Soul Lost
Max
“Dad, do you think I’m going to get to stay at work for a whole day today?”
I should be seeing an almost-grown adult when Hope asks that, but with every step we take, all I can see is my baby girl. “I don’t see why not.”
“Are you ever going to tell me about what happened that I needed to rush over to Aunt Bonnie’s instead of staying at work? It’s not like I’m five anymore. I know about the family business.”
My little girl thinks she knows what it takes for us to protect our family.
If she only knew the half of it, she wouldn’t sleep as peacefully as she does at night.
“It had nothing to do with the family business.” Why am I trying to keep this a secret from her?
There are no secrets in the Vincenti Family.
Gossip comes as naturally as breathing among ourselves.
“The kid I was mentoring showed up yesterday after you left.”
“Oh yeah. Everett is so cool. He reminds me of you.”
“What? How do you know Everett?” Could that one brief meeting on Willow Street have had that much of an impact on my daughter?
“He’s friends with Sasha. They game together. I’ve met him a few times over there, but mostly they hang out online. Everett is odd.”
You can say that again. “What do you mean by odd?”
She quirks her head to the side and grabs one of her curls, twirling it.
“Like he’s a gentleman, not just manners-wise, it’s like he has the heart of a gentleman.
One of the guys playing with us said something rude to one of the girls, and Everett hacked into the MMORPG and permanently banned the guy.
I think he did something else too, but he didn’t tell me about it.
He opens doors and stands until all the girls sit.
He doesn’t curse. I’m pretty sure he’s never thought of saying a foul word in his life.
Anyway, I’ve never met someone quite like Everett. ”
“All your cousins are gentlemen. Sasha—”
Hope snorts. “Sasha isn’t a gentleman.”
“Excuse me. What do you mean by that?”
“Sasha lives by his own set of rules and won’t stand on propriety. Sasha lives on the fringes of civility. He doesn’t care what most people think. I love that about him.”
My head starts throbbing in that painful dad-moment kind of way. “Hope.”
“Dad, you’re getting distracted. We were talking about what happened yesterday, not Sasha’s perchant to kill people.”
And this is the kid I picked to protect my daughter? I need to check on that aneurysm. “Everett thinks Nonna is his mother.”
Hope gapes at me, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.
“WHAT? But that would mean he’s my uncle, but my age.
Isn’t he fifteen? That would be impossible.
Nonna came back before I was born. Could he be older than he looks?
Guys can do that just like girls can. Is he my uncle? That would be so cool.”
“Hope, I said, he thinks that. Not that he is related to you.”
“Why would he lie?”
Oh, my sweet innocent little girl. “Because we’re rich.”
“Even more reason not to lie. He knows you’re going to check his DNA to see if what he’s saying is true.
And he knows you have the money to make his life miserable if he lied.
That would be stupid, and Everett isn’t stupid.
It took him about ten seconds to hack into the game.
He might be almost as smart as you are.”
“Mentally unstable people—”
Hope laughs. “Everett isn’t unstable.” She shakes her head. “No way. I bet he isn’t lying.”
“That would mean your Nonna is.”
“Oh…oh.” Hope turns and starts walking again with a far-off look in her eyes.
I catch up with her, taking her hand in mine like I used to do when she was little, to offer what comfort I can.
“Dad.”
“Yeah, Hope?”
“You need to test his DNA.”
“You really believe him over your nonna?” Mom ran away to protect us. Would she lie to protect us?
Absolutely. There’s nothing Mom wouldn’t do. I have no doubt, not even for one second, that she’d take a bullet for any one of us. A lie would be nothing compared to that.
But that would mean…she thinks she’s protecting Everett.
Everett could be my brother.
And Mom could have something scary in her past that she’s trying to shelter all of us from.
“I trust Nonna.” Hope squeezes my hand.
So do I. And now I need to find a way to steal the kid’s DNA.
“Dad, I’m going to be good at this job, right? My boss is really nice. Fiona…that’s what she asked me to call her. That or Fea, but it doesn’t seem right to call my boss Fea. At least not yet. She seemed so nice yesterday. But more than that, she was crazy brave. It made Nonno mad.”
How was she crazy brave? The idea of Fiona taking risks irks me. “What did she do?”
“She didn’t flinch when talking to that man Nonno sent you a picture of. There were all sorts of bad vibes coming from his direction. I kind of expected Nonno to toss him out of the place or step between the two of them, but he watched her handle it. I want to be like that when I grow up.”
No, Hope doesn’t need to try and take any more risks. My little girl is too bold and brave for my sanity as it is.
“She’s also pretty. Wait until you see her.
It’s wild. Who’d have thought a model would open a bakery?
Though I don’t think she was ever a model.
But she should have been if she wasn’t. She did this cool braid thing with her hair yesterday.
I want to fix my hair like that. Last night, I tried to do it with one of those online tutorials.
Somehow, I ended up tying it in a knot that took me four hours to brush out. Curly hair makes everything harder.”
She got those curls from me. Ivy’s hair was smooth as silk… “Why don’t we figure it out together tonight?”
Hope grins up at me. Then her grin wobbles.
If I could only take every worry away from her. “Today is going to be perfect. You’re going to have fun and learn a lot.”
“I am. It’s going to be great.”
We step off the concrete sidewalk onto the historic cobblestone road of Willow Street. Even this early in the morning, it’s a bustling community. Teenage boys seem to be everywhere. Like hawks roaming around, looking for easy prey to pick off.
They aren’t the only ones around. Maddox’s security is everywhere. They don’t seem to have a problem walking around looking threatening. Then again, neither does my family. Though we don’t just look threatening…which makes things easier in the long run.
Why the visible presence?
Or is it just like this in the morning to help out with all the nutty teenage boys?
Boys who just noticed my daughter.
The two by the street corner keep nudging each other and nodding at her. I want to nudge them with my fists.
Why didn’t I just buy her a place? Somewhere she could have sat in an office all day, hidden from…boys.
Maybe if I just beat the mess out of one of them, it’ll act as a warning for all the rest.
Maddox wouldn’t mind if it were only one of them. I could even let him pick the most irritating one.
“We need to go around the corner to the back picnic table.”
“Picnic table?” Huh?
“That’s where I met Fiona yesterday. She didn’t tell me to do anything differently today. So let’s check back there first. Then you can go home.”
Home with those vultures circling…yeah, right. I brought enough work to last me all day. There’s a chunk of code that has been bothering me for weeks. “You know that’s not happening. Unless you want me to hire you a security team. Your choice.”
“That’s not a choice. That’s torture. And we both know that I’m perfectly safe here on Willow Street.”
Those vultures didn’t give me any kind of secure vibes. “Your location doesn’t change the choice.”
Hope folds her arms and glares at me.
She’s cute as a button when she’s angry.
What isn’t cute are all the scents emanating from the bakery. My stomach rumbles, demanding some of that cinnamon goodness inside. There will be plenty of time for that.
Right now, all you need to do is make it through meeting Fiona without making a fool of yourself. And see if all this ado is about nothing. Nonna could be wrong. When was the last time my grandmother was wrong?
There’s no way I found the love of my life in a few short minutes all those years ago.
I don’t know anything about this woman. Whatever I felt back then had to be hormones mixed with grief, nothing more, nothing less. Logical businessmen like me don’t do love at first sight.
We round the corner of the bakery, and the scents get richer and deeper, like they’re pumping them out of the building to attract customers.
Which would be a great marketing tactic, but hardly a necessity when the street is covered in teenagers that probably eat their body weight in pastries each week.
Hope squeezes my hand as we reach the alleyway.
Most places in Urbium, the alleyways are to be avoided, but this one is neither covered in trash nor drug dealers.
The only things to be seen are a wall mural, some wrought-iron lamps, planters, and picnic tables.
This décor makes it feel more like a movie set than a random city alleyway.
And then I see her.
She doesn’t need to turn around for me to know exactly who she is.
Though her shape has changed throughout the years—definitely for the better—her chestnut hair hasn’t, nor has the curve of her neck.
It’s still long with a freckle at the base where it meets her ear.
That’s about the only inch of skin visible.
Women would call the white masterpiece that’s hugging her body a dress, but that doesn’t seem descriptive enough.
Turn around.
Let me see your face.
Is it the same? Or has age changed that, too?
My mind can see the child’s face as it was and imagine what the woman looks like now, but I need to see it. To know if the boy I was, knew something the man I am should have known years ago.
But part of me never wants her to turn around, because if she does and what I feel isn’t the same…maybe Nonna was wrong.
Maybe I had my one soulmate, and thinking that I could find another woman to love is a foolish boy’s dream…nightmare. Something to take away from the unearthly love I lost.
“Fiona,” Hope shouts to get her attention.
This is it. Fiona is going to turn around and dash my foolish musings.
Only she doesn’t right away. She freezes in place.
Did we startle her? Does she know I’m here? Is she thinking the same thing?
Fool! She hasn’t seen you in decades. Fiona probably doesn’t even remember you.
Why would she?
Why would—
The world tilts as Fiona twists around on one decidedly high heel, and our eyes meet.
For a brief second, it feels like our souls are being introduced without a single word. Like she’s feeling exactly the same way that I am.
But that spell is broken as her body starts to wobble, not because of my eyes losing focus, but because she lost her balance.
I dash forward, reaching my arms out to grab her before her head cracks on the hard ground below us.
The guttural scream that bursts from her brings me back to the sound she made all those years ago when I touched her.
My soul falls from my body, lost in her pain.