Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ALENA
I know when my mom died; I just don’t remember it.
Time. Love. Life was ripped away from my young heart, and it took me months, years to get it back.
This is an eclipse of that. Another life-darkening event, but I’m older. Stronger. There’s light. I know I can find my way in time.
“So, Mom never knew?” I sniff back tears, sitting on the bed.
“No.” Dad kneels before me. He’s been telling me about our secret family. “She never knew about Nadine, her sons, or what we do. It was too dangerous. It’s all I’ve ever cared about: protecting you from danger. But…”
Protecting me? How?
Lies hurt. They make you question everything, mostly love.
“But I’m not ashamed of what we do,” Dad rushes out, seeing my tears. “We’re the beasts who kill the monsters, and we do it to keep girls like you… I mean, women too… We risk it all to save them.”
In seven breaths, they appear in my mind—Loch and his secret brothers. Dad. Sire. Axel. Grant. Jace. Nick. The names my dad just told me. Like the Big Dipper, a seven-star constellation I admire from my porch at night, they emerge in the darkness, shining over the mountains.
You mean they’ve been watching over my world this whole time?
But this means…
“So, Michael, my godfather, is really named Axel, and he’s Loch’s brother?”
Oh god, no. This makes it so much worse. Loch doesn’t know about my first, and now it’s his brother, Axel?
And why do I care because Loch’s been deceiving me all this time? About everything. Everyone has. So has my dad. I start adding up the lies.
“And Sire, my pastor, is also his brother? And there are three others? They’re Loch’s five brothers, who I’ve never met?” Or so I thought. “And you’re telling me you’re sort of the Russian mafia, but you’re not? You’re like good mafia?”
What the fuck is “good mafia?” I don’t know, but Dad nods.
“Is that the lie Vale is so mad about?”
“No”—he shakes his head—“and it’s not a lie.”
“Dad,” I seethe, fed the fuck up. “Quit being so cryptic and spit it out.”
There’s more. I can sense it. I’ve always sensed that there’s more. Something everyone knew but me. Don’t do that to someone. It’s cruel.
Dad inhales, squeezing my hands. I can see it in his eyes: how this is going to hurt.
“I told Loch to befriend you,” he says. “To meet you and keep an eye on you to keep you safe. You moved up there to those goddamn mountains, and we have too many enemies who can come after you. So, I needed to find a guard to protect you.”
Wait? What?
The convenience store? The Slurpees? The bed of green roses?
It was an act for him?
“You told Loch to befriend me?” I pull my hands from his, feeling sick. Stupid. Betrayed. And so lost.
“Yes, but,” Dad swears, “I never told him to fall in love with you or ask you to marry him. In fact, I wanted to beat his ass for it.”
I narrow my eyes. Here’s that sense again. “You’re lying.”
He winces. “A little.”
“God. Fucking. Dammit. Dad! Give it to me straight and quit bullshitting!”
He rushes, “Once I found out he fell in love with you and wasn’t backing down, I—”
Dad doesn’t need to bullshit anymore.
The pathetic pieces fall into place.
Right before my eyes.
“You told him to marry me.” I can’t see through my tears. “So, it’s a lie. This wedding. Our marriage. Our love. It’s a lie.”
“No, Alena, it’s not.” Dad reaches for me. “Loch loves you. He fought for you. Literally. He and Axel almost killed each other over you.”
I look away.
I can’t reason.
Loch and Axel? He means Loch and Michael, my first. They fought over me? It doesn’t make sense. Michael, I mean, Axel doesn’t love me.
Dad reads my confusion, explaining, “Axel told Loch if he loved you, he had to commit to you. He wouldn’t let him walk away and break your heart, and I…”
That’s why.
Axel didn’t want to break my heart. He gave me a pity fuck, and so now. What? Am I Loch’s too?
“And I agreed,” Dad confesses. “Nadine too. I didn’t want your heart broken. And even more, I wanted you safe, and no one else, other than me, can protect you like Loch.”
Protect me? That’s all this is about. Not love. It was never about love; Loch did it out of loyalty.
I mutter, “So he lied and became a ranger because you told him to.”
“No”—Dad shakes my head—“he’s into all that nature shit too.
I mean it; he loves you. You’re a perfect match.
And trust me, as your father, who still sees you as a little girl in animal pajamas crawling into my bed during every lightning storm, and not because they scared you, but because you wanted me to listen to them with you…
I hate to admit it”—Dad tugs my hands—“but Loch loves you as much as I do.”
“No, he doesn’t,” I choke out. “Love is a choice, Dad, and you didn’t give him one.”
“A choice?” Dad huffs, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, sweetpea, but you’re wrong. I don’t choose to love Vale. I can’t fight it; I just do and always will. And you don’t choose to love Loch; you just feel it. Right?”
Right?
I don’t know what’s right, much less what’s real.
“I can’t believe this.” I close my eyes, tears dripping from my jaw. “I’ve lost my best friend and my fiancé in the same night.”
“Don’t say that,” Dad murmurs, his voice choked with emotion. “Vale loves you. She’ll always love you, and…” He surprises me, fighting back tears. “It’s what I love about her most. And Loch too. That goddamn shithead loves you too.”
I can’t reason about Loch, it’s too overwhelming.
But Dad and Vale? I guess I’ve always felt their connection, but now I see it, and I show my dad the maturity he denied me for so long.
“Do you really love her, Dad?” I ask. “Like this isn’t some age-gap kink that’s going to run its course and then I have to choose between my dad and my best friend? Because right now? I don’t like your chances.”
I want my best friend and my dad to be happy. I just wish I could be.
Dad makes his promises to me, telling me all the secret things he’s done for Vale to protect her, how he wants a family and a future with her.
I guess he wants the same for me. Fighting for Loch, he says, “Give him a chance. Hear him out. Nadine too. There’s a lot to tell you, but start with him. Let him tell you his side of the story.”
Our story?
I thought it was a fairy tale. Now, it’s a nightmare.
“The wedding’s off,” I announce, sick and resolved. “I’ll hear him out. And Nadine. But there’s no way I’m getting married this Saturday. Not like this.”
Dad makes a stupid joke about the reception he’s paid for. He’ll say anything to try to make me feel better, but it’s not happening.
I just remember Loch, holding me in bed, wondering how he could lie to me for so long.
I gaze at the floor. “What did you mean about Michael… I mean, Axel… fighting with Loch over me?”
I know it wasn’t over love. Axel loves Ruby; oddly, that gives me peace because I don’t love Axel.
But Loch?
Love doesn’t lie.
“As much as I fight with Axel, I’ve always been the closest to him,” Dad explains. “And so, Axel always took a shine to you.”
“A shine?”
No, Dad. That’s not what happened. He took pity.
“He always cared,” Dad rambles. “He’s usually a dick to everyone but never to you.
So, I asked him to be your godfather, and he takes it seriously.
He almost beat the shit out of Loch when we found out about you two.
Part of me knows he did it so I wouldn’t.
And he did it because he couldn’t help himself. He loves you too.”
No, Dad. Axel fulfilled his oath.
I realize now that the moment I told Axel in the deli, I was in love, he knew it was with Loch. So he fought his baby brother, not over me, but to protect Loch from my father’s wrath.
Axel doesn’t love me; he loves his brothers. And he’s in the mafia with my father, in a band of brothers. Same as Loch, who did this as a pact with them, not his passion for me.
I’m a liability, not loved. An asset to protect, not a woman you adore.
I’m still that girl at my middle school dance, the one who sat alone, not chosen. My tears won’t stop falling, pain shattering so many memories.
Because Loch will feel so betrayed by Axel. And I know I shouldn’t care; Loch lied to me. Everything’s been a lie, but I can’t hurt Loch. Not like he’s hurt me.
All it took was one person to tell me the truth.
Of course, it was my best friend. Not the men who said they loved me.
And now who will tell Loch about Axel? Who will tell my dad about him?
It should be me, but I feel like I don’t owe anyone anything because I have nothing. My life exploded. My thoughts scattered in the shrapnel. My heart is fighting to survive.
I can’t stop seeing Loch, lying beside me in bed. “I need to talk to him.”
“He’s waiting right outside for you.” Dad begs, “Give him a chance. And please forgive me.”
I raise a silent brow, not knowing what forgiveness looks like. I guess I’ll find it someday, but not now.
“Okay.” Dad cups his hands over mine. “In time. I hope. Just please know, Alena, how much I love you. From the moment I held you in my arms, I knew why men wage wars. I will always fight for you. You’re my greatest gift and the reason I live. So please, try to forgive me one day.”
After we lost Mom, Dad always left a note on a napkin in my lunchbox. We love you, Alena. He kept my mom’s love alive for me because he loves me so much.
I know.
He kisses my hands, vowing, “You just have a fucked-up dad who fucked up. And I’m sorry for hurting you. I really am. But I’ll never apologize for loving you and keeping you safe.”
Deep down, I’m not surprised my dad’s in some dangerous, secret, vigilante mafia… whatever.
He’s a good father and a noble man. Of course, he wants to save girls like me.
My dad was a foster kid. He didn’t have a family until Nadine and her sons took him in. I guess I became a part of their family. A family I don’t really know. A family that my best friend is apparently also a part of.
“Just get her back, Dad,” I insist about Vale. “So at least one thing will be right in my world again.”
He nods. “I will. Vale belongs to me. She’s my queen.”
Queen?
There’s that word again.
“Alena!” Loch pounds on the door, startling me. “Goddammit, Nash, let me talk to her!”