Page 77 of Cognac Secrets

“Rowan here or coming in?” he asked. I shook my head.

“No, and you’re good to be here, just step aside and let me do my thing if a customer comes in – it’s all good.”

“No, problem,” he said. “I’m not here to get in the way, I’m just here to be here for you.”

I settled onto my stool behind the counter and sighed, “Which is a little nuts,” I told him flatly. “I should honestly be the one that’s here foryougiven what just happened.”

He sighed and shook his head, “Cops are in it to win it on that, there’s nothing I can do there – but this? This is something Icando something about and I can either focus on the shit that I do have control over or lose my fuckin’ mind over the shit that I can’t.”

“I feelthatto the very bottom of my soul,” I said with a sigh after taking a sip of my perfect First Call coffee.

“I’m not even really sure where to start,” I confessed as he got into the bag of bennies and held it in my direction. I took one and stalled for time to get my thoughts on the subject of my backwoods, ultra-religious cult family together, and how I was brought up as little better than property of my dad’s to be traded off to one of the other nearby families in the church like chattel.

He looked grim as I explained how things were for me in my dad’s house. How the scars on my back were from when I was nine and had started my first period – I don’t even know why! Like, nature was fucked up, man, and how he’d beat me bloody with his belt because he was convinced that I was a whore and a harlot giving myself up to every boy in the town.

“Does he even know how vaginas even work?” Bennie asked, his eyebrow meeting his hairline behind his aviators.

“None of them do,” I said tiredly. “They opted every one of us out of sex-ed in school because that was the devil’s work – but I still found out from my friends who couldn’t shut up about it – and still, even that was a grim glossed overview of things to the point there really wasn’t any information there.” I sighed and shook my head.

“The point is, my dad legit sees me as hispropertyuntil I’m married off or whatever, and then I become my husband’s property and problem. None of the people back home in the small town that I’m from recognize the state’s authority or whatever. The believe they are sovereign citizens under God the almighty and that He is the only one they answer to – but that doesn’t stop them from using the local authorities to get what they want.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

I explained about the endless string of missing person’s reports and how just aboutevery fucking timeI hadanycontact with the police it came up and howevery fucking timeI had to explain like a broken goddamn record, that no, I didn’t want to talk to my family; yes, I did run away before the age of eighteen, but now I am wellabovethe age of eighteen and a legal adult and how now, if I don’t wanna? They can’t make me.

“Which is all true,” Bennie said. “And reasonable. So what had you so spooked last night?”

“The cop,” I said tiredly. “I know the type. Overbearing, probably wholly misogynistic, and being the poor, traumatized little lady, I can’tpossiblyknow what’s best for me and – I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling. Call it women’s intuition or whatever.”

He looked thoughtful and finally heaved a sigh and said, “You know your old address up there or have any idea if they did show up where they would take you or whatever?”

I nodded tiredly.

“Yeah, to all of that.”

“Give it to me now,” he said whipping out his phone and I perked up a little and asked, “Really?”

“What do you mean, really?” he asked me.

“You aren’t going to tell me I’m paranoid or that I’m crazy, or that I’m blowing shit out of proportion?”

He stared at me for several heartbeats and I couldn’t tell what was going on behind his stony expression.

“Around the time you were running from your family, I was burying my last girlfriend,” he said. “She was killed in a car bomb explosion. A real Mafia princess – but her family was Greek. Anyway… at first the working theory was that it was this rival crime syndicate or family, but it wasn’t. It was her own brothers trying to get a bigger slice of the inheritance pie when their daddy dearest finally ever got around to kicking it.”

“You’re not lying, are you?” I asked and I felt myself pale.

“No more secrets, on either side,” he said. “I trust you. You’re the first woman that’s made me feelaliveagain since Mia died. It was like living in this world of black and white and here you came in full color… I… Fuck, I sound stupid,” he said.

“No,” I said solemnly. “You don’t.” I put my hand over his on the shop’s counter and he looked down at it.

“Give me everything,” he said. “We’ll set up a list of fail safes. You fail any checks I’m coming to find you. Let me see your phone.”

I blinked stupidly and handed it to him. He handed it back, “Unlock it for me sweetheart.” I did and he flicked his thumb and tapped across the screen then returned his focus to his own phone.

“In order to protect you, I need to knoweverythingbaby. Names, addresses, as much as you can remember about the layout of the town – your house, your church, any of the other houses of any of the other families within the church that you know would helpyourfamily—” All I could do was nod dumbly and wonder how on earth I got so damn lucky… I mean, or did I? His last girlfrienddiddie.

Which, IknowIknow!I was a complete cow for fucking thinking that way, but I wouldneverin a million years say anything so cruel out loud. Of course, right on the heels of my forbidden or unwanted thought was the much more positive one of knowing without a doubt that Bennie wasn’t a man who would accept failure. Bennie wasn’t a man who would want his world turned upside down and ripped inside out like that ever again… and while comforting, it was a bit of a cold comfort because after last night, I knew, anything could happen to anyone at any time and there wasn’t any stopping it sometimes.

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