Page 11 of Avenging Kelly

When I stopped shaking as the drugs leveled off, I left the bathroom and headed down the hall to the dining room, surprised to see Dallas St. Michael still sitting at the table with a fresh bottle of beer.

I went into the kitchen and grabbed a beer and a bottle of water for myself because the meds made me thirsty. It was about ten in the morning, but fuck it all, I’d recently gotten out of prison, and I deserved a drink.

I sat down with Dallas and studied his calm manner. “What’s your deal? Keeping an eye on your little brother so he doesn’t get himself into trouble?”

Dallas chuckled. “Trust me, the kid does okay for himself. What’s going on with you, Kelly? You wanna talk about things? I’ve found that unloading your conscience has restorative powers on your mind.”

He seemed like a bullshitter, but he hadn’t flinched when I’d handcuffed him to the dining room chair, and he hadn’t asked a lot of questions when I’d gotten the drop on him in the garage and pulled a gun. He was a larger, rougher version of his little brother, but the two men were definitely cut from the same cloth as far as I could tell. They were honest men, which was something I hadn’t encountered in a long fucking time.

I took a pull from my bottle of beer and placed it on the table in front of me. “What’s your background? What’s your job?” I questioned him.

“Former ATF. Went to college to study criminal justice. I was gonna be a fuckin’ lawyer.” Then, he started laughing as he flourished his hand down his black t-shirt and leather riding pants before laughing more.

I chuckled with him. “Sorry, man, and I mean no disrespect, but you don’t look like the lawyerly type.”

Dallas stared at me before he laughed again. “Yeah, no fuck. That’s why I was a shoo-in to go undercover with a biker club to bust gun runners and drug dealers. It’s a boring story. Tell me about you,” Dallas insisted.

“According to legend, my father got my mom pregnant with me and refused to marry her. Hell, I don’t even know who he even is. Brown is my mom, Amy’s maiden name. When I was growing up, she and I got along okay—she was a teacher, and I was her little man. We did stuff together sometimes, but mostly, I stayed with the neighbor lady,” I told him, unable to shut my fucking mouth.

“One day, Mom met Bob Boone when her junker car broke down at the grocery store. He knew how to fix cars, and he got it running again, not charging her anything for his time. I was fourteen, and they dated for three weeks before they went to the courthouse and got married,” I explained, remembering for a moment how damn lucky I thought we were and how much I hoped Mom could be happy since she wasn’t happy with me. How fucking quickly things would change.

Dallas nodded and continued to listen to me while I kept spilling my guts. “Nine months later, my little sister came along. Mia was incredible, and I loved watching her grow up.”

Mia had been a wonderful addition to our little family. She was a beautiful baby with her curls and sweet smile that would melt the coldest of hearts. She was smart, and she had a good head on her shoulders at a young age. It was why it broke my heart to hear that someone had taken advantage of her.

I gave Dallas the highlights of growing up with Bob Boone, the meanest son of a bitch I’d ever met in my life. “I became his punching bag so he wouldn’t hit my mom. He had a quick temper and everything was her fault, so I learned how to run interference as a teenager,” I said, feeling a lump in my throat. Reminiscing fucking sucked.

Dallas nodded and stared at me as if he understood what I had gone through, so I continued. “The only good thing about Boone was that he was a mechanic for New York Transit at the Queens Village Depot. He taught me how to work on anything with a motor when he wasn’t beatin’ on me, and when I turned eighteen, my mom pushed me to enlist to get away from the fucker,” I explained, sipping my beer while I just kept talking.

“Where’s the bastard now?” Dallas asked. He seemed to want to do something about my stepdad, which was nice of him but completely unnecessary.

“One of my sister’s friends said Bob had sexually assaulted her. A couple of days later, a hydraulic lift failed, and a bus fell on the son of a bitch. It had been hoisted up just enough for him to crawl under it to untangle something from the front axle. Supposedly, the lift malfunctioned, and the thing fell on him. It crushed his ribcage and killed him instantly while I was deployed in Mosul. I prefer to think a guardian angel—or the assaulted girl’s father—released the lift and killed him,” I answered.

Dallas nodded. “Based on what Lon told me, I completely understand why you went AWOL to find your sister, and it sucks that you got caught. Will you tell me what happened after they locked you up? You were only supposed to be in for a year, right?”

I wanted to tell him how I got derailed and ended up staying longer, but I wouldn’t put either of them in danger. “Look, as much as I trust you and London, I can’t tell you anything about that time. It’s classified, and they’ll come after you if they think I told you. I’m afraid…” I trailed off, not finishing my sentence. Something inside me told me I was onto something about people I cared about being harmed because of me, though.

I felt protective of the St. Michael brothers, though I wasn’t sure why since I’d only just met them. I knew people would look for me, if they weren’t already, and I definitely didn’t want those two men on the list of targets they might use to keep me in line.

Dallas drained his beer. “How about you let Lon and me take care of ourselves? We’ve been doing it for a while, soldier. So, what happened to you in prison?”

“I can’t—”

“Yeah, you can. You need to tell us what’s going on. You’re hooked on something, Kelly, and you need a friend. I don’t work for the ATF any longer, and I don’t work for GEA-A. Either tell me or tell Lon. Don’t make him a mark without giving him a heads-up about who’s coming and give him a chance to dodge the bullet,” Dallas stated.

I studied the man for a moment, assured that he would do anything to protect his brother, just as I was going to protect my sister. I couldn’t let anything happen to any of them.

“What I’m dealing with is so much bigger than anything you’ve ever tackled, no offense. I like you, Dallas. I like London, too. By the way, what’s the deal with your names?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

Dallas laughed. “Mom grew up in Dallas, Texas. Dad grew up in London, Arkansas.”

Named after the towns where their parents were born. It was just that fucking simple… Why wasn’t everything?

* * *

I gave Dallas every opportunity to leave, but he stayed put. We ordered some lunch and watched a couple of NFL playoff games, neither of us talking too much about anything other than the botched plays we saw on the big screen in what seemed to be a media room.

I was finally centered, what with the Poker Chips having leveled me out. It was a huge mistake for me to test my ability to withdraw from whatever that fucking concoction The Gambler had created was, but I had to know if I could function without it. Sadly, I found I couldn’t.

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