Sweet Jayne (16 page)

I frown and let my gaze flit past him to my mother dancing beside the jukebox. Dale, grinds against her from behind, causing my stomach to roil with disgust. Jerking my gaze from the horror show, I meet Rhodes’s twinkling stare. The man truly is happy to leave his pregnant wife for a few hours.

“Lena is a shit stirrer. She probably exaggerated.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “She said someone told him he’d been checking out his fiancée. Of course Chief fired him for some shit that would actually stick—like the countless cases he’s fucked up on lately—but I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t truth to her words. Logan acted like”—
a psychotic, possessive lunatic
—“a jealous teenager when he showed off his best friend’s daughter. How do you think that’s going anyway?”

I roll my neck along my shoulders as I try to work out the kink from working all afternoon. Logan had shown up not long after his call and hovered around Nadia like she might poof into thin air. It irritated me but it left me alone to work. I’d chosen not to ask about the thick pipe but instead took a discreet photo while he was in the kitchen, bitching about the color of the toast, to investigate later when I was back home.

“Knowing Donovan, he’s probably pissed. You know he thinks everything he touches turns to gold and suddenly becomes his,” I say with a growl and bring the cheap beer to my lips. My eyes flit back over to Mom. Her once pretty blonde hair is now dulled and frizzy. Jade-colored eyes that matched mine at one time are now a sickly green that only flicker to life when Dale brings her another overfilled tumbler of Jack and Coke. Alcohol and Dale have turned her into a fucking animated corpse.

“It’s hard to believe Taylor and him were bro—”

“Stop,” I snap and slam my glass down, letting the warm liquid slosh over my knuckles. “I don’t want to talk about Taylor.”

Rhodes’s eyes flicker with sympathy and he nods. “Okay, man. Shit, you’re on edge today.”

Shrugging my shoulders, I dive my hand into my jeans and find some coins. I leave my chatty friend to stalk over to the jukebox. When Dale’s gaze meets mine, his eyes flicker with hate but he wisely breaks free of my mother and heads to the bar, surely to order them another drink. I push the coins into machine and flip through the endless pages until I find what I’m looking for. Soon, “Sweet Jane” by Cowboy Junkies fills the bar and several old men complain for having changed it from their stupid country shit music. I ignore them and then stalk over to my mom.

“Hey, baby boy,” she purrs, the slur in her voice ever present as she sets her glass down on a table.

Her thin arms wrap around my middle and she lays her cheek on my chest. My mom, who at one time when Kase and I were kids smelled like sweet florals and home baked cookies, now reeks of stale smoke and Dale’s body odor that lingers like a cloying fog. I sigh but wrap my arms around her. Together, my mom and I slow dance to a song that reminds me of the real sweet Jayne.

Dark, wide eyes full of mystery and intrigue.

A brave woman with ulterior motives.

An ass that could make a Kardashian jealous.

“How’s my son?” Mom questions, lifting her head to look up at me. “How you been, sugar?”

I clench my teeth but force a smile. “Fine. Working long hours. Is Dale being good to you?”

Shame makes her look away and she once again rests her head against my chest. “Oh,” she says with a tired sigh, “you know how Dale is. Dale’s Dale. A little rough around the edges for everyone else but he always shows me his sweet side.”

I glare over her head at Dale who’s flirting with some hag at least a decade older than my mom and with twice as many wrinkles. Her cackles fill the air but thankfully the song drowns them out.

Bet she won’t cackle that first time Dale cracks his knuckles across her cheekbone. My mother certainly doesn’t laugh anymore and that’s been the case since well before Kasey was stolen from us. Dale stole my mother’s light long before that. And though I can find nothing to confirm my lingering thoughts, I still feel like Dale has some hand in what happened to Kasey. The dumb fuck, though, if he were really guilty, would have already slipped up. Dale’s an idiot who can’t keep his mouth shut. If he had anything to do with it, I’m sure I would have figured it out. Besides, I’d already been through their shitty trailer with a fine-tooth comb one day and got annoyed as fuck having to dig through their piles of clutter. There was no way he’d have the foresight to keep records of his past, much less to hide them effectively. There was nothing to be found where Dale was concerned.

The song ends and I let out a sigh. Mom and I will always have a strained relationship but it doesn’t mean I don’t stop trying. She’s all I have left after losing Kase. I won’t let her slip through my fingers too. I may be an asshole but my heart is still linked to my flesh and blood.

When a country song starts screeching on the jukebox, I cringe and step away from Mom. I frown as she smiles at me.

“You’re so handsome, Kasper. One of these days, you’ll find you a good girl and make me a grandma.”

I smirk at her. “Maybe I don’t want a good girl.”

You’re certainly fucking obsessed with a bad girl, Kasper Grant.

She laughs and it’s musical. My heart aches in my chest to hear the sweet sound that reminds me of my younger sister. “A good girl is going to want you. Trust me, sugar. A momma knows these things.”

“My turn for a dance, Karla,” Dale snaps as he thrusts a glass full of amber liquid in her face. It sloshes out and splashes her shirt but she doesn’t flinch. Instead, she takes the glass from him and averts her gaze.

I’m about to leave them when he grabs on to her bicep hard enough to make her yelp. I have self-control when it comes to a lot of things. But when Dale is involved, I lose my shit every goddamned time.

“You think knocking around a woman makes you a badass?” I bellow and fist my hand. Truly, the loser isn’t even worth bloodying up my knuckles. But tonight…tonight I need to blow off some steam.

“Mind your own business,” Dale sneers. “
Officer
, I’ve got this handled.”

Before I change my mind, I charge for him and seize his throat in my brutal grip. He hisses when I back him against the wall easily with one hand. His dulled eyes have sparked to life—fear dwells in them. Good, he should be afraid. My mother wears the same look every goddamned time he raises his hand at her. Hell, Nadia’s isn’t much different when she’s fretting over Logan.

“Why don’t you try your fists on a man?” I grit out as I squeeze his neck. His eyes bulge out and he claws at my wrists as his face becomes eggplant purple. “Only pussies hurt small, defenseless women.”
If only I could say that to my boss as well.

The country song drones on and Mom’s sobs fit right in with it. I’d love nothing more than to bash Dale’s head into the wall for every time he’s laid a hand on her and made her cry. But when he grows limp and stops struggling, I blink away the furious haze that has wrapped its red claws around my head. Releasing him, I snatch my hand away as if he’s diseased. For Mom’s sake, I hope to hell not. The stupid fuck wobbles for a minute before collapsing. I watch with sick satisfaction as he crashes to the dirty-ass bar floor.

“Okay, buddy,” Rhodes grunts from behind me and pulls me by the back of my jacket toward the door. “Time to go home.”

I cast one last glare of disgust Dale’s way and a quick apologetic glance at my mom before striding away.

I’m tired of standing by while all the dickheads around me hurt the women in my life. Dale better watch his ass. Hell, Logan better watch his too.

A
ches.

And darkness.

I moan and try to make sense of where I’m at. The chill that snakes its way around my ribs and up my spine tells me what I loathe to know. I keep my eyes pressed shut because opening them would confirm my fears.

I’m in the fucking basement.

I failed.

With the realization of failure, comes the urge to cry. Bottling up all of my emotions is exhausting. Tears of defeat slide from the corners of my eyes.

God, everything hurts. The moment Kasper left after a long afternoon of repairing the walls, Logan let me have it.

There was no consoling him or explaining to him that I hadn’t spoken about us to Kasper. He doesn’t believe that I was simply being hospitable. But I couldn’t bring myself to admit that his employee knows he beats the shit out of me. Instead, I clung to my lies like a sinking raft in a stormy sea. It wasn’t working but it was all I had.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, my voice a hoarse whisper.

Fingertips brush my hair from my eyes and soft lips kiss my forehead. Even when Logan punishes me, I still find solace. I find peace.

Another form of peace threatens to rip my chest open as unconsciousness threatens to steal me from the concrete hell. In my mind, I search out grey-blue eyes. Always there for me—always saving me.

“Shhhh.”

I let the soft, murmured assurances wash over me as I flee into the darkness of my mind. With open arms, I run back to Donovan.

Always Donovan.

“Where’s Mamá?”

Donovan swivels in his office chair and gapes at me. His dark hair is slicked back and styled in its usual perfection while his suit is unwrinkled and smooth. It’s been months since I last saw him. Our Skype conversations had been few and far between around final exam time, and my last visit had been at Christmas. He’d wanted me home for spring break but my job—a job Donovan fought tooth and nail for me not to have at the police dispatch call center—hadn’t allowed me to leave until now. After eight months of working there for barely over minimum wage, I’d been granted a few days off for the summer.

He launches from his seat and strides over to me, his long legs bringing him in front of me within seconds. I let out a relieved breath when he scoops me into his arms. A squeal echoes around us when he lifts me off my feet and spins with me in his arms.

“Jesus Christ, I’ve missed that laugh.”

His words warm me to my core and I shake away the fact that five minutes ago I’d been texting my boyfriend and now, if you were to ask me, I couldn’t even recall his name.

That’s what Donovan does to me.

He makes me the center of his world and I don’t care about anything other than being that for him.

“Where’s Mamá?” I say with another laugh for his benefit.

He groans and tugs away from me. His dark eyebrows furrow together angrily. “Your mother went to Venice.”

I blink at him and frown in confusion. “She didn’t tell me that when I’d texted her on Monday.”

His lips purse into a line. Practiced indifference is the mask he wears. “She didn’t tell me either. Just left a note.”

“Well, we can still have fun. I’ll be here for five days. Maybe Mamá will be back in a couple of days,” I say with false cheer, hoping to lift his mood.

He shakes his head and regards me with a sad expression. Not sad for himself but instead sad for me. It’s always about me with him.

“Selene needed to get away.”

I snort and shrug my shoulders. “That’s stupid. Since when does she ever care about getting away? She likes it here.”