Daddies Brat

Out of a million things I should do right now I stand there like a corpse, unmoving, the signals between my brain and legs severed along the way somewhere. I don’t know how long I stand there trying to breathe and not pass out.

“Sweetie, you okay?”

Sally comes out of the back room, wraps her arms around my shoulders and pulls me in for a tight hug. I block out the laughter from the teens in the back and a pair of newcomers wanting their menus. Someone else can take care of them for a change.

“C’mon, sweetie, talk to me.” Sally shakes my shoulders a little, jarring me back to reality.

“Uh, yeah, I think so. I mean the man might as well be a stranger to me.” But deep inside in a part that I shut off, for the most part, stings with a pang of regret that churns my stomach. “I thought he couldn’t make me cry anymore and here I am about to burst into tears for someone who wanted to sell me.” I recall every last detail Sylan, Drake, and Grey told me.

I lift a shoulder in a defeated shrug. “But I guess that’s not true, huh?” It takes all the effort I have left in me not to break down in the middle of Sally’s diner.

I promised myself no friends after what happened with Nikki, but I guess I suck at that too. Sally is the only one who knows my true identity and who my father is-was. And all the nasty details that led me to her doorstep begging for a job.

She pulls me over to the side and away from prying eyes. “Stop that. You don’t need a man like him in your life. Now take a deep breath and steel those nerves, baby girl.”

“You’re right. I know. Fairy tales are made for books. Got it.” I wipe at the few tears that escape. A kind smile pulls at the lips of the much-older woman, and all the weathered lines she tries to hide behind mounds of makeup crinkle. That small token of kindness helps me fight my way out of the cobwebs of pain.

Her warm gaze holds mine. “A father is a father, Kat. Bastard or not. This news can’t be easy, I know. I’m not trying to be a hard-ass. But I don’t think the man deserves a second thought. But you’re young and a lot more softhearted than I am. Tell ya what. Why don’t you go on home and take off tomorrow to regroup, huh? How does that sound? I’ll call in a couple of girls to help out until you can come back.”

Her idea sounds like the million-dollar jackpot, but just like winning the lottery sounds too good, so does Sally’s idea. “I can’t afford the time off, but thank you. After I finish my shifts I’ll have enough time between then and tomorrow’s shifts to pull myself together. You’re right. He doesn’t deserve my grief.” I keep my plans of leaving town to myself. It pains me to lie to someone who has been nothing but nice, but it is what it is. I’ll finish, gather my few precious belongings from my shabby apartment and then hit the bus station. Destination unknown.

I work a small smile on my face for Sally’s benefit to show I believe my own words.

I shove aside the unwanted nostalgia for what could have been in some fairy-tale version of my life and finish out my shifts a full hour after official closing time. Fridays are normally the busiest and tonight didn’t disappoint.

I stumble out of the diner into the cold, drizzling rain and the pitch-black of the wee hour welcomes me as soon as I step out of range from the diner’s lights. If my feet were aching at the beginning of my double shift, that pain doesn’t compare to the swollen throbbing ache I’m feeling now. I am sorely tempted to hail a cab to drive me the ten blocks to my apartment, but I need every cent of the tidy sum I earned tonight for bus fare.

I am so focused on getting to the bus station that I don’t see the black silhouette of a man appear beside me until he’s in my face. A scream sticks in my throat and adrenaline shoots through my veins until my heart is nearly pounding outside of my chest.

“Katriona,” draws a familiar sandpaper, gravelly voice. “it’s been a while, sweetheart.”

Oh fuck. If blood can turn to ice that’s exactly what happens to me.

I squint into the wet darkness and catch a hint of man’s expression which sits between a mix of deadpanned and grim, then again with that puckered, jagged scar running down the side of his face the look might be more of a permanent situation than any kind of emotion.

“Drake?” I ask shakily. But I already know the answer. No other man can pull off scary motherfucker and make me turn from ice-cold to molten hot in the span of a single breath. Well other than his two best friends. I’d recognize that look any day of the week. Know in the depths of my shivering soul the feel of this man’s hands on me as much as his tongue.

“My God, what happened,” I blurt before I think better of it. And then I recall the injury. All the blood.

A strange sort of excitement fills me. One I don’t understand fully.

Sharp eyes catch mine. Tears prick my eyes and my heart pounds in my ears.

I stumble back in fear.

Fear of the erratic emotions and fear I’ll fall into his arms out of relief of not being alone for another night.

A black SUV with blacker windows rolls up beside us, and I’m hoisted into the back by strong hands on my waist out of the rain.

Panic finally kicks in as my kidnapper slides in beside me.

“You can’t do this. I’m not some plaything you can just pick up off the street whenever you like.”

Every word I spew is in complete contrast to the rampant thoughts whirling through my head. Part of me wants to beg him for news about Grey. If Sylan is mad at me for running away.

If Drake in fact got that scar the night Grey was shot.

But I don’t. “I told you months ago I refuse to let people control me.” I’m about to land my palm across his jaw when I catch a warning in his eye that has me freezing. The driver’s hand on his gun does a pretty good job of that too.

My breath freezes in my lungs.

He studies me for several seconds unmoving before he speaks. “You don’t need to fear me, Katriona.”Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“Tell him that.” I point to the dude in the front.

“He’s trigger-happy and stupid. Very stupid.” I caught the warning in his tone at the same time the dude in the front did. He jerks his hand off his weapon and faces forward like a good soldier.

“You have nothing to fear with me.” He scoops my hand up in his and presses a towel into my open palm.

Yeah right! I’m not stupid nor lust-blind. I believe Drake as far as I can throw the two-hundred-plus-pound mobster.

In hindsight, maybe that cab ride home would have been the smarter option after all.

I try my best not to show how freaked out and scared I feel. It’s a razor’s edge I’m skating along as I scoot across the leather and position myself against the opposite door and as far away from Drake as possible. I know myself and falling under his spell is a distinct possibility. I can’t let that happen. Not again.

I glance over my shoulder to find the back of the SUV filled with something that looks like a tarp, but in the darkness, I can’t be certain. It could be grocery bags, too. But that’s just my mind trying to calm my rattled nerves with mundane explanations.

But I’m putting two and two together here and while my mental math isn’t always spot on, mobsters plus guns equal bodies, so I’m going with that being a big wad of plastic.

I let out a huff of frustration. “So all the kissing and protecting back in Sylan’s office was a game to get what you wanted? Play with the enemy’s daughter for a while for kicks and giggles? Then off her once the father is taken care of?” I ask pointedly, aiming my gaze at the back of the SUV.

His eyes slowly trail over my mustard uniform and his grin turns hungry then shifts to amused. “Clearly,” he grunts and I nearly faint on the spot.

They are going to kill me because their friend died. Wrap me up and dump me in some landfill. My mind races with all the reasons they would want me dead and come up with more than one. “So, um, my father didn’t pay his debt before you whacked him and now you’re back for me? You think he left me anything? Not hardly. He didn’t even want to give me his name from the stories Mom told.” I shift in my seat. “You know, kind of surprised it took you six months to find him and me. Speaking of, how did you find me?”

“We always knew where you were, Katriona. Before you let that pretty mind of yours run off with ideas of us whacking you, God, such a cliche, take a breather. If we wanted you dead, we wouldn’t have sent protection to guard you every hour of every day. And the last I saw of you, you were screaming out scared for Grey’s life. And kissing him.”

I remember all too clearly. “Stop calling me that. Only my mother called me Katriona.”

I catch a twitch of his upper lip in the street lights as we speed off in what direction I have no idea. I’m too busy keeping an eye on the guy in the front seat and how his hand clamps down on something inside his trench coat.