Shit.
I fall on top of the mattress as Poppy curls beneath the sheets in the bed without taking a shower. Blood and brain matter cling to me like a bad stench, but I can’t seem to care. What the fuck am I going to do? Pop and I don’t have any other family. It’s just us, but that doesn’t mean that people won’t be asking questions. We know other people. Fuck, even the parents know people.
There’s a knock on the door and I shuffle around to see Victor leaning against the frame.
“Victor, huh?”
He chuckles, widening the door. “I guess she filled you in.” There’s a pause, until he finally nudges his head to the hallway behind him. “We need to have a chat, son, and I’d rather that happen out here than in front of Poppy.”
Shuffling out of the sheets, I follow him down the stairs and out through the entry to the sitting room. Their house—or mansion—is the kind that slaps dollar bills in front of your face as soon as you see it. I’m pretty sure I even saw guards at their entry gates. The furnishings and architecture hold an obvious opulence, but there is more to it than that. It feels like a home. The kind you watch on TV where the mother is always cooking or baking, and the child is a straight-A student. It upsets me in a way that I can’t explain because not only is it unfamiliar, but it is—mundane. So why the fuck did this man invite me into his perfect family and life without so much as knowing who I am? In his eyes, I just killed my father. What would make him think I wouldn’t do the same to him?
Victor spreads the sliding doors wide, opening onto a sparse area of flush greenery growing delicately through the cracks of the aged concrete and vibrant plants flowering among the shrubs. There’s a small pool house that’s up against the backyard, overlooking the pool and the patio of the main house with a built-in wooden patio and plants that hang off hooks, with lights switched on inside.
Victor stops walking, his hands on the railing of the frame that wraps around his patio. “You and Poppy can both stay in there starting tomorrow. Pearl, my wife, is setting it up for you both.”
The sun has long since set, and I don’t care much about the fact that I still haven’t washed off the blood on my skin. The words I want to ask choke me. Why the fuck has this man just taken in two strangers? But two strangers where one just killed his father.
“Why did you bring me here? To your family?” I ask, stepping beside him until we’re shoulder to shoulder. There’s a large BBQ area with tables, chairs, and a standing bar. I could imagine countless nights of their friends coming over for a cookout. Laughing, drinking, doing all that shit that happy homes do when they aren’t confined by the restraints of abuse. I could picture it, but I could never understand it.
“I was once in your shoes. Pearl knows it, and that is why she agreed to my having you both here.” He turns to lean against the railing, his attention solely on me. “When I look at you, I see me. A scared boy with no one to turn to and a sister he needs to protect.”
“You don’t know me, though. I could be worse than what you’re picturing right now.”
He chuckles after a moment, and it’s the first time that I’ve realized he has tattoos on his arms and hands. “Son, I come from a world where trust doesn’t mean shit. Trust is a word that people who don’t understand it throw around in hopes to win your approval.” He crosses his ankles at his feet. “You wanna know why I’m saving you?” The corner of his mouth curves upward. “The answer is simple. I think you can be trusted, because unlike the people I know, you have a moral compass. Loyalty. Compassion.” He reaches into the inside of his jacket, pulling out the packet of cigarettes that are tucked in his pocket. Banging the bottom onto his palm, he bites a trunk into his mouth and uses his other hand to light the end. Blowing out a cloud of smoke, he points to me with his fingers. “I was in your shoes when I was around your age.” As much as I try to seek the truth behind his words, I know that there’s no hidden agenda to them. There’s something trusting about the way he speaks. The confidence.
He takes another inhale of his smoke. “My only rule is don’t touch my kid unless I say you can.”
“Your kid?” I raise a brow at his choice of words. The girl is hardly a kid, but I’ll play.
The corner of his mouth curves. “And a favor… then I will make all this bullshit disappear.”
“What?” I ask, cocking my head to the side.
“Come to work with me next week. Last seventy-four hours. If you last that long, I will offer you and your sister a safe home here. Your charges? Gone. Your troubles?” His dark brows fly to his hairline, and it’s the first time I feel like I might be making a deal with the devil. “Definitely gone.”
I leave the space open for a few seconds before scoffing. “Sorry, but being a cop really isn’t in my vision—if you know what I mean.”
“Oh—” He pauses, and when his hand comes to my arm, his shirt lifting up from his wrist, I see a cross on the top. My eyes travel back up his arms to his face. “I’m no cop.”
When I was eleven years old, I remember finding a kitten on the side of the road. She was hurt, bruised, and had patches of hair missing on her body, but I remember picking her up and carrying her to my house. I burst through the doors, crying because the poor kitty was obviously left discarded by her previous owners.
Mama was in the kitchen baking cookies and she stopped what she was doing, tossing her apron onto the counter, her hands coming to her hips. “Ruby! What is this?” My mom was the supportive kind. The kind of mother that all of my friends loved because she felt like theirs too.
“I found her on the sidewalk! She’s hurt. Can we keep her?” That was my first question.
Can we keep her?
My mom should have said no.
My father should have said no.
They both said yes.
We took her to the vet, fixed her up, and brought her home.
But that was a kitten, not two entire humans covered with blood—and not their own, might I add.
I sit in my room, staring at my bedroom door and wondering what I should do. Should I go and see them? The girl at least. I mean, she looked approachable. He didn’t.
Sitting up, I pull the covers from my body and slip my feet into my fluffy Louis Vuitton slippers. Tiptoeing around the creak in the floorboard at the end of my bed, I squeeze the handle and slowly open the door. Theirs is slightly ajar, with a beam of light flickering from beneath. I take a slow step forward when I feel him. The air around me tightens and I hold my breath to stop myself from breathing too loud in his space.
“What are you doing?” His voice is like lava spilling over mountaintops, turning everything to ash on its way down. “Ruby, right?”
I spin around slowly, in hopes that I can think of something to say, when our eyes meet, only there’s nothing that can help. He stands tall right beside me, his body lean and shoulders wide. His dark hair is shaved close on the sides, slightly thicker on the top, and his cheekbones are like perfectly shaved ice cubes, cut to perfection before leading to an equally shaved jawline. His eyes are weak, as if he had just smoked a few too many blunts. His soft lips curve up in a smirk.
Shit.