Fearless Sinner (Empire of Sinners #3)

Chapter 2

Chloe

Chapter Two

My mother had a heart attack.

Those words still feel wrong in my head. Every time I think them my soul feels numb.

Standing next to my mother’s hospital bed with her body attached to so many tubes and machines breaks my heart.

Mom is only fifty-two but looks more like a hundred. As if all the years of her life have been stolen away. Her skin is ghost pale, her face gaunt. She has an almost frown-like expression on her face that makes me think she could be in pain.

I just can’t believe this is her.

How can this even be happening?

Mom was always so healthy. But how would I know how healthy or not she was over the last three years?

I wasn’t here.

I’ve been gone for three and a half years.

This is the first time we’re meeting in all that time, and my mother is in a coma.

It serves me right. Didn’t I tell her to stay out of my life? So this is my punishment, along with everything else that happened to send me down the path of disaster.

I reach out and touch her hand. It’s cold. Deathly cold.

No. I mustn’t think like that.

No matter what happened between us, it can’t end like this. Especially when I planned to go back to her.

She might not have known it, but I did. Every day, for years, I wished that I could find my way back home. So now that I’m finally back, this can’t be it.

The doctors said the next forty-eight hours would be crucial and they’ve done everything they can for her.

Mom was found on the floor in her living room by her neighbor. No one knows how long she was there, but the doctors think it could have been a while.

They said if someone had gotten to her sooner, they might have been able to do more.

Despite that, I’m still praying with everything inside me that she wakes up.

When she does, I also pray that she’ll forgive me for leaving her the way I did.

I don’t even know if I will ever be able to forgive myself, but my heart longs for forgiveness from her.

The fact that she still has me as her next of kin gives me some hope. The

hospital called me just before midnight to let me know what happened. Thank God I had my old phone with me, or I wouldn’t have received the call.

I got on the first flight back from L.A. I was lucky to get on the one I did as the next was at five this morning.

I was even luckier that I had the money to afford a plane ticket.

I’d been saving for months from my dead-end waitressing job to find my way back home. I packed what little I owned in the backpack by my feet and headed out.

Now I’m here.

I’ve been here for the last five hours.

I never thought that this would be the way we’d see each other again.

I was a hot-headed twenty-two-year-old the last time she saw me. Now I’m twenty-six.

Back then I’d just graduated from Juilliard and been hired as a ballerina in my first job at a small dance company.

I had big dreams of being a star, so when Mom told me I should stick with the company and work my way up, I didn’t want to listen.

And I was also in love with a man who would later prove to be my destruction.

Mom tried to warn me about Nate but I thought I knew better than her.

Today, as I stand here, I can admit my mother was right.

She was right when she told me the world wasn’t as easy to live in as I thought, and I didn’t know everything.

She was right when she told me Nate would break my heart.

And she was right when she told me everything would be so much harder in L.A.

I might not have agreed with her but I didn’t have to disrespect her the way I did and, worst of all, cut her off.

If nothing else, I could have just accepted that she was only telling me what she thought was best because she loved me.

The door across from me opens and Dr. Chase walks in. He offers me a look of sympathy when he sees me with my hand near Mom’s. He’s probably wondering why I’m still here.

It was he who called me to break the news, so he knows the journey I took to get here, and that I’ve been up all night.

Dr. Chase reminds me of my father. He also looks like he’s in his late fifties, like Dad was when he died.

“I’ve just come to check on your mom.” He moves closer with a kind smile lifting the ends of his mustache. He stops at the foot of the bed and looks from my mother’s frail form to me. “I was hoping you’d gone home.”

“Not yet.”

“You should get some rest.”

“I was worried. I just want to stay in case anything happens.” I’m very aware that I could have received a different sort of phone call. One telling me that I’d never see my mom alive again.

“I understand completely. How about you go home for a few hours. I’ll give you my cellphone number so you can call and check on her at any time. Then you can come back later.”

I consider the offer. Having his cellphone number would make me feel better. “Okay. Thank you. I won’t stay away too long, though.”

“Just make sure you get some sleep.” His focus drifts back to Mom. “Patients in a coma can sense when things aren’t right around them. If we can take care of ourselves it helps them to focus on getting better.”

His advice is good. I’ve heard something like that before. But how do I explain that my mother would probably be agitated just knowing I’m here? It’s best she doesn’t know just yet.

“Alright. I’ll get some sleep. Anything to help her.” I nod at Mom.

“Good.” He walks over and hands me a business card. “Call me if you need me. I mean that.”

“Thank you so much.” I take the card and slide it inside my jeans pocket.

When I grab my bag, I feel guilty because I’m leaving her again.

But this time I’ll be back.

I leave the room. As I walk down the hallway I feel like a zombie extra from the 28 Days Later movie.

I’ve had minimal sleep over the last few months as I’ve tried to work hard to earn as much money as possible to come home.

There was the waitressing job and the odd shifts I got dancing at the gentleman’s club. Those jobs paid the most. Thankfully, I never had to strip, but I knew how to use a pole and the men liked the look of me in the barely-there outfits I was given to wear.

I head outside and hail a taxi.

I get into the first one that stops for me and give the driver the address of the home I haven’t called mine in so long it hurts.

We set off then my phone starts ringing. When I look at it I see it’s April, my therapist.

She was the only person I contacted when I left L.A. She’s been my rock for months but I appreciated speaking to her more than ever last night as I cried about my mom.

“Hi,” I answer, pressing the phone closer to my ear.

“Hey, there. I’m just checking on you and your mom. Is she awake yet?”

“No.” I sigh and rest my head against the soft leather back of the car seat.

“Oh my. I’m so sorry this has happened. Try to hang in there.” April tries to sound her usual confident self, but I detect that she knows the situation is bad.

“I’m trying. I just wish I’d come home earlier. Even last week. Or yesterday.” I rest my hand on my head. “I was so silly. I was trying to stick it out at work until the end of the month.”

“You can’t think like that. You couldn’t have known that this was going to happen. It’s normal to plan things out until the end of the month. Especially a job.”

“I guess so.”

“How are you feeling otherwise? I know this news can’t be easy for you but please don’t lose sight of the work we’ve been accomplishing for the last few months. You’ll need that strength now more than ever.”

“You’re right.” I understand exactly what she means. There’s no way the person I was eight months ago would have gotten herself across the country so quickly. I was a mess because of what Nate did to me. And because I helped put him behind bars. “I guess I can say that I’m trying with that, too.”

“Good. Just remember to stay strong. And let’s hope your mom wakes up soon.”

“Yeah. Then I’ll have to face her.” My voice drops a notch. I was worried about seeing my mother again after so long, but I’d swap this situation with her wrath in a heartbeat.

“I think your mother will be touched that you’ve been by her side.”

“I hope so.”

“I know so.” She sounds certain, like she really does know, and I hold on to that.

“Thank you for saying that and for calling.”

“Of course. You know I’m here for you.”

“I know. And I appreciate you.”

April was allocated to me by my social worker after I provided the police with evidence against Nate to lock him away for life.

He murdered two people. And I saw it all happen. I was there at the convenience store with him.

He was high on the shit he’d been taking for months, and when the clerk didn’t give him the cigarettes he asked for, Nate killed him, and the man’s wife, too.I saw it all, and even though Nate had hit me several times during our relationship, on that night I truly saw him for the monster he was.

That was ten months ago. Before that, my relationship with Nate had completely gone south, and he held me hostage in our home for over a year where he beat me every day.

It took four months of intense therapy with April and her team for me to regain some semblance of myself and accept that in order to move forward, I had to go backwards. The answer to fix myself was to come home. Back to New York.

“Have you seen any other family members?” April asks, pulling me back from my thoughts.

“Not yet. The doctors called my cousin, Roxanne, but she’s out of town.” Roxanne works with Mom at Ricci’s, our family restaurant. “I think she’ll be around later or tomorrow. We don’t really have anybody else.”

“Are you looking forward to seeing Roxanne? You mention her a lot.”

Roxanne and I were best friends growing up. “I haven’t spoken to her in the same length of time that I’ve been gone, so I don’t know what kind of reception I’ll get when I see her.”

“Try not to worry about that. No matter what is going on, being back home is a good thing. It’s the fresh start you need.”

I nod even though she can’t see me. “I agree.”

“Good. I’ll check on you again tomorrow.”

“Thanks, April.”

“Call me if you need me.”

“I will.”

We end the call and I put my phone back in my purse, then I stare out the window, getting lost in my surroundings.

I feel like a fish out of water in my own city. I grew up here and loved living here. Now that I’m back I can’t even remember why I was so desperate to leave.

Half an hour later the taxi pulls up outside my old home in Larchmont, and I freeze up. Just seeing the place makes my heart swell. Because I made it back. The thought stings the backs of my eyes, but I will the tears away.

I pay the driver and get out, then I stand on the sidewalk for a moment and just stare at the house. It looks exactly like I remember it.

It’s a Tudor-style home with four bedrooms, two living rooms, a hall Dad turned into a dance studio for me, and a garage. Mom used to play the piano back then, so we had a piano in the studio.

The house looks like a dream home with the immaculate grounds surrounding it and the cobbled path leading to the porch.

Pulling in a deep breath, I make my way up the path.

When I reach the porch I find the spare key in the flowerpot exactly where Mom always keeps it.

I open the door and walk in. The scent of roses and wooden furniture greets me.

It smells like home, which makes me smile. I hung on to that scent for years.

I make my way deeper inside, absorbing the house's familiarity and that feeling of safety wrapping invisible arms of reassurance around me.

I turn the corner by the passage to head to the living room and slow down when I catch another smell that feels out of place.It’s musky and strong, like a man’s cologne.

I walk into the living room and instantly regret it when I find myself staring at a hard-looking, bright-blue-eyed, dark-haired man sitting in my father’s armchair.

He looks so striking the hardness in his expression seems like a bad juxtaposition.

His gaze locks on me, rooting me to the spot, and I find that I can’t move. And I’m not breathing.

Another man–a Jason Momoa lookalike–moves in the corner by the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass wall.

Next to him stand five other men.

My throat closes when I realize they’re all carrying guns.