Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 34198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
“If they were the ones giving you a hard time, I can’t exactly blame you for skipping so much. And it’s too bad your father never had your back. I can relate. My mother wouldn’t exactly win Parent of the Year.”
“Your mother?”
She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t always live on the streets. My mother is one of those people who should have never procreated. I think she only had me because she waited too long to get an abortion or at least that’s what she used to tell me. I was always an afterthought to her, and….” When her voice trailed off, she looked down at her lap and shivered as if she was reliving a particularly painful memory. “…and to the parade of men she’d bring around. The men left me alone for the most part until I started to develop and a few of them would come on to me. The couple of times I tried to tell my mother she’d say I did something to get that attention. I was just a child. Her last boyfriend was the worst. He’d walk into the bathroom when I was taking a shower. The lock was broken so I resorted to putting a stopper beneath the door so he couldn’t open it all the way. He’d pop my bra straps and do all kinds of weird and creepy shit. I knew it was useless telling my mother because she’d blame me. But then one day when he crossed the line. He tried to rape me and he might have gotten away with it if my mother didn’t catch him.”
“And let me guess, she blamed you.”
“Not only that, she kicked me out afterward. I’m just lucky I was able to collect some personal belongings before I left otherwise I would have had nothing.”
“Did you ever see her again?”
“Once, I was working a job at a restaurant bussing tables. I saw her with a different boyfriend. I know she saw me, but then she pretended like she didn’t know me.”
Seamus could see the pain on Tamryn’s beautiful face as she relived that memory. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Don’t be. It’s really hard to feel something for a person that never really gave a damn about you in the first place. In a way, I have her neglect and callousness to thank for making me stronger. I don’t think I would have survived the streets if it hadn’t been for that.”
“That’s an interesting way of looking at things.”
“My father never gave a damn about me until I started acting out. He thought that throwing me in a fancy private school and having ‘keepers’ watch over me was sufficient parenting. In a rare moment he said that he’d tried to keep me out of the life as a promise to my mother but after his enemies came after me, he told me he was doing me a disservice because I was too soft and didn’t know how to protect myself. I’ve been in the life ever since.”
By then Roy had come by to take their orders. “You’ve been here a lot, why don’t you order something for me,” Tamryn suggested.
Once their orders were taken they fell silent. Seamus had never been this open with anyone about his past before but somehow it just felt natural talking to Tamryn like this. Having dealt with struggles of her own she understood the fundamentals of survival.
She was the one to break the silence. “It’s funny that you mention being raised in this area because every time you talk, I detect a bit of an accent.”
“You do. I lived in Ireland for about ten years. When my dad was getting a lot of heat from his rivals and the feds, he thought it would be best to ship me off to stay with some distant relatives. I was twelve. And in that time I was overseas, I became even more immersed in the family business. By sixteen, I was running my own rackets. But this lifestyle can’t sustain a person forever. You either die young, end up locked away or live the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. That’s no fucking way to live.”
“But from what I’ve heard the others say about you at the club is that you’re a pretty respected businessman.”
“Businessman, yes. Respected? Not so much if you think fear and respect are interchangeable. Most people in my business circles tolerate me because of my money. Without it, they would relegate me to nothing but a two-bit thug. I’d be no better than Darrius, who by the way would have had you on a street corner by the end of the day had I not shown up.”
She leaned back in her seat. “But are you any different from Darrius? The women at the Devil’s Den are paid to entertain rich people. Those girls on the streets are also earning their living on their backs.”