Chapter 21 – Mari
There were aspects of my job that I loved. The money was nice, the toys were fun, and the respect was addictive, but the other side was far less enjoyable.
Staring down at the dead body of an old woman was certainly not how I preferred to spend my day.
“What happened?”
“They drove a car through the front window. Mama Ophelia was…” Grey looked at the ground, only to realize the body was at our feet, and sighed. “She was right there.”
Which was why she took the brunt of an attack meant for me.
Mama Ophelia was pushing eighty and a widow. She, her family, and their little bodega had been under my protection since Antoni died. In fact, she was the first person who’d asked for my protection. Her husband had just died, and she wasn’t sure how to keep everything going. She’d had some of the local gangs sniffing around, pushing her to sell the place so they could turn it into a dealing spot.
I’d sent them running myself.
That first taste of responsibility had set me on the right path. That reminder that I protected mothers and daughters, sisters, and wives humbled me.
Mama Ophelia had changed everything.
And now she was gone. Dead on the floor of the bodega she and her husband had saved for a decade to buy.
All because Cash wanted to prove a point. Just because he didn’t try to run me over didn’t mean he didn’t do this to get back at me.
“She was, and where were you?” Siska, Ophelia’s teenage granddaughter, snapped at me. “You’re supposed to protect us, and what have we gotten? Huh?”
“Years of peace,” her mother said. Aliska took her grieving daughter in her arms, wrapping her tightly in a warmth I’d never experienced. It looked comfortable, and for a moment, I ached for it so fiercely I wanted to turn away. Aliska turned soft eyes to her daughter and wiped her tearstained cheeks. “It isn’t her fault that Mama’s dead, Sis. She didn’t drive the car.”
Maybe not, but I was still to blame. If I had taken Cash out sooner, their bodega would be safe. They wouldn’t be facing thousands of dollars in damage and lost wages. They wouldn’t have to see their life’s dream up in flames.
They wouldn’t be burying their matriarch.
Aliska tightened her hold on her daughter when I stepped forward, that mama bear instinct out in full force, but I just grasped the girl’s shoulder gently.
“I will fix this,” I promised, staring directly into red-rimmed blue eyes.
“You will?” She sounded more like a kid than she had the entire time I’d been there, and it killed me that she had to deal with this so young.
“Yes. I’ll make them regret this. Mama Ophelia deserved a better end, and I’m sorry she didn’t get it.” Turning to Aliska, I nodded to the glass-covered floor that had come from the car slamming into the building. Fuck, the building itself probably had structural damage. The guy had been doing double the fucking speed limit before he’d crashed.
They were lucky Mama was the only one dead.
“We’ll pay to get you up and running again and cover any bills you have in the meantime.”
Aliska shook her head immediately. “Oh, that’s not?—”
“It’s very necessary. You paid for our protection. This is what that looks like.” I moved my hand to her shoulder, squeezing gently. “We’ll pay for the funeral too. I want Mama to go out in style. Money isn’t an object.”
“Mama didn’t care about things,” Siska said softly.
“No, she didn’t, but she was traditional. Bury her according to the customs she preferred. It’s the least I can do.”
Aliska wanted to argue again, but I stepped away, unwilling to hear it. Mama Ophelia deserved the best, and I wasn’t going to let her family worry about a single thing while we sorted through the aftermath of her death.
“Grey will be in touch tomorrow to get repairs started and settle the funeral costs. I’ll send over a guard to watch the place full time until it’s fixed enough to lock up. Until then, we’ll have our people over here more often, but let us know if you need anything else.”
We left to soft thanks from both of them, and every word grated on my nerves.
They shouldn’t be thanking me. Not when I was the reason their family member had just died. “Hey, wait!” I turned just in time to watch Siska skid to a stop behind me.
“If you’re going to knife me, you’ve got to be quieter next time,” I joked. Grey growled beside me, and I was suddenly grateful that Dominic was outside. He wouldn’t have enjoyed the joke either.
“You promised you’re going to make them pay. Did you really mean it? Because I want a trophy.”
“Siska! You are not asking Ms. Marcosa to bring you back a body.” Aliska’s horrified voice carried until everyone in the vicinity stopped.
To Siska’s credit, she didn’t even flinch. “I didn’t ask for a body. I asked for a trophy.”
Okay, that was funny.
“She’s like you as a kid,” Grey whispered, and I seriously had to work to keep the laughter in.
Aliska muttered under her breath—swear words, I was pretty sure—before pointing toward the back hall. “Upstairs, now!”
Siska glanced between her mother and what I assumed was the stairwell. “Is it even safe up there?”
More muttered swearing. “Fine, go to Lena’s. Just get out of here.”
“I still want that trophy.” Siska ran out the door. If I had to guess, I’d say she was desperate for some time with her friends and a moment away from the sorrow.
Aliska walked us outside, her face marred with grief. “I’m sorry about that. She and Mama were close, and she’s?—”
“I get it.” I rested my hand on her shoulder, knowing I couldn’t do anything else besides ease their burden. Their matriarch was gone and had left behind a hole too big to fill.
All I could give them was closure. If that meant bringing one of Cash’s fingers in a jar for Siska, I’d do it.
Grey wrapped his hand around my shoulder as he squeezed, not to pull me away but to offer me support. I leaned back just enough that he could feel my gratitude before I straightened up and stepped away. “We’ll be in touch.”
With another nod our way, Aliska went inside, and we headed off to find Dominic.
“They never should’ve gotten that close,” I said softly.
Grey hummed his agreement. “No.”
Grey and I made our way over to where Dominic and the others were looking at the car. The man inside was already dead, a gunshot to the forehead the reason he careened into Mama Ophelia’s. At least, it would’ve been, if he hadn’t already been heading this way.
“Anything?”
I knew who’d done it, but part of me desperately wanted another explanation. A madman with a grudge just wasn’t sitting well anymore.
“Ace.” Dominic didn’t say anything else, but what was there to say? Cash had done this to undermine my protection, to make the people we took care of fearful and easy to manipulate. As with everything else he was doing, he was making me look inferior while building up his own group to be the better option. He wanted people questioning who to trust. It didn’t even matter if those people picked one of the other territory leaders, as long as they didn’t stay with me.
And one of my protectees dying like this? It was going to cause some ripples in my pond.
“Do you think there was a reason they went after Mama?” Dominic asked, sitting back on his heels as he looked over the inside of the car again.
“If Cash has really been around as long as we think, he might know that Mama was our first official client after I took over. He could’ve done it for that reason, or he could’ve just picked a random place. There’s really no way to know.”
“Maybe not, but it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that he goes after Shara and Mama Ophelia in the same weekend. This feels personal.”
The truth struck me so hard I nearly stumbled. “You think this is Nate, not Cash.”
“I’m just saying that if they’ve got eyes on us, you may have pissed off some people.” His gaze dropped to my engagement ring, and I scowled.
“That happened last night, Dominic. No way it has any bearing on Mama’s death.”
But the text on my phone was a stark reminder that Nate might have said he was sorry, but he was still Cash’s boy. Stay home this weekend. Cash is gunning for you.
Had he done it? Had Nate been the one to put Mama down? Did he shoot the driver?
Was this some fucking flag they were waving in my face?
I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t discount it, could I? Nate wasn’t mine, and I had no real idea what he was capable of or what he’d do for Cash.
Swallowing that uncomfortable realization, I nodded to the car. “Let’s get this cleaned up and get the windows boarded. The family deserves some peace.”
I was a fucking idiot. That had to be why I stepped into Shady Oaks Assisted Living that evening. Not because I missed Nate, liar that he was. It certainly wasn’t because, after the day I’d had, I wanted to believe the fantasy he’d fed me so I could fucking breathe again.
Truth was, the longer this went on, the more I needed to know if he was like Cash—like my father—or if the Nate he’d shown me was really somewhere inside him. I had to find out if there was anything worth saving, because after watching my people wheel Mama Ophelia’s body out of the store she’d spent her life in, I wasn’t so sure I could afford to let him live if there wasn’t.
The part of me that still loved Nate with everything I had didn’t want to hurt him, but if he’d helped put Mama in the ground, I was going to go scorched earth. Cash was already a dead man, but I would send Nate with him if I had to.
With Greyson stationed in the car, grumbling about staying behind, I signed in at the front desk as Nate’s partner, cringing inside at how right it felt to call myself that still, then made my way to his mother’s room.
The difference between how Nate’s mom lived and how Dominic’s did was astounding. The only similarity was how sterile and cold the rooms were, though in distinct ways. The hospital was perfunctory, while Lucia’s sprawling mansion held the chill of abhorrent wealth.
Marjorie Black looked peaceful as she rested in her armchair by the window, her eyes unfocused as she took in the trees outside. She seemed too small to me to be Nate’s mother, too frail from what I could see, but looks were deceiving. I’d learned that lesson well.
“Marjorie?” I asked softly, not wanting to startle her.
She turned, and it was like getting sucker-punched. They had the same eyes, the same nose. I bet they’d even have similar smiles, if she was inclined to let one loose. It fucking hurt staring at her because she was all the good parts of Nate. The parts that haunted me in my dreams.
“Do I know you?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. I thought I saw recognition in her eyes, but knowing we’d never met helped me brush it off.
“I’m Nate’s friend,” I lied. “Can I come in?”
She motioned me toward the chair at her side, and I took it carefully. I wasn’t sure how to ask questions and get the answers I wanted. From Nate’s admissions and his files, her Alzheimer’s was severe. How would I know if she was having a lucid day?
Turned out, I didn’t need to worry about it.
“You’re not his friend.” I glanced up and saw her eyes trained on me, bright and aware.
“I’m not.”
“Last I heard, you were his girlfriend.”
I blinked, trying not to let the shock show, but Marjorie noticed. She laughed, wobbly and unpracticed. “You didn’t know he told me.”
“No,” I admitted, letting myself sink into the chair more fully. She didn’t seem confused or upset, so I had a feeling we were in a moment of lucidity, and as shitty as it felt, I had to take advantage of it. “We aren’t together anymore.”
“I know that too. He said he made some mistakes with you.”
“He did. Big ones. Ones I’m not sure I can forgive.”
“But you want to.”
I didn’t answer that, but she nodded to herself anyway, looking back out the window. When she didn’t speak again, I tried not to let the disappointment drown me. All the research I’d done said that focus could disappear in a second, leaving the patient confused and struggling. If that was the case, I’d lost my chance for more answers.
“He’s a good boy stuck in a bad life,” Marjorie murmured. “He’s been paying for my mistakes since he was five, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“What mistakes?”
“Falling for the wrong man.” She shook her head, her fingers twitching in her lap. “If Nate had had anyone else as a father, he wouldn’t have had him as a brother. He’d have been safe.”
I didn’t know why I did it, but I couldn’t handle her beating herself up over everything. I laid my hand on hers gently, trying not to flinch when she looked at me with those eyes that were so close to the ones I loved. “This world isn’t kind to anyone. I don’t mean to be cruel, but he never really would’ve been safe.”
It was a shitty consolation, but it seemed to do the trick. She patted my hand gently, holding on to me when I tried to let go. “You know, when he told me about you, I thought it was history repeating itself. I thought, there’s no way he gets out of this alive. But the longer you were together, the more alive I saw him. He’d never shone that brightly for anyone or anything before. He’s been lost for so long, but I think you brought him home.”
“He brought me home too,” I confessed, feeling like I’d just carved myself up and handed it to her.
Another pat on the hand and Marjorie’s attention went back to the window. Even though I should’ve asked her more, I didn’t. I just sat there, holding my ex-boyfriend’s mother’s hand in mine and watching the trees shake in the wind.
That was how he found us five minutes later.
“Mari,” Nate breathed, his eyes wide and terrified as he looked between us. I could see the war inside him, the urge to step into the room and separate us. He wasn’t sure if he should be protecting her or not, and I reluctantly added another point in his favor. It was obvious Nate cared about his mother, and when her eyes brightened again, I knew she loved him just as fiercely.
“I didn’t think you were coming.” Marjorie motioned him over, pulling him down for a cheek kiss when he was close enough, and I could see that he was as shocked at her lucidity as I was.
“Hey, Mom.”
“What, no hello for your friend?” she joked, though her smile was more uncertain than it had been a moment ago. We were losing her again. Nate’s joy dimmed, and I suddenly felt awful for taking that time away from them, even if he hadn’t been there.
Nate kept his eyes straight on me, like he was trying to read my intent. For my part, I gave him nothing but blankness. There was no intent here. Finally, he swallowed thickly. “Please don’t hurt her.”
Before I could say anything else, she tossed her hand in the air as if shooing away his worries. “Your friend and I were just talking. She’s a good girl. She deserved better than what you gave her. Hell, she deserved better than what the world gave her.” Her grip was weak, but she clung to me again. “Don’t worry, darling. It’ll get better one day. One day, those boys will see exactly what you deserve and give it to you.”
Heat pricked the backs of my eyelids and I tried to swallow back the sudden tears, but in the aftermath of Mama Ophelia’s death, kindness felt like too much for me to handle.
“Thank you, Marjorie.”
Nate and I kept staring at each other until I could feel Marjorie getting agitated, like she was falling victim to the tension between us, and I couldn’t handle it. Finally, I relaxed in my chair.
“We’re just talking, Nate.”
He sagged in relief, and a part of me hated that he truly thought I’d go after his mother. It poked at those fresh wounds and dug in until they bled anew. With a practiced smile Marjorie’s way, I stood. “I’m going to give you some time alone. It was wonderful to meet you, Marjorie.”
“You too, Mari. Come back anytime.”
I didn’t agree to that. No way Nate would appreciate me getting closer to his mom, not when she could easily be used against him. Instead, I gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and left.
“Mari!”
I walked faster, not wanting a direct confrontation with Nate.
Just make it to the car, I told myself. I could break down with Greyson, but I would not do it in the halls of this place.
Because I’d come for a sign, and I’d gotten one. The problem was, I didn’t know what to do now.
“For fuck’s sake, Mari. Wait!” Nate caught me by the arm and kept me close, voice low enough to make my stomach clench. “If you want to kill me for everything I’ve done, fine, but leave my mother alone. She really doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“She’s the reason you came back, isn’t she?”
“Cash would’ve come for me either way, but yes. I wanted to be here for her in case…” In case she died. I stared at him, letting myself actually look at his face again. A little empty, a lot exhausted, and a kind of weary I felt in my soul, but still somehow hopeful. Like a conversation with his mom would lift him up again. He looked so fucking beautiful, it killed me.
“Were you at Mama Ophelia’s today?” I asked abruptly. I focused on every part of him, desperate for a reaction, and I got one.
Confusion.
He looked at me from under furrowed brows. “Am I supposed to know what that is?”
“No. Why did you tell me to stay home?”
He looked around and crept closer, hiding me from view as a man wheeled a medical cart down the hall. I felt Nate nod at him, but other than a cursory glance my way, he didn’t stick around. Nate’s voice was barely higher than a whisper when he spoke. “Cash didn’t like that you got your girl out so fast. He had plans for her inside. He was pissed and wanted to do something bigger, something you couldn’t avoid.”
So he’d gone for my people instead of my family.
“Would you ever order a strike against an innocent family?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I had to know for certain.
Nate’s eyes darkened, the pain in them so noticeable it made my chest ache. “No.” He looked away, clearing his throat. “Do you really believe I could do that?”
“Do you really think I’d go after your mother?”
We stared at each other, all heartache and mourning, the words unsaid but so fucking clear I could practically read them in the air. When neither of us took that first step, toward reconciliation, toward peace, I slipped under his arm and down the hall.
No, I didn’t believe Nate could condemn innocents to die. That was the problem.
If he wasn’t what I thought he was, and he wasn’t like Cash, who the fuck was Nate Beckstrom?