Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (41 page)

“Yeah… thank God for that,” I sarcastically say. I can’t tell if Wil is happy my mom isn’t his
mother, too, because of me or because of
her
.

“My dad had brown curly hair and eyes the color of mine.” Wil runs a hand over his skull. “I shave it off. It’s curlier than a sonofabitch. Bozo is not very manly.” He flashes me a self-deprecating grin. “I’m happy I look like my dad. I like looking in the mirror and seeing him. It
comforts me. He was ruthless but a really good man. I understand the horror you feel when you see Gwen stare back at you, because I am thankful that I don’t see my mother in my reflection.”

“Wow…I…” I stammer.

“No need to say anything. I just wanted you to know.” Wil shrugs, winces a bit, and smirks because it hurt. “I guess I wanted to give you something of me because it may be a long while before I see you again. Information is power in this game, and I gave it to you because I want you to know I trust you with it. I know that Grant is listening, but I trust he will keep quiet,” the thinly veiled threat is spoken in a calm and quiet voice- Wil’s serial killer tone.

“I have more secrets than the CIA and my mouth is locked tighter than Fort Knox,” Grant’s voice trails from the kitchen, where he’s examining the gouges in the floor with the pointy end of the fireplace poker.

“Gretchen’s mom raised me. Dad married her when I was two. I don’t remember life before her. She was my mom.” Wil mischievously chuckles, love glowing from his expression. “Mom was… um… something else.”

“What?” I ask, looking between a chuckling Wil and a laughing Grant.

“Tori just wasn’t what anyone expected,” Grant fondly says. “Good woman.”

“My mom was two-hundred and fifty pounds… and she was black. I survived a lot of racist comments around here
, and they weren’t directed at mom. I was the kid who was too pale for my mom and sister. She was a stay-at-home mom- the whole nine yards. It comforts me that Gretchen takes after Mom and Dad. I see them both in my sister.”

“What happened to her?”

“Aneurism. She went in her sleep. It was peaceful and instantaneous.” Wil rolls his eyes at me when I give him an incredulous look. “I can see the wheels spinning, Pixy,” he groans. “Jeez, my mom wasn’t murdered.”

“I just… six months ago it wouldn’t have crossed my mind… now ya never know what the hell is happening.” My blush is so intense that my face feels burnt. How was I supposed to know? Wil had teased me by saying his dad was unlucky in marriage, I remember him saying it.

Wil watches me blush with a grin twisting his lips. He sobers and says, “The doctors found the blood vessel when she was younger and it was inoperable. They were keeping an eye on it. We knew that someday it would burst and be lights out. Mom lived life to the fullest. The Elders even left my dad alone while my mom was alive so we could be a family. The only stipulation was that I was to train with Boyd. Other than that, it was a normal life,” Wil wistfully sighs. “She passed when I was fourteen.”

“And then your life changed,” Grant gravely whispers from a few feet away. “That’s how it always is when you lose your anchor.” A look passes over his face, eyes dull and glossy. It’s as if Grant is somewhere else and only visiting us on occasion. I’ve noticed it before. Grant drifts through life, not really living it. He blinks back to reality and gives us an embarrassed smile filled with dimples.

“You do realize you’ve yet to tell me your real name,” I snarkily say as I reach for my coat. It’s time to go and Wil has been trying to distract Grant and me with history and information, trying to avoid the inevitable goodbye.

“I’ll tell you in a little over a year when we can see each other again, Pixy.” Wil smiles, but it’s filled with sadness.

Feeling shy and confused, I stare at the floor. I have no idea how to say goodbye to Wil. He’s not my friend, not really. He’s just a kid who has had a huge impact on my life… and I’m going to miss the hell out of him.

“See you around, partner,” I whisp
er as I walk to the broken door with Grant trailing me.

“Be safe, Faith,” Wil whispers back, not looking at me.

“Do me a favor,” I bashfully say, not sure how to tell anyone this. I grip the doorjamb and look over my shoulder at Wil, hating the glisten to his eyes. “I… I can try to change my looks so I don’t look like Gwen, but I can only do so much. But one thing is tied to our identities, and right now, I’m Faithless.”

“What?” Wil and Grant say at the same time, identical expressions of confusion on their faces.

“I need to be Faithless. Lara named me Faith, and she destroyed all faith I had in her when she arranged Daddy’s death. Momma never had any faith in me in the first place, so I don’t want that name anymore. Gwen was a selfish bitch that wanted to immortalize herself by giving me the middle name Gwendolyn. If I have to renounce my last name to be rid of the rest, I will. I’m faithless. I want nothing to do with the women I call mom. Two good women loved me- Aunt Amelia and my grammy. I will honor the family that has stuck by me, raised me, and loved me when no one else would- my daddy, my aunt, and their momma. Grammy’s name was Cynthia and her maiden name was Brooks. From now on, my name is Cynthia Brooks.”

Faithless

~Part Two~
FAITHLESS

~Chapter Thirty-Two~

I grew up running around a hilltop, splashing in creeks, and climbing ravines. I would pretend to make campfires
using rocks and sticks, and I’d tie twigs together and call them tables and chairs. There were five neighbor kids- and by neighbors, I mean within a mile of my house, not next door- there is no next door. It’s always a hill or two yonder. You can wave to your neighbors with a pair of binoculars. The kids and I were holy terrors. We were like a small gang running around, challenging each other to outdo the next. We’d break bones while climbing crags and trees, and we’d do it again after we healed. It taught me to face my fears head-on… and be fearless.

West Virginia was a beautiful, peaceful life. I worked hard to live while breathing fresh air. My home had a three hundred and sixty degree view of trees and more trees and
dips and valleys. If you sat on the porch at dusk, you could watch the animals come out to feed. The only sounds were the chirp and chatter of birds and squirrels.

When I was a small kid, it was just the three of us: Grammy, Aunt Amelia, and me- three generations of Simpson women. Later it was just Aunt Amelia and myself. When Daddy came to visit, he was treated like a king because we missed him something fierce and we thought he should be with us.

My early life made me appreciate the differences in how people live. Crestview Drive made me see the differences in another way. Poor doesn’t equate trash and rich doesn’t mean class, and neither is smarter than the other. Both do ignorant, selfish acts
, and they either regret it or not.

Crestview Drive is a gated community plotted out on
a flat piece of land with the suburbs on one side and the city on the other. Two or three of its mini-mansions take up the same amount of space that Aunt Amelia’s trailer rests on. It’s peaceful, with the sound of mowers and children playing in the distance.

The kids of Crestview
and its neighboring gated communities only venture far enough into the city to get to Hillbrook Prep. A few of the braver kids come from the heart of the city, the business district with its suited rich bastards and shiny, glassed high-rises.

Hillbrook
is a barrier between the rich and the destitute. Several blocks around the school are where we would shop, eat, and play. The businesses shield us from the slums. I doubt in my sister’s twenty years of life that she has been farther than two blocks from Hillbrook. The first time I left the buffered comfort zone was when I visited Wil for the first time. It’s like a different world: light-years from the tranquility of West Virginia and an alien nation from Crestview.

“You’re shitting me, right?” I say in awe as I stare
wide-eyed at a five story brick walkup. Sirens wail in the distance, gun fire pops a block over, and I’m pretty sure that skinny dude on the corner is a gangbanger selling crack.

“My baby sister better not be in there, Grant, or I swear to God
, I’m gonna beat you down right where you stand,” I promise him. “Kids need fresh air to grow. I wouldn’t let Bianca look out the dang windows, let alone walk this street.” Grant’s only answer is to laugh at me.

Stanton
Green’s home is before me. It’s flanked by a rundown Italian restaurant with a cheesy spaghetti and meatball sign that flashes Morretti’s and a seedy dive bar that’s called Ridin’ High. I shit you not… Ridin’ High- it’s a biker bar. It’s after midnight and both are filled to capacity with undesirables. My assessment isn’t coming from a snooty Crestview elitist attitude. West Virginia may have been clean and green, but we had our share of criminals. Hell, I am one of those criminals. My assessment of the bad element is coming out of the mind of a jaded girl who is pierced and tattooed and thought she was a total badass.
This
is badass. This is like someone opened up a cell block at Rikers and dropped them in front of Stanton’s home, and instead of scattering, they decided to take up residence.

The Black Death is five blocks down and eight blocks over. It’s scary as Hell in that part of the city. It’s not far from Wil’s apartment. If tha
t area is scary as Hell, then this area
is
Hell.

I watch the skinny kid make a deal. The guy who did the buy skips down the street giddily tittering to himself like a rat. More gun fire
and I’m proud that I don’t flinch. The sirens fade in the distance, going the opposite direction of the violence and crimes. Car alarms- at least four or five, go off and start anew in a different locations. There is no peace. There is no quiet. There are no trees, because the ones that should line the street have been hacked down and replaced with trash. Feet from me, two hookers fight over a john from the dive bar- saying their
baby-babies and daddy-daddies, do you want a good time? Twenty bucks for a ride.

A group of six guys, all the same age and wearing the same colors, walks down the street. They see and hear- nothing. They make my gang of West Virginian brats look like a pile of cuddly bunnies. The kids from Hillbrook would be shitting their pants. Hell, Rex would be shitting his pants, and he’s a huge
motherfucker in his fifties- Rex fought in wars killing commie bastards, as he likes to say.

Why isn’t Grant shitting his
pants? I look at his trousers for signs of wetness. Nope, all dry. Grant is also calm and privately smiling to himself. When in the hell did Grant Whittenhower become stone-cold and fearless? Blond and blue-eyed and sweet and smiley, with a pair of tan chinos and a white button-down, Grant looks like he stepped out of an ad for the rich and entitled. Grant glows like the sun in a universe of dark. But he looks at home on this street- eyes drinking everything in, no detail left unnoticed. I watch as he catalogs everything for later. Why, I have no clue.

And then it dawns on me. My daddy was Stanton’s daddy’s advisor
, and then Stanton’s. My daddy was a criminal, and not in the two-bit sort of way. Thomas Simpson was a genius at laundering money and stealing from the rich, and he always kept a large cut for himself. It’s what was going to give him twenty-to-life. Bianca is safe here… Bianca is safe because Stanton… Stanton owns these criminals. He’s the top shit of the badasses.

That crack dealer… that crack he’s pushing belongs to Stanton. Those hookers that decided to share the john for thirty-five bucks… that thirty-five bucks belongs to Stanton.

I’m not in Kansas anymore…

Grant yanks me to him,
his hand on my shoulders, all the while heartily laughing his ass off. “Ah,” he sings. “She sees the light. You girls are safer here than anywhere. If one of the elders, heirs, or enforcers comes a knocking, they may not leave alive.”

“How come you’re so at ease?” I ask, scrunching up my face in confusion.

“My future enforcer lives right over there,” Grant points across the street to another rundown, should be condemned, walkup. “And there he is, doing what he does best- for Stanton,” Grant says with an arch of his brow, blinking his impossibly long lashes.

A tall, shadowy figure leans against the building near the alleyway. He has shiny, long black hair that swings around his chin and hides his face. He’s relaxed in his pose, as he quickly passes off his product and pockets the cash.

“Future enforcer?” I mumble. “Huh?”

“I’
m currently without one,” Grant bashfully says, as if it’s demoralizing and makes him weak. His apple cheeks pinken a very girly shade. “I’ve never had one. It makes the elders and enforcers leave me alone, but they are starting to get vicious with my family. With Pearl’s retirement, I can’t count on Ezra and me having the same ideals. Especially since a lot of the new plays in the game involve screwing with the Whittenhower and Holden lines. Huge targets on our backs. I will need an enforcer to affectively play the game. It’s time I protected my family-
me
, not someone else blocking the moves against me.”