Obsessions and Hitmen

Chapter Four: Spite, Tequila, and Strategic Maneuvers

Chapter Four: Spite, Tequila, and Strategic Maneuvers

***

POV:*Reign*

***

I passed the overgrown weeds onto the shoulder of the road across my house. There in the doorway stood Beau. Jude must have called him.

“You are home early," I said with a painted-on smile.

I hadn't completely forgiven him, but I didn't want to fight anymore tonight. I was done with the day and just wanted to go to bed.

“Get in the house," he called back.

There was a coldness to it that unnerved me a little. Maybe Beau was mad I walked home or had gotten looser than I intended. Either way, it didn't appear that my night would end soon.

I had barely reached the living room when he slammed the door shut behind us. I spun around to tell him he didn't need to use so much force, but the look on his face stopped me. It looked like pure unhinged rage, and I wasn't initially sure how to react.

I couldn't think of anything I had done that made him this angry. He was supposed to be out late too, and it wasn't like I had been drinking alone; I was with Jude, who was Beau's friend.

“Everything ok?" I asked as I sat my purse down on the dining room table.

He didn't answer me. He just looked me up and down with a look of pure disgust.

“Where is your blouse?" he asked instead of answering me.

I picked at the dry skin on my lip out of nervous habit. What was this? Why was he behaving as if I stood him up?

“I left it at the office. I wanted to relax and get a drink to celebrate," I said, unsure why I needed to explain.

He scoffed and looked down at my feet.

“A drink? Smells like you drank them out of business, and since when do you need to take your shoes off in public to feel comfortable?" he accused, twisting my words.

“I didn't take them off," I started, but I watched flames ignite behind his deadly glare.

The look of pure anger stopped my words in my throat. Did Beau honestly think I was cheating on him? It didn't matter if he did; I wasn't, but the idea he thought I would do that to him smarted.

“Look, you can ask Jude. He took them off because I wasn't walking in them gracefully," I tried to explain.

He grabbed my arm above my elbow, jerking me to him forcefully. The bite of his fingers on my skin made my arm throb under his fingertips.

“Beau, you are hurting me," I tried to pull my arm from his grip, but he grabbed me tighter.

A knock sounded on my front door as if someone had heard my unspoken prayers. Hesitantly Beau dropped my arm and answered it. I could hear Jude's voice but didn't make out what they had been saying before Beau shut and locked the door in Jude's face.

I knew when Beau turned around and looked at me, it hadn't been a good conversation. His cheeks were more red than before, and he seemed to seethe with every breath. I read the room, and the closer he got to me, the further I stepped back to get away from him.

“Did you need to ditch these too to feel a little more comfortable?" he mocked as he tossed a foil packet through the air. They bounced off the wall behind my head, and I knew by the way the pills shook in their package that he had thrown my birth control. The tablets must have fallen out when I dropped my purse.

I could tell by the look in his eyes there was no point in trying to explain that to him. The fear and the anticipation ate away at the effects of the alcohol in my system. The room still spun as I stood, but its relaxed feeling was long gone and left in the field just past my house.

I took another step back and hit the wall behind me. The feeling of being cornered devoured my sense of security. Beau wasted no time before he had me pinned.

“I think you need to leave," I said as I tried to put on a brave face but was terrified.

The man before me was nothing like the man I had been dating for six months. He was nothing like the man I had been friends with for eight years. He was a shell full of rage and fire, and his grip burned my skin.

He licked his lips and looked down at me as if I hadn't spoken. His weight pivoted back and forth between his hands, and I focused on my breath as panic filled my chest.

“I have one night out of the house, and you get sloppy drunk with your childhood crush. How is that supposed to make me feel, Reign?" I shook my head, too terrified to find my voice.

Beau let me go with one hand to grab my chin, forcing me to face him.

“Answer me!" he demanded, and I raised my knee, hitting him in the groin.

Beau's hands dropped to his junk as he hit the floor hard on his knees, and I bolted out the door. I heard him call out my name but didn't turn around. I barely thought to grab my purse on the way out, so I didn't notice when I left my phone on the table.

I didn't stop running until I was half a mile from my front door. I didn't register how torn up my feet were until I slowed to a stop at an intersection. I looked for my phone before I realized my mistake when the bright yellow sign of a twenty-four-hour convenience store caught my eye.

I needed shoes and to use a phone to get a taxi. Swallowing my last bit of pride, I entered the store barefoot, leaving bloody footprints behind each step.

I bought a pair of flip-flops and offered to mop the floors I had messed up, but they politely declined. They probably didn't want me in their store longer than I had to be. I didn't blame them. Today I was more of a bad luck charm than a person.

Unsure of whom to call and not wanting to explain my current state, I walked to the library. I knew the night security there reasonably well, and it was only a couple more blocks away. It seemed like a waste of money now that I had shoes, and I didn't have the energy to interact with anyone else tonight that I didn't have to.

I was exhausted. My body needed the rest, but I knew I would not sleep tonight when I left that house. Not without seeing Beau's mutated face every time I closed my eyes. I couldn't just sit there and get lost in those thoughts all night, either.

Work would have to keep my mind focused. It wasn't like I was a victim. I wasn't. That argument had been just that, but the whole event made me want justice for the murder victims even more. I could keep functioning for them.

“Well, hello there, Ms. Royal!" the short chunky guard greeted from his chair at the welcome center.

He sounded surprised to see me, although I wouldn't have expected him to be. I came here often enough that the likely hood of me not being here was always slim. I should have paid rent here.

“Hey Phil, Can I spend the night here doing some research?" I asked, forcing a cheerful tone to my voice.

It didn't stop the words from feeling like acid in my throat or make the tears harder to hold back. If he noticed anything was off, though he didn't show it.

He nodded and unlocked the main doors to the library. He pointed out the fresh coffee behind the check-out counter and left me to my studies, and I took a moment to appreciate the solitude.

I wondered if anyone had ever studied the air quality in a bookstore and its effects on mental health. Something about breathing in all those old book particles made my body feel lighter for a second. I felt smaller, and my problems microscopic, standing in a room with thousands of different worlds between pages.

The only feelings close to that first breath, for me, had been the first inhale of a cigarette, or that second your bed adjusts to your body just right as you dose off to sleep. I needed this. I needed to be right there. I could feel it with everything in me.

I sat my purse down and got to work. Pulling up the newspaper clippings I had saved to a thumb drive first. I set my browser to a playlist of my favorite songs and dug in.

Sometimes hours later, a deep male voice sang “The Yellow Submarine" off-key, and I jumped two inches off my hard plastic computer chair. I must have dozed off in my chair.

“Sorry, Ms. Royal," Phil chuckled as I turned to find him amused. “I just came down to see if you wanted half of my grilled cheese sandwich?" he continued, and I smiled warmly up at him.

“No, thank you," I politely declined, and he nodded before scanning the article I had pulled up on the screen.

“They still have you on the murders?" he asked with a layer of concern on his face, and I nodded, leaning back so he could read more of the screen.

His eyes hovered midway down the page, and I turned to see what might have caught his eye. That was when I saw it. A small detail in the article tagged possible mob ties to the victim with the Horsman Mafia family.

It was the only sentence that said anything remotely clarified. Everything else detailed other speculations. I looked back at Phil and carefully figured out how to ask what I needed to ask him.

“Do you…do you know anything about that family?" I asked as he turned to walk back to his usual patrol route.

“I know enough to stay away from them. The four horsemen are nothing to mess with," he commented before resuming his duties, and I returned to my computer screen.

The rest of the night and into that following morning, I listened to my music until the library opened. I turned my focus onto the mafia in our local town. Reviewing articles and social media pages, looking for all the information I could.

Imagine my disappointment when none of the four family heads had pictures online. How was that even possible? All I had to go on were rumors and second-hand newspaper interviews, but something told me this was the path I needed to be on.

Before logging off and heading to the coffee shop, I looked at my notes. Patterns between each family head's methods became pliable. My night of research had been fruitful. I loaded the new articles into my thumb drive and gathered my things.

I stopped at the welcome center to find Phil cleaning up his workspace.

“Thanks again, Phil. Would you mind if I call a Taxi from the desk?" I asked, and he smiled at me with a tired face.

“Heading into the paper?" he asked, and I nodded before I answered.

“Yea, I was supposed to meet someone for coffee, but I am running late," I said.

It was more detail than Phil probably needed, but my brain was exhausted. The small cat nap hadn't even been long enough to trigger the sleep screen for the computer, and the filter that kept my thoughts inside my head had broke open. He shook his head and chuckled knowingly. This hadn't been my first overnight study.

“I can give you a ride and save you some of that hard-earned money," he offered, and I accepted.

As we drove close enough to see my work, I saw Beau. He paced the front entrance chewing nervously on his nails. The exhaustion faded into panic, and I grabbed Phil's arm.

“Can you-I'm sorry? Can you drop me off around the corner? I think I may try to catch my friend first. If that isn't too much trouble?" I asked clumsily.

I waited for Phil to call me on my weird behavior or look put out by the last-minute request, but he didn't. His face calmed, and he just continued to drive. When he pulled up to the coffee shop, I realized I still had a grip on his arm. I let him go and tried to leave, but his voice stopped me.

“Ms. Royal, if you are in some kind of trouble…" he started, and I hugged his neck.

I wasn't sure why. I had never been an enormous hugger, not that I was against them. I just didn't know many people who would have hugged me back. He grunted in surprise, and I released him.

“No trouble. Not really. I just didn't want to see my ex without some kind of filter in place. All else fails. If Jude isn't here, I can grab some coffee," I tried, but the look of concern didn't budge.

“He isn't worth your sleep," Phil tried, and I nodded, thankful he cared enough to say something.

“No, Beau is not, but those victims are Phil. I stayed up all night for them," I hoped my words comforted him a little.

None of this was on his shoulders. My problems belonged to me. They were my responsibility. I just wasn't prepared to look closely into solving the problem that started with my ex. Not until I had my coffee.

I had said I wanted to go there to catch Jude, and at first, that had been my intention, but if the clock on Phil's dash was accurate, I was well over an hour late. If I was being honest with myself, I didn't want to talk about yesterday ever again. I couldn't guarantee that with no filter.

***