I fondly remembered when Stefan had discovered ice cream was the key. I'd been fifteen, Aunt Flow had been rearing her ugly head, and Stefan had received a call from my principal to come get me. I'd been sent home and possibly expelled for making a fellow student cry. In my defense, the pimple-faced jerk had groped my ass and I'd given him the beat down he'd deserved. Had I taken it a little too far by breaking his nose? Maybe. Had I lost sleep over it? Not a wink.
I'd still been itching for another fight when Stefan had strolled into the school’s office, looking superior in his tailored suit, while giving off an intimidating aura. At one look from Stefan, my principle had paled and nervously fidgeted while he'd explained their zero tolerance for violence policy.
I hadn't gotten expelled. I'd had no doubt I ever would, but I had gotten sent home for the rest of the day.
Stuck in the car with a raging hormonal teenage girl, Stefan had taken all my lashing and bashing like a pro. He hadn't engaged. To my complete and utter surprise, he'd silently driven to an ice cream parlor. I'd immediately cooled down and sweetened after two bites of my favorite cookie dough ice cream. Stefan had then explained that I was just like my mother.
It was one of my favorite memories because it had been eight months, fourteen days, and eleven hours since the last time he’d been kind to me, let alone spent one-on-one time with me. And yes, I had been counting. I'd been beginning to think he hated me because I'd made the mistake of allowing Dylan to get the upper hand while we'd been sparring, showing off what moves we had learned in self-defense training. Stefan had walked in when Dylan had me in a choke hold. What he hadn't seen before that was Dylan getting pissy because he hadn’t been able to take me down the previous three times we'd sparred. Dylan had a fragile ego. To be nice, I'd been letting him win so we could call it a day. Well, suffice it to say, Stefan had not been happy. He'd switched out my private self-defense teacher, in other words, fired him. And he'd made my new one push me. I'd hurt after every session. The smallest injury I'd received had been a sprained wrist. My worst had been a cracked rib. I'd stopped showing up for my training after that. Which, in turn, had set Stefan off even more. He had become cruel. He wouldn’t really acknowledge me. If I'd ever needed something from him, like signing a permission slip for school or permission to go the movies with Jamie and Louie, he’d forced me to use the game to try to get what I wanted from him, which had always ended with me losing. We'd kind of stopped talking after that.
Frowning at how quickly my venture down memory lane had turned unhappy, I took one of the many pints of ice cream from the freezer and grabbed a spoon from the silverware drawer. My period had come after this morning’s fainting drama and with each passing hour I’d been getting more and more irritable.
My period meant no more sexy time with Jamie. Being a girl fucking sucked.
Digging into the creamy goodness, I made my way back to my room. Stepping into the foyer from the kitchen, I was startled by Jamie and a goon crashing through the front door, dragging a bleeding, barely conscious man behind them. I gaped at them with the spoon hanging from my mouth as they dragged the bleeding man down the hall toward the basement door, leaving behind a crimson trail across the tile floor.
My feet moved without thought and I followed them down to the basement.
They threw the bleeding man into a lonesome chair centered under the only hanging light in the dark room. The basement was pretty barren, apart from a table up against the far wall and a few folding chairs. The floor and walls were concrete and there was a single drain in the center under the bleeding man’s chair.
This room was used for one thing. Interrogation. Which always ended in death. In the past, I’d seen Stefan and his goon squad drag people down here, but never followed. Stefan had never allowed me. I understood. He hadn't been ready for me to see everything the family did. Now that I was older, nothing could happen down here that would shock me.
I took a seat at the bottom of the stairs. The goon zip tied the bleeding man’s hands to the back of the chair. My eyes flicked to Jamie, finding him staring at me. He gave me a questioning look that said, What the hell are you doing here? I rose an eyebrow, daring him to try and make me leave. Giving up, he returned his attention to the man in the chair.
The goon took a step back from the man tied to the chair as Jamie approached. The man glared up at Jamie in a defiant show of strength. He’d taken some hard hits to the face. His right cheek was gashed open along the bone and his lip was split. One of his eyes was completely swollen shut. His breathing was labored and even though the man was obviously in a world of pain, he still had the balls to give the death stare to Jamie.
This was going to be entertaining.
“We know you lied about getting jumped. You sold the guns and pocketed the cash. You’re going to tell me where you stashed the cash and who you sold the guns to, because we know De Luca doesn’t have them.”
I got goosebumps watching Jamie. His voice…it was ruthless yet excited. He was looking forward to this.
I looked back at the bleeding man and tried to imagine what he must be thinking while Jamie towered over him. Fear. Pain. Death. He had to know what was to come, especially if Jamie was the one sent after him.
The man’s glare fell away and an unexpected calmness came over him before his eyes went vacant. With a tilt of my head and a mouth full of ice cream, I studied him. My best guess for his unusual response was that this man had accepted his fate. He was ready for whatever came. Unfortunately for Jamie, this guy was going to be a tough nut to crack.
Jamie retrieved a switch-blade from his pocket and jammed it into the man’s thigh. The man screamed out in pain, but quickly recovered and willed his body to relax. Jamie alternated between cutting, punching, and breaking bones to no avail. Even the goon took a turn, inflicting torturous pain. Still the man said nothing.
“What are you doing down here?” I heard over my shoulder. I turned, finding Stefan standing a few steps up, staring down at me. His eyes moved to roam over the beat down going on in the room.
I shrugged. “There was nothing good on TV,” I fibbed and took another bite of ice cream. Stefan opened his mouth to say something. I anticipated him asking me to leave. His eyes dropped to the pint of Ben and Jerry’s in my hands. He closed his mouth and stayed quiet.
Jamie’s breathing was labored after delivering another pointless punch. He backed away from his prisoner, finally realizing he wasn’t getting anywhere. The man looked ten times worse than when they'd brought him down here. Blood dribbled from his mouth as his head awkwardly rested on his shoulder. He was going to die before they got anything from him.
Feeling compelled to help, I stood and padded my bare feet on the cold concrete floor over to the stack of chairs against the wall. Grabbing one, I dragged it over to the guys. “Take a break, fists of fury,” I said, passing Jamie and unfolded my chair in front of the prisoner. Jamie looked to Stefan, whose attention was on me. I took a seat and I shooed away the goon who was standing too close with my hand. I guess Stefan gave the okay because the goon backed away without question.
I caught the prisoner staring at me. He was clearly confused as his one good eye took me in, from my long open black silk robe, silky green shorts, and matching tank pajama set to my bare feet. I had just painted my toes a hot pink color this afternoon and was second guessing the color, especially in this terrible lighting.