“I’m here, I’m here. What happened? Who did this to you?” The questions tumble out as I continue to scan his person for injuries. Someone has really worked him over.
“Frankie’s guys,” he slurs, and I can smell the whiskey on his breath. “I owe... I owe him money.”
My stomach drops at the mention of Frankie Fish. “How much?”
“Ten grand.” He coughs, wincing. “Plus interest.”
“Ten—“ I can’t even finish the sentence. Ten thousand dollars? It might as well be ten million. “Jesus, Dad. How? Why?”
“It was a sure thing,” he mumbles.
“No, dad. No.” I cover my face with my hands. This is the same song and dance. It’s always a sure thing. A once in a lifetime opportunity. The same bullshit he’s been feeding me since I was old enough to understand that my dad has a gambling problem.
“They’re gonna kill me, Dem.” His good eye widens with panic, his hand suddenly gripping my wrist too tight. “They said they’d be back. Said this was just a warning.”
A chill runs through me when I realize who he’s talking about. The SUV, the men in the stairwell—they’re Frankie’s guys.
“We need to call the police,” I say, reaching for my phone.
“No!” His grip tightens painfully. “No cops. Frankie’s got people in the department. They’ll know. They’ll come for both of us.”
I don’t know if that’s true or just another of his paranoid delusions, but I can’t take the risk.
“Then what are you going to do?” I ask, frustration bleeding into my voice. “You can’t just magic up ten thousand dollars!”
“The money you’ve been saving,” he says, his voice dropping to a whisper. “We could use that to pay them off.”
For a moment, I can’t speak. He wants me to give him all the money I have. The money that I’ve been saving for school, for my future. “No,” I say firmly. “That’s not an option.”
“Please, Demi.” Tears well in his good eye. “I’m begging you. They’re going to kill me.”
“There has to be another way.” I stand up, needing distance. “We can... I don’t know, work something out with Frankie. A payment plan or something.”
He laughs, a bitter, broken sound that dissolves into another coughing fit. “You think these men work like a fucking credit card company? These people don’t do payment plans.”
“Then what do you expect me to do?” I shout, tears stinging my eyes. “I have two thousand dollars saved. That’s it. That’s all I have in the world.”
“It’s a start,” he says, desperation making his voice crack. “Maybe if we give them that, they’ll give me more time to get the rest.”
I stare at him, this broken man who is supposed to protect me, not the other way around. All my life, I’ve been picking up his pieces, cleaning up his messes, sacrificing my own needs to meet his. And now he wants the one thing I’ve managed to keep for myself.
“I can’t,” I whisper, shaking my head. “Dad, I can’t.”
His face crumples. “Then I’m dead. My own daughter would rather see me dead than help me.”
The unfairness of it hits me like a physical blow. “That’s not?—“
“Just go,” he interrupts, rolling away from me. “Forget about your old man. I’ll figure it out myself.”
I stand there, torn between mad as hell that he’s gotten himself in another situation that he can’t get out of and guilt that I don’t have a way to get him out. I watch as he pulls the bottle of whiskey that is laying on the floor to him. With shaking hands, he unscrews the cap and takes a long swallow.
My hands ball into fists. “Seriously? That’s where you think the answer is?”
He doesn’t bother to reply.
Not that I expect him to. This is his MO. When the going gets tough, Bobby Cross gives up.
“I’ll figure something out.” Though I have no idea what the hell I can do.
