The Dirty Saint (Dirty #1)

8. Chapter Eight

8

Chapter Eight

After

EZRA

Telling Addison’s parents about her death hurt in ways I never could have fathomed. Hearing their cries, hearing their sobs— it broke pieces of me that I thought were already broken.

So, once again, here I am attempting to drink my problems away.

Or at least that’s what I’m hoping happens.

“What the hell happened to you? ”

I whip my head around to find my sister with her best friend, Jessa Keaton.

“Hello to you too, Jess,” I take another sip. “I would ask how you’re doing, but I don’t really give a shit.”

Jess shoots me a look and I wink.

“Jess and I just wanted to say hi since we were in the neighborhood,” my sister says cheerfully.

I nod.

“Sure you were.”

Jess rolls her eyes. “I told you she was just gonna be an ass.”

I smile. “Well it beats being a homewrecker and a whore.”

Aurelia laughs at that one.

Jess? Not so much.

“I don’t see a ring on your finger,” she snaps.

“Jessa—”

“No, no, Aurelia, let her talk. Keep going, Jess. Come into my home and insult me even further.”

Her nostrils flare out, and I finish my glass of wine.

“That’s what I thought.”

I gave Aurelia a key to my home, and now I wish I would have taken it back.

“Where’d you go?” I ask my sister, ignoring her angry friend.

“We went to Lex’s, and then later tonight, we are going to Lester’s.”

“Sounds like a fun night,” I say.

The last time I was at a club was when I was picking up men for money. Never mind the fact I was seventeen and newly pregnant. It made for a highly stressful life with little to no support or stability.

But you do what you need to do to get by and to survive.

“Ez, you should come. It’ll be fun.”

Jess shoots Aurelia a look, but she ignores it.

“Thanks, Lia, but that probably isn’t a good idea.” I grin at Jess. “Oh, and while you’re at it, keep throwing yourself at married men who have their daughter’s dance recital the next day.” I scoot my chair closer. “You wanna judge me for my past? Go for it. But don’t you dare think I won’t judge you for yours. And that includes the present.” I sit back in my seat.

Jess’s eyes go big with anger.

“You bitch ,” she growls.

“If you can’t take it, don’t dish it,” I say. “That isn’t a very good look.”

After Aurelia and Jess leave, I decide to open up another bottle of wine. I don’t drink it so much as I just stare at it, wondering why it doesn’t fix all my issues like it should.

A few hours later, I get a FaceTime call from my sister.

“Jess is sorry.”

I laugh.

“No, she isn’t.”

“Ez—”

“I never understand why you still tolerate her bullshit, even after all these years. I mean, what does she have on you?”

Aurelia fiddles with her engagement ring. “Jess has been my best friend for over twenty years. I can’t just abandon her.”

“Tell me, when was the last time she asked about the kids? The last time she wished Levi or Kate a happy birthday? She probably can’t even bother to send a gift. Jessa Keaton is an egotistical, self-absorbed human being who practically broke into my home—she’s lucky I didn’t shoot her—just to disrespect me. Gosh, and her discussing my prostitution days? It’s like the pot calling the kettle black.”

“She was drunk; she didn’t know what she was saying. That’s how she gets.”

“It sounds like you’re making excuses for her shitty behavior.”

“What do you want from me, Ezra,” Aurelia demands. “I’m not like you; I don’t just cut people out of my life.”

“Is this about mom again,” I ask. “Really?”

“She called me the other day and told me you two had a fight over Noah. You should’ve heard her, Ez. She was so shaken up over it.”

“Oh, please. There is absolutely no way that’s true.”

“She wants to make amends, however she can’t do that if you’re so unwilling.”

“This isn’t about me,” I snap. “This about mom treating me like shit for years, and I just put up with it. But I’m done. I will not allow her to continue to hurt me and act like it doesn’t affect me when it does. I have spent too many years being at her mercy, and I won’t do it anymore.”

I was five years old, the first time my mother ever laid a hand on me. I had been ripping the pink bows out of my hair that she always forced me to wear to even though she knew how much I hated them.

I can still remember the sting of her hand on my face. Tears filled my eyes, but I refused to let them fall, partially due to shock and another due to embarrassment. I just couldn’t believe someone who was supposed to love me was also capable of hurting me.

When my father found out, he was notably enraged, though he didn’t do much about it. He simply told my mother it better not happen again.

I’m sure you can figure out how well that worked.

“She’s said she’s sorry.”

I can’t help but grin. “No, she didn’t.”

“Ezra, she just wants forgiveness.”

“She doesn’t give a shit about forgiveness,” I snap. “Just like she has no real desire to repair anything. She made that quite evident when Killian called them that day.”

As soon as I mention that, my sister goes eerily quiet.

I sigh. “Lia—”

“How would you have liked her to react,” she whispers. “Her daughter was getting violated in front of her very own eyes.”

I look at Aurelia, sadness creeping into my tone. “For being the older sister, you are so incredibly oblivious. How would I have liked her to react? I would have liked her to scream, call the fucking police, do something. She stood there disgusted. At me. At her child. And yet somehow, I’m the bad guy and I’m damn villain because I no longer care about mending our relationship.”

Aurelia wipes away the tears that have managed to hit her cheeks.

“She was scared for you.”

I shake my head.

“She was scared for herself, and there’s a difference.”

I know my sister doesn’t understand. In her eyes, she grew up with a loving mother who would do anything for her. But me? I got a disengaged stranger.

“You don’t know the version of mom that I do. And believe me, I’m glad you don’t. But you can’t expect me to give warmth to someone who has only ever burned me.”

As a little kid, I tried to make sense of it all. I would tell myself that my mother’s love for me was just…different. Not better or worse. When she slapped me that day, everything changed. And when she broke three of my ribs, I no longer gave her the benefit of the doubt.

Aurelia nods, her eyes the ultimate beholder of sympathy.

“Ezra, you are so amazing, and you don’t even realize the half of it. Your strength, your resilience, all that you’ve been through and seen—it’s admirable. I just wish mom could see it, too.”

A smile forms on my lips, followed by a surge of sadness. My mother will never love me the way she does my brothers and sisters.

A tear goes to fall, so I turn my head around.

It’s okay, Ezra. There’s no need to come apart.

“Ez—”

“I’m all good,” I assure Aurelia. “I promise.”

The next smile never quite reaches my eyes.

During

JOEY

I stare at her, the pain in my chest rising. A mixture of fury and rage stirs inside of me, so much so that I feel like I can choke on it.

“If you have a question for me, might as well ask it. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

I look at Ezra, who is rocking a black eye and a busted lip. Her finger is wrapped in a make-shift cast, but if she’s in any discomfort, you wouldn’t know it. She hides it well. Too well.

“I want to understand what happened to Caleb Santo.”

Ezra nods, running a hand across her face. “What makes you think I have any information about him?”

“You dated him, didn’t you?”

“I thought you already knew that.”

“So why did it really end?”

The soldier turns her head around hotly. “And how is that any of your business? What, you suddenly become entitled to my love life?”

I push off the wall, walking towards her. “He hurt you. Pretty badly, I’m presuming.”

She scoffs. “Like I told your boy, we grew apart. I didn’t realize that warranted a fucking kidnapping.”

“Killing someone is a crime, Ezra. You’re smart enough to know that.”

“And what proof do you have of my supposed crime?” She spits a puddle of blood from her teeth. “Last I checked, I didn’t confess to shit.”

“Yet.”

Ezra huffs. “Your men have broken my finger, busted my lip, stabbed me, raped me, and yet, you don’t have any more insight than you did before I was taken. That makes you ass at your job—the whole fucking lot of you.”

“What happened?” I press. “He cheat on you? You catch him with another girl?”

Ezra chews on one of her fingernails, tuned out. “We trusted each other.”

“Trust can be broken.”

The Lieutenant removes her finger from her mouth. “You can try all you want, but I’m done saying anything else in regards to the topic.”

I roll my eyes, letting out a breath.

“At what point do you just give up?”

She has to be exhausted, always putting up this front. Every day, the torture gets worse and worse. Very few can survive that. The constant pain and ache.

It will take its toll.

Eventually.

“The day I give up,” Ezra says, “Is the day you stick a bullet in my body and kill me.”