“It’s mine, not yours. You were gone. You left me to that.”
“I did f**kin’ not and you know it. How in the f**k did you go from me to Richard f**kin’ Scott? The only drug dealing pimp in the goddamned county.”
“You know.”
“I don’t f**kin’ know.”
“Maybe not then but you know now. I know you do. You looked into me.”
“Sylvie, I didn’t have time to dig that deep. I thought you hooked up with Dixon. I didn’t f**kin’ know about Scott so,” he leaned toward me again and thundered, “tell me!”
I shook my head. “Don’t bullshit me. You know. You know what I do for Knight and why. It’s about the girls.”
“Yeah, Sylvie, I know that because you’re you and watchin’ you for a month I know, as much as you shovel the bullshit, that hasn’t changed. You got a heart of gold. You always had a heart of gold. Somethin’ matters to you, you’ll do anything. Only difference now is, you do it with a gun clipped to your belt. Now, tell me how you got hooked up with f**kin’ Scott!” he shouted the last.
“Daddy owed him money, Creed,” I hissed. “That’s how.”
A muscle in his cheek jerked then he asked, “He pimp you?”
I shook my head. “He liked me all to himself.”
“How’d you get away?”
“I stuck him with a knife. His knife, incidentally. Luckily, they declared it self-defense because, before I did, he beat the f**king shit out of me. I survived, Creed. Richard didn’t.”
His chest heaved with his breathing. Mine did too. I felt it moving under my hand clutching the sheet to me.
“You’re talkin’, Sylvie, you ready to listen to me?” he asked tightly.
“No,” I answered firmly. “No. You wanna talk, you listen but I’m not gonna f**king listen, Creed. He sold me. Daddy sold me. You left me to that shit and I don’t give one f**k why you did it. You did it. I was a captive for six f**king years. I had a car. A home. But no freedom. He bought my clothes, made me wear them, I had no choice. He told me what I could eat. He f**ked me. He held me down. He tied me down. He took my ass. He slapped me while he pounded inside me, all of it dry because he did nothing for me and that… shit… stings. And he beat me. Repeatedly. To get away, I had to kill him before he killed me. I can still feel his blood warm on my hands. God, so much blood. I had no idea a body had that much blood. It was all over the bed. All over him. All over me. He owned me until I took his life to get mine back. That’s why no one else gets me. I killed a man to get me back and I’m keeping me.”
“It was Scott,” he whispered.
“Yeah, it was Scott,” I confirmed.
“No, Sylvie,” he shook his head then lifted his hand and pointed to the scar on his face before he scored his finger through his hair along the streak of white. “It was Scott’s men, not your father’s, who did this to me and drove me away from you. Your Dad just was in on it.”
Oh my f**king God.
What was he talking about?
“You’re ready,” he went on, “you’ll get the story. Warning, it lasted a f**kuva lot less time but it was no less ugly.”
After he delivered that, he turned on his bare foot and prowled out.
I sat in my bed and shivered.
That was, I sat in bed and shivered until I heard the front door slam.
Then me and my sheet went to the kitchen and we got the bourbon. Then me and my sheet went to the back room and we got my cigs.
Then me and my sheet went back to bed.
* * * * *
“Sylvie.”
“Fuggov,” I slurred.