Rogue (In the life of the Rogue Book 1) (26 page)

“You were always the smarter one, Tristan. I had my chance once. You were the only one who understood me.”

“Most of you.”

He waited till the bartender filled the cup and walked away before he answered. “You understood enough of me, man.” He reached into his jacket and tossed a couple of bucks on the counter, despite the money I had already laid on the counter.

I reached into my own jacket and handed him a thick envelope. Inside he would see a wad of money and it would come out to about twenty thousand dollars. The money had been the rest of what Papa had given me. If Zander had given me a fuss about the money, it would have surprised me. He nodded and took the envelope from me.

“I paid your rent for the next six months,” I told him.

Zander breathed another hurtful breath then pushed passed me and out the door.

The mirror reflects my soul, and I see that it’s empty…

Two months passing a year ago would have seemed like a lifetime of drinking, screwing dirtier and dirtier sluts, hating yourself, and wishing that your miserable life would just reach its promised drastic, and most likely tragic, end.

Two months passing now seemed like a long blink.

Moving from my tight, shitty little apartment had taken all of twenty minutes. I had absolutely nothing to pack, nothing that I wanted to take, and nothing that was special to me. I had paid the rest of the year for the place, and I wasn’t sure why I had done that.

I lit a cigarette and leaned over my balcony. It was another clear night, clean air to breathe and very quiet. The compound was lit beautifully in the wee hours. My father was most likely still in his suit, the same went for Papa, breaking necks and making a profit in their office. And I was puffing away, thinking about how content I was and how long it had been since I felt that way.

It had been two months since I had been with Dominique, fulfilled her little under the table deal with my father and grandfather, and the burn hadn’t gotten better with the passing time like everything else had.

I missed her, but I would keep that to myself.

I was in love with her, but I would act like that didn’t matter because everyone else would.

And when you were in love, the mudane things, stupid and useless things, seemed to take up space inside your head. You recounted things, moments, and relived events because they made you feel good.

Reliving the way her skin felt against mine, and the way her lips burned my lips when she kissed me, didn’t make me feel good.

It made me feel like shit.

My door was open while I savored the smoke on the balcony. I pulled another puff from my cigarette before stubbing it into an ashtray. With a pillow of smoke filing out of my nostrils, I stepped back into my room.

Lulina was standing at the entrance of my bedroom door. In two months, she had recovered beautifully with the help of her expensive doctor. She actually wore tight clothing again, but did not venture far from the compound, and sure as hell kept her distance with me.

If she was here, I guess she figured she no longer needed distance.

“Congradulations, Tristan,” she said.

I barely saw her face in the dark room. “What are you talking about, Lu?”

Lulina ignored my question and held up a half full champagne glass. “Here’s to the mutt that keeps pissing on every brand new carpet he can find. Here’s to the mutt for refusing to be trained.”

My hands were in my pockets as I walked back into the room from the balcony. “Is this about my new place in the family?”

Lulina chuckled. She titled her head back, glass to her lips, and swallowed the champagne. “Something like that,” she said when she finished her glass and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Then why don’t you enlighten me on just what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Fuck you, Tristan.”

I dropped my head and laughed. “Did that make you feel better?”

“I swear I’m going to make you sorry,” she spat.

And the room was silent. The tension, the hostility, was thick between her and I, and we both drowned in it.

I broke the silence. “If it means anything, now, I never meant for what happened that night to happen. You don’t want to hear I’m sorry, and I get that. Sorry isn’t good enough. But, I may not be a good man, but I not
that
man, Lu.”

Her hand tightened on the door frame but she held her ground. “I don’t feel a thing, Tristan. How about you? Do you feel better after apologizing for raping me?”

“Then what do you want?” I asked.

I had gotten the inkling that Lulina held a special card somewhere, most likely in her paid for cleavage, but I would have never prepared for her to say what she said. “My daughter knows that I was raped. Not by who, though, but she knows. We’ve gotten close. We talk everyday now.”

I opened my mouth to ask again - not sure if I would be polite about it - about what Lulina wanted.

She beat me to the punch. “I came to give you a warning, Tristan.”

I shrugged. “Then let’s hear it.”

“I want to see your face before I tell you what I have to say.”

I closed the large distance between us. Lulina’s eyes widen as she stared at my bare chest. I wore dress pants and nothing else. The pants were too big and barely held to my pelvic bone. She could not hide the lust in her face - what should have been fear. She licked her lips and looked up at me, slowly, and longingly.

My eyebrows furrowed in this change. I couldn’t explain why I still felt like the prey when she was near me and she was the predator.

Nothing about Lulina aroused me anymore.

I took an unconscious step back. The thought of her touching me made me sick.

Lulina read my thoughts, “You scared of me, Tristan. I should be the one scared of you. You did rape me, after all.”

“You raped me when I was nine years old.”

“Your little dick was up, Tristan. You were willing.”

“I was a child, you sick bitch.”

She shrugged. “You’re a boy, a man. You’ll get over it.”

Again, here was a woman of the many women in the world that would never understand know what it was like to be a man. We were no different from them. Daddy’s little girls weren’t the only prey to the predators. Most boys had their first sexual experience before the age of twelve. And just like Daddy’s little girl’s we had not been ready and the experience had not been instigated on our part, and we were affected by it.

Suck it up, man!

That’s what older men would say. If it had been a man who had did the touching then the incident would barely reach our father’s ears. Their boy, their little man had been tainted and they would never want to talk about it. Mothers would try with everything they had to keep the house stable, placing bowls of soup and orange juice at a gaping wound.

Don’t tell nobody, son! For everything that’s holy don’t you breathe a word of it!

Be a man and suck it up, don’t cry about it.

Be a man!

Now if it had of been a woman who had promised a little boy candy, and dragged away every bit of the innocence a nine year old could possibly have instead.

Then here, man!

A slap on a back that’s too hard for a kid. Good job, son, good job, man.

You’re a man now!

No.

We were not men at that age of nine, or younger, or older. We were scared children who were now confused with our sexual identity just like Daddy’s little girls too.

This is why we were abusers. Why we were men who cut into our wives faces with vicious slaps while our children watched. Why we terrorized our homes because we weren’t able to look at ourselves in the mirror. For men like that, for men like me, we were ashamed and felt better if those we loved could feel that shame.

Lulina touched a few strains of hair on her forehead and tucked it behind her ear.

“What are you fears, Tristan?” She asked. “Is it the fear of me telling your grandfather and father about what you did to me?” Or are your fears of everyone in the family knowing how you screwed me behind your brother’s back after what happened with Katie?”

Yes, yes, all those things, but this wasn’t a surprise. It was common knowledge and everyone who took money from the Rogue hand knew that Tristan Rogue was on a tight leash because of his loose zipper.

“Or do you have an even bigger fear of being in the same shoes of your cousin? He’s dead to the family, you know that? He’s even dead to himself.”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” I snapped.

Lulina ignored my retort. “Are you afraid of that little girl’s parents finding out about what you’ve been doing to their daughter? What’s her name, Tristan?”

I closed my eyes, refusing to answer.

“I know she’s young and I know she’s in love with you, and if she’s legal, she barely is and you’ve been in that ass for a while now.”

My teeth were clashing together. “You having fun with my demons, Lu?”

“No,” she said, surprised that I would think so low of her. “I’m only calling out your fuck ups, Tristan. I’m calling out every mistake you’ve made.”

“And do you feel better, now?”

She held her hand up in my face and I took another step back, making sure she wasn’t in danger of touching me and vice versa.

“Don’t interrupt me, Tristan. I plan on doing you a favor.”

“And that is?”

“I said quiet, Tristan. I have a question for you. Are you sorry?”

I nibbled my bottom lip, my hands balling to fists in my pockets. I was mad, angry, but no where near the rage I had felt in the apartment and that was perplexing me. I was more afraid of what was happening than mad that it was happening.

“I’m sorry for all of it, yes,” I answered and hating myself that I had. I was going along with this, complying with the way she was belittling me and softening me up for her strike.

“Then say it, Tristan.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For?”

“Everything.”

“Be specific,” she demanded.

“I’m sorry for Katie.”

“And,” she motioned me along.

“And I’m sorry for our affair all these years.”

“Keep going.”

“I’m sorry Ally.”

“Oh, so that’s her name.” She laughed, “Keep going.”

“And I’m sorry for my cousin because I’m no different than he is and I hate him for it, and he knows I hate him.”

What should have been liberating was not. My chest felt tight like someone was sitting on it and their hands were around my throat.

“You’re forgiven, Tristan,” she said and smiled.

“Have you gotten what you wanted now, Lu? Are you happy now?”

“Oh I’m happy, Tristan. I haven’t been happy in two months, in fact, I’ve been terrified, but right now I feel like I’m living all over again.”

“Then is that all?”

She cocked her head to the side like a puppy that didn’t understand the command. “Oh no, I came to warn you and that’s what I’m about to do.”

I watched as she ran her hand through her long, wavy hair. She touched the side of her chin, her lips pursing, her eyes looking for my feet all the way to the top of my head.

“I hate you, Tristan,” she said after the pause.

“You said you loved me.”

“Oh,” her eyebrows went up, “but we all know how thin the line is between love and hate. I loved you and still ruined a lot of things in your life, and now you’ll about to see how I hate you and not just ruin things in your life but end them.”

“Is that your warning, Lu? Because we’ve had this conversation before – you know, you taking everything away from me?”

“No. My warning is my daughter. You should fear her more than you should’ve ever feared me.”

The world around me seemed to crumble. My chest caved inward as I lost my breath.

Lulina didn’t give me a chance to talk. “Did I tell you congradulations, Tristan?”

“Yea,” I whispered.

“You’ll soon see while I’m congradulating you.” Lulina leaned in, her hand touching my doorknob. “I would ask you to make love to me, Tristan, right here, right now, but I won’t. You know why?”

“Because I hurt you the last time?”

“That and you sicken me and not just for what happened two months ago, but because you’re no different from the men in your family. You use those around you and you abuse them and shit on everything you ever touch. And, yet, you’re worse than your father and grandfather. They don’t say sorry for the things that they’ve done, and maybe I would have respected you better. You raped and humiliated me, but I could’ve taken that, Tristan, but what made it worse was you saying you’re sorry for it, and me seeing in your eyes that you mean it.”

“Are we done?” I asked her.

“Do you remember that deep dark secret of mine that I told you I wanted to protect you from?”

“Yea.”

She smiled, leaning closer and I could smell her perfume – I almost gagged. “I’m going to let you in on it.”

“Okay,” I told her, “You’ve let me on everything else.”

“This secret, Tristan, will taste like wine for me, and we all know wine is better when you give it a little time.”

She slammed the door closed and I was back in darkness. Only the moon shining through my open balcony doors gave off just enough light to see nothing at all.

***

I curled my fists and let it fly against the closed door.

No answer.

I laid my head against Zander’s apartment door, my ear to the shabby wood, trying to listen in.

“I don’t want to talk to you, T,” Zander’s hoarse whisper came back at me.