Chapter 21 I thought I was losing weight, but it turns out my sweatpants came untied. -Creole to Audric AUDRIC My phone rang for a fourth time, and I stopped my mother's therapist and said, "I need a minute." My mother's therapist, a sour-faced woman that looked like she chewed on nails for breakfast, sneered. "We're in the middle of something." "Yes, I know," I said. "But my phone has rang four times, and it's someone important. I need to call them back." "Five minutes," Beatrice snarled. I ignored her and walked out of the room, my gaze going to the retreating back of a man who looked vaguely familiar. I dismissed him and called Apollo back. "Fuck, man. I was about to patch into the damn intercom system there," Apollo grumbled. "Your therapist isn't a therapist." I frowned. "What?" "She's Dr. Stoker's sister. She's just there to get more information on you," he said. "They got to your mom because the state said she needed to see someone to qualify for a state-funded program. Somehow that damn doctor finagled his way into your mom's care. She's pretending to be him." I sighed. "Great." "But that's not really why I called. You're not talking so I know that you don't have anything he can really learn from this. What I called about was that I found that motherfucker, Jordie Goodwin." I paused. "Really?" "Really," he said. "And he's in WITSEC. Got hooked up with a few Russian crime guys there in Dallas. Said he'd inform on, you'll never guess who." I didn't have to guess. I knew who the Russian Pakhan was. He was sort of family at this point. "Does Shasha Semyonov know that he has someone informing on him?" I asked. "Not yet. He's my next call," he said. "Dima was my first." Dima was the hitman of the Semyonov family, and married to Copper, Cutter and Chevy's sister, Keely. He was a highly trained individual who had skills that I couldn't even begin to imagine. Having him on my side in this... "I'll call him next," I said. "Anything else?" "No." He paused. "Want me to get rid of this psychologist for you?" "How?" I asked. "I have skills you can't even begin to imagine. And what's the point of being in office if I can't milk my position?" I snorted. "How long you planning on being in that position?" His voice got dark. "Until I dig out the parasite that thought it would be good to help hold my son hostage for so long." "Let me know if I can help," I murmured. He made a sound in his throat. "I'm close, man. I'm close." "I'm here," I repeated. "Anytime." "Thanks," he said softly. "Your boy's standing around the corner listening now. While you talk to him, I'm going to ruin his life. But only after I make that call to Shasha." I snorted. "Have fun, Apollo." He hung up, and I shoved my phone back into my pocket before I headed back into the room with my mother, ignoring the dumbass around the corner that thought he was so slick. I didn't look at her as I sat down and stared directly at Beatrice. "What's your credentials again?" Beatrice frowned. "What do you mean?" "I mean, what are your credentials. What type of schooling do you have?" I pushed. Beatrice went white. I stood up and turned to look at my mom, trying not to stare at the gaping hole where her mouth had once been. "I'm not sure who recommended these douchebags to you, but they're bullshit. This one isn't even a therapist. Find someone else. Don't ask me to come next time, though. There's only so much of your poor, pitiful life I can stand thinking about. You have a mental health disorder. You need to take medications. It's time to stop denying that and fix your life. Or what's left of it." My mother made a sound in her throat that had me hesitating, but only because I remembered that same sound coming out of her throat the day I'd walked out of the door with my dad and told her I wasn't moving back. The next day was the day that I'd found her with half her face missing. I stopped, turned, and said, "Don't try to do what you did again. Next time, I won't be here to save you." With that parting comment, I headed out and didn't stop to look back. I was unsurprised to find the hallway empty. I did, however, stop at the front office and lodged a complaint about the good Dr. Stoker and his trusty sidekick sister. Only after hearing that they would be doing something about it did I leave. The first person I called was, of course, the woman I couldn't stop thinking about. She answered with a breathy, "Hello?" "What are you doing?" I asked curiously. She cleared her throat and said, "It's a surprise." I smiled, which felt foreign on my face after dealing with my mom over the last hour. "I have to stop by somewhere before I come home. Do you want me to grab dinner?" She hesitated. "What kind of dinner?" The grin once again lit my face. "The kind that you tell me what you want, and I stop and get it, because I know that you're a picky little shit." She sighed. "I've gotten better." "By better, you mean that you will now eat onions?" I teased. She gagged. "No!" "Oh, maybe pickles then?" I kept going. There was a long, silent pause before she said, "Only sadists like pickles." I huffed out a laugh as I said, "Sure, baby. Now, tell me what you want, or I'll just assume that it's pizza again." "If you go to Canes, I want chicken fingers and french fries. No gross slaw. And a sweet tea. If you go to the Mexican place around the corner, I want cheese enchiladas with queso on top. Rice and beans. Hold the carrots." She continued to name off the places that she would eat, ending with, "Or, if you go Chinese, I want sweet and sour chicken. White rice." I was smiling huge by the time I hung up with her. That smile died off my face when I pulled up to Shasha's place off the lake, and was allowed in immediately. His wife met me at the door with a kid on her hip before saying, "Are you the reason my husband's throwing a fit?" "Not me specifically," I admitted. "But I'm the reason he found out." She jerked her head toward her husband's office, which was wide open with Apollo and Dima standing inside of it. "'Bout time you got here," Shasha growled. "I want to know what we're going to do with this douchebag." "We're not doing anything," Dima interjected. "I'm doing something." "Actually, none of y'all are doing anything, because that guy's locked up tighter than a virgin's legs whose daddy is a preacher," Apollo said. "Now, I have connections, and I'm going to use them. It's y'all's job to get the pickup when I get him delivered to you." "When?" I asked. "Tonight," he said. "After one, preferably. I have a few things I'm working on, and I want to make sure that this won't blow back on me." I growled. "And if we take him out of the picture? Will they look toward you?" "No," he answered. "Because, officially, I'm nowhere near this state. I'm actually in DC right now voting on a bill that covers GLP1 medications." I shook my head. "And how, exactly, are you planning on getting back there in time to vote on something like that?" "You let me worry about that," he said. "I got connections, and skills." I sighed as I watched him leave without a word. When I looked back at Shasha, it was to see his eyes intense on me. "How about you let me worry about this?" I was already shaking my head. "You don't know what he did." Shasha sighed and leaned back in his leather chair. "Enlighten me." I did, telling him everything. By the time I was done, Dima said, "Neither one of you get to worry about this one. I will. And I'll make it hurt." I looked at him before shaking my head. "I'm going to talk to Creole. I'll let her decide." "That's her right," Dima agreed. "But for what it's worth, you are too angry to make it last long enough to really hammer the point home. I'm fully in control, and I can make him suffer for days, weeks, months if I want to." The thought did have a certain appeal... "I'll get back to you tonight." "I want to go," she said, eyes blazing. "I want to go, and I want to do it tonight." I was already shaking my head. "I gave your dad the good news, too. Apparently, we're going to have a full car." I got the message an hour ago from Apollo. Dima had told me that he was doing the pickup. And now I was trying to talk Creole out of going. It wasn't that I didn't' think she could handle it. I knew she could. I just didn't want her to dredge anything up and make it worse for herself. But, like always, I'd completely miscalculated. My girl may be a sweet little thing to me, but she was a vicious little thing who deserved justice. If she wanted to see this through, who was I to tell her that she couldn't? "Fine," I said. "Let's go." When we got to Creole's dad's place, he was waiting out by the curb. He smiled at his baby girl behind him as he got in and said, "This is like the best day ever!" Creole smiled sadly. "Did you bring the picture I asked you to?" "I did," he said. "What did you want it for?" "You'll see," she said. When we walked into the safe house in the woods two hours outside of town, it was to find Dima setting up shop in the front room, with Goodwin tied to a chair over a thick sheet of plastic. He was staring on with horror. That horror turned to outright terror when he saw me walk through the door. "Ahh, I see you remember me," I murmured quietly. I could feel Creole close to my back as she peeked at him around my arm. But Creole's dad pushed all of us to the side as he barged into the room, took two fast steps, and punched Goodwin so hard in the face that he fell backward. His arms, which had been tied to the chair behind him, took the brunt of the fall, causing him to howl in pain. "Fuuuuck!" he cried out, tears now streaming down his face. "Oh, whoops," Dima said as he helped sit Goodwin upright again. "Let me set your target back up for you, good sir." Week smiled. "Thank you." He went for another hit, though this time it was to the solar plexus. The breath wheezed out of Goodwin. Creole came out from behind my back, and she had her picture frame tucked close to her chest. She took a deep breath, then walked up to where Goodwin was openly bleeding from a cut above his lip. Goodwin's eyes narrowed. "I'm sure that you don't have any clue," she said softly. "How badly you hurt me." Goodwin wisely chose to say nothing. "But more than hurting me, you ended up hurting my baby." I waited, wanting to reach for her, but forcing myself to stay still. "You ignored the call," she whispered. "I called. I begged your parents. Anger tightened my fists as I stared at him in horror. How could he... "You laughed," she whispered. "You laughed and said 'what would you want to do with a kid from a whore like me.'" She leaned in, but didn't get any closer, almost as if her stomach hurt and she couldn't stand straight anymore. "You said, 'let him die. He's probably an abomination that shouldn't have been here anyway.'" She started to cry then. "You were right. He shouldn't have been here. Because you shouldn't have raped me." Creole's dad made a noise in his throat like a wounded bear. "The worst feeling in the world is knowing that you can't take care of your child," she whispered. "But I think, maybe, we should let you live. But take away your ability to father children." With that, she threw the picture frame down on the floor, and the glass shattered. She looked at the table of instruments that were in front of her, and she picked up gloves that she quickly fit onto her hands. They were three sizes too big, but that didn't seem to bother her as she grabbed the largest piece of glass out of the shattered picture frame and said, "Can someone help rid him of his pants?" Dima happily did that, cutting the expensive-looking pants off of him at the seams with a K-Bar knife he pulled off the table. Then, with very little preamble, she yanked the glass across Goodwin's dick. It came away bleeding. Everyone stood and watched in horror as she rid him of the weapon he'd used to hurt her all those years ago. "I guess I don't have anything else to offer," Week said as he stood beside me and watched as the man went into shock. I was in shock, and that wasn't even happening to me. Yet, I stood where I was and allowed it to happen anyway. But really, it wasn't because of the horror of watching a man get his dick cut off with a shard of glass. It was because my sweet, innocent little Creole looked so goddamn sexy doing it. I shouldn't be turned on by that...but I was. "She needed this," I said as I watched her throw his member to the floor and make an attempt to stomp on it. "Whoa." Dima halted her. "I'm gonna need you to not do that. I don't want to have to get rid of anything else I don't need to. Your shoes have your DNA on them. Wouldn't want you connected to this scene." Agreed. I pulled her to me and said, "Let's let Dima finish this up. We're not needed here anymore." She let me pull her back, but she did level him with one final parting shot. "I hope Dima makes you wish for death. I hope that you beg. Scream. Cry. I hope that you pray to God, and when he doesn't answer your calls, because you're a disgusting human being, I hope you rot in hell. I hope no one takes mercy on you, whomever might be dealing out your punishment for the next however long. And last, I want you to think about how I called you. Begged and pleaded with you. And you told me to fuck off." All Goodwin could do was cry. Squeezing her waist, I said, "Come on, baby. Let's go home." "Dad," Creole said stiffly. "Are you coming?" Week shook his head. "Not right now. I'll find a way home." I left him to it, pulling Creole with me to the truck. I deposited her into the front seat, then buckled her in before catching her face with the palm of my hand and turning it to face me. "I didn't know," I said softly. "I'm sorry." She smiled sadly. "I didn't want you to know. It's h-hard to talk about." The way her breath hitched had my stomach sinking all over again. "I'd have given him anything he needed if I was a match," I whispered. "I hate that I wasn't." "Not more than me, Audi. Not more than me."