CHAPTER ELEVEN MOLLY
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MOLLY
He took me to Pedro’s, a very exclusive small restaurant that most people only heard about.
As we pulled up, going down an alley and then stopping at what looked like their back door, I could attest to how special I already felt.
A back entryway. Two members of their waitstaff came out, dressed in black pants and shirts and nice-quality cream aprons, to greet us.
The chef stepped out as we got to the door, and he embraced Ashton, speaking in Spanish.
We were getting this special treatment because of Ashton, because of who he was. Ashton was Mafia. I caught the looks from the staff through the windows. These people knew it.
They were all watching.
I couldn’t catch what was being said, but it was beautiful to hear, a touching moment to witness, and then the chef came to me and took my hand in both of his. He was speaking again, blinking back tears.
I thought Ashton would translate, but he didn’t.
His eyes were on me, and they’d gone back to their normal hardness.
A chill started to go down my spine, but it stopped halfway because Pedro was still talking to me.
He was shorter than Ashton but taller than me.
Maybe five seven, and he kept himself trim.
His hands were strong. When he was done, he reached up and tucked a strand of my hair back behind my ear, saying a last phrase before turning back to Ashton.
He clasped him on the sides of his arms, gave him a bright, beaming closed-mouth smile, and gestured for us to follow him inside.
Ashton stepped back, letting me go ahead of him, and he placed a hand at the small of my back.
A whole different kind of shiver went all the way down my spine this time, and I was cursing myself internally because hello.
I did not need to keep finding this man attractive or letting his touches affect me in a certain way.
But as his hand pressed a little more firmly down there, I couldn’t stop myself from envisioning if he kept moving south and how I might’ve liked that touch too.
The inside of Pedro’s was dark, lit with candles everywhere.
I was hoping they were LED candles, but they looked like the real deal.
I could hear other customers as we passed, but only by a very low murmur of conversation and the clinking of silverware on plates.
I never saw anyone, and then we were taken to a back area that almost magically opened up to a courtyard.
There was a gazebo above, but higher than that, stars.
Vines ran the length of the walls around us and intertwined the wooden posts overhead.
A small fountain was set in one of the walls, the water running as we stepped out.
The floor was made of rocks, looking like Europe with cobblestone.
A small table in the middle of the courtyard.
The table was already set with candles. A wine bottle at the ready. Bread. Oil for dipping.
My heart paused for a brief moment because I envisioned how this would feel on a date.
Romantic. The girl would be like Cinderella.
Ashton was acting like a prince, helping me sit in my seat first before he went to the other.
Swoonworthy. The wine was poured. Water was being poured at the same time, and one of the waitstaff said something to Ashton.
But this wasn’t a date.
He nodded, his eyes never meeting mine until the second she left and closed the glass doors behind her. We were alone.
Those eyes flicked up and found me.
I was zapped in place. “What?”
“Pedro is a family friend. You will keep your reactions to me and what I’m about to tell you to yourself.”
He wasn’t asking. He was commanding. I flushed because damn . “I would’ve anyways. You didn’t need to reiterate that. It’s obvious that Pedro is like a celestial being on this plane. Can feel that the second you approach this restaurant.”
He frowned but didn’t comment on that.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Are they coming back for our order?”
He shook his head, leaning back in his seat and for the first time heaving a breath. “Pedro would never let that happen. He’s making a feast for us. If you lose your appetite during our talk, I can have it boxed and brought to your home for you.”
He was already planning for me to lose my appetite.
His eyes had started to lower, but they lifted back up. I was pinned in place again. “What do you know about your mother?”
I tensed but jerked up a stiff shoulder. That came from left field. “She was a drug addict all her life. Why?”
“What do you know about how she died?”
Now I was the one becoming like cement. “She died getting drugs. It was a drug deal gone bad. Tried to rip off the dealer. He killed her instead.”
He was studying me. I couldn’t shake how he seemed to be seeing inside of me.
“Were you aware our mothers were friends?” His voice was almost gravelly but unyielding.
“What?”
He tilted his head to the side. “Your mother. My mother. They were friends. Did you know that?”
I was going through my memories.
Laughing with my mom.
Hugging her.
She read to me, tucking me in at night, but then she was dead, and my dad filled in the blanks afterward.
She was a drug addict.
He told me that I couldn’t believe what I remembered.
My memories were wrong.
My mom was cold. Harsh. She just used me. My dad gave me the truth about her.
I turned eleven when my mom died. I lived with my dad for a few years after, but he kept telling me how she was and I ... I stopped thinking about her. Then I went into foster care, and I stopped thinking about both of them.
Or I tried ...
My mom, though.
I felt so small right now. “I didn’t know she was friends with your mom.”
“The morning she died, your father brought you to my grandfather’s house. Do you remember that day?”
I frowned, swallowing a lump. My throat was burning. My chest felt like it was going to implode on itself. “I remember that morning. I remember seeing you, but ... it was that day? I don’t remember that part.”
His gaze was burrowing into me. I could feel it. “You were sitting on the bench in our hallway, the one that’s attached to the stairs. Your father walked into my grandfather’s library as I was leaving, and I saw you. You saw me.”
The memory began to flicker, more clearly.
A room. A wall.
Men. A lot of men were there, all standing around like they were waiting for something. They were on edge.
I’d been scared. I hadn’t wanted to be there.
I frowned. “The wall behind my bench had a pattern on it. Wooden stairs.”
His voice went flat. “Yes.”
“That was the morning my mom died?” I was starting to remember. “My dad told me later. She left us, me and Dad, and she went to get drugs—”
“No.” That came out flat. Hard.
I lifted my eyes to his, stilling.
A cruel glint showed from his eyes. The rest of him was back to being encased in stone. “She died the night before. It was the night before your birthday.” He was almost unrelenting now. “They both died that night. Your father showed up the next morning. He offered a deal to my grandfather.”
I felt sick.
My limbs were growing numb.
“The deal struck was that your father would be allowed to keep gambling at our casinos and through our bookies, and he’d always be given time to pay back his debts. He knew his time was running out with us. He made a deal regarding your mother to keep my family off his back.”
No, no. I didn’t—I didn’t like this, whatever he was about to say. I felt it in my gut. “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that my mother wanted to get drugs and insisted that your mother come with her.
Your mom didn’t want to go during the day because it was your birthday.
That’s when they would normally go to my mother’s usual dealer, but because of your birthday, they went to a new dealer the night before.
The deal went bad. They were both killed. ”
I was frozen.
No—
“The other truth? Your mother never did drugs. My mother did. Your mother was just stupid in trying to be a kind friend, but your father offered to flip the narrative. To say that your mother went to get her own drugs, because she was a drug addict. My mother died in the crossfire trying to save yours. That was what your father offered for his own skin. He offered up your mother’s reputation to my grandfather. ”
My eyes were stinging.
My mom?
Those memories of her? They were real?
I shook my head. “Why would he—” I knew why he would do that.
“Your mother was homeless when your father met her.”
I nodded, dazed. I wanted to say that she had people who cared about her, who would know her, but it wasn’t the truth. What he said was true. She had me, only me.
“No grandparents. Your father was an only child. ‘It’s easy to spin another lie. The kid’s already been lied to all her life. Easy as pie.’ That’s what your father said to my grandfather. He laughed about it.”
I was on that bench, sitting. Hugging myself. My dad went inside, and all those giant men moved around to make room for him. They didn’t like him.
I was almost there again, tasting my fear.
They hated my father, but that wasn’t new. I barely registered it, but I had that morning because it felt wrong, not wanting my dad to go inside when normally I knew it was only better when he was away.
Then Ashton came out. They bypassed each other, and the look Ashton gave my father.
He hated him. He wanted to kill him. The sneer. The disdain, and a surge went up in me.
He was cute. So cute.
I didn’t remember what he was wearing that day, just how he looked and how I knew, no matter how old he was, that he had darkness in him.
He could do what I couldn’t, and even back then, I hadn’t wanted to admit what I wanted to do.
That darkness inside of me.
I wanted to be away from my father.
Ashton, this boy going past him, could do that for me.
I knew it then, and that’s why I never forgot him. I couldn’t.