Page 12 of Bronx

“You sound like shit,” he says flippantly.

“Well, that’s what happens when you get a knife in the throat.”

There’s a deafening silence between us.

Seven has always felt guilty that he wasn’t taken by the kidnappers too and like the asshole I am, I never let him forget it. He found me in the trees the morning after my ordeal and probably saved my life, but we were never the same again. The trajectory of our lives veered into two different directions that day which neither of us could have predicted or prevented. I wish what happened would have brought us even closer. Sometimes trauma does that, but unfortunately it has done the opposite, and I don’t know if either of us are capable of bridging the chasm between us.

Too much time has passed.

“I called because there was a woman who called the house for you tonight,” he says cooly. “She asked specifically for you.”

“I can get my own pussy, thank you very much.”

“She wants something and I promise you it ain’t your dick.”

“What the hell could some random woman want from me? And why would she be calling the main house?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. She left her number. You call it or you don’t. I just promised her I’d tell you.”

“She must have promised you some pussy to get you to pick up the phone and call me.”

“Or maybe she’s pregnant with your unfortunate baby.”

Little shit.

“Delete the number, asswipe. I don’t want it.”

My brother hangs up on me without as much as a goodbye, but I’m used to it by now. Things are a lot different between us since he found me mangled and bloody on the side of the road years ago. He’s not as nice as he used to be… and neither am I.

A few moments later, my phone pings.

It’s a text from Seven.

The bastard sent it anyway.

3

Bronx

I stare at the number, eyes blinking. I’m not in the habit of talking to people that I don’t know, especially women.

The therapist my parents made me see after the assault basically said that I’m using my trauma as some sort of excuse to shut people out. I mean, she didn’t exactly say it that way, but that’s what she meant.

Whatever to that shit, though. She had to say something to justify the ridiculous fees she was charging. My Mother ate all of that shit up she was telling them and handles me with kid gloves. My Father, on the other hand, not so much.

What I couldn’t say in therapy, and what most people don’t understand, is that it’s very complicated being a member of my family. We reside in this murky, gray world where we can have most things that money can buy but can’t enjoy them like normal people. Because in order to enjoy them, you have to trust the people around you, and trust is not a luxury a Masterson can afford. I’ve learned that the hard way. Secrets are just a way of life for us.

I cuss my brother out under my breath, but before I delete the text, I consider the fact that he believed whatever this woman wanted was important enough to pick up the phone to call me.

I light another cigarette and take a long drag. I allow the smoke to linger for a moment before I purse my mouth to blow out several rings of smoke.

Fuck it.

I press the number on my phone and a woman answers somewhat breathlessly on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“This is Bronx.”