Page 22 of Savior
“You’ve got a lot of balls coming at me like this!” He stands and points in my face, grabbing Vanna’s attention in the kitchen. She rushes back into the room with us.
“What’s going on?” she nervously asks, her hands folded in front of her abdomen, right over left, of course. I don’t get up from my seat on the couch. It wouldn’t be good if I did… “Dad? Dean?” she asks again, when we both remain silent.
“We should probably go.” Her mother chimes in, standing to place a hand on her husband’s arm.
“No… don’t go…” Vanna’s voice sounds so sad and lost, it pulls at my heart. I’m about ready to insist that I leave, and allow them to work this out among themselves… But I fear the damage they might do to her in my absence. The setbacks to her self-esteem that I’ve been working to rebuild. No. I can’t. She needs me.
“I don’t want to go.” Giuliana pipes up. “I haven’t seen my sister in over three years! Everyone just calm down!” Her parents seem to listen to the golden child, as her father takes a step back from me, gathering his composure before he reclaims his seat in the leather armchair. Her mother follows suit, as I’d expect in this dynamic.
“What happened?” Vanna asks.
Nobody else says a word, so I do. “Jack, happened.”
I didn’t think there was a quieter level than absolute silence, but there is. We’re sitting in it. Until Vanna’s mother lets out a soft sigh, “A very unfortunate series of events…”
“You gotta be fucking kidding me.” I growl, turning to stare up into Vanna’s flushed face. There are so many conflicting emotions flashing behind her eyes. A kaleidoscope of anger, sadness, embarrassment, frustration, disappointment…
“Look,” her father has the balls to point at me again as he speaks. “What happened, happened… Unfortunately, there’s nothing anyone can do about it now. We can only choose to put everything behind us, and just move forward.”
I scoff at him, biting my tongue. That’s easy for him to say. Though, this is Vanna’s call, my blood pressure is rising quickly. When she doesn’t speak, I can’t help but take it upon myself to speak up for her.
“Yeah… I’m sure it would suit you three just fine to sweep Jack Nero under the rug. Hide the stain of your epic fucking failure.”
“Dean, please…” Vanna whispers.
Doll, I’m fucking trying my best…
“I didn’t know, Vanna.” Giuliana says, an honest level of remorse in her tone.
Vanna immediately turns to her sister. “You couldn’t have. It’s okay. You were away at college. With your friends. You were living your own life… I honestly don’t blame anyone but myself.”
Of course, she wouldn’t blame anyone but herself. That’s Vanna.
“We didn’t know, either…” her mother’s voice is practically a whisper. Vanna nods, but doesn’t say anything to her mother. Mrs. Vettriano shifts uncomfortably in her seat. At least she’s perceptive enough to realize she isn’t getting off the hook as easily as Giuliana. “Jack loved you for years… when he went to prison, it was such a shock… And he swore it was just because he lost his temper that one time… That he just loved you so much…”
This shit makes me sick.
“So much that he beat her? Terrorized her for another three years while he was in prison? Writing her threatening letters.” I throw back at her mother. “Can you really excuse all that? Can you excuse his attempt at the murder of your own daughter?”
“He was a cop in prison.” Her father gripes at me, as if somehow my words didn’t register at all. As if it’s a legitimate excuse for Jack’s actions. “He lost his father while inside… He lost his fiancé… Hell, he lost his mind in that eight by six cell she put him in.”
She. Put. Him In… I’m gonna lose my shit.
“And I put him six feet under.” I growl back at him. “He was an abusive psychopath, who’s side you chose over Vanna’s again and again, seemingly even now.”
“Look,” her father jabs that fucking finger in my direction again, and images of snapping the damn thing flash in my mind. “I get that you were there, but you came in at the end of this. This is a family matter that doesn’t have anything to do with you now.”
The fuck it doesn’t…
“Dad… Dean nearly died protecting me…” Vanna says, and I can still hear the agony in her voice over it. I swallow down the pain, because of her pain, that stirs inside of me.
Her father seems to attempt to rein himself in, looking me over again for a moment, as if he truly needed to be reminded. “I’ve read a few articles… I’m grateful to you for what you did. And I apologize, however-”
“You’re still apologizing to the wrong person.” I shoot back at him, cutting him off. I really don’t give a shit what he has to say to me.
“Is that what you want? An apology from me?” He has the audacity so shift his glare to Vanna, like she put me up to muscling one out of him on her behalf. I’m about to get up and knock two shots of fucking sense into his thick skull. A left, then a right. Maybe a knee to his gut for good measure before I toss him down the front steps.
“She doesn’t want anything that isn’t real.” I use her own words she’s said to me in the past, on him. This time when he stands up, I do too.
