The screaming from the neighbors grew again. It was early in the morning. The sun had barely risen yet, but I’d been lying awake for hours. Not just because of the fighting in the neighbor house but also because of Growl’s agreement to help me.
I scrambled out of bed and peered out of the window toward the house across the street. This time the couple had taken their fight outside. They both were facing each other on their front lawn. A small boy stood in the doorway, perhaps two years old, watching how his parents screamed at each other.
The man raised his hand and hit the woman so hard that she stumbled and fell to the ground, but that didn’t stop him. He leaned over her and hit her again. The boy started crying, his face contorted with terror.
“Growl,” I called.
He came toward me, looking alert. “What’s wrong?”
“The guy is beating his girlfriend up again.”
Growl gave his ‘so-what’ look. “He’s doing it almost every day and she doesn’t leave him. It’s not our problem.”
Another scream drew my eyes back to the couple. The woman was trying to crawl away from her boyfriend but he grabbed her by the hair and twisted her around, hitting her again.
“Help her,” I said firmly. “Please. Or I will do it.” I turned and headed toward the front door, ripping it open. I knew it would be near impossible for me to stop the man because he was tall and big.
Growl was close behind me. “You need to learn to mind your own business.”
“Why? So I can become as ruthless as you and Falcone? No, thanks!” I hissed as I stormed down the sidewalk.
Before I could reach the sideway, Growl grabbed me by the arm, jerking me to a stop. I whirled on him. The howling of the young boy carried over to us and tore at her heart. Nobody else was helping, though many faces appeared in windows, watching what was going on. “This boy has to watch his father beat up his mother. You should know what it does to a child to watch that kind of horrors. Do you really want that boy to share the same fate as you?”
Growl’s eyes flashed with uncertainty, then his gaze fell on the scene across the street. Resolve and fury took over his face. Relief flooded me. I knew that expression.
Growl crossed the street without looking left or right. I followed after him. The guy hadn’t noticed us yet and was insulting his girlfriend and kicking and hitting her alternately. Growl was a bull as he rammed the man with his shoulder. The guy let out a cry and tumbled to the ground. He looked like he wanted to punch whoever had attacked him but then he realized it was Growl and his eyes grew wide.
I crouched beside the woman who was still sitting on the ground, pressing her hand over her mouth. Blood was dripping down her chin. “You’re okay now,” I murmured as touched her shoulder. Her unfocused eyes settled on me. She didn’t say anything. I could smell alcohol on her breath. Her son came running toward us and hugged her around the neck. “Mom…mommy.”
She ignored him, eyes only for Growl who was hitting and shaking her boyfriend, and saying something we couldn’t overhear.
“Don’t let him kill my Dave,” she said almost pleadingly.
I stared. After everything, she was worried about her abusive boyfriend?
“You should go to a women’s shelter with your son.”
The woman shook her head. “Dave isn’t a bad guy. Don’t let him hurt my Dave.”
I stood. Growl shoved the man toward his car. “Fuck off,” he growled, sounding as menacing as he looked. The man got into his car and drove off.
“You should really leave as long as he’s gone,” I told the woman. But her eyes followed the car with despair and longing, and I knew she wouldn’t leave. I ruffled the boy’s hair and the gesture brought a smile to his face. That poor child.
I helped the woman and the boy inside their house, ignoring her constant questions about her boyfriend. Inside the house was crowded with empty beer bottles. It stank of smoke and alcohol, and then I decided that I needed to save the boy at least. I lifted him into my arms and carried him out again. The woman didn’t stop me. She was fumbling with her mobile, trying to call her abusive boyfriend.
Growl gave me a look but didn’t comment as I came out with the young boy. We walked across the street and only when we entered Growl’s house, did he say. “You can’t keep him.”
“I won’t. We have to call child services. We have to do something.”
“You can’t save them all.”
“But I can save him, and that’s enough,” I said firmly. The boy was looking at Bandit and Coco curiously.
Growl glanced between me and the small boy, and nodded. “I know someone I can call. They will find a good place for him.” The boy reached out and touched one of Growl’s tattoos in fascination. Growl’s expression softened a tad and then he headed off toward the phone as if he was scared of his own reaction. There was hope for him after all. An hour later two women came and picked the boy up. That evening I heard his parents screaming at each other again but they didn’t come to ask for him.
When I lay next to Growl after sex that night, I whispered. “You did the right thing today.” He had. Perhaps I was wrong, perhaps he could make up for his sins by doing good.
Growl turned to me. “Perhaps. But that woman is still with the asshole. Some people know nothing but misery. It’s something reliable. Change scares them more than their shitty life.”
I traced the inked thorns over his forearm. “Like you.”
Growl narrowed his eyes. “I’m changing my life for you by going against Falcone.”
“I know, and I’m grateful for that. But you’re doing it for me. It’s like you still don’t think you deserve anything good.” I said. “You live in this place though you don’t have to. I can’t imagine Falcone is paying you that badly. You are like that woman in that regard.”
He sat up. “This house isn’t like being beaten up by someone.” He hesitated. “Is it that bad for you?”
I sighed. “This place makes me miserable.”
“You mean I make you miserable.”
“No,” I said, and I wasn’t sure if it was the truth or still part of her plan to make him trust me. “This place. The people are hopeless and ignorant, and there’s no beauty in this place, only desolation.”
Growl looked around the room. “Beauty is fleeting.”
“And desolation and despair isn’t?” I sat up as well, and leaned my chin on his shoulder, breathing in his musky scent. I didn’t want him to leave but I could tell that he was already growing restless.
“It’s familiar. It’s reliable,” Growl murmured. “I always liked that.” And I had messed things up for him, I supposed. A creature of habit, indeed. And yet, he was giving it up for me.
For a while there was silence, then he slowly withdrew, and I had no choice but to let go of him. He perched on the edge of the bed, but then he got up. “Sleep tight.”
“I would sleep better if you stayed,” I said.
Growl hesitated, but then he left again. Every time I thought we were getting somewhere, an action like this reminded me that we couldn’t. Perhaps at some point my heart would grasp that too.
We drove toward the Las Vegas strip with its skyscrapers. Everything was bright and the people were enjoying themselves. This was a far cry from where Growl lived. We stopped in front of tall sleek skyscrapers with bellboys in front of the sliding doors. Growl got out before the man could open his door, so he helped me out of the car instead. It felt strange to be surrounded by this luxury again. I almost felt like I didn’t belong, as if the last couple of weeks had changed me so much already that I couldn’t possibly fit into the world I’d been part of all her life. It was a scary thought.
Growl led me inside the building with a hand on my back. It was a possessive gesture and at the same time I thought he was trying to show me something else. Or was I trying to see things Growl wasn’t capable of? The receptionist gave us a too bright smile as we headed for the elevators.
We got out at the very top of the skyscraper and stepped into a massive penthouse. Everything was white and glass and gold. “What is this?” I asked. It was furnished with black and grey design furniture. Everything was sleek and perfect.
“My apartment,” Growl said simply.
I froze on my way toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. “This is yours?” This apartment looked completely unused. And in six the weeks that I’d been with him, he’d never mentioned it to me. I startled. Had it really been six weeks? God. And at the same time six weeks seemed way too short a time span for everything that had happened.
Six weeks. Without my sister. She was fine, Growl had assured me. And my mother, I hadn’t seen her in so long.
“I got it a few years back,” Growl said, tearing me from my thoughts. He fetched a coke from the fridge and drank it. “Falcone gave it to me as payment for a job well done, but I don’t use it.” He handed me another coke but I only used it to let the cold help me focus.
“If you have this,” I motioned around myself. “Then why are you living in that awful house? This place doesn’t look like you’ve ever set foot in it. There’s nothing that belongs to you.”
Growl gave me a strange look. “Because this isn’t who I am. The furniture was there when I got it and I never changed anything,” he said in his usual low rumble. “This is too…” His eyes searched the room. “Too noble for someone like me. It’s just not me.”
I stopped at the window and let my gaze wander over the Las Vegas strip spreading out below us. In the distance I could see the endless red desert. I preferred to live in a house, had always loved my old home and the garden, but everything was better than the shack Growl called home. “For someone like you?” I repeated his words.
Growl approached me slowly and followed my gaze. “And Coco and Bandit wouldn’t feel comfortable so high up. They’d miss their garden. Around here there’s no where I could walk them.”
I gave him a look but he avoided my eyes. There was something strangely vulnerable and out of place in Growl. Why did he feel so uncomfortable in a luxurious apartment? “It’s not like the area where we live is great for dog walks.”
Growl gave me a strange smile. “Bandit and Coco are used to places like that. They know how to handle drunkards and junkies, whores and the homeless. The people around here with their fake smiles, that’s something they can’t handle. People like that sent them into dog fights.”
“You know, there are places where normal decent people live. You compare one extreme with the other.”
“Normal,” Growl said quietly, testing the word. “I’ve never had normal.” He turned to me. “Can you imagine me among normal decent people?”
I didn’t say anything. Growl with his scary tattoos and scarred throat always drew attention to himself, and that was only his scary appearance.
He must have read my thoughts from my face. He nodded. “Normal people wouldn’t want me in their neighborhood, they’d be scared of me. And the people around here, they don’t want me either because they, too, fear me.”
“Everyone fears you,” I said matter-of-factly. “Even the criminals and junkies in your area. If you want to live where no one fears you, you’ll have to move into wilderness.” It was meant as a joke, to lighten up the mood, but Growl nodded thoughtfully.
“Animals don’t fear me, only humans do. I’m a man-made monster, perhaps that’s why.” He took in our surroundings again. “Monsters aren’t meant for a palace like this.”
He thought he didn’t deserve to live in a nice place. Maybe along the way he’d started to believe what everyone said, that he was below everyone else, that he wasn’t worth anything. For some reason I felt for him, even though he didn’t deserve my compassion.
“You belong here,” Growl said quietly. “A princess in her tower.”
My lips parted in surprise. It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like that but it caught me by surprise every time.
“So why are we here?” I asked him.
“You hate the house,” he said simply.
“And?”
“We can live here for a while. It’ll make you feel better until I figure out the best day for our plan.”
I was stunned into silence. Growl was really considering moving into this place because he wanted to see me happy. “Are you sure?” I wanted nothing more than to live here, in this bright place, away from the misery.
He nodded, but I could detect a hint of uncertainty.
“What about Bandit and Coco? You said it yourself, they need a yard. Will they get used to this?”
Growl brushed a strand of hair from my shoulder. “I’m away on business most of the time. I can take them with me. I’m often out in nature where they can run. And I won’t sell the house, so we can return there if we don’t want to stay here.”
I doubted that I’d ever want to return to Growl’s house. It wasn’t even because it was small and in a bad neighborhood. The place was filled with too much desolation; it seemed burnt into the walls and floors. There was no escaping it.
“I’d love to live here,” I admitted eventually. And I really did.
“We might not be living here for very long though. After we’re done with Falcone, we have to leave Las Vegas.”
I knew that, and after everything that had happened to me here, I wasn’t sad to leave my home town. I wanted a new start. With Growl? A sharp voice inquired in my head. And part of me, wanted to say yes.
“I know, but even a few weeks or just days are good. I love seeing the horizon,” I said. I peered up at him. There was a soft edge to his expression, and I couldn’t help it. I’d never wanted him more than in that moment. I wasn’t sure if this was still part of the plan, if my actions toward Growl were still only intended to get him on my side, to reach my goal of revenge and safety for my family. I stood on my tiptoes, grabbed him by the neck and pulled him down to me for a deep kiss. He immediately responded. I pressed up against him and he grabbed my butt with one hand, squeezing. I started pulling at his clothes, and soon we were both naked, our hands roaming every inch of uncovered skin. My body was aflame with need. Growl lifted me up and pressed my back against the window. I let out a surprised laugh. “Here?” I asked. He nudged my entrance with his length.
“It’s a nice view,” Growl said dryly.
I kissed him hard, and he pushed into me at the same time, making me gasp into his mouth. My back rubbed over the window as Growl pounded into me. And then we both came at the same time. Growl sank to his knees with me still wrapped around him. We both panted. Her eyes sought out the strip and the neighboring skyscrapers. “Is this reflecting coating?”
Growl shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
I leaned against the glass. “So someone could have watched us?”
“Do you care?”
“No,” I said. And it was true. A few weeks ago, this would have been impossible, but so much had happened since then that the idea of someone seeing me having sex wasn’t something that could ruin my day. Far from it.
