His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas Read online

The silence on the car ride home is way worse than if he screamed at her. It vibrates with the promise of bad things to come.

  A memory swims to the forefront of her mind.

  That fateful meeting with the 2nd Streeters.

  It was supposed to be a friendly get-together. A discussion about merging the two smaller gangs so they could cover more territory. Things were going well until the 2nd Street leader made a critical error and miscalculated June’s status in Razo’s gang.

  It might have been because Razo didn’t introduce her as his. Instead, he kept calling her over with that horrible kissy sound, issuing orders like, “Hey, puta, get my boy another Tecate,” and “Hey puta, we low on blunts. Keep ‘em coming.”

  She thinks this is why the 2nd Street leader looked her directly in the eyes, touched her arm, and thanked her after she brought his third beer. June was so stunned by the unexpected show of good manners, she actually smiled back. Then…disaster.

  “Hey,” he called out, “This bitch like me! Bet I’m up in her pussy before the night’s through.” He laughed loudly at his own joke before taking a long pull of beer from the bottle June had given him.

  Razo laughed right along—up until he stood and shot the gang leader at point blank range through the chest. Then he turned his gun on the three other 2nd Streeters who’d come to the meeting, shooting them before they could avenge their leader.

  “Look what you made me do!” Razo’s words echo in her mind as Mason drives them back to the house.

  Because of her everything was ruined. And instead of merging with the 2nd Streeters, the Hijos went to war with them.

  Razo ordered his men to remove the bodies and then get the fuck out. That’s how things usually worked with him. See, he didn’t mind punching or slapping her in front of others. But for the real beatings, he preferred no one else see him like that. Crazed and damn near foaming at the mouth. Unable to control his rage. Like a child throwing a temper tantrum with his fists.

  But make no mistake, it was a grown man beating. Thankfully her mind blanked out during the worst of it, because all she remembers is waking up on her mattress nearly two days later. Jordan seated in his familiar position beside her bed. Tending to her injuries with a little help from Google: “how to fix broken ribs without a doctor.”

  The results of the beating were so bad, Jordan risked injury and begged Razo to take June to a hospital when he showed up to fuck her just a few days later.

  “June is having a hard time breathing,” she heard the boy say from the mattress. Jordan explained to his cousin that she might die if a broken piece of bone punctured her lungs, liver, or spleen.

  June watched their conversation through her less swollen eye. All the while thinking, Stop, Jordan. Stop.

  But in the end, it was her stench that saved her. While she’d been unconscious, June had peed on the mattress at least twice, and some of it leaked out onto the surrounding floor. Jordan tried to clean up after her but he struggled to do a thorough job given the extent of the damage. After about a day or so, June and her room began to smell like a back alley.

  Razo must have realized he’d beat her past the point of being fuckable. But of course he refused to allow Jordan to take her to the hospital. Instead, he threw a pack of oxy at his little cousin and, switching to English, said, “If she die, she die.”

  Then he ruffled Jordan’s hair and walked out of the house.

  Jordan skipped an entire week of school to tend to her. He prayed and begged her not to die, reminding her of the promise she’d made back when he was only four. That she wouldn’t ever leave him. Ever.

  June struggled to keep that promise. It wasn’t easy. The pain was unbearable, the kind that turned a human into an animal—an animal who wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

  But she held on. And she somehow survived the worst beating of her life. For Jordan.

  However, Mason is twice as big as Razo. His fists ten times as large as Razo’s.

  Her ribs ache at the thought of what might happen when they get home. She fishes her phone out of her purse. Texts Jordan: “Are you home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go back to Luke’s. Right now. Stay there tonight.”

  She doesn’t give away much at all, but months of the good life hasn’t completely erased Jordan’s memory.

  “He not like that.” The response comes back instantly, emphatic in its speed.

  “Just do as I say. You promised, too.”

  Desperate to make sure he’s nowhere near the house when she and Mason return, she references the promise she forced him to make after the first and last time he tried to get between her and Razo during an assault. That bit of bravery ended with them both getting beaten, barely able to nurse each other back to health.

  “Be practical, Jordan,” she explained afterwards. “We can’t both be injured. I need you to stay in one piece so you can take care of me.”

  She’s pretty sure he remembers his reluctant promise because there’s a brief pause and then another text, “Okay. Going now.”

  With no small measure of relief, June slips the phone back in her purse. Glances over at Mason. His eyes are intent on the road, his thick knuckles white on the steering wheel.

  It feels like millions of years pass by as she watches him drive out of the corner of her eye. But then they’re suddenly back at the house. And it feels way too soon.

  “Where’s the kid?” Mason grunts when they get inside.

  From the state of the living room, June can see Jordan helped himself to her stash of chips and cookies—something he definitely would not have done had she been there. The couch and surrounding floor are covered in crumbs. He also forgot to turn off the TV, which is why it sounds like there are two British men in the middle of the room shouting excitedly over a roaring crowd. She glances at the screen and sure enough: soccer.

  Mason grabs the remote from couch and switches it off. “Jordan! Jordan!” he shouts.

  “He’s at a friend’s,” she admits, just to keep him from going through the house, calling Jordan’s name.

  He swings back around, his expression stone-like. “You told him to be back for dinner.”

  June doesn’t answer, just looks at the rosewood floors she’d so admired when they first moved in.

  She feels Mason’s eyes on her for several long, hard seconds before he says, “That’s who you were texting in the car.”

  The words hit her like truth-filled bullets. The ravens have stopped flapping, and it feels to June like they’re frozen in place… waiting to see what Mason will do next.

  His blue stare goes glacier cold, and he takes a step closer, dipping his head so he’s almost at eye level with her. “June, what exactly did you think was going to happen here?”

  “Answer me, goddammit. I am not in the mood for this shit, June. Not tonight.”

  She blinks back against the rapid sensation of tears. She will not cry. That will only make it worse. Crying only ever feeds the beating. Drama only ever feeds the beating. Fear only ever feeds the beating. She has to stay calm, dead inside. Act like it doesn’t take everything she has to choke out, “An argument.”

  “Fuck yeah, an argument!” he replies, emphasizing the last two words. “I don’t care what kind of history you got with that motherfucker. He sold you to me! That means you don’t talk to him. You don’t let him touch you. You don’t let me catch you looking that little prick in the face or there will be consequences. That clear?”

  A pause, then a weary, “For fuck’s sake, June, I need an answer. Do you hear me on this?”

  She nods. Giving him what he wants, even if she knows what she says won’t matter. This is just the pre-show, a prologue to the drama yet to come. Then she waits.

  And waits.

  Nothing happens. Nothing, that is, aside from the sound of him moving away. And when she dares to look up, June sees he’s bustling around the living room in that now familiar way. Throwing open windows with additional force like t
hey, not she, did something to piss him off.

  When he’s done and sees her still standing there in the middle of the room, he says, “What are you waiting for? You said you were making lasagna tonight.”

  Without a word, but with a few very careful glances over her shoulder, June heads into the kitchen.

  She pulls the tub of ricotta from her purse and sets it on the table. Feeling as if the soft Italian cheese has morphed from an everyday dairy item found at most grocery stores, to a hard won prize…evidence of a dangerous journey she undertook and somehow managed to survive.

  After an Odyssean journey, I have returned from the store—triumphant!! She almost smiles, recalling the hyperbolic statements the father from that other lifetime used to make after her mother dared send him on a domestic errand. He was a good man. A good father. But from a different era when men did not go to the grocery store.

  But alas, he’d often faux-lament, I’ve made the great mistake of marrying an artist, and must therefore resign myself to being sent out on last-minute quests for milk. Like many artists, June’s mother was both flighty and forgetful, and she refused to make lists. But it wasn’t a big deal. Because her father loved her mother. In that other lifetime, he’d teased June’s mother mercilessly and acted put upon, but it was usually in good fun and almost never mean spirited.

  This all plays out in her head as she pulls the blue box of large lasagna noodles down from the top pantry shelf with trembling hands, only to drop it on the counter.

  June clasps her hands tightly, balling them into fists until the trembling stops. Then she turns on the tap and places a large pot directly beneath it.

  A moment later, Mason storms into the kitchen, whipping open all the windows and doors she’d shut before driving to Cal-Mart. She waits at the sink for him to finish, hoping he’ll leave and continue his work in the barn until dinner is ready.

  But she doesn’t hear him go out. And when she finally works up the courage to look over her shoulder, she spots him leaning against the back wall of the kitchen. As close to the side door as a person can get without actually leaving.

  Unsure of what else to do, June lifts the now full pot from the sink and carries it over to the stove. She turns on the burner, and prepares to literally watch water boil, trying hard to pretend she doesn’t feel the weight of Mason’s eyes boring a hole in her back.

  This tactic only works for little while. After about five minutes, Mason lets out very loud huff of air and says, “June, shut off the damn stove and turn around.” His voice sounds a lot louder than she thinks it should. She almost immediately realizes it’s because he’s standing directly behind her, so close, she can feel his words on the back of her neck.

  June turns and lifts her eyes to meet his. She’s tired of him chasing her gaze every time he wants to talk, and she really wants to get whatever’s about to happen out of the way.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he says.

  Question?

  “What did you think was going to happen here? What were you expecting?”

  June’s voice is stuck somewhere between her rapidly beating heart and the flock of ravens, cowering in her stomach.

  “Did you think I was going to hit you?” he asks.

  June presses her lips together so tightly, she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to speak again.

  Chapter 15

  Mason

  All Mason can do is stare at the woman in front of him. He wants to shake her, and he wants to wrap her in cotton wool like she’s a goddamn piece of fine china.

  He’s confused as hell.

  Mason knows he’s a scary motherfucker. Not quite as bad as before, but still pretty damn intimidating. Yet he’s still surprised and distressed June could think he’d ever try to hurt her under any circumstance.

  Especially after that bath.

  Especially after that kiss, the one he’d used all his goddamn willpower to hold himself back from for fear of scaring her off.

  He wants to howl with rage and despair. He wants to go out to the barn and rip apart everything he’s built.

  But worst of all is what he doesn’t want. Mason does not want to remember. But he’s as capable of stopping the onslaught of memories as he is of stopping a speeding train. And he’s finally forced to give in.

  He comes home from school. Finds his mother on the floor, slumped like a broken doll against the kitchen wall. Beaten so badly, he knows—even as a child—that something inside her is broken, and she really needed that something to stay alive. Torn up and scattered on the floor next to her are the tickets she’d shown Mason that morning. The ones she’d been so excited about.

  Later, Mason found out his mother had confronted his father after her morning meth hit. Had waved the tickets in his face, no longer able to keep them a secret. Wanting him to know. Wanting to hurt him even more than she wanted to escape.

  According to Mason’s father, she came at him with a frying pan. And he was trying to defend himself. His father told him, told anyone who would listen, that his wife always gave as good as she got.

  “She was,” his father mumbled, drunk and sobbing at her funeral, “a fucking firecracker. A real goddamn woman.”

  But not anymore.

  “I guess your daddy won this one,” his mother told him through blood-stained teeth.

  Mason arrived home too late to save her. And she was already dead by the time he returned with D’s mother, the compound’s nurse, in tow.

  They buried her, same as they buried everyone else in the compound: deep in the woods without a marker. The official reason was to protect the privacy of the deceased in case the Feds ever managed to get that warrant they’d been threatening the SFK with. But Mason was pretty sure the real reason had more to do with making it hard for the law to use forensics to find out how many of the SFK dead were victims of drug overdoses, unlawful torture, and—like his mom—physical assault and battery. As Frank always said, “The government is always looking for any excuse to shut us down, so we got to be extra careful.”

  Afterwards, Mason lingered in a state of shock for some time. Less than twelve hours after his mother introduced him to hope, his father took it away. Leaving him to forever wonder if she’d really been serious about leaving the compound and starting over, or if it had just been another of the sick mind fucks she and his dad frequently indulged in.

  But that was the past.

  And the present…? Well, the present stands right in front of him. Suspects him of being as bad as his father was.

  Thing is, Mason’s really been trying with June. Holding himself back. Tiptoeing around her, and handling her with the softest gloves he could find inside himself. Because he understands she’s damaged and working her way back to normal. But right now, he’s not so interested in tiptoeing.

  He flat out tells her, “Look, my dad hit my mom. Too much. That’s how she died. I found her in the kitchen after school. And I been carrying that around with me since I was as old as Jordan.”

  Mason raises his large hands, wanting to grab June by the shoulders so she understands how serious he is. But he realizes this would be a bad idea. So he lowers his arms and puts all his pent up feelings into his voice instead.

  “June, I would never hit you. Never lay hands on either of you,” he says. “You could pull a gun on me, and I’d let you shoot me before I’d harm you or Jordan. If we’re going to go on like we have been, I need you to understand this. Do you?”

  She looks down at the floor, and he thinks he’s going to have to chase after her eyes again. But she surprises him and boldly raises her face to his. Gives him a small smile that nearly breaks his heart. Then nods.

  It ain’t enough. And hasn’t been enough for a while now. “No, sweetness. I need you to say it. Say it, so I believe you believe me.”

  Another surprise: she answers almost immediately. “I do believe you.” Her soft voice is barely above a whisper but he hears her loud and clear.

  But it still i
sn’t enough for Mason. That weird, panicky feeling is building up in his chest again. The same feeling he had that time in the bath. He realizes what he needs from June is an absolution. He takes her hand. Places it against his raven feather tattoo before he even fully realizes his intention. He needs to feel her there while she tells him he’s not a goddamn monster. “Say it, June. Say you believe I will never, ever lay hands on you.”

  June glances to where their hands are clasped over his heart.

  “I believe you will never, ever hit me. Or Jordan.” She sounds breathless, like the truth of her words are a kind of shock to her.

  The surprise in June’s voice does it, though. Mason’s panicky feeling starts to fade.

  Then she says, without him having to force it out of her, “I’ll stop. I will try my best to stop being so scared. I promise.”

  And just like that, he’s back to seeing her as a fragile piece of porcelain. He doesn’t want to make any sudden moves or do anything else that might break her. “Good,” he says, forcing himself to let go of her hand. “Now please get back to making dinner. I’m starving and I fucking love lasagna.”

  Chapter 16

  June

  Get back to making dinner.

  June turns to do just that, her hand reaching out to switch the burner back on. This time she doesn’t have to glance over her shoulder to know Mason is heading for the door. She can hear the soft thud of his booted feet walking away. But instead of feeling relief, a surprise surge of anger suddenly rises up inside her. She turns to see him about to walk out, and his name slips past the seal of her lips, “Mason.”

  He stops, spinning back around when he hears her voice. June averts her eyes to the stove, blinking rapidly at the pot of water, like she’s asking it for advice. What do I do???

  “Yeah?” he asks, his tone curious, cautious. Probably because this is only the third time she’s ever called out to him. And the first two times had been at the store earlier this evening, when she’d been afraid he was fixing to make the news again.