Tragic Beauty (Beauty & The Darkness #1)(71)
By the hurt that settles into his voice, I know he’s not just talking about Ava anymore.
Buck makes his way over, fills up his glass, makes me another, and walks off. I stare at mine while the man next to me downs his entire drink then stares randomly into space. “He’s got her locked up in his house. She’s been there ever since that day. They both have. And I don’t know what he does to her, especially at night, but—I hear the screams. I hear them all the way into the barn we sleep in.”
I start to shake, unable to even speak.
He continues, his voice distant. “I work with some mean fuckers, but even they have to cover their heads with a pillow, sometimes. Whatever debt she had, she paid it off a long time ago. Hell, she paid her debt, and then some, when he—” He stops short.
“He what?”
He stares at his empty glass, looking about as sorry as a soul can.
“He what?” I press again.
He sets the glass down and closes his eyes. “He…branded her, like she was cattle. Did it the day he married her.”
I don’t think I heard right. I couldn’t have heard right. “What?”
The man doesn’t need to repeat the words. His face says it all.
I rest my hands flat on the bar, on either side of my drink, my breath shallow, my pulse erratic. In my mind, I’m destroying everything around me. The chairs, the tables, the world. I hear his voice in the distance. “I thought about going to the Sheriff, but he won’t do nothing, because he’s on Shayne’s payroll, and I got a feeling Shayne’s got something over him too. And Ava would be too scared to press charges or leave anyway. She knows if he went to jail, he’d get out at some point, and there’d be no place she could hide where he wouldn’t find her, eventually. And something like a restraining order wouldn’t mean shit to him. And I’ve thought about trying to get her out myself, but even if I could figure out a way to hide her and keep her safe, she wouldn’t trust me to help her anyway. I’d only—”
“Why? Why wouldn’t she trust you?”
His chin drops to his chest and I know shame when I see it. “Like I said, Shayne has a way of making you do things. Things you don’t want to do.”
I’m off the stool and on him in a second. I have him pinned up against the wall, my forearm against his throat. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
His eyes are closed. He’s not fighting me. Not doing anything but hanging limp by my arm, when I see a tear break through his lashes and slide down his cheek. Then another and another. “I love her,” he mutters. “I’ve always loved her. And I hurt her. I hurt her so bad.”
I barely feel the contact of my fists against his face, his stomach, anywhere and everywhere I can make the man hurt. I have no sympathy, no compassion for the tears that fall. Nor do I care that he’s not fighting back. Just standing there, like a punching bag, letting me wail on him.
Large hands pull me back and I hear Buck’s voice. “Enough, Gavin. He’s had enough.”
I step back and shake Buck’s hands off me as the man staggers into a nearby chair, coughing and clutching his stomach. I stare at him, my body still pulsing with a frenzy to kill.
“I deserved that, and more,” he says, wiping at the blood on his face. “Much more.”
I sway on my feet, and collapse into a chair across from him, ignoring the other eyes that drift our way.
His weary eyes meet mine. “I’ll help you get her out. I don’t think she’ll last much longer. Hell, I don’t think either of them will. Not with the way he’s going. But you got to be ready for this. You gotta protect what you care about, and you gotta figure out all that he’s got on her. Cause you’re gonna be poking a stick in a hornet’s nest, and he’ll know it was you. He’s crazy in the head, but he’s smart, and he crossed the line some time ago on caring whether something’s right or wrong. Don’t underestimate him when it comes to Ava.”
Buck walks over and places a drink in front of each us. “On the house,” he says, then tosses a towel on the table, and heads back to the bar.
I rub at my temples and look at the man—at the boy really, watching him as he grabs the towel and wipes at his face, a lost look in his brown eyes. It’s a look I once had. It’s a look I have again, since losing Ava.
“What about you?” I ask. “Won’t he know I had help?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, tossing the bloody towel on the table and falling back in his chair. “Shayne’s been my best friend my whole life, but I’ve always been afraid of him. And not just because he’s bigger than me, and stronger than me, but because he knows how to hurt. Something he got from his daddy. And I’ve never been able to stand up to him. Not once. Always calls me a coward when I don’t do something he tells me, knowing I can’t stand it. And maybe I am a coward. That’s what my momma always calls my daddy. Never met the guy so have to take her word for it. But I’m not going to be that anymore. Not anymore. Not after what Ava’s suffered. I’ll do anything for her, no matter the cost. Won’t make up for what I’ve done—and I’ve done my share—but life ain’t worth living if I don’t make this right.”
His words hold the hurt of a boy becoming a man. I watch as he leans forward and grabs his drink and downs it, then sets the glass back on the table. I look at my own drink, but don’t feel so thirsty anymore.