She turned and gave him an appraising look that made him feel more naked than he thought possible, considering he was dressed only in his underwear. “When did you start hanging out with Markos, Keir, Lash and Duke?”
Okay, an easy one. I can do this.
“I’m gonna go with since birth on that one. I can’t remember a day without them. The Romany community I grew up in is close-knit.” That was one way of putting it. More like their particular sect valued isolationism above all else. “We keep to ourselves and take care of our own—as much as we can anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
In a heartbeat he was back in his room, listening to the sound of his mother’s quiet pleas filtering in through the thin walls, followed by his father’s mocking response and the smack of a backhand on a good night, and the thud of a body hitting the wall on a bad night. Bile rose in his throat. He’d buried the memories so deep that digging them up was like experiencing them all over again.
He closed his eyes and scrubbed his palm over the short hairs on the back of his head as if he could shove the memories away. “No outsiders meant no outside help.”
“No cops or social workers you mean,” she said, her voice soft.
He looked up into her understanding eyes. Of course she’d get it. Being born into a rich family hadn’t insulated her from interfamily craziness. “Exactly.”
“And your dad…”
“As you know, was a real piece of shit who loved to beat the crap out of my mom—except in the rare cases when it was my smart mouth that needed to be silenced.”
Barsali Hazard had been a real bastard. Big. Mean. Creative. He used all three of those attributes to force others to his will. That wasn’t just the case for him and his mother, but for others in the community as well.
“And there was no one you could turn to for help?”
“Not anyone with a badge, that’s for sure. Not that it would have made a difference. My dad didn’t believe the regular rules applied to him, not when it came to honoring his marriage vows, providing for his family or anything that had to do with not taking other people’s property.”
“He was a thief?”
“Not in his mind.” A bitter chuckle tore from his throat, laced with all the pain he’d denied existed for most of his life. “He was just taking what he wanted. He was a real law-of-the-jungle type of guy.”
Bianca walked over and into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. They stood there like that for a moment. It shouldn’t have helped, but it did. It was as if the energy he’d spent keeping the lid on all the bad memories had exhausted him in ways he hadn’t realized.
Holy shit, you’ll be writing some touchy-feely self-help book next. Man up, Hazard.
“Is he still alive?” she asked, her breath warm against his chest.
“No clue. After I left, I never went back and he never came looking for me.”
“What about your mom? Did she come after you?”
“She couldn’t. She was six feet under by my fourteenth birthday and we broke into Devil’s Dip Gym a week or two after.” And his life had changed forever because of Freddie Atlas.
She squeezed him tight. “So you were as alone growing up as I was.”
“Pretty much.” As weird as it seemed, it was true. She may have been born with a silver spoon in her mouth compared to his wooden one, but at the core they were more alike than different.
“Thank you. I know the past twenty-four hours hasn’t been easy.”
“Is that all it’s been? It feels like a lifetime.” Between Tamara showing up in his living room and lying about them still being married to this moment, it seemed like forever.
“Look, when we get back to Ft. Worth—”
The sound of walkie-talkie feedback silenced whatever she was going to say next. Taz whipped his head around to the security room’s closed door.
“Yeah, man, I’m in the room now,” a man’s voice filtered in from the other side of the door. “I told you I was just grabbing something fast from the cafeteria. Jay-sus, Bob, do you have to be on my ass about everything?”
The computer dinged.
A download complete message flashed on the screen.