So is yours,” he says, “in case you’ve forgotten.”
He’s being a smartass, intentionally pressing my buttons. He’s the man I’m not, yeah, but there’s still so much of me in him.
It’s infuriating.
“I’ll get a new couch,” I tell him.
He sighs. “That’s not the point.”
The point being that I murdered a man right here in our living room. I told him I’d keep that part of my life as far away from him as possible. I didn’t promise, because I don’t make promises, but I said I’d make a conscious effort, and I have.
I used a suppressor, didn’t I?
I had it all cleaned up before morning came.
“I’ll get a new couch,” I say again. “I’ll patch the hole in the wall, too.”
“There’s a hole in the wall?”
“Yes,” I say. “It doesn’t count, though, because it’s the same hole. Sort of a through-and-through.”
He scrubs his hands over his face as he stands up. A stomping clinking noise echoes down the hallway, coming our direction. Melody, I’m guessing. She explodes her way into the room, kaboom, skidding to a stop when she spots me. “Whoa, Lorenzo. You, uh, I… whoa.”
She blushes.
“I’ve got clothes on, don’t worry,” I say, looking down at myself—black pants, black boots, white shirt, black coat. Exciting, I know. “I only rock out with my cock out when it’s dark out.”
“Well, that’s nice to know,” she says with a laugh, strutting over to my brother. I watch her, my gaze settling on her feet.
Red heels, damn familiar, because I’ve stared at them for a while on my dresser. “Are they Scarlet’s shoes?”
“Who?”
“Morgan,” Leo tells her. “He calls her Scarlet.”
“Oh, yeah!” Melody kicks her leg out, admiring the shoe on her foot. “Aren’t they gorgeous? She gave them to me before she left, said she never really wanted them, which is crazy. I mean, who wouldn’t want a pair of…”
Blah. Blah. Blah.
She just keeps on talking, telling me shit I don’t care about, answering questions I never asked.
“Well, then,” I say loudly, interrupting. “This has been fun, but I have business to attend to.”
I walk out. She’s still talking.
Maybe Leo’s listening, I don’t know.
Seven stands in front of the house, hanging out on the porch, quietly waiting for me to surface. I nod to him when I step out, wordlessly greeting him as I relinquish my car keys.
Being as I’m blind on the right side, I’m lacking in the depth perception department. I can legally drive, of course—not that legality matters—but I choose not to, unless I have to, because I’m likely to run somebody over. Human lives don’t exactly leave me feeling sentimental, but speeding cars are kind of like stray bullets in the sense that when your aim sucks, you might kill yourself by accident, and my aim is the worst.
Hence the hole in the couch.