Authors: K. Ryan
"Can we talk?" Rae asks, her voice shaking a little.
Good. She should be scared. She should turn her ass around and never come back.
"No," I snap. My eyes slice into her and I hope she can feel every inch.
She swallows hard and her gaze shifts anxiously to Cal, who lifts an eyebrow and takes another swig of his beer nonchalantly as if the daughter of our community's number one enemy didn't just walk through the door.
Her chest rises and falls one more time and her hands clench around the edge of the bar top so tightly her knuckles turn pale.
"Please," she tries again, but I'm already shaking my head. "I just need to—"
"You don't need to do anything except leave," I cut in briskly and slam the towel down on the bar. "You know, you must really be stupid...showing up here again like this. Do you have a death wish or something?"
"You're not going to hurt me," she shoots back in defiance.
No, I'm not.
"Try me," I growl instead and her eyebrows just lift, unimpressed and unconvinced.
And for a moment, I almost admire the kind of backbone it must've taken her to actually get in her car, drive down here, and walk inside our bar. She's not weak—I could see it Friday night and I see it now, but being strong isn't going to do her any favors. Not here. Not like this.
I'd never lay hands on a woman, but given everything this particular woman has done to my family, to my brother
,
the way she just keeps showing up like a cockroach...the temptation itches at me.
She's lucky I can control myself outside the ring.
Rae leans forward, her pretty face contorted a little too much for my liking and I know where this is going. I've seen this look before. Not from her, but other women at other times when they want something. This is exactly why the only woman I've ever been able to put up with in long doses is my mom because every other woman is a complicated mess I don't have the time or the energy to spend untangling.
I might have fallen for her act Friday night, but I'm not biting tonight.
"Please," she tries again. This time, her voice is softer, more urgent, and that raging determination is at the forefront now more than ever. "I just want to explain and then I'll leave. I promise. Just one minute—that's all I'm asking for. Besides," she waves a hand around my near-empty bar, "it looks to me like you've got some time to kill."
I blow out a deep breath and mull over my options. Unfortunately, she kinda has a point and I have a feeling that she really will leave if I just give her the one minute she's asking for. Shit. Now I'm just annoyed she was able to convince me so quickly.
A beat later, I tip my chin at Cal.
"Why don't you step outside for a smoke."
He just lifts a shoulder, takes one more long gulp of his beer, and pushes off his stool to head toward the door. Once the door shuts behind him, my gaze shifts to the current bane of my existence and I lift an eyebrow at her. The ball's in her court now.
"You've got 30 seconds and then you either get out or I'll throw you out."
Rae's jaw clenches and for the first time since she walked in, she falters. Her hands tremble around the edge of the bar top, she inhales sharply, and if I look closely enough, I could probably see her lips quiver ever so slightly. Then, everything changes again on a dime. Her back straightens, her chin tips up, and her eyes meet mine dead-on. It's like this girl is afraid of nothing. Jesus, maybe she really does have a death wish.
But when she finally opens her mouth, it's not to tell me she's sorry for playing my stupid ass on Friday night.
"I want to get Sean out of prison."
Wait a minute...what? My head rears back and shakes from side to side. There's no way I heard her right.
"What?"
That's all I've got.
She seems to take my response as a good sign, but she's wrong. If my blood was simmering before, it's cranked up to a boil now. My head just needs a little time to catch up with my emotions.
"I know he wasn't the one who..." she trails off, her eyes still blazing green with a grit I just can't reconcile right now. "I know he wasn't the who hurt me. I think I've always known it—I just never knew what to do about it until now."
"You tell the fucking truth from the start, that's what you do," I snap back at her.
Rae winces from the impact, but I don't care. She can't come up in here and spew this kind of bullshit seven years too late.
"I'm so—"
"Don't," I lean forward as I growl again, inching just close enough so she can read the menace on my face. "You're not sorry. If you were sorry, you wouldn't have done it in the first place. Get out of my bar."
"Please," her eyes widen and her hands spread out in front of her in a futile attempt at getting any sympathy from me. "Just listen, okay? I know you hate me—"
"Hate you?" I cock an eyebrow at her and fold my arms across my chest. "Sweetheart, hate doesn't even round the corner of what I feel for you. There isn't a word in the dictionary for what I feel for you."
All the blood drains from her face and I smile, relishing in this maliciousness, as Rae's mouth parts long enough to suck in a quick breath.
"You have every right to feel that way," she whispers. "I get it. I'd hate me too—I
do
hate myself for what I did, but I want to make it right. Please...just listen."
I guess I have to give her a little credit for trying.
"Why should I believe a word you say?" I shoot back. "You're a documented liar. Daddy taught you well, didn't he?"
Her eyes squeeze shut and when they snap open again, they've glazed over into a watery mess of a forest. Good.
"I saw two people that night," she soldiers on and wipes at a stray tear with the back of her hand before I can get a good look at it. "I saw someone else first, right before I got hit. It was definitely a guy...someone with dark eyes. I didn't get a good look at him, but he wasn't Sean."
"Lemme guess," I surmise as I prop my elbows on the bar. "Sean was the guy you saw
after
you got hit."
She nods quickly and a shaking hand lifts up to sweep some of that vibrant, dark cherry-colored hair out of her eyes. The movement distracts me for just a second and it's a second too long. I'm not going to fall into her trap again, especially not when it comes to my brother.
"I coulda told you that," I shrug. "Someone else did it. So what? Sean's the one in prison."
"I told the cops right on the scene. Even when I was strapped to a gurney and they were loading me into an ambulance, all I can remember is that I kept saying there were two of them."
Her eyes shut again like the memory is too much for her, but I don't care about that either. The problem now is she's finally told me something that's sparked my interest.
"What happened after you told that to the cops?"
A resigned expression crosses her face and she lifts a shoulder. "My dad happened."
"And then you lied because that was what he told you to do."
She shakes her head furiously. "I didn't mean to—"
My breath pushes out in one angry huff. "You didn't
mean
to?"
"You don't understand," she's still shaking her head in vain, desperate for me to understand something so nonsensical I don't even know where to start. "I was in so much pain. They were pumping me with all these painkillers and I wasn't even really awake long enough to even—"
"Yah know what?" I cut in abruptly and gesture to the door. "I think your minute's just about up. You can show yourself out."
"No, wait!" Rae holds her hands out again like that will somehow stop the inevitable. "Just listen. Please."
I don't know why I'm still standing here. Maybe it's those green eyes. Maybe it's the fact that
she
hasn't left yet. I don't know. All I know is that I'm still as much an idiot now as I was Friday night.
"When I got to the hospital," she tells me and this time, she can't hide the way her voice shakes on each syllable. "I was lucky I could even tell them my name, let alone anything else. Then I was in and out of surgery and somewhere along the line, my dad told me I was wrong. He told me there was no else. And I believed him. I shouldn't have."
Silence floats between us now as I digest everything she's just told me and I backpedal until my calves hit the back counter. My eyes settle on a crack in the tile at my feet when she starts speaking again.
"I'm not trying to make excuses because there's nothing I can ever say that will make it right. I'm just trying to...I guess I just needed to explain how it happened. My dad just sort of took over, like he always does, and suddenly the cops were telling me there was no record of my statement at the scene and that Sean had pled guilty. I just...I was 20 and stupid and in the worst pain I've ever been in my entire life. I thought I did the right thing by listening to my dad."
It makes sense, but I'm not stupid enough to tell her that. Instead, I fold my arms tightly across my chest again and keep my eyes on the floor.
"That's a nice story," I muse. "But that doesn't help Sean now. What do you think you're gonna do anyway? Show up at the precinct after seven years and go, 'Whoops. Sorry, guys. My mistake. Let's go get that guy from Southie out of prison'. Doesn't work like that, sweetheart."
"Why couldn't I?" she leans into the bar, her eyes filling with that familiar determination again. "Couldn't I tell them I remember seeing someone else there? I could get a lawyer and—"
"I'm gonna stop yah right there," I narrow my eyes at her. "You really think you could just walk into the precinct, with or without a lawyer, and anyone will actually listen to you? Your good ol' dad's got at least half of those guys on his payroll and the other half not on his payroll report to the ones who are. You say one word about that night in the precinct and you'll be out on your ass faster than I can say I told yah so. Besides, even if someone actually does listen, if your so-called statement at the scene inexplicably disappeared, those cops aren't going to take too kindly to you showing up there and telling them they don't know how to do their jobs."
I can practically see the wheels in her head turning as she mulls over the facts I already know are true. Any way you slice it, she doesn't have a leg to stand on, at least not where the PD's concerned.
"I see your point," she pushes out a rough sigh and tugs a hand through her hair. I don't like the way the edge of that hair curls around her collarbone. It's distracting. "So, basically, I need to figure out who the other guy was first before I can do anything else."
"Good luck with that," I huff out bitterly.
Her eyes fall to the bar top for a short moment and then snap back up to me. "I want to make it right. He's in prison because of me and I don't care what I have to do—I want to clear his name and I want to get him out of there. And I thought...I don't know, I thought maybe you could help me."
Now my eyebrows practically skyrocket into my hairline in disbelief. Help her? All of a sudden she's on a martyr trip and I'm supposed to just bend to her will?
"I don't know what I'm going to find, where this is going to go, and I thought you'd be able to help—that you'd
want
to help. You might be able to help me talk to people I wouldn't be able to otherwise and get information about things I have no idea where to even start with..."
Well, she's right about that. But unlike her, I don't have a death wish and unfortunately, the chances of us stumbling into some dark, shady shit that will probably get us killed are pretty high. And I still don't see how this helps Sean.
"Look," I tell her in as even a voice as I can muster. "I understand why yah came down here. You wanted to tell somebody you were sorry and I was the obvious choice since I'm the only one you've actually met. I get that. But what I don't understand is how you expect me to believe a damn word that comes out of your mouth. Not after the way you destroyed my brother and my family. And definitely not after the way you played me on Friday."
Her eyes just about pop out of her head. "Wha...? No, I didn't—"
"Cut the bullshit. You knew exactly what you were doing. And you knew exactly who I was."
Her head shakes from side to side and now, she backs up from the bar, like that little bit of space will somehow save her from what we both know is true.
"I had no idea," she whispers, staring at me like she's never seen me before. Maybe she's finally seeing me for the first time. "I swear...if I'd known it was you, I would've turned around and run the other way the second you came out of that door. Besides, you expect me to believe you really didn't know who I was either?"
"You haven't lived in this city for years," I toss back and at this point, my feet are already carrying me around the side of the bar so I can stride right up to her. "It was dark. I was distracted. So sue me. Don't turn this around on me because you're treadin' on real thin ice here. Besides, all yah are is an ex-junkie who's been to rehab so many times I've lost count. The fact that anyone believed your story in the first place is proof your dad was pulling strings from the very beginning. There's no way around that."
Her lips part. Then she thinks better of it, squeezes her eyes shut, and snaps her mouth closed again. Smart move.