Page 10 of Blue-Eyed Jacks
“Yup.”I didn’t move.
“You are an ambitious man.I saw that in you the day you arrived on our doorstep with your dad’s blessing.One of these days, you’re going to replace me.So, I’m giving you advice.Don’t get derailed now.Not over some gash.”
His word choice needed work.That single moment of fog-green fantasy was enough to tell me a sordid tale.She wasn’t a junkie, whoever she was.Those eyes were clear, not feverish or hazed out in a funk of drugged stupor.And she certainly wasn’t gash.Every molecule of my body screamed that this woman was defiant to the core, but Shock was breaking her.
And when he succeeded, the world would lose an angel.
But unlike most men, I knew angels weren’t the sweet passive things that strummed harps and made sickly music to lull men into bondage.
Angels were demons with a righteous call to avenge the wrongs of evil.And they were damn sexy doing it.
Pinner was right in his own twisted way.I did have a type.
Chapter 4
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, February 23, 2006—Kate
Six months before this horrible week, Gina held a phone in front of my face.“Memorize this number.”I barely had time to before Shock packed up the entire crew, and we lit out of Skilletsville just after midnight.Life was kicking my ass, and my eighteenth birthday was the lowest point of them all.
Shock thought it would be “fun” to take me out in the cold and snow barely dressed with my ass hanging out of a borrowed miniskirt and a coat that truly didn’t deserve the title.
As I shivered in the ladies’ room, coughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, a total stranger called 9-1-1.In the mayhem of police and firefighters, Shock abandoned me.Only BamBam stuck around.I was on a stretcher getting oxygen between bouts of coughing blood when he slipped one of them a fifty to “talk” to me.They parked the stretcher behind the vehicle and disappeared.
I honestly thought I was going to die on my birthday.
He poked a blade against my neck, under my ear, and leaned in to say, “You squeal, you die.We’ll be watching.”The last I saw of him was the ugly skull on the back of his jacket.
* * *
AWeek Later
“Who should we call for your discharge?”The nurse busied herself winding the mask and plastic tubes that saved my life.
My silence drew her attention.
“Parents?”Her eyes dipped to my ring.“Husband?”As she said the word, she pointed to the bruises on my arm and followed up with, “Someone else?Someone you feel safe with?”She checked the door for any visitors, but there were none.No one came to the hospital.I could’ve died, and no one cared.But they were watching.
“Can you show me how to dial out?”I didn’t trust her.I didn’t trust anyone.I couldn’t.
She explained the phone system.“Who should we expect?”
Honestly?I didn’t know.And it would be better if no one here knew.“No one.”
Her face tightened.“I can give you a help-line.Would you call it?”
“Is it local?”
She smiled and nodded.
“No.”
“Theycanhelp you.”
No service was untainted between my father’s and my husband’s influences.“No.”
Her lips pursed into a knot.“Fine.The doctor will be in later this afternoon with your discharge paperwork and prescriptions.”
That didn’t give me much time.It was at least three hours from Skilletsville to Pittsburgh.I needed everything in place before I was discharged.I tapped out the numbers.
