Blind to the colossal mistake I was about to make, I snatched the bottle off the fridge and twisted off the cap, destroying the tamper-evident seal in one quick move.
The whiskey’s stench burned my nostrils, giving me the first hint of the oblivion to come. Eyes closed, I lifted the bottle to my parted, waiting lips.
But then, I froze as an accented voice, one more alluring than any I’d ever heard, echoed through my mind, causing a shiver to race down my cowardly spine. “Guapo,” it whispered. “Don’t.”
Chest heaving, I gripped the edge of the counter where I stood, swaying on my feet, clearly hallucinating. “Carmen…” Sanity lost to the pain, and uncaring of the mental break beginning to start, I begged for her to keep speaking. “Beautiful girl, please.”
It was a request she obliged. “This isn’t the way. It will never be the way.” Eyelids opening, I lowered the bottle and stared down at it with unseeing eyes. “For him, you must fight. And for me, you must never forget.”
Hendrix…
Vision focusing, I saw the bottle, along with the life-changing mistake I’d almost made. “Fuck this!” Growing even more disgusted with myself, I threw the bottle into the cast-iron sink to my right.
Glass shattered.
Liquid splashed.
Ignoring the mess I’d created, I spun in place, ready to slam my fisted hand into the nearest wall. But I never made it that far, because standing across the room, his tear-filled gaze locked on me, was my boy.
Eyes moving from me to the whiskey-coated sink, then back to me again, he slipped his hands into his pockets. “You drink it?”
I shook my pounding head. “No.”
“Why?”
I didn’t bother to hide my grief from him as I stepped closer, letting my tears fall. “Because I promised.” My chest heaved beneath the force of my ragged breaths. “And I’ve broken enough promises already.”
My son’s shoulders slumped in both relief and sympathy as he stared at me, the piece of shit father he’d been cursed with. “I’m sorry, Pop,” he whispered, his deep voice softer than I’d ever heard it. “I’m so goddamned sorry.”
His chin wobbled.
“If I could have saved them, I would’ve. Robina Hood, Shorty…” Wetness fell from his red-rimmed eyes, streaking his clean-shaven cheeks. “How did this happen?”
“I fucked up,” I answered, honestly. “I should have demanded to go with her to get the girls. Then I should have—”
“Robina Hood never would’ve allowed that,” an aggrieved voice said from behind Hendrix, taking me by surprise.
Moving past my boy, I came face to face with Faye, who was standing by my open front door, a young woman who I could only assume was Amelia at her side. Behind them stood Tuck, who looked downright irate.
Swiping away the tears marring her cheeks with the backs of her hands, Faye sniffled. “Only person responsible for what happened to my girls is the man who stole their lives.”
“Faye,” I started, frame trembling. “I need to know who he is. I need his name. Please, goddammit, just give me that!”
She shook her head. “No.” Taking a small step back, she bumped into Tuck’s chest. “If I do and you go after him, he’ll kill the ones you love. Just like he killed mine.”
“Faye—”
“I saw them!” she shouted, the combination of hurt and loss she felt once again pouring out of her in waves. “After I packed me and my young’un up like Robina Hood told me to, I went lookin’ for ’em. I figured I could pick them up in my car and get us all to the shelter twice as fast, but I didn’t see ’em anywhere.”
I was close to collapsing again.
The pain…
It hurt too damned much.
I could barely breathe, much less stand.
“I made it all the way to the place I knew they’d be comin’ from.” Grasping her daughter’s hand tight, she swayed, close to toppling over. “And that’s when one of the other girls told me that the bossman had done killed all of ’em in a rage.”
Hendrix growled; numbness possessed me.
Coldness seeped in, freezing my insides.
Aching emptiness followed.
“My ol’ heart refused to believe her, so I went searchin’. Soon after, I caught sight of them tossing Robina Hood’s corpse into the trunk of a black car. That’s when I knew…”
Falling back onto Tuck completely, who wrapped an arm around her center to keep her upright, she slid her free hand into her hair, grasping the locks. “They were gone. Just like the girl had said. My girls were gone, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to help em’.”
Shaking her head back and forth, she spiraled, just as I’d done moments before. “Her coat had fallen off. It was layin’ there on the ground, so I grabbed it… It’s all I’ve got left of my best friend. But the girls—I don’t have nothin’ of theirs.”
That’s when I slipped free of my shell.
And like my son was close to doing, lost it.
“Tell us his goddamned name!” I screamed, words laced with hurt and dripping with the need for vengeance. “I don’t give a fuck how scary you think he is, I will end that mother—”
“No!” she fired back, digging her heels in. “That’s not what she would’ve wanted!”
“My woman is gone!” I snapped, rushing forward. “What matters now is what I want!” And what I wanted was to bathe in the blood of the monster who’d stolen her from me. “You tell me his name, Faye, or I swear on my life that I will burn this entire fucking town to the ground in order to—”
Whack!
Her palm met my right cheek, stopping my verbal tirade in its tracks. “You will not,” she snarled, “put a target on your back, along with those you love, to appease the need for vengeance that’s boilin’ your blood!”
Her words struck me harder than her hand had, knocking the sense I needed into me. Words finally registering, I took a small step back as the consequences for the vengeance I sought sunk in.
As I never failed to forget, I’d already put my son, along with the girl
