“He’ll most likely be angry, but too exhausted to fight you. Let him sleep it off and you find a way to get the hell out. You need anything, call me at Caldwell’s.” I end it by pointing at the business card.
Hastily, I kiss her forehead, hating leaving her behind to clean up my mess, but knowing if she’s going to leave it has to be on her terms. That is the one thing I learned from Momma. Neither hell or high water would make her give up everything she had worked for, even if she lived in the worst nightmare of her life day in and day out.
“I have nowhere to go.” She whispers and my heart beats loudly into my ears. “I’ve only just turned seventeen.”
Fuck! This man is beating on a minor who is helpless to leave. What the hell have I gotten myself into now?
“I’ll help you.” I pick up the card and hand it to her, then close her tiny little hand around it. “Name?”
“Tatiana,” she whispers, and he stirs again.
“Come with me. We can call the cops, his ass can go to jail. Social services—”
“You have to leave.”
“But—”
“Thank you,” she says as she pulls her hand away and walks toward the open door.
I follow her even though everything in my head is telling me to finish this asshole off. “Come with me, Tatiana. I swear I will help you.”
She steps into the hall and I think she is going to follow me. Hell, I wanna pick her up and put her in my pocket so that fucker can never touch her again without going through me first. Then she steps back inside and starts to close the door.
“What are you doing?” I know the shock registers on my face.
“I know where to find you.”
The door shuts and my stomach turns. I want to smash it open and take her away. But I remember her words; maybe she just has to grab some things.
—
I beat feet to the bar. I know she’ll show. I know she will. She has to. I walk in as Lola the bartender walks past me all teary-eyed.
“Lost another one?” I laugh.
“Maybe,” my brother Hendrix shrugs.
“Seriously, bro, you need to learn to play nice with others.” So do other assholes in this ugly fucking world, I think as I look toward the window to see if she followed.
“Look, unless you’re here to take on another night—step it up a bit—I don’t wanna hear shit.”
“I liked Lola.” I sit down on the other side of the bar.
“You hear heels clicking up the wooden stairs into the apartment?”
I give him the ‘What the hell are you talking about’ look. Then I hear them. He raises his eyebrows and I shake my head.
“No shit?” Lola is in the apartment above the bar, the apartment our asshole father still lives in because Hendrix allowed him to stay, a promise to our dying momma.
“Just found ’em in my fucking office. Told him a month ago, when I caught him skimming from the till, he was out. Not to step foot in my fucking place again, or he could pack his shit.”
I shake my head and clench my fists. I fucking hate my father, abusive assholes, I hate all of them. I look at the window, Come on, little Tatiana, I think to myself. Be brave.
“What are you gonna do?” I ask Hendrix, still looking for the tiny little one.
“He’s packing his shit,” he answers.
“You for real, man?” Music to my ears, a win for the good guys.
“As fucking real as terminal cancer.”
Momma died of cancer, and although some people wouldn’t find that statement funny, we laugh, because, well, sometimes you have to find humor in your misfortune. Unfortunately, I am finding no motherfucking humor in the fact that Tatiana isn’t showing up, and that I wish someone would superglue my ass to this barstool because I know if she isn’t here in about ten minutes, I’m gonna fuck shit up.
I look back at Hendrix. I know he’s fighting inside, he holds shit in, whereas I am a little less…introverted.
I look up when the door opens to see Hendrix’s buddy Johnny, the cop.
Fuck, I think to myself when I see the pissed-off look on his face, and the angry eyes directed toward, well, me.
I know what’s next so I make it easy on all of them, I stand up. “Got bail?” I ask Hendrix.
“You’re fucking joking, right?” He looks down at my knuckles and shakes his head.
“Jagger, you know I have to take you in.” Johnny is pissed. “You beat the shit out of your landlord.”
“His kid was crying. Heard her through the wall, opened the door, and she’s running down the hall. Fucker came out chasing her with a belt.”
“So you beat him to the ground?” Johnny asks, taking the cup of coffee Hendrix slides across the bar. “How about call 911? That’s my job, man. Now she’s so scared she’s not talking and won’t press charges—”
“What do you mean, ‘won’t press charges’? She had switch marks across her goddamned neck, Johnny. She’s a fucking kid. She needs someone—”