I can't explain how I know, but I do.
She didn't react to me the way any sane person would to an armed stranger breaking into their home.
I've had people on the street walking by me show more terror than she did as I was holding her only method of self-defense. She used my name, myreal name, not the nickname they've given me. The one they’ve pointedly never used when discussing me.
And she said she knew of my crimes, but somehow hadn't been following it closely enough to know that I was released last week? I just don't buy it. She's hiding the truth from me, and I'm going to figure out what it is.
"Hello?" Skyler pulls me from my deep thoughts. "Earth to Fomori."
I sigh, looking at him from the corner of my eye, "I'm listening, I swear."
"You fucking better be. I put together a whole powerpoint forthis," he grins maniacally. "So this is when we met. I saved your ass from getting arrested for beating the fuck out of that guy for putting his hands on Stella."
"Stella, the bartender," I fill in what I think I remember he's told me.
"Yes and no," he clicks next on the projector, moving to a picture of him cutting the ribbon of Mingle for the grand opening, and there beside him is the woman in question. "Stella, the bartender, the manager extraordinaire, the take no prisoners bitch who keeps the bar running when we're doing behind the scenes shit. The woman I love like a sister."
I hold back an incredulous laugh, "She is your sister."
"That is true, yes. But ourothersister? She's the fucking worst."
"Yourstepsister?" I ask, rubbing my temples to try to remember all the shit he's taught me the last few days.
With a snap, he says, "That's the one," before moving onto the next slide, his projector tilting precariously on a barstool and shining on a sheet hanging from the above bar shelving. "Now, beyond Mingle, we own a handful of other companies throughout the states, all through the corporation, leaving us completely anonymous. As far as anyone knows, the only thing you are directly involved with is Balor Meads & Spirits. You specifically asked for that because you didn't want your name getting big or some shit."
That, I do believe. Beneath many of the things I worked to accomplish before all this, I worried deep down that, if I became too successful, things I'd prefer stay buried might come to light.
Thosethings, of course, being my psychotic father and his proclivity for getting his hands into anything and everything sordid.
I'm fortunate that my mom had the foresight to give me her last name instead of his, but unfortunately, that didn't save me from him. Even when she petitioned the court with my medical records, it changed nothing.
Up until the second I fought back, I was under constant threatfrom him and his friends. And once I started fighting, I guess I just never stopped, taking the fight from my own tormentors to others.
"What was it?" I finally ask Skyler, ignoring his rambling about the growth and projections over the last few years since Balor opened Mingle and grew its other companies.
After throwing a handful of popcorn into his mouth, he raises a questioning brow, speaking with his mouth full, "What was what?"
"What finally made me snap?"
His expression doesn't falter, even for a moment, before he answers with the same conversational tone he's discussed all our illegal activities in since my return.
He tilts his head toward the ceiling in thought, "Our activities were already questionable at best. This little organization we built to dismantle operations was doing some real good, ya know? I mean at the cost of us being part of those systems, but still, better us than people who rope kids into it all. And then, ya know, it just changed. You changed.Wechanged."
"And I just started killing people?"
With a lazy shrug, he clicks to the next page of his presentation, "I guess. Anyway, tonight you'll get to see the best part of Mingle. It's highly exclusive, invitations are only sent out after an extensive background check to ensure we have either leverage to keep them quiet, or they're untouchable by the police."
With no reason to believe it, only a crawling under my skin, I know he's hiding something from me. Some horrid truth he needs to cover with laughs and distractions.
"Sounds like a lot of work for a fucking fight club," I comment as he gleefully flicks through photos of men beating each other bloody, tossing more popcorn into his mouth as he chuckles.
"It's so much more than that. It's an experience, an exclusive foray into the darker parts of yourself, without any risk of danger or consequences." His voice is full of passion as he explains, "Most people go their whole lives without embracing the violent voice that whispers to them at night, this gives them a healthy outlet."
"Do we ever join the fights?"
Shaking his head, he stands to turn off the projector and rip down his makeshift boardroom. "You don't. You've already got your violent outlet."
"Funny," I mutter.
