Chapter Twenty-Five - Elise
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Elise
Could this day get any weirder? I keep waiting to wake up from this bizarre dream or for a camera crew to appear and tell me that I’m on some prank show.
Nope. This is my reality.
A father who doesn’t want me. A captor who does.
“What?”
“Give me one month,” Joshua says. “One month where you stay here, and we give this a try.”
“What happens in a month?”
“Either you choose to stay here with me, or I’ll let you go.”
“You’ll let me go home?” I expect hope to rise in my chest, but none comes. After my father’s betrayal, the thought of home is bittersweet.
“Not exactly. You’d leave the country.”
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve moved away with a new identity.
“What if I do go home?” I ask, fairly sure I don’t want to hear the answer.
“You really want to go home to a father who told me to kill you?”
I don’t answer.
He shakes his head. “If you went home, our families would go to war. Between Mason, your injuries, and the fact that I lied about killing you, it’d be unavoidable.
Considering the size and strength of both families, it would be a bloodbath.
Hundreds of people would die so that you could see your low-life dad. ”
I open my mouth to defend my father but close it because he’s right.
“If, at the end of this month, you decide you want to leave, we’ll pick somewhere for you to go, and I’ll support you until you figure things out. The only catch is that you can’t go home. You can have whatever life you want, wherever you want. You can start over.”
I can picture it so clearly—overlooking an Italian vineyard as I sip exceptional wine and study under the most talented chefs in the world.
As much as I hate it, Joshua is right—my family has betrayed me, and there’s nothing left for me at home.
I no longer have a home.
His warm palm cups my cheek, and I gaze into his softened eyes. “Give me one month, Elise.”
Everything about this is crazy. Joshua can’t expect me to forget everything he’s put me through and play house with him. It’s not that simple.
So then, why am I considering saying yes? And if I don’t say yes, will it even matter? It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. One month, and then it’s all over. I’ll be able to leave here and live a life far from Joshua, my father, and the criminal world they rule.
That’s what I want, right?
“One month,” I agree.
Joshua’s lips pull into a dazzling smile.
“But I have a condition,” I add, and he eyes me warily before nodding. “Transparency. You know everything about me, and I know nothing about you. If I stay for a month, I want to know the man I’m staying with.”
He studies me for a long moment, but we both know he’ll say yes. When I was his prisoner, it made sense that he wouldn’t open up to me, but if he really wants me the way he claims he does, then I need to know him.
“Okay,” he says, pushing to his feet.
Joshua removes his hand from my cheek and holds it out for me to take.
The gun is still in my hand, and I’m tempted to keep it with me, but deep down, I know I don’t need it.
I release the weapon and place my hand in Joshua’s.
As we pass Ryder’s door, I stop to get the medicine that I originally went downstairs to get.
The adrenaline from hearing the phone call and facing Joshua drowned out my pain, but it’s making up for lost time now.
Ryder apologizes for not coming up sooner, but we both realize that things are better now that I know the truth.
Joshua guides me downstairs, helping me only as much as I let him and not pushing for more. When we reach his office, he produces a key to unlock the double doors.
His office at the base was neat, simple, and generic, but not this room.
He hasn’t even started telling me about himself, but this room screams more about him than I’ve learned in all our time together.
Sunlight from the two windows illuminates the walnut wood flooring.
The desk in front of them is littered with stacks of paper and haphazardly placed folders.
There’s a desktop computer in one corner and a laptop sits directly in front of the dark leather chair that looks like it’d be more comfortable than the bed at my apartment.
Three walls are lined with black bookshelves, leaving the windowed wall painted a deep forest green that somehow perfectly matches Joshua’s scent. The ceiling is stark white, reflecting the light of the caged chandelier from between the supportive beams where it’s placed.
The room’s furniture and coloring are stunning, but the objects on the bookshelves capture my attention.
Most of the space is occupied by actual books, though the collection has no rhyme or reason.
There are classics, sci-fi, romance, thrillers, autobiographies, and self-help books lining the shelves, but that’s not all.
I can’t make out the titles, but I recognize the languages French, German, Italian, and Russian.
I judge their age by their spines—some look like ancient artifacts, while others seem brand new.
Then there are the objects that don’t seem to have any particular purpose.
They look generic enough: an hourglass with sand settled on the bottom, three identical vases in different sizes, a brown candle with its wick unburned, and a pocket watch stuck on 3:14 resting against a stand that looks like it was meant for a small sign and not a watch.
I focus on the last object—a small horse resting in the space between the fantasy and sci-fi novels.
It’s not a statue like the elephant that had been on my dresser back at the base.
In fact, it doesn’t look like actual décor at all.
It’s cheap plastic, like a toy included in a kid’s meal at McDonald’s.
I want to ask who it belongs to, but I answer my own question when my eyes stop on the only framed picture in the arrangement.
None of the three people in this photo are looking at the camera, but the smiles are wide nonetheless. It’s the kind of genuine happiness that can only be captured by a candid.
The woman in the middle looks a few years older than me.
I can’t make out the color of her eyes since they’re squinted so tight with her smile, but they appear to be dark.
Her sun-kissed, brunette locks are pulled half-up, with the other half falling just above her shoulders.
She wears a red vest, with a white shirt peeking out from beneath it, and a child tucked under each of her outstretched arms.
The girl to her left can’t be more than two years old.
A pink shirt falls just above her knees, purple shorts barely showing from beneath it.
Her curly hair matches the woman’s, but I can see her striking blue eyes even from this distance.
They nearly steal the attention of the whole picture with their brilliance, but I can’t look away from the boy tucked under the woman’s other arm.
He’s smiling with the girls, hands clasped at his stomach as he leans over with a giggle.
He wears bright blue basketball shorts, and the skin on his bare chest is tinted red with a splotchy sunburn.
The unruly mess of hair on his head is far darker than either of the girls, but he undoubtedly has the woman’s brown eyes that shine like hazel in the sunlight.
I’d know that boy anywhere.
My hand reaches for the photo before I know what I’m doing, and Joshua doesn’t stop me from looking closer.
“Your mother,” I state because there’s no question about it. He’s her spitting image.
Joshua nods. “She’s twenty-six here, I would’ve been five, and Vanessa was two. It’s the only picture that I have of all of us.”
I glance at the photo, then back at him. How did this smiling family get torn apart? How did the pictured giggling child become the hardened man standing before me today?
“What happened?”
He stares past me to the picture, losing himself in the memories for several moments as if trying to decide where exactly to begin.
“My mother, Natalie Moreno, married Scott Perez when I was two. One year later, they had Vanessa, and we were a fairly normal family for a little while.”
I put the picture back where I found it and look at Joshua. I expect to see a smile on his face, but Joshua doesn’t seem lost in happy memories.
He looks disgusted.
“My stepfather was always an alcoholic, but it wasn’t until Mom’s accident that he became abusive. There was a gas leak at the restaurant she worked at, and the explosion killed three staff members and eight customers.
“She survived but landed on shards of glass, giving her severe nerve damage in her back. The recovery was long, and a lot of it’s a blur to me, but by the time I was thirteen, she was addicted to her pain meds. Scott got violent after that.”
I lay my hand on Joshua’s shoulder, but he still won’t look at me. I can’t explain why, but I wish he would.
“I dropped out of school during freshman year and worked as a local gang’s drug mule. The money was good—damn good for a kid. I was able to pay off Mom’s medical bills and our rent. The only problem was I was rarely home. My parents didn’t care, but I hated leaving Vanessa there.”
I hate the picture he’s painting in my head. The thirteen-year-old sacrificing his life to keep his family together. No child should have that kind of burden.
“I was sixteen when things got really bad. I was climbing the ranks within—what I learned was—the Marsollo crime family.”
“Like, Marcus Marsollo?”
He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You recognize the name.”
Marcus Marsollo, the West Coast Conqueror, leads the biggest crime family in America.
Or, led anyway.
I don’t know all the details of his ascent to power, but you don’t have to be in the criminal world to know his name.
Marsollo started in Los Angeles, uniting the street gangs and creating a ring of power. He used that influence to claim cities across the coast from San Diego to Seattle.