Page 11 of Road to Ruin
“Fuck you,” I snarl.
“Just asking. That bitch looks like she recognizes you. She doesn’t look very happy about you being here, man.”
“She doesn’t recognize me. I’ve never met her before in my life.” I would know if I had. I’d remember that day; it would be seared into my memory with the brightness of a thousand suns. I know, because that’s what it feels like is happening right now. Calling her beautiful would be a disservice. She’s sublime. She’s heavenly. She’s enough to steal all the oxygen from a man’s lungs and then some.
Junior makes his way over, looking chagrinned. The woman with the briefcase and the tailored white and blue pinstriped shirt is following after him, her jaw clenched defiantly, anger fizzing in those remarkable eyes of hers. When they reach us, Junior thumps Rob’s back, hugging him hard, then he does the same thing to me. Before he can say a word, though, the chick with the dark hair is speaking.
“You’re Peter’s cousin?” she asks me. She might as well be asking me if I’m Vlad the Impaler for all the venom and resentment in her tone.
I rock back onto my heels. “I am. Have we met?”
“No, but I’ve met a thousand men like you.”
“Ah. So you have me dead to rights then.”
“I’d say so, yeah.”
I could be hostile and jab back at her with a barbed comment, but I’m a little on the back foot here. Up close, she’s an interesting looking woman. The bridge of her nose is covered with a smattering of freckles. There are even some faint freckles on her full lips. There’s something odd about her. And then I realize…her eyes. I was wrong just now. They’re not pale, cool blue. Or at least not both of them. Her right eye is a deep chocolate brown. It’s a disarming feature to her face that stops me in my tracks. Rob has to see it at the same time as me, because he curses under his breath.
“Shit, man. What the fuck is up with your eyes?”
She turns her head sharply to look at him. “What the fuck is up with…all of you?”
Junior laughs. “It’s okay, Nikki. These guys are good people. This is Rob, my brother, and Tommy, my cousin. I haven’t seen him in…what? Five years?”
“Five years,” I agree. “Way too long. I’m sorry I didn’t come and see you, man.”
“It’s all good. Ma always hogged the visitation slips anyway. She didn’t even wanna share with Rob.”
Rob shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Their mother may have said she didn’t want to share, but the guilt radiating off of Rob right now would be obvious at eight hundred paces. He probably made excuses—he had work, he needed to head out of town, he was sick—and their mom covered for him. Asshole.
“I know perfectly well who you are,” the woman, Nikki, Junior called her, says. She hasn’t spared a flicker of interest for Rob. Her focus is locked and loaded on me, and boy… I’ve stared down the barrel of many a gun in the past, and fuck me if this isn’t more uncomfortable. “You’re one of Bastien’s boys,” she continues. “Junior’s been working his ass off while he’s been serving out his time, and it’s really shitty that your boss expects him to dive back into the bullshit that landed him here in the first place. You’re his blood, Tommy.” She spits my name out like it’s leaving a terrible taste in her mouth. “You’re meant to protect him. You’re a grown man. You’re meant to provide an example to Junior, not lead him down pathways he’s ill equipped to navigate. It’s…it’s fucking disgraceful.”
She’s the angriest woman I’ve encountered in a long time, and that’s saying something. There are plenty of women back in California who’d love to castrate me with a rusty butter knife, I’m sure. I’m not very good at returning phone calls or text messages, which leads to a lot of furious voice mails and occasionally the odd date showing up at the garage and reaming me out in front of whoever happens to be standing around at the time to witness the showdown.
Nikki’s anger isn’t the same as all those slighted women, though. It’s not her pride that’s been injured, or her ego. I realize with some amusement that it’s a perceived slight to her moral code that’s causing her to rant at me right now. It’s plain as day that she thinks I’m a bad guy and she’s trying to protect Junior.
“I want you to think really hard about everything Junior’s been through the past three years, okay? He hasn’t been away at Disneyland. I don’t want him to end up back here, and you shouldn’t either. Just…fuck. Try and imagine what it’s been like for him, okay?”
“Tommy doesn’t need to imagine, do you, buddy?” the C.O. pipes up. I look over at him and I know him. Of course I do. Today wouldn’t be perfect without running into a screw that knows everything about me. Everything they say about me on the streets, anyway.
“Mitch,” I say. “I see they promoted your ass.” He was just a standard officer when I was officially a guest of the state. Now it would seem he’s a captain. Assistant warden, too, by the looks of things. Mitch grunts, giving me a tense smile. We never had any trouble, he and I. He always did things by the book, which meant I didn’t want to kill him for being an outrageous prick. In return, I tried not to give him any grief either. There was an unspoken accord between us for the most part, and that suited me down to the ground.
“Ah. Well that makes sense,” Nikki says, her voice grim. “You were an inmate here, too. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”
I shrug. “I guess not.” I won’t give her anything else. She’s not open to hearing anything I have to say anyway. She’s wound up and stressed; the fewer words out of my mouth the better.
“Nikki, seriously. Tommy’s not a problem. He doesn’t work for Bastien anymore,” Junior tells her.
“It’s true.” Mitch moves to stand behind Nikki, hands on his hips. I instantly know he’s got a boner for the woman from the proximity he keeps, like he’s planning on throwing himself in front of her at the very first sign of danger. “I heard on the circuit that Bastien’s pretty keen on the idea of you being dead, Tommy. I thought all that had blown over?”
“When does Alex ever allow anything to blow over?” I rumble.
“Well…in that case, it’s surprising to see you here. You must have a pretty good reason for showing your face back in town.”
Nikki watches our exchange, wearing an incredulous expression.
“Good enough,” I tell him.
