Page 9 of Vengeance (Ruthless MC 4)
I easily unlock the door, then slam it closed behind me.
Another thing to be grateful for is a couple of weeks ago, after Tito threatened me, I saw the writing on the wall. I swapped out the regular doorknob for an outdoor one that couldn’t be easily circumnavigated with any old key. I also borrowed Nestor’s toolbox and watched a couple of YouTube videos to figure out how to install both a deadbolt and a chain lock on top of that.
The door shakes a little when a heavy fist pounds on it, followed by a litany of angry Spanish. But it holds.
And I let out a sigh of relief as I sink into the same bed I was so excited to get when Nestor’s brother moved us into this house my senior year of high school. Not a couch. Not a living room. But an actual bed in a bedroom that belonged to me and me only.
But that happiness didn’t last long. Less than eight months later the entire house belonged to me and me only. Cosmo had bought it with cash in my mother’s name. So after their deaths, I got it. It had been my main shelter through college, med school, and for most of my residency.
It still would be if I had just closed the door in my aunt’s face when she showed up on my front porch two years ago.
Loneliness was to blame. I was so excited at the prospect of having even one decent family member in the world that I took her at her word and invited her in—even helped her get her GED and recommended her for a job as a medical assistant at my hospital so we could drive into work together.
I didn’t tell her about my job at the roadhouse, though. She was too old to get staffed there. Nestor is ageist, sexist—really, a walking example of every bad stereotype that ends with an -ist. And though I was proud of her for getting her life together, I didn’t trust her to resist the dangerous bikers with their bad-boy ways and total willingness to pay even a pretty older woman outright for the pleasure of her company upstairs with drinks, drugs, and hard cash.
Everything had gone well for a year or so, but it turned out I was right to suspect the wrong guy would derail her.
Within a few months of meeting Tito at the state fair, she lost her job and stopped paying rent. Her commitment to sobriety became a thing of the past, as did her desire to rise above our circumstances with me. But she refused to leave or stop inviting her unsavory boyfriend into my home. And soon the house felt so unsafe I started sleeping at work and at the roadhouse.
This. This is why you can’t trust anyone but yourself. My aunt’s just like the rest of my mom’s family—those users and addicts who were more concerned about whether I was going to cash-in and sell my house than with the family member we lost. I should never have believed her when she said she'd changed.
But I try not to ever waste time on self-pity. My life, these obstacles I have to overcome, these demons disguised as family always trying to pull me down—they are what they are. No use crying about it. That’s what I always tell myself.
But hot pressure builds behind my eyes as the angry gangster pounds on my door. Why can’t things ever be easy? Just freaking once?
As if in answer to my lament, the knocking abruptly stops. Short attention span? The drugs in his system? The concussion I might have given him with my kick? Who knows?
I fall asleep, grateful to have finally achieved some peace.
But that peace doesn’t hold.
Hours later, I’m jolted awake by more pounding. But this time, it’s heavier. Not a fist. But something with heft, crashing into the door. Over and over again.
A body? Maybe a battering ram? I have no idea.
But my blood turns to ice when I see the door isn’t just rattling. There’s a large crack forming down its center.
Oh no! I don’t even bother to look toward the window. It’s been stuck for ages, and of course, I was too cheap to hire someone to fix it.
Pride…it’s always been my greatest downfall.
But, for once, I don’t let my pride take the lead.
I grab my phone, but not to call 9-1-1. I did that once. And I found out the police were notorious for taking their sweet time responding to 9-1-1 calls coming out of Shypoke Walk after my mother bled out.
Also, with all these drugs and known gangsters in my home, who knows if they won’t decide to arrest me too. I could lose any chance of getting my medical license before I even have the opportunity to sit for my boards.
