Page 102 of Torched Spades
He scowls. “I needed to make sure whatever was said between us stayed there.”
“Don’t make excuses for this. There are none.” Shaking my head, I bat his hand away from my face and let out a cynical laugh. “You know what’s pathetic? You all but told me what you’d done, and I still refused to hear it. ‘Touch yourself, Becca,’ I mock, hurling his own words at him. ‘Show me how you made yourself come on those virginal white sheets every Tuesday night.’ Jesus, when I think of all the times you’ve watched me in my bed and in the shower…” My voice trails off as a bomb explodes inside my head. “Oh, God, you watched me in the shower.”
His silence speaks louder than a confirmation.
I freeze. After touching me, he warned me I’d invited the Devil inside, and God help me, I had. He watched as I wrote those three words on the bathroom mirror moments before Jack texted, and…
My head snaps up.
“How did you know I’d be at the diner that night?”
Like a light switch being flipped, Johnny’s demeanor turns from apologetic to arctic. “The moment I saw you write bullets and blades on your mirror, I got in my car. I was parked down the street when you ran out to meet Ledger.”
Anything he said after those three words is nothing but white noise.
“How do you know about bullets and blades?” When he doesn’t answer, my voice breaks, the weight of the last few weeks crashing down around me. “Johnny, please…”
Opening his palm, he runs it down the length of my long hair, humming his appreciation at seeing it loose and chaotic for the first time. “I told you, Becca, I’ve researched you. Do you think that stopped at a change of name request?”
“What are you saying?”
“I read the news article about your mother’s death,” he says, twisting strand after strand around his fingers and anchoring me in place. “I know she was shot and stabbed. Something about that didn’t sit right with me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.” He frowns. “Until the warehouse fight.”
When my gut twists, I know what’s revealed in the next few moments will change my life forever. Part of me wants to keep it tucked away in nightmares and betrayals, but the part that let her guard down and fell for the man standing in front of her needs to step out of the shadows.
“I want the truth, Johnny,” I say quietly. “Not your version of it, not the one you think I want or need to hear, but the truth.”
I expect him to push back, but to my surprise, he releases my hair and steps back. “These men weren’t just a couple of bad seeds, Becca,” he confirms, palming the back of his neck. “They were regulars at the docks. Men with guns who expect payment for doing business in their city. Things got”—his nostrils flare as he filters his confession—“messy, and one of them used it in a threat. ‘This isn’t over,’” he recites. “‘And if you think the fucking police will save you from bullets and blades, think again.’”
Hearing him say those three words again knocks me breathless.
“Apparently, someone reported the gunshots because I’d barely gotten home before your boy, Ledger, hauled my ass to the station for questioning.” He catches my eye. “That was the reason for the shift change and the conflicting dates on the notification Owen sent.”
He stares at me in silence, waiting for a reaction or rebuttal, but I offer neither. Vindication doesn’t feel like I thought it would. Instead of the weight on my shoulders lifting, it doubles, nearly bringing me to my knees.
“Now it’s your turn to tell the truth.”
“Why do I have a feeling you already know it?”
“Because I do,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine as he takes a seat on the couch. “But I want to hear it from you.”
Maybe he’s lying again. Maybe he doesn’t know every detail of the nightmares that have plagued me for over two decades, but deep inside, I know better. He said himself he never makes promises he can’t keep.
I just never anticipated one would be to the little girl with red feet.
Letting out a shaky breath, I lower beside him on the couch, my tongue thick with words it’s held silent for so long. “I wasn’t supposed to be home,” I tell him, twisting my fingers in my lap. “But I’d faked a stomachache that morning because I had a math test I didn’t study for.” I close my eyes, time doing nothing to ease the guilt. “I was upstairs sleeping when I heard the gunshot. I ran to the top of the stairs and saw a man kneeling over my mother. He was stabbing her over and over...” The scene plays out in my mind, the smell of copper filling my nose as I watch as the colorful arm goes up and down and up and down. “I wanted to call out for him to stop, but I was scared.”
Johnny’s hands cover mine, stilling the repetitive twisting. “You were a child, Becca.”
Opening my eyes, I turn to face him. “I was a witness. I saw him. He saw me. I watched him lean over her. I saw the knife. I watched that rose and dagger tattoo rise and fall with each plunge. I couldn’t move, and when he stood up, I remember telling myself over and over…small eyes, big teeth, a knife piercing a rose. But then he saw me. He crooked his finger and told me to come and kiss my mother goodbye.”
“Jesus, Becca…”
“I don’t know why I did. But before I could stop them, my feet were moving. The carpet was soaked, and I could feel her blood squishing between my toes,” I whisper, my eyes filling with tears. “I just wanted to kiss my mother, Johnny.” He curses under his breath, his grip on my hands tightening. But I’m too lost in the memory… Too afraid to do anything but see it through. “I dropped to my knees beside her and held her hand. That’s when he said those words. ‘Bullets and blades, Rebecca. The first shot punishes the sinner, but it’s the second that pays the sin.’”
“He left you alive as a message.”
I nod. “That’s how my father found me when he came home from work. I was still kneeling on the carpet holding her hand when the police got there.”
