The Darkest Link (Second Circle Tattoos) (6 page)

“Change of plan,” he said to Nathan once he found him.

“What turned your frown upside down, sunshine?” Nathan asked, giving some girl in a tight red dress the once-over.

“Ever done coke, man?” he asked.

Nathan had eyed him strangely. “No. Why? Should I?”

“Yeah. You fucking should.”

He’d led Nathan down the hall and watched as the actor cut another set of lines with a black Amex. He’d encouraged his best friend to snort them. And he’d been the one to initiate their buying coke on a routine basis for the rest of the summer. Only after crashing into the back of his father’s parked car in the family driveway in late August had Reid realized it was no way to live his life. He’d stopped.

But Nathan hadn’t.

At first, Reid had assumed that Nathan was only using drugs recreationally, as he had done. It took another six months before he realized just how bad Nathan’s habit had become. By then, Nathan had ended up so strung out and desperate, that he’d gone home one night to find Taylor trying to leave him. High on fuck knows what, Nathan tied Taylor to the bed before taking a knife to her back.

Fuck.
His friend deserved to be imprisoned—there was no debating that point—but a small piece of Reid felt like he should be there, too.

Remembering that Tyrell was still waiting for him, Reid took off his shirt and wandered outside. Tyrell was busy attempting three-point shots from the white line Reid had painted on the concrete at the side of the garage. He jogged over, stole the ball, and hurried to the net to dunk the ball.

“Hey, man. No fair.” Tyrell stood with his hands on his hips, a frustrated look on his face. “That shot doesn’t count.”

Reid laughed in spite of himself.

Tyrell was right. Life wasn’t fair. He knew that to be true. If life were fair, Taylor would never have been hurt. Nathan wouldn’t be in prison. And he wouldn’t be miles away from home because he’d made a deal with the devil to keep his sister safe.

* * *

Ninety minutes outside of Orlando, Lia’s phone rang. She debated ignoring it like she had for the last twenty-four hours, but if she spoke to her father now there would be no need to go see him later. The silver lining to a shitty cloud. And if she had to drive a fucking Impala, she might as well make use of the hands-free capabilities.

“Hello,” she said as cheerfully as she could manage. She hoped the tone didn’t reveal the trepidation she always felt in speaking to him.

“Julianna,” her father said gruffly. “About time. I will not be ignored. When will you be home?”

“Not for a while,” she answered vaguely.

“I assume you have seen the news. I really need your help here. I’m going to get one shot at this, and I really need the help of you and your mother.”

“What you choose to do with your life has no impact on mine,” she said, gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. “It’s you who wants to be a politician, Daddy. Not me. I don’t want to turn my world upside down for something I don’t believe in.”

“Don’t disappoint me, Julianna. I know you are not stupid. And I know
you
know that our lives can’t be so easily separated, no matter how badly I wish they could.”

Disappoint.
There it was again.

Then there were all the ways she didn’t live up to his exacting standards. When she failed to exceed expectations that had never been verbalized. It was an impossible task for a small girl, and the effort of trying had sent her into a mental pattern she’d found it hard to extricate herself from. The constant dialogue in her head, in her quest for his approval, was relentless. Her father’s criticism would live on in her mind long after he had left the room. It became worse, more critical, when her father had simultaneously tried to enter politics the first time. Sometimes Lia found herself paralyzed by it. Mrs. Newman, her seventh grade art teacher, had found her sobbing in the washroom one day after she had failed to write a single word on her English paper. It had been a simple task. Decide whether a sentence was literal or figurative. Somewhere between her abject fear of writing the wrong thing and the overwhelming weight of her father’s expectation of an A grade in a subject she did
not
excel at, a panic had set in so completely, she’d been unable to process even the most basic thought.

At first her father brushed it off as typical Lia melodrama, but as the anxiety attacks grew worse, her father had finally conceded to the school’s request and sent her to see a psychotherapist at a local unit that had inpatient and outpatient facilities. He’d been furious when one of his biggest sponsors had withdrawn their support when her “rehab” became public, advising him to take care of the issues with his family rather than focusing on politics. At first, he’d clung to his goal, but sponsor after sponsor had dropped off after the biggest one left, until her father had been left with no option but to concede he couldn’t run.

“Lia, are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m still here. You know I can’t help. Not when it flies so much in the face of the things I believe in.” She didn’t want anybody confusing his viewpoint for her own, especially when they involved her community of friends.

“You’re being unreasonable, Lia. I’m not expecting you to hit the campaign trail with me when the race heats up in earnest. In fact, it is probably better for all of us that you don’t. But your mother can’t cope with this on her own. And it would be incredibly selfish of you to sit back and let her try.”

Selfish!
Lia took a moment and bit down on the side of her tongue, hard. Yelling at him would only prolong the agony.

It was low for him to bring her mom into it. At times, it felt like her father must somehow know of the promise she’d made to Granny Emmeline to look after her mother.
Calm and rational. Calm. And. Rational.
“Have you considered that it is selfish of you to do this when Mom is clearly not in the right place to help?”

“Lia, your mother has been fully aware of my desire to be governor for a number of years, and is happy to do what is required. I am reaching out to you, as her daughter, to help her.”

“I don’t know, Dad. Behind the scenes maybe, I could help her a little, but the last thing I want is to be in plain view.”

“But you will be scrutinized over the coming years. And that will reflect on me. There is no way around that. So I have an offer for you. I would be more than willing to pay for you to have the most visible of your tattoos removed. I looked into a clinic in New York that specializes in quick and effective removal, and I would be more than willing to fund that and perhaps provide extra compensation for the money you have spent on tattoos so far, which you may enjoy spending while you are there.”

Lia laughed out loud. “Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how long it would take for me to have my tattoos removed? Do you realize that it isn’t a onetime process? That just the removal of one tattoo can take multiple painful sessions?”

“I am not talking laser removal, Lia.”

The sentence hung in the air and she gripped the steering wheel tightly.
Oh God.
He wanted her to go to a cosmetic surgery clinic and have the tattoos cut out and stitched over. The whole process sickened her. It drove her crazy that surgery as a form of removal was even an option. But it made sense that her father would offer it, because in the long run it was cheaper and sometimes faster.

“I’m not having this conversation with you, Dad. You obviously haven’t looked at my tattoos closely because there is no way in hell that would work for me. You would literally have to skin me. I happen to be proud of who I’ve become. I’m sorry I even have to say this, but you don’t have any say in who I am anymore. I’m sorry if that upsets your campaign, but that’s the way it is.” She drew in a deep breath, anxious to keep the fragile hold she had on her composure.

“What upsets me is your absolute lack of sense of duty to your family. We’re having a quiet afternoon event at the house for some of those interested in offering their support to my campaign the weekend after next. I was simply hoping you would share the hostess burden with your mother, but it is obvious you don’t care. I feel it might be too much for her alone, but I guess if she is willing to do it, I should let her. Good-bye, Lia.”

With the click, her father was gone. “Asshole!”

Why did he have to bring her mother into it? Thanks to her promise to Granny Emmeline, her mother was her Achilles’ heel, and her father knew it.

Lia pulled off the highway. Her whole body shook and she didn’t feel comfortable driving when she couldn’t really focus. She looked at the next exit sign.
FORT PIERCE.
What were the chances?

She stared at the stop sign and then grabbed her phone. Typing the name
Kenny’s
into the browser, she wondered what his reaction would be if she just showed up. The details of the garage appeared and her finger hovered over the
call now
button. What did she expect from him? Her father had riled her, and she needed someplace to expend the nervous energy she felt. Was it fair to use him as a temporary distraction? And what if he, too, rejected her? Could she handle that?

Lia placed the phone down on the seat next to her and grabbed the red lipstick from her purse. If she was going to put herself out there, if she was going to open herself up to the one-night stand she wanted without romantic entanglements, she needed her game face to be perfect.

Deciding that calling him was a bad move, Lia started the car and followed directions on the sat-nav for his garage. She still had his business card in her purse and would resort to calling his cell phone if she couldn’t find him. If he already had company, she’d simply hit the highway, but if he didn’t, she was confident enough that face-to-face she could persuade him that one night of escapism would be totally worth it.

As she pulled into the lot, she saw the little boy first, his eyes wide with excitement, his mouth open, cheering, with his arms raised high in the air in some kind of victory celebration. Kenny emerged from the shadows, shirtless and with a basketball in his hand. The huge grin on his face told her he was having just as much fun as the boy. He shielded his eyes and looked over to the Impala. Lia opened the door and walked around the other side of the vehicle. In an instant, the grin changed to a soft smile.

“Two more points and I’m all yours,” he shouted across the lot.

“Miss them,” she said, kicking her hip out and raising her white sunglasses a fraction so he could see her eyes, “and I’m getting back in the car to go home.”

* * *

How a guy was supposed to concentrate when the woman he had spent most of the night dreaming about was standing approximately fifty feet away was beyond him. Especially when that woman looked as good as Lia did in a bright red kimono-style dress that had a row of buttons up one side and skimmed the tops of her thighs. Her hair was piled high on top of her head, and what appeared to be white orchids were pinned into one side. She looked fucking edible, and he was the starving guy at the buffet.

“Umph,” he called out when the ball hit his ribs.

“Your shot, Kenny,” Tyrell called out with a smirk on his face.

Reid picked the ball up off the ground and moved behind the line. “I’m gonna get you back for that.” He laughed. Now the dynamic shifted. Call it ego, but he wanted to win the game. For some insane reason, making the next two points became critical. But then he looked at Tyrell’s face, and saw the exact same thing.
Guess she has that effect on everyone.

He dribbled the ball toward the net, amused by how badly Tyrell wanted the ball. The kid came at him hard but stood no chance. Reid flipped the ball over his head, landing another bucket.

“Dude, come on, unfair,” Tyrell groaned.

“
Your
shot, tough guy,” Reid said, bouncing the ball in his direction.

Tyrell hustled his way to the basket, and Reid feigned an attempt to block, allowing Tyrell easy access to the net. When the ball went through the hoop, he heard Lia cheer from the sideline.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Thought you were on my team.”

“I prefer to be on the winning team,” she replied with a grin. “And your opponent has you beat.”

Tyrell whooped and hollered, doing a victory run along the three-point line. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he yelled.

Reid grinned and threw Tyrell the ball. “Bring it home, buddy,” he said.

“But it’s your turn,” Tyrell said, honest to the last, as he knew the boy to be.

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know that.”

It was entertaining to watch Tyrell break out his best fancy footwork and try to impress Lia. Reid faked left and right in an attempt to put on a show of defense. Just as Tyrell made it to the bottom of the basket, Reid swooped in, lifted him into the air, and allowed him to dunk before returning him to the floor.

“I kicked your ass, I kicked your ass, I kicked your ass.” Tyrell was shaking his tush and waving his hands in the air like the cocky ten-year-old he was.

Lia could barely contain her laughter as she walked toward them in sky-high heels that made her legs as sexy as sin. It was the first thing he’d noticed about her yesterday as he approached her on his bike, and most of his highly inappropriate dreams had featured them wrapped around his back as he fucked her, preferably with her shoes still on.

She high-fived Tyrell, the grin on the kid’s face revealing exactly how much she’d just made his day.

“Okay,” he said to Tyrell. “Go back inside, pick up your homework, and head straight home. Let me know how you get on with the results. Okay?”

“Thanks, Kenny. You’re the best.”

He watched Tyrell run back into the garage then turned to face Lia. “I appear to be sweaty again.”

“I see that,” she said, lifting her sunglasses and somehow managing to perch them on top of the very impressive hairstyle without putting a hair out of place. “Is it wrong that I kind of like it?”

“Not so long as it isn’t wrong for me to wonder what you’d look like with all of that hair of yours spread across my pillow, as clichéd as that sounds.”