The control it takes to walk into this fucking house with a calm bravado, something I don’t feel in the slightest, is damn near impossible to maintain. All I want to do is kick the door down, if only to make the bastard inside it piss himself in fear, but I don’t want to worry my girl, who is sitting in the passenger seat of my car, her eyes on my back, Drew’s resting on the hood of it, just in case—a bullshit task I shouldn’t have to fucking ask of him, not that he minds. He loves the girl like a sister, always has. He’d insist, but that’s beside the point.
There should be nothing to fucking ask.
Nothing to worry about.
Nothing threatening the safety of the woman I love.
But her brother’s name is Memphis Franco, and that in itself, is a threat.
His name is known in all the small cities around here, and not for anything worthwhile.
For his ability to charm his way into circles he doesn’t belong, and then proceeding to fuck shit up.
He robs Peter to pay Paul, and then he does it all over again until there’s no one else to screw, which is when he comes crawling to me.
I let the door slam with a little added force, but it doesn’t matter.
The asshole doesn’t even twitch.
He’s still out cold, slumped in the armchair, his chin dropped to his chest, clothes the same dirty ones he wore last night. He’s bloody and bruised, his face shiny with sweat, eyes sunk in, his body dehydrated and in need of water.
I take a cold bottle from the fridge and walk over until I’m standing two feet from him.
Looking at him makes me sick, and that’s a damn shame. The man had potential; he was smart with endless support, even long after addiction took him by the throat.
The problem? Support wasn’t what he was looking for. I knew at a young age what his family had to discover the hard way, what Davis may only now be on the verge of understanding.
You can only help someone who wants to be helped, and the only kind of help this man has ever been willing to accept is the kind that feeds his habit.
A lift to the liquor store.
A six-pack of seltzers.
A few bucks for a bottle.
Alcoholism is no joke. It’s a disease, a chronic sickness, a deadly poison, and when it works its way into the veins of those you love, all you can do is pray it doesn’t kill them. Them, or someone else.
I won’t allow Davis to become the “someone else.”
I hate this for her.
I hate him.
Uncapping the water bottle, I pour it over his head.
Memphis jerks, flying forward on instinct, but I shove his ass right back into the chair, my shoe coming up to stop it from rocking back and forth.
Disoriented, he looks around, his attention settling in on me.
The night comes back to him in a flash, or pieces of it, depending on how fucked up he was, or got after we left—wouldn’t put it past him to keep the binger going when no one was around to tell him to stop.
“Crew—” he begins.
“What happened last night?” I cut him off.
“Listen—”
“Why did it happen?” I fire again. “Who were those men?”
His silence says it all; he’s in fucking trouble. Again.
Things are different this time though.
He didn’t only bring problems to my door.
He walked them right through hers.
My blood boils beneath my skin.
“You’re just going to sit there silent, like a little bitch, after putting Davis in danger? Your own fucking sister?!” I’m screaming now, close to losing it and pummeling him until he passes out again.
Finally, he opens his mouth, but his words are pathetic. “I didn’t plan that!”
“They were with you, were they not?!”
“They found me and jumped in the car!”
“That you stole from your sister, who gave you a free fucking place to stay!”
“I only meant to borrow it!” He sits forward. “That’s it.”
“You drove it drunk and fucking crashed, Memphis. How you could do that when you almost fucking killed someone’s entire family doing the same damn thing, in my car you stole, I don’t fucking know!”
“I wouldn’t have crashed if they hadn’t gotten in the car.”
“You’re fucking pathetic.” I scoff, my fists clenching at my sides. “Who were they, Memphis?”
He shakes his head, throwing himself back in the chair and looking away.
“What, man enough to do and take as you please, even at the risk of the one and only person left in the world who still loves your sorry ass, but not man enough to admit what you did out loud?”
“You already know.” His eyes come back to mine. “You just want me to say it, so you can look at me like I’m a piece of shit.”
“Would a good man bring thugs into his sister’s home, knowing she was here alone? Knowing what they’re capable of? What they will do to women they want without a fucking care?!”
“I wouldn’t have let anyone hurt her!”
“You did, motherfucker! And you hurt her just the same! If I didn’t call her friend next door to help her, someone else might have broken into her room. They tried to open her bedroom door! Did you know that?” Rage prickles across my skin, tempting me to shred it from my body. “You were so trashed, you had no idea what was going on by the time I got here. I could have taken her and left, and you wouldn’t have even been able to protect yourself, let alone your innocent sister.”
He shoots to his feet, a fretful look in his blue eyes, a pathetic lie he can’t possibly believe rolling off his tongue. “I could have protected her!”
“She should need no fucking protecting!” I get in his face. “That’s the fucking point!”
“I didn’t mean to bring them here! They jumped into the car, put a knife to my throat and told me to drive. We wrecked and a ton of people saw, they called the cops, Crew. I had to run.”
“You didn’t have to run here,” I force past clenched teeth. “You came to town knowing someone was after you. Last night, or last fucking week, it doesn’t matter. You put her in danger coming home.”
“I didn’t plan this!”
“No, you just came back, knowing someone was after you!”
“I had no choice! I had to come back, and you were nowhere to be found,” he tries to reason. “If I knew where you had moved, I never would have come to her—”
“Yes, you fucking did!” I scream, my ears vibrating from the echo around us as I push into his face. “You had a fucking choice, you’re just a weak son of a bitch who pushes your problems onto other people. I won’t let you ruin my life again, Memphis. You—”
“I don’t understand…”
Davis’s worrisome words reach us and both our heads snap her way.
She steps into the door, and my eyes flick to Drew over her shoulder.
He holds my gaze, and I know she refused to sit still any longer.
She frowns, stepping in even farther, gasping slightly at the sight of the rooms around us.
The couch is broken, the chairs in the kitchen knocked over. Blood stains the floor, glass shards are scattered along the back wall, and if you look close enough, you might spot a couple teeth that belonged to the big fucker who scared my girl, who touched my girl.
I should have cut off his trigger finger.
Davis steps beside me, her gaze on her brother, who cowers into his seat.
“What do you mean you had to come back? Had to come to me? Did you not want to see me? You just… what? Had nowhere else to go, so I was the last resort, and not even the happy kind?”
“Davis…” he begins, reaching for her.
I can’t stop myself; I block his path before I realize I’m doing it, and I’m glad for it. He doesn’t get to go near her.
He glares at me, but his features soften some as he looks at her.
“Did you not miss me at all?” Her eyes cloud, and I have to dig my nails into my palms to keep from laying him out for causing it. But then she looks to me. “And why did you need Crew?” Her eyes narrow, anger washing away some of the torment.
My pulse beats widely with each passing second.
“What did you do to him?” she accuses, her tone harsh yet low, eyes on me, but her words are not. She’s speaking to him.
The world spins a little, leveling out the slightest bit.
“Nothing!” he tosses quickly, jumping up and stepping around me.
This time, I let him, because she keeps her attention trained on me, waiting for him to continue but needing to judge my reaction to his words before deciding how to feel about them.
“I didn’t do anything.” Memphis lies through his rotting teeth. “I just needed his help. That’s all. We have it under control, sister, I—”
“Stop,” she whispers, and I want to wrap my arms around her, hold the weight he’s tossing at her on my own shoulders. Moisture pooling in her eyes, she looks to him. “Stop lying to me, Memphis. Tell me what I don’t know.”
She isn’t angry, her tone bleeding a sadness I don’t see how he can’t feel, yet still, faced with the task of telling the truth, Memphis clamps his lips closed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. I wait, hoping for once he’ll do right by her, knowing it’s too much of an ask for him. And it is.
Memphis says nothing, and rather than drill him some more, Davis looks to me.
“Your brother is the real reason I was kicked out of college,” I offer instantly. “He blamed me and I let him.”
“Crew, what the fuck?!” Memphis barks.
Davis gasps.
I keep talking, my eyes holding hers as I give her brutal honesty, something I should have done a long-ass time ago but thought I had to protect her from. “He’s not only a struggling alcoholic, but a gambling addict. A broke one.” I glare at him, hating to do this, but refusing to hide it from her when she’s asking me to paint his true colors for her to see.
She looks to her brother, shocked, yet a trace of something more in her eyes, almost like she wondered if there was more to the troubles he faced, but never took it a step further to consider what it might be. But then she shakes her head, looking to me.
“I don’t understand. What’s that have to do with the school?” she wonders.
“The day the people he fucked over decided they were done waiting, a couple thugs came looking for him, he just so happened to bail on class, one we had together.” A sickening sense of betrayal I’ve refused to allow myself to feel claws at me. “Three of them found their way into the class, attacked me in front of everyone. It was complete fucking chaos, but I walked out with a few cuts and bruises, and a gash on my chin. They couldn’t even stand. Cops showed up, they were put in the back of an ambulance. I was expelled because, supposedly, I was running a betting ring I didn’t even know existed, and they were my unhappy customers. They said I posed a threat to the school, and that was that.”
Memphis sat back, watched me pack my shit with campus security breathing down my back, and fucking thanked me. I glance at Memphis, who won’t even face me like a man, but stares at my shoes on his feet. “Your brother fucked over the wrong club and sent them to me when he couldn’t pay.” I’d already hated him by then, but that was the moment I was done, ready to let them do whatever they wanted to him. But it wasn’t so simple, especially after what I did to their “punishers” as they called the three goons who came after me.
“After seeing me fight, they used it to their advantage.” Something I could never prove Memphis planted in their head, and the attack was simply them testing the information, but if I were a piece of shit like him, I’d bet on it.
Creases build along her forehead as she processes what I’m saying, her hand subconsciously pressing a palm to her stomach as she remembers what she saw on mine.
I nod.
Yes, baby. The scars.
“They forced me to take fights to pay off what he owed while he was off getting shit-faced and fucking over the next dumbass,” I continue.
Davis presses her lips together, her question low. “How long did you have to work for them?”
I didn’t work for them, I was controlled by them, but I don’t say that.
Masking my expression, I do my best to keep any emotion from my tone, knowing she’ll hurt for me once I tell her.
“Three years.”
A mix between a cry and a gasp escapes her, and she reaches for me, gripping onto my arm to offer her strength, in case I need it.
I don’t, I’m good ,and over the bullshit that came before her, but the gesture is purehearted, and I fucking love her for it. For wanting to take my pain, should I have some, and offer her support.
“Why did you do it?” she wonders quietly.
The answer is simple. “Because they threatened to go after his family if he couldn’t pay, and I couldn’t allow that. The main dude gave his word he wouldn’t go searching for you, if I didn’t give him a reason to, so I didn’t. I did everything I was told until the money was paid in full.”
She stares at me, both our gazes softening as understanding slips over her.
“That’s why you never came back home,” she whispers. “That’s why you stayed away from me.”
Yeah, baby. That’s why.
I hold her eyes for a minute, before looking back to him. “How much, Memphis?”
“Twenty-five.”
I wait, and his head lifts, his stare connecting with mine.
“Thousand,” he finishes.
A humorless laugh leaves me, and I step away, shaking my head. That’s a lifetime’s worth.
“Crew, please.” He darts toward me, and in my peripheral, Drew slips closer. I’d almost forgotten he was here. “These guys aren’t like the last ones.”
“That’s your problem, Memphis. Not mine.”
“How can you just say no? What about Davis?!”
I’m in his face so fast, he loses his balance and falls into the chair. “I sacrificed everything, let dirtbags control my life for three fucking years because of you with a fraction of that number owed, and you have the nerve to come back here and ask for my help?! After you brought them to your sister’s front fucking door, the one person I did all that for, that I let go of to protect?!” I jerk forward, gripping him around the collar and yanking him off his feet, speaking through clenched teeth. “I could have lost the only fucking thing that has ever mattered to me because of you! If I died, she never would have known what she meant to me!”
“They’ll kill me, Crew!”
“I should fucking kill you!” My body shakes in rage. This is Davis. No one hurts her. No one.
Davis wraps her hand around my arm, gently tugging.
It takes a moment, but I let him go, his eyes shining with tears, but I’d bet they’re for himself. He looks to his sister, his throat bobbing with his swallow.
Something in the pit of my stomach stirs, and when he opens his mouth, but closes it a moment later, I realize, like a fucking fool, the churning sensation was hope.
Despite knowing better, I hoped for a single fucking second, he’d speak up, say something, anything to the girl hurting at my side.
I know her mind must be reeling, and as her brother, as a fucking decent man, he should be driven by a need to settle her some. To ease the pain, I don’t have to look at her to know what is written all over her face. I sense it in the air, feel it in her weighted touch.
But he isn’t a decent man.
He’s a weak and selfish one.
It’s one thing to be a slave to the disease that owns you, but it’s another to stand here silent when sober enough to have the conversation, staring at your little sister, who was once your whole world, and she was. Memphis loved her, protected her to no end. I’m sure he still does to some extent, but the years and distance between them have affected him differently than they did her.
She spent the time missing and worrying about him, waiting for him to come home.
He spent it so lost in his own demons, that if he ever did think of her, he likely drowned out the memories in a bottle of booze. I don’t fault him for that, but I do for this.
For right now.
Davis gently steers me toward the door, releasing me as she steps out onto the porch, Drew places a hand on her lower back in support as he guides her out, a bag he must have packed for us hanging from his hands.
With heavy steps, I follow, but Memphis snaps out of the internal war his mind is likely waging.
“Crew, I wasn’t lying. These guys, they’re dangerous,” he rushes out desperately, his voice growing closer, letting me know he’s taken several steps toward me. “They’ll kill me, man.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you chose to fuck them over.” My words are low and tired, and I glance back, my gaze connecting with his. “Fix your own fucking problems, Memphis. I’m done doing it for you.”
With that, I walk out, hoping like hell the shitstorm surrounding him won’t follow.
Knowing in the back of my mind, it will.
It always fucking does.
