Lights Out…
Charlie took a cab to his house, paid the taxi and watched it drive away as the streetlights blinked on across the city down the hill from him. He turned and opened the door to his house and was immediately met with a solid right to his jaw. He staggered across the driveway as a very pissed off Jack Reese stalked out of his house, looking like a man ready for blood.
"I told you to keep her out of this" Jack said through clenched teeth. "Then I find out that this animal Nevikov had her and now you've let her get shot" he continued his rant unabated as Charlie backed up a couple steps and stopped.
Jack Reese pulled back to let fly another punch and Charlie dropped his arms to his sides. He let Jack hit him, hard. The blows to his face he hardly felt, then Jack switched to his torso and connecting with the graze wound to his right side, dropping Charlie to his knees. Jack stood above him breathing hard, his face in a snarl and just looked at him "fight back" he shouted.
"No" Charlie said shaking his head with blood in his mouth. Part of him felt he deserved a beating. Reese had become a pawn in this game because of her connection to him, but he still couldn't let her go. Her father was right to be angry, Charlie felt he'd let her get hurt and for that - he welcomed the punishment and pain.
Jack Reese stepped back and looked at the man before him. "Where the hell is your shirt?" Charlie said nothing, still gasping for air his side burning. Wearing a suit without a shirt certainly seemed to be a real conversation starter with the Reese family he thought.
"Where's my daughter?" Jack Reese said more quietly clearly concerned.
This time Charlie answered the man "Cedar's Sinai ICU" he held Jack's steady glare.
"I'm gonna kill him. Him first, then you." Jack promised.
"Roman Nevikov will never touch her again. He's dead. I killed him. I'd kill anyone who hurt her" Charlie said flatly, still pained and gasping but recovering fast. "Dani was shot during a robbery stake out tonight…maybe it was last night" he continued "but I let her get hurt and if I were you I'd want to kill me too, but I would never put her in danger, I swear to you."
"Why the hell should I believe you?" Jack said snidely, but less angrily.
"Because I value her life more than my own, more than anything I have, more than my freedom" Charlie paused and readied himself for the blow he knew would come when he finished "because I love her".
Jack's eyes widened and he drew back his fist back. Crews simply closed his eyes and waited for the blow.
The blow never came. Jack Reese's world pitched and rolled as Charlie Crews told him he was in love with his daughter. No, no, no, no, no…. he thought. He also knew his daughter, her devotion to the man and her penchant for broken men with troubled souls. Charlie Crews was almost irresistible to his daughter, if she let him in, she'd be hooked. He knew her.
"Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed. "You aren't good enough for her, you're…. just ….. and she's my little girl! You….son of a….. I told you to keep her out of this! You think falling in love with her qualifies as keeping her out of this?" Too stunned to deliver any more blows he just began pacing like a caged animal.
Crews imagined the lunacy of the whole event. He was on his knees, in his own driveway, in the dark, in a $3000 suit, with no shirt and he was in love with the daughter of the man who was most likely his sworn enemy – if people even did that sort of thing anymore. But all it did was make him think of Dani and his promise. He put his hand on the pavement and struggled to rise.
"Just where the hell do you think you're going?" Jack Reese bellowed.
"To shower and shave. I promised Dani" Charlie said his battered face oozing blood from a cut above his eye and a split lip.
"You do that Crews. You do that. Then we are going to see my daughter and you're going to tell her that you have to leave. I don't want to ever see you around her again, Crews. You're dangerous and you're going to get her killed." Jack told him. Charlie swallowed hard knowing the man could be right.
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Charlie Crews stood before the mirror in his bathroom examining himself.
Downstairs Jack Reese is drinking my good scotch and probably deciding how to kill me, Charlie thought ruefully.
He concluded that looked like a mile of hard road. His red hair stuck up at odd angles, his cheek and eyebrow were cut and his bottom lip split from the beating he'd taken. He slipped out of his jacket and peered at the deep furrow in his side between his 6th and 7th ribs as it turned a deep burgundy edged in black dried blood. His chest was still stained pink from Dani's blood soaking though his shirt. Only his eyes were clear and at that he smiled and white teeth shone back at him. So there was a human being under there after all, he thought.
He unbuckled his belt, dropped his trousers and stepped into the shower, turning the water as hot as he could stand it. He left the jets from the shower head beat on his shoulders and neck as water ran over his face and chin, hiding the tears he'd been holding back most of the night, which he finally let fall. He sobbed a few times, allowing himself that - after nearly losing Dani Reese tonight. He climbed out of the shower, wrapping a large white Egyptian cotton bath towel around his waist and kicked his ruined suit into the corner of the room. He would burn it later he decided.
Charlie began the task of shaving around his marked up face, trying to navigate around sore lips and cheekbones to make himself presentable. When he was done he'd nicked himself at least four times. Little pieces of toilet paper stuck to his face and he dabbed at the still oozing cut on his cheek and over his right eye. Already there was a bruise rising on his face the size and shape of Jack Reese's fist, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.
He took a deep breath and poured the aftershave he knew Dani liked into his hands bracing for the sting and burn it would bring to his wounded features. His eyes watered and he gasped as the cold bite of the aftershave cleaned the last traces of that smell of the robbery stake out from his body. Again he welcomed the pain.
He thought about himself, the darkness that lurked deep inside him and how he could reconcile that with the man who carried a badge and enforced the law. Charlie stared at himself in the mirror and saw the corrections officer he hospitalized on the inside, he saw the man he's shot that first case inside the crack house, he saw Neil Cudahy lying on the floor in that bathroom, he saw Kyle Hollis sitting handcuffed on the roadside as he dug that hole, he saw the man bleeding out on the sidewalk tonight – one of the men who'd shot Reese. He couldn't really remember if he wanted to hurt them or if he just had to. The choices that he'd made into to stay alive, to survive, gnawed at his soul.
Was he a man capable of being human anymore? Or was he just too damaged? Dani Reese had been terribly scarred by her past and here he was an imperfect, damaged and inconsistent future. Could there be enough Zen to contain the anger he felt sometimes? Would she ever be safe with him? Was he just being selfish? He sighed heavily. How do you let go of something that you think might be the only thing standing between yourself and the abyss?
Charlie stood up and walked away from the mirror knowing that if he really loved Dani Reese he should let her go, but he just wasn't sure if he was strong enough to walk away from her. Maybe Jack Reese would help him, he thought wryly Who was he kidding? He'd be lucky if Jack Reese didn't help him off the roof of a very tall building, and in darker moments, Charlie wondered if that wasn't what he deserved.
Charlie dressed in a pair of faded denim jeans and a slightly, rumpled, tan, rough linen shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the tails left untucked. He then applied a liberal amount of the cologne Dani liked, trying his best not to be a disappointment to her. He took a long look at himself in the mirror and decided that he looked a little better and smelled a whole lot better. He took a deep breath and steadied himself to meet Jack Reese and continue to round two.
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Charlie stiffly positioned himself behind the wheel of his Maserati Quattroporte and Jack Reese slumped into the passenger seat of the fancy Italian sports car.
He turned the key and the car sprung to life with a throaty growl.
"My daughter like this car?" Jack asked levelly.
"She does" Charlie responded surprised the man was attempting to converse with him. "She likes to drive, she always drives, even this car..." he trailed off knowing he was saying too much.
"You have all this money and you can't go somewhere and disappear?" Jack questioned again as they headed down the hill away from the mansion.
"I want to know why?" Charlie told him, wanting to say more but knowing that was enough and trying not to further provoke Dani's father.
"That worth my daughter's life?" Jack asked him, finally looking at Crews.
"No…no it isn't" Charlie admitted returning the man's gaze levelly and swallowing hard as Jack Reese's point struck home.