Shoving Deuce towards the door, Pipe clenches his jaw and turns back to me.
“She’s nothing, Black,” he reiterates. “Remember that.”
I don’t respond. I don’t even nod my head. Instead, I close my eyes and wait for them to leave. When I hear the rumble of their bikes sound, I open my eyes and stare at the wall. The girls muffled cries fill my ears and I clench my fists.
Pipe couldn’t be more wrong.
That girl is somebody.
She’s somebody’s daughter.
Somebody’s sister.
Somebody’s love.
For Christ’s sake, she could be somebody’s mother.
Shaking the possibility from my head, I rise from the couch and walk into the kitchen. Grabbing a glass from the cabinet, I slide it under the tap and fill it with water. My phone rings and I set the glass down on the counter before reaching inside my kutte to retrieve it. I stare at Billy’s name on the screen and decline the call.
Breathe.
Just fucking breathe.
Pocketing the phone, I take the glass and dump the water in the sink. Eying the bottle of scotch on the counter, I move to the refrigerator and fill my glass with ice.
The phone rings again.
The girl continues to cry.
And me?
I reach for the bottle. Filling my glass, I give myself a pass. It’s just one drink. It's not like I’m shooting heroin or snorting blow.
Just one drink.
Something to take the edge off.
To dull the sound of that innocent girls cries.
The first swig goes down easy and before I realize it, one drink turns to two.
I forget to breathe.
My head goes under and I drown.
I just fucking drown.
Chapter Five
Lacey
Pausing in front of my father’s house, I turn and stare at the street. Instantly, my mind wanders back to that fateful day when I was five years old. I remember the horror I felt as I stood paralyzed and watched my baby brother get struck by the car that took his precious life. It doesn’t matter how many years go by, the image of Junior’s lifeless body is forever ingrained to my memory and every time I visit my dad, I feel the guilt of being his surviving child. Every time I ring that bell and he opens the door, I still look at him and see him kneeling in the street, holding his son. I still hear the sound of his heartbreaking screams and his raspy voice as he begged for God to spare him.
Closing my eyes, I shake the memory from my head and recite the same words over and over.
It’s not your fault.
You were just a kid yourself.
No one blames you.
Especially not your father.
Blowing out a breath, I open my eyes and start for the stoop. I fix my mask to my face, planting that fake as shit smile everyone’s come to love to my lips, and ring the doorbell. After a few moments pass, I ring it again and glance back at the driveway. Both his bike and Reina’s car are parked in the driveway. Weighing my options, I bite my lip. No daughter, no matter how old she is, wants to walk in on her father as he goes to town on her stepmother—even if said father is deserving of the interruption.
The door swings open before I can fully decide, and I’m greeted with Reina’s grief-stricken face. Instantly, I ditch the false pretenses and narrow my eyes in concern. My father doesn’t dub her Sunshine for nothing. The woman is always so put together and I don’t just mean appearance wise. She rolls with the punches and never lets anything drag her down. Whatever situation my father finds himself in, she’s right there facing it with him. Nothing rattles her and if it does, well she’s got one fuck of a mask too.
“What’s wrong?” I ask hoarsely, watching as she wipes away her tears.
“Now isn’t a good time, Lace,” she cries. “You need to go.”
“Not a good way to get me to leave, Reina,” I reply as I slice my eyes over her shoulder. “What’s going on? Where’s my father?”
“Lace, please,” she snaps. “Just go home. We’ll call you later.”
At the abrupt tone of her voice, my gaze shoots back to her and I swallow the lump in my throat. I have enough experience in life to know a lot can change in a short while, but it’s only been two hours since my dad called Blackie and while he was quick to leave the house after he hung up with him, he didn’t let on that my father was in any kind of trouble. He pulled his clothes on, shoved his arms into his kutte and kissed me goodbye, promising to pick up where we left off when he got home. If something was wrong, I’d like to think he’d tell me.
“I’m not leaving, and I really don’t want to push you out of my way, so—”
My words die on my tongue as she steps forward and narrows her swollen eyes in my direction.
“You were never here; do you understand me? If your father finds out I let you see him like this, he will never forgive me.”
“See him like what?” I whisper.
“Your word, Lacey. Now,” she demands.
Swallowing, I nod my head.
“I was never here.”
Satisfied, she steps to the side and allows me room to enter. I don’t move right away and for a moment I feel like that five-year-old little girl again. The girl who tried to tell her dad that her little brother was outside by himself, but he was too consumed by the mania in his head to notice she even existed. With my heart in my throat, I find the courage to push that little girl aside and step foot inside the house.
Too afraid of what I’ll find, I don’t leave the foyer.
“Dr. Spiegel just left a little while ago, so he’s comfortable now,” Reina says from behind me as my eyes drift to the holes in the wall. They’ve been there since the day Junior died and my father refuses to patch them. When he loses himself to his illness, he pulls the frames off the wall and stares at the gaping holes. He says they remind him of what happens when he goes untreated and maybe they do, but I can’t stand the sight of them and so, I tear my eyes away.
I glance towards the living room and that’s when I spot my father. Sitting in a chair with his eyes closed and his head drooped to one side, he looks nothing like the invincible man I call my hero. He looks broken and defeated. Frail. A fraction of the man he truly is.
“Why does he look like that?” I ask hoarsely. My voice sounds so small, so full of fear.
“He was up all night,” Reina explains. “This morning when he called Blackie, he was riding high on the mania and then he just crashed. He started screaming at the top of his lungs and banged his fists against his head. I couldn’t get through to him. I couldn’t make it stop. So, before he hurt himself, I called Dr. Spiegel, and she came here and gave him a sedative.”
Taking a step forward, I brace my hands on the back of the sofa and continue to stare at him. Since I first realized there was something wrong with me, I looked to my father for guidance. For inspiration. I figured if he could survive this debilitating illness, so could I.
We were at Junior’s grave the day I told him I was just like him. I thought I was alone when I apologized to my brother’s tombstone. I asked him to forgive me for not getting help. That’s when my father made his presence known. He wrapped his arms around me and assured me Junior’s death was not my fault. He blamed himself and as he started to describe what was going on in his head that day, I finished his sentences, revealing I knew the chaos that ran through his head because it ran through mine every day.