I know I can’t hold anything back. He needs the truth. All of it.
“Moment I saw her picture and heard her name. I knew her. Hazel and I grew up together in foster care. We were all each other had. We lived with this old bitch. Crazy religious fanatic. Thought I was a demon.” I shake my head. “If we were bad, we’d get lashings in the basement and forced to recite quotes from the bible. I protected Hazel the best I could. Often took the blame for shit she did.”
“The scars on your back,” he mutters.
I know my brothers have often wondered how I earned my scars. Most have been polite enough not to ask and those who weren’t I ignored.
“Yeah. Hazel tried to take care of me, but shit got to be too much. Did what I had to, to stop it. Burnt that bitch and her house to the ground. I went to juvie but they never could prove shit so my record was clean at eighteen, but I couldn’t find Hazel. Not until you sent me to Lily.”
“Jesus. Small fucking world.”
He’s got that right.
“You need to know I married her, but it went sideways. She was caught up in some shit with bad people. Fuck.” I hang my head in shame. How do I tell him she was raped on my watch? That I fucked up in the worst possible way. That history has repeated itself and like her mother Hazel was violated.
“Where’s Hazel?”
“With Lily.”
He relaxes slightly, but if he takes my head, I wouldn’t blame him.
“Give you one guess why I needed to take her to your sister. One of the sick fucks is dead. The other is still out there. Figure he’ll be laying low, but I know his name. Know his face. Forced me to watch. Put a bounty on his head. The image of what they did is burned into my eyelids. Every time I close them it’s all I see. Caught me off guard. Had a gun to my head and another at my back. Knew there was nothing I could do for her if I was dead and if they killed her, I’d soon follow.” I yank on my hair.
“Son, I wasn’t there, but I know this about you. You’d do whatever is in your power to protect a woman. One you love enough to give your name. You’d go to the ends of the earth for her. I don’t doubt that. You said one of them is dead.”
“Hazel. Shot him. Had me zip tied to a chair.”
“The one that’s alive. Want his name. Location.”
“Max. Brother was Bruno. Took his body to the Franklin farm. There is another loose end. Crystal. Stripper bitch. Bruno’s baby momma and the whore who got Hazel involved with their shit. Could’ve squashed it there, but Hazel asked me to spare her for the kid.”
“Right. How’s she coping?”
“Not great.”
“Could get Lex and some of the other Ol’ Ladies to congregate.”
“She doesn’t want them to know.”
“Shame. You know Jules and Alexa been through it.”
“Maybe eventually she’ll be open to it. She needs time to come to terms.”
“Be a lot easier to know she isn’t alone in it. We both know that.”
“She has me.”
“Good. Anything else I need to know?”
“Nah. Think we covered it.”
“Shit with this Cloud Nine business heating up. Gonna need your head straight. You do what you can to be there for Hazel. Brought Alexa out her dark hole showing her...well you know the story there.”
“Yeah.” I shake my head. Alexa was his daughter’s off-limits best friend, and they had a twenty-year affair. My cell vibrates. Slick.
“Take your call. I need to make a few of my own, and I got a fine piece waiting for me upstairs.”
That fine piece is Alexa.