Page 18 of Dangerous Command
So I got to work. I went to the second freezer in the garage. Next to it, I grabbed two ice chests and a thirty rack of beer, then took bags of ice from the freezer. After I set them up, I checked to make sure that the ice chests weren’t too heavy—each one would require two hands. Hoisting it up, I brought the first chest to the kitchen. The tequila and vodka were empty, so when I went back to the garage, I checked for that too.
The Adler House had been in the family for generations, and now that Gerard was gone, Derek would take over. He would have the ability to change everything if he wanted, from the way the garage was organized, to the cleaning supplies and dogless kennel in the basement. But knowing how much he valued his family’s legacy, much of it would probably stay the same.
I searched the garage, but when the bottles weren’t in their normal place, I groaned. I slumped to the ground, leaning against the wall, suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of frustration, a reaction that didn’t make any sense given that I didn’t know Gerad. Still, tears filled my eyes as I stared at a plastic rack hanging with long-sleeved button-up shirts. Gerard’s clothes were still hanging there, waiting to be put away in a closet. The ghosts of his past.
Stay in here, my mother had said, pushing me behind a long pea coat. The memory was fuzzy, like a worn jacket, but I could still smell the dank odor of the stale closet, see my mother’s oily black hair.Don’t come out until I tell you to.
But Mama,I said.I don’t want to—
My stepdad’s footsteps clicked on the floor and my mother slammed the doors shut. My stepdad’s shoes had a peculiar sound to them, as if he was always walking on a rooftop, ready to jump down to the ground. He was the same height as my mother, but his presence always made him seem bigger than us. He made her cower like a frantic insect. She always tried to hide me so that I wouldn’t have to see him.
Except for that time, I wasn’t in bed yet.
His dark figure crossed over the slats in the closet doors.
Darling,she stuttered,I know you said—
But he cut her off, backhanding her so hard that she cried out.
Oh, the ‘darling’ angle is incredible. Especially with what I’ve taught you. You know my name,he had said.Use it.
Her words were inaudible, but her lips moved. He bent down towards her.
Louder, now, pet.
Her lips moved again, but her voice was soft, like the wings of a butterfly. He raised his hand high in the air to hurt her again and I smacked my hands over my face, not realizing that I had whimpered too. I bit my lip. Had he heard me?
He turned around, each step towards the closet heavier than the last.
Then he opened the doors.
You thought you could hide from me?he had asked.
It was the same question he had asked me only a few months ago, right before he cut my cheek.
He yanked me out of the closet by my hair, throwing me in the corner, to make me watch. His fists pummeled into my mother’s face until her eyebrow was torn open. She would never look at me in those moments; she couldn’t bear to think of what she was doing to me. Instead, she pretended I wasn’t there.I love you,she said, as if being controlled by a force beyond herself,I love you.But even as a child, I knew that what my stepdad was doing wasn’t love. Suddenly, living in mother’s car and staying warm in the library seemed better than watching her suffer.
I begged her to run away. Life would be better—we could be happy—if we just ran away.
But she never did.
Close your eyes, my mother would say. She would kiss me on the forehead each night, tears in her eyes, fearing what was coming as soon as she turned out the lights.It’ll be over soon. Like a dream that you’ll wake from. It’s a dream, Maddie. Just a dream.
So I closed my eyes. Kept my mouth shut. Didn’t give my stepdad the thrill of me begging or screaming like my mother did. But I could never look at him either. Was I afraid? Or did I truly want it to be a dream?
It’s a dream,I would think to myself, my saving mantra as he held me at gunpoint, his cock invading me.Just a dream.
Just a dream.
It’s a dream.
So wake up.
Gerard never had hurt his boys like my stepdad hurt me, but that didn’t mean that the Adlers couldn’t have become my stepdad. Every person had it in them, buried deep down. All it took was the right push. My stepdad only got worse as time went on. His crimes never stopped in our family. He branched out, taking control of everything he could. And as his power grew, so did my hatred for him.
Sometimes, I wondered how I got mixed up with the Adlers when they were criminals too. But money was money, and I did what I had to because I wanted more time with Mack. Suddenly, I was working for the Adlers full-time as their cleaner, and personal assistant.
It took my stepdad showing up for the first time in years for me to realize how stupid it all was, and to make myself disappear.
