Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)(62)
“I drew you a picture,” she said, holding out the paper.
“How sweet.” He took it, squinting. “Is this me?”
She nodded.
His eyes cut to her.
Use your words. He didn’t say it, but she heard it.
“Yes, Daddy.”
“And is this you with me?” he asked, holding it up, pointing at it.
Her cheeks grew warm as people all around them looked. She’d just meant to show him. “Yes.”
He turned it back around, studying it, still grinning. “It is perfect, kitten. I need to have it framed.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Of course,” he said, setting it aside, on the table, before patting his knee. “Come, sit.”
She wanted to say no. She wanted to go back up to her room, away from all of those people, away from the woman giving her weird looks from where she sat on the floor, but his expression left no room for arguing. She sat down on his knee, facing the side, and he wrapped his left arm around her. She used to sit on her mother’s lap all the time, but she didn’t much like sitting on his, wearing the white nightgown that still itched.
He smacked the woman’s shoulder, motioning for something with his hand, and she handed him a rolled up dollar. He gripped the little girl tightly, so she wouldn’t fall to the floor, as he leaned the whole way forward, nearly face-planting the table, and snorted a line of white powder.
Letting out a deep sigh, he leaned back in the chair again, his smile glowing.
“Do you love your Papa?” he asked, rubbing her back.
The little girl tensed at that question.
His stark black eyes regarded her. “It is okay, you are allowed to love me, no matter what your mother may have said. I am your father; my blood is inside of you. You might look like the suka, but you are half of me.”
Suka. The little girl knew that word.
It was one of the bad ones.
She still didn’t answer. She didn’t know how. What if she lied by mistake? Would he be mad?
After a moment, he laughed, hugging her to his thick chest as he ruffled her hair. “One day. Even your mother once loved me. It is inevitable.”
The little girl relaxed, her nerves easing. She didn’t know if she’d ever love him, honestly, but maybe, if her mother loved him and he found his heart, it could happen.
Everyone around them laughed and joked, growing louder as time wore on. The little girl watched them.
The Tin Man grabbed a bottle of that clear stuff, pouring some into his glass.
“What’s that?” she asked.
He held out the bottle, bumping her arm. “Try it.”
She just stared.
“Aw, my kitten is a scaredy-cat?”
People around them laughed, that ugly laugh, the mean one she didn’t like. Her face turned red as she took the bottle and put it to her lips. The second it touched her tongue, she gagged, her mouth on fire. It burned. Coughing, she couldn’t catch her breath, swallowing a mouthful before she dropped the bottle, spilling it all over herself. The Tin Man caught it, laughing, as he slapped her on the back.
“Breathe,” he said, slipping out of the chair, shifting her onto it alone. “Vodka is not for the weak.”
“You’re so cruel,” the brown-haired woman said, still sitting on the floor. “She’s just a little girl. She shouldn’t even be here.”
“She is my little girl. I say where she should be. Besides, what do you know about being a parent?”
“Probably more than you ever will,” the woman mumbled. “Poor girl.”
The moment those words were out of her mouth, something snapped. The Tin Man grabbed the woman, fisting her long locks, and yanked her away from the chair, her shriek loud.
The little girl tensed, tears in her eyes, as the Tin Man slammed the woman’s head into the table in front of them, over and over, white powder flying like dust all around, coating her face, as blood poured from her nose and her mouth. She choked on it, begging, but he didn’t stop.
BAM.
BAM.
BAM.
The woman went limp as he continued to grip her by the hair, raising her face up to look at her, whispering, “poor girl,” before dropping her to the floor in front of the chair.
Everyone around them watched, the other women disturbed, but the men acted like it was normal. The little girl shook and sobbed, wetting her nightgown as she clutched Buster to her chest, staring down at the floor.
The woman’s eyes were closed, as if she was sleeping, just like the little girl’s mother had been.
She’d wake up, wouldn’t she?
The Tin Man turned to her. His eyes were still black. He tipped back the bottle of vodka, taking a drink straight from it, before he pointed it at her. “Go back to your room, kitten. Be a good girl for Papa. Clean yourself up.”
The little girl stood, running from the room, going up the stairs as fast as she could.
Chapter Seventeen
I know what it’s like to be a teenage mother.
Okay, f*ck, hear me out before you string me up.
I was only eighteen years old when I took custody of my little brother. He was two at the time, still in diapers. He doesn’t remember the before, doesn’t remember life with our mother, his father, but I remember every harrowing second of it.