***
I heard noise outside the bedroom door at about 3:00 in the morning. I was about to go investigate, since I was awake anyway, in case it was Tessa and she wanted to talk, but the door to our room opened. I bolted up. It was Tommy.
“Baby girl,” he said, sounding tired and frustrated.
“Hi. You okay?” I asked.
“Couldn’t find the little fuck,” he dropped to a squat and twisted the dial on the wall safe and put his gun back inside and then shut it.
“I’d sleep with that if there weren’t kids around,” He mumbled.
I shuddered.
He started to undo his shirt.
“Tess went to sleep early,” I said quietly.
He took his shirt off and dropped it on an armchair by the safe and went for his belt. I could see by his body language that he was fuming. As he undid it, I had a flashback to him snapping his halved belt to frighten me last time we were in Vegas. I’d seen him undo his belt a thousand times without remembering that awful moment but right now? It was as if I were back in that moment, about to face his wrath.
I tried to redirect my brain.
“What’s gonna happen, Tommy? Tomorrow? This party?” If I couldn’t distract myself I’d blurt every awful thing I was thinking.
“Tomorrow night, we go to the Fete opening. You and my sister dressed to the nines and we act like life is good. Drink, smile, live it up. We snuck Tess in so he doesn’t know yet we got her back. That little slimy fuck is either gonna hear about it or he’s gonna show. I’ve arranged for him to get an invite. And then I’ll put you two with Dex and Nino and then I get him to hold his dick while I get it sawed off with a dull knife before I put a fucking bullet in his goddamn smarmy fuckin’ face.”
My stomach flip-flopped.
“He carved his initials into her fucking arm, Tia. He raped her, sold her to a slave auction house. She would never have gotten back to her boys, to us if that goof had his way. If Romero hadn’t stepped in? Fuck. And that’s a whole other fuckin’ story because Romero is a human trafficker who has Angel’s 17 year old sister that he used as a bargaining chip. We get Tess but Holly stays with him.”
“Wh-what?” I tried to push away memories of Tommy threatening to sell me to a pimp in Mexico or Thailand back when we’d first met. I tried hard but I was having trouble with his ‘sold to a slave auction house’ comment, along with all the other stuff he’d said.
Tommy sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands, his elbows to his knees. He was slumped in what looked like defeat.
“Dare’s beside himself. Gone to Thailand with his wife, taking her back to that sex slave shithole so he can rat and get us out of this shit with the Feds. Tia, I’m this fucking close to packing up the whole family and us all fucking off.”
I was trembling.
Normally, I’d reach for him, comfort him, take comfort from him, but I couldn’t. I just sat there, still caught up in the events of the day, thinking about how mad his sister’s rape made him, when he’d done those things to me.
I was thinking about looking out this window all night at the Vegas strip, almost directly across the street from the last hotel we’d stayed at so looking at, essentially, the same view from the other side of the street.
It was what I’d looked at when he and I were here a few months before we got married, when he lost control, when he bruised my throat, when he’d broken my heart after I’d let him in.
My hand went to my throat reflexively. I stared at his back. My other hand went to my stomach. I was carrying his baby. I loved him. I loved him desperately. But was my love for him wrong? Was I fucked up and delusional because of all that had happened?
Was this really what I wanted for my life?
Did I even have any choice?
This world I was about to bring a baby into, where our loved ones were kidnapped and raped, where one sister was being traded for another one?
Where
the man I’d promised to love, honor, obey, and cherish for the rest of my life had a whole lot of skeletons in his closet? Skeletons? Demons? Both. I’d promised him unconditional love. But at what cost?
His hand reached toward my face and I flinched. I flinched hard enough for him to notice.
“Hey,” he said. His voice sounded funny.