An hour later, feeling as if my roiling stomach would escape me, we rode up the elevator to the apartment. Charli stood opposite me, and I could feel her gaze like a laser, but I kept my focus on the ascending floor numbers.
Once inside the apartment, I shut the door and tossed the keys on the table in the foyer.
“War—”
I headed for the living room.
“Dammit, would you stop walking away from me?” she demanded, following me.
“Why aren’t you running?” I pivoted, and she stumbled to a halt a foot from me. “You heard him.”
“Because I don’t believe a word of what he said.”
“But it’s true,” I drawled. “Every single word.”
“Stop, it,” she snapped, her dark, troubled eyes searching mine. “Please, just tell me.”
I paced to the window and stared outside, not really seeing the yachts on the bay, hating to relive the past, especially having to tell Charli the truth.
“He—my father was an abusive son of a bitch!” I spat. “He’d disappear for days, then he’d come back, usually drunk, and demand money. My mother didn’t have enough that day. He thought she was lying…” I pressed my clenched fists on the window, remembering. “And he hit her again. He was a fucking big man, and he used his size to terrify us. I lost my mind and punched him. He turned on me—nothing I wasn’t used to—and I wanted to kill the bastard…” My jaw hardened.
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
“He came at me with a knife. I was too out of my mind with anger to care about my own safety, and I rushed him. He swung the blade, and it sliced my upper arm as I shoved him. He tripped over the stool, hit his head on the corner of the metal table, and fell on the knife. It embedded in his stomach.” I scrubbed my face as if it would clear the memories entrenched in my mind of blood flowing all over the trailer floor. The horror on my mother’s as she grabbed me, holding me to her. “He died instantly.”
A soft intake of breath, then silence followed so thick and heavy, it rammed me hard.
Charli stepped closer and gently stroked a finger over the scar on my left biceps, a reminder of the bastard I had for a father. “This wasn’t from hockey, then.”
My mouth tightened.
She dropped her hand to clutch my arm. “It was an accident, War. That doesn’t make you a killer.”
“Don’t make me out to be something I’m not, Charli!” I snapped. “I hated him for everything he was, a womanizing drunk and a gambler, and especially for hurting my mother. I wanted him dead.”
“How old were you?”
“Does it matter?” At her steady stare, I growled. “Nine. Happy?”
“Christ, War! You were a child defending your mother! How is that a criminal offense? He would have stabbed you—youcould have died!”
“When the authorities said, ‘sealed file’ because I was a juvenile, and mentioned patricide then changed it to an accident, it didn’t alter anything. I didn’t care about myself as long as my mother was safe.”
I dragged in a deep breath through my nose and rubbed the old scar now covered by tatts. “The days that followed were quiet and peaceful. No fear of going home. But life hadn’t finished fucking with me yet.” I swallowed, staring outside. Pain and anger strangling me, hauled to the past again. “My mother…was sick, and I didn’t know.” Tears burned my eyes. “I knew she was tired, but holding two jobs—one working as a cleaner for corporate offices during the night, and the other a day shift at the diner—did that to her, she said, and I believed her. A few months later, she suffered a heart attack.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” Charli whispered, her hand gently stroking my arm.
“She collapsed at the diner and died on her way to the hospital. The bastard who spawned me must have known she was sick, and he didn’t fucking care!” I slapped my palms on the glass. Head lowered, I shut my eyes, trapped in my old anguish.
Charli slipped her arms around me in a warm, comforting embrace, bringing me back.
“After her death, I lost my mind. I was so angry at everything. And being in the system didn’t help, nor did being farmed out to foster families and labeled angry and antisocial…”
Exhaling harshly, I broke from her hold and paced around the living room, scrubbing my face, trying to clear the past. I retraced my steps and dropped down on the couch.
Charli trailed after me. She sat on the edge, facing me. “Was that when you met Caleb?”
I lifted my burning eyes to stare at the ceiling. “No. I wasn’t the best of kids. I had too much rage inside me. I don’t recall much of that time, except for getting into fights and moving from one family to the next, sometimes after just days with them. After three years in the system, Caleb arrived. I was twelve. No matter my anti-social behavior or fights, he didn’t give up.”
