HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (41 page)

I took a shower, trying to wash the hurt away with the hottest water I could stand. The deepest wounds weren't physical, and there was no amount of soap that would make them disappear.

I closed myself in my room, pretending to be asleep when Granny finally got home from the courthouse function. I didn't know how I could possibly tell her what had happened. What could she do to get Tito out of the house?

Most of all, I felt ashamed. My mind ran through dozens of things I could've done. I knew that Tito had his eye on me. Maybe I should've begged Granny to let me go to the courthouse with her. Maybe I should've gone to a friend's house. Maybe I should've hidden one of the steak knives under my pillow to ward off this very situation.

I knew there couldn't be a second time. I had to do something to stop this.

I resolved to tell Granny in the morning, even if I had to force the words out of my mouth. I needed her help. She'd told me herself she could never deny the help she had to give.

I didn't know how I could sleep, but I did. I fell into a deep slumber, devoid of dreams.

I hadn’t dreamed since, even after all this time. Sleep was a blank, dark period of rest from that time forward.

The next day, I woke up early. It was a Saturday and I wanted to find Granny before she went out to run any errands or see any friends.

I wanted to find her before it happened again.

She was in the kitchen, making a big breakfast for, I could only assume, Tito and me.

"Granny," I said, my voice threatening to fail me, "I have something I need to talk to you about."

"And I have something I need to talk to you about," she answered, not turning from the stove. Her voice was stiff with anger.

"What is it?" I asked, confused. There wasn't anything that I could be in trouble for — that she knew about, anyway.

"Tito told me what happened," she said. "You should be ashamed of yourself."

My legs lost their strength and it was all I could do to fall in the direction of one of the kitchen chairs. It slapped jarringly against the backs of my thighs. I should be ashamed of myself? What was that supposed to mean?

"Granny, he raped me," I said, barely able to get the words out.

"You can't rape the willing, Collette," she said, still not looking at me.

"I was anything but willing," I said, raising my voice. "He attacked me."

"That's not what Tito told me," Granny said, flipping the ham she had in the skillet. The fatty smell made my stomach turn.

"What exactly did Tito tell you?" I demanded.

"That you're jealous of him," she said. "That you don't want anyone in this house except for you. That you've been threatening him, saying you're going to call the cops and get him locked up like the no-good piece of trash he is."

"None of it's true!" I cried. "He's lying to you! He raped me while you were gone to the courthouse! Why don't you believe me?"

Granny looked at me, her eyes filled with loathing. "He said you threw yourself at him, telling him the only way you'd let him stay here is if he slept with you."

I laughed. It was the only thing I could do. I'd had to wear a panty liner even though I wasn't on my period.

"There's nothing funny about this!" Granny snapped. "This isn't the girl I raised from a newborn baby."

"You're right," I said, "because it's not. I never did those things Tito said. He raped me. He said he was going to do it again. He can't stay here with us, Granny. It's not safe."

"Please don't make me go, Granny," Tito said, weeping at the door to the kitchen.

I stared. There were genuine tears falling down his face.

"I don't have anywhere to go," he sobbed. "After I told my gang I didn't want to be in it anymore, they told me they'd kill me if they saw me on the streets again. You're my only hope."

Granny held her arms out and hugged my rapist.

"Sweetheart, no one's going to make you leave," she said soothingly, smoothing a hand down his back.

Tito stared daggers at me, the grin stretching across his face full of the sharp teeth of a promise.

He told me there was going to be a next time. I'd told myself there couldn't be a next time. There was only one thing to do, and it broke my heart more than anything.

I understood why Granny was doing what she was doing. Her heart loved so easily and she always welcomed people into her home. I was a living example of what her love could do. She’d taken me and raised her as my very own daughter when everyone else had given up hope.

I couldn’t blame her for trying to turn Tito’s life around — whether he wanted it or not.

Granny couldn't send a boy to his death on the violent street any more than she could know it was all a lie. I’d done my best to convince her of Tito’s treachery. The next thing I had to do was protect myself, even if it was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

It was my turn for tears, and they wrenched themselves from my body.

“I can’t do this,” I sobbed, covering my face. I hated for Tito to see me crying and hated to witness what I had been reduced to. But the thought of what I had to do drove me from the kitchen and sent me running upstairs.

I had to leave Granny. That was clear to me.

I hated the thought of it. I hated to leave her alone with Tito. He’d threatened to hurt Granny, but deep down, I knew he was only doing it to terrorize me. I was his target, not her. The entire community would rise up against him if he ever did anything to Granny. She was the white light in this dark neighborhood.

My heart ached. I would have to hurt Granny in order to save myself. There was no other solution. She would be inconsolable when she found my room empty, and it hurt me even more to imagine her crying, all alone.

She’d never let me leave if I told her I was going, but I couldn’t live in the same house as Tito. It was with great reluctance that I packed a rolling suitcase and backpack full of clothes and pulled them quietly to the door.

“Where are you going with that suitcase?”

I froze and turned around to see Granny standing there, her hands on her hips.

“It’s a school project,” I said, pointing at the suitcase and hoping Granny didn’t ask to look inside. “I didn’t want to drop it on the way, so I put it in the suitcase.”

Granny nodded, looking at my tearstained face.

“You’re a good girl, Collette Bell,” she said. “I just wish you didn’t have it out for Tito.”

I wished he didn’t have it out for me, but I didn’t say so. I wanted my last memory of Granny not to be of us fighting.

She took me in her arms and kissed my hair.

“I love you, Granny,” I said, my voice hitching.

“I love you, too, Cocoa,” she said. “I’ll have you a special snack ready when you get back from school. That’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I said, fighting not to break down. I wasn’t going to be back to find out what it was. I wasn’t ever going to come back.

I stayed for a week with one girlfriend, another week with another girlfriend, and so on, jumping from couch to couch until I graduated high school. I'd long exhausted the friends who were willing to put me up and was on acquaintances by then.

So I'd taken my rolling suitcase and my diploma across the city, looking for a place to work and a place to live. Mama herself had found me sitting in the park, resting my legs.

"You going somewhere with that luggage?" she'd asked. "I'd get there soon, if I were you, the sun setting like it is. Looks like a tempting target for someone looking to do a pretty girl harm."

"I've got nowhere," I said glumly. "I've been looking for a place to live and a job all day — since early this morning."

Mama had brightened, sitting down next to me on the bench. Even back then, she'd dressed nicely, back before the nightclub was in its heyday.

"I have a proposition for you, then," she said. "I recently opened a nightclub that doubles as a boarding house. You work for your room and board. The tips are yours."

I was so tired and desperate — and looking back, I was sure Mama knew that. I said yes on the spot, not asking any questions.

At that point, Mama had about ten girls in her employment. I received training and found myself flourishing in the customer service industry. I liked talking to people and taking care of them.

By the time I really "serviced" my first customer, I trusted Mama so much that I did it gladly.

I sent a good portion of my tips to Granny each month. All I had to do was ask Mama for the funds. I always signed a little note card "Love, Cocoa," but never added a return address to the envelope. The last thing I needed was Tito figuring out where I was and offering to pay for a second opportunity to take everything from me.

I also never mentioned exactly what I did for a living. I told Granny that I was in customer service and sometimes wrote funny stories about actual customers — with the essential details modified, of course. I knew that if Granny realized what I really did for a living, sleeping with the highest bidder, she’d think that I had failed in life — meaning that she had failed me.

Granny had failed me when she took Tito’s side. But I couldn’t just forget her. She was practically my mother. It was only right that I send her some of my newly earned money — without telling her just how I earned it.

And so life at Mama’s nightclub began.

The core of girls stayed on for a while, then some left. A new influx of girls replaced them, our numbers growing until they became what they were today. It became less of a place of employment and more of a home — a sisterhood we all took part in.

Any time there was a holiday, or one of the girls' birthdays, or if we just felt like it, almost all of us would get together for lunch. We'd pull the tables in the nightclub together and help cook whatever the menu was.

Blue's birthday had probably been the most elaborate. She requested that we have a country-themed luncheon and that all of us wore our "farm finest." We had to scramble to come up with overalls, flannel shirts and daisy dukes before the big day.

The menu was pretty impressive, though, including pulled pork sandwiches, corn on the cob, green beans, biscuits, baked beans, baked apples, and individual strawberry shortcakes for dessert.

"Just like Ma used to make," Blue said, grinning in a way that you couldn't tell if she was teasing or being serious. She was everyone's friend but never talked much about where she was from.

It made me miss the good old days with Granny too much to request anything she'd make for me, like chicken noodle soup or cornbread and white beans. I figured it was for the best — some of the girls might find Granny's simple fare too plain for their tastes.

Still, it was better for me to be absorbed in my work than to dwell in my past. Those days were over. I had the girls and the nightclub, now.

On this night, Mama gave me a table of fifteen. I pulled Shimmy in to help with drink service, promising to tip her out at the end of the night. Shimmy and I always had a good rapport, even when she first came to the nightclub, and I hosted her in my room. We played well off each other.

"Watch where that big booty's going, Cocoa!" Shimmy sang out, slapping my ass as I tried to squeeze around her to deliver a plate to one of the customers.

I pouted for the customers' entertainment and put my hands on my hips.