10 #2
At least then, I could leave this shitty, little life.
But I have Sal.
That might be all that’s controlling me, that’s cautioning me as I stop at the end of the lane and, slowly, peer around the corner onto the street.
The front door of our two-bedroom is a charming red, even if it is scratched and stained.
A man splays his hand on the door—and pushes it open. It leads directly to the stairwell.
I watch him go inside.
I see the back of his coat, the heels of his shoes, and I know who that man is.
Father.
My insides drop.
My lips part—and I don’t know why, if I mean to say something, call out to him, or just let a serrated exhale escape me.
But before anything more can happen, a hand slaps onto my mouth and silences me.
It’s a split second of chaos and fright.
The air flings around me, and I’m yanked back, right into what feels like a brick wall, but could be a chest, and that hand crushes against my mouth even firmer—until I’m locked in place, trapped in this man’s arm looped around my midsection.
Then my boots are skidding and scuffing all over the floor.
Sal is silent, a statue clinging to me, but my own throat thrums with a muffled cry.
The man slams us into a door.
He hauls me through it—and the echo of a stairwell bounces around us. It’s a whirl of noise and faded paint as I’m shoved against the wall.
And my heart stills in my chest.
The whole world goes quiet.
I stare at the bewildered, flushed face of my brother, just inches from mine.
The sharp green of his eyes has darkened in the poorly lit stairwell, but the pinch of his brows is nothing short of worried.
Hands firm on my shoulders, he looks at me, sweeping his gaze around my face, seeing a complete illusion, one that should be fading in a couple of hours.
But there are no cracks on the mask yet.
Still, he recognises me.
“Liv.” Oliver’s voice is soft, a whisper, and his hand leaves my shoulder to cup my cheek. “It’s really you.”
I blink, surprised—
Then Sal peels his face away from my clavicle.
I tighten my arms around him, but Sal still turns around and looks right at Oliver. He blinks, then looks up at me. “Game?”
My breath comes out in a shudder.
I bring my hand up to the back of Sal’s head, and add pressure, enough to force his face back into hiding.
“We’re still playing,” I say, soft, but it doesn’t matter how quietly I answer him, because Oliver is right there.
His hand slips away from my cheek, and he looks down at Sal.
A frown wrinkles his brow. “Is that boy mine?”
I shake my head. Numb. Rigid. Silent.
Not even tears fall and wet my cheeks. I’m too startled, like I can’t believe this is even happening.
Oliver lifts his gaze to mine, shadows darkening his face. His tone tightens, strained, like it hurts to ask, “Is he yours?”
Again, I shake my head.
The relief softens him. Just a touch, just an inch of the shoulders, a slight breath between his lips.
Then—as if Sal doesn’t exist at all, as if I don’t cup the back of Sal’s head to hold him closer to me—Oliver reaches out and touches my face again.
He steps closer, marvelling at me, at this face that isn’t mine.
Words are clashing around in his head.
His lips part, then shut, then twist, over and over on a cycle, but he can’t quite decide on what to say.
Neither can I.
For a moment that feels like a pocket of eternity, we are quiet, staring at one another, then—a ping hits his pocket.
His phone.
Oliver’s face hardens and he steps back, taking his hand with him. He takes out his phone, reads the message on the screen, then loosens a tight breath.
He says, “Don’t go to your apartment. Father is there. Mr Younge, too.”
Another ping.
Then he adds, “And Dray is walking the streets to find you.”
I blink—and finally, tears come.
They burn my eyes, wobble my mouth, thicken my throat.
Oliver lifts a soft look to me. “I miss you, Liv. We all do.”
His smile is pained as he reaches for his wrist—and unclasps his watch.
It slinks off his wrist, gold and glistening.
I haven’t seen a timepiece like this since we unloaded all our jewellery in Geneva—but then, I haven’t seen a timepiece like this Jacob & Co in probably a lot longer.
This timepiece that exceeds any Vacheron that I bought him, this pure treasure, this million-dollar artwork, is slipped off his wrist—and pushed into my hand.
Oliver jerks his chin to the side, to the back door of the stairwell. “Go. Now.”
My fingers clasp around the watch.
But I don’t move.
I don’t want to.
I want to be free of this little life.
I want to go home.
My face twists with the fresh surge of tears—and Oliver misreads it entirely.
He leans in to close the distance between us, and clasping my cheeks, he rests a kiss on my forehead.
His voice is a soft murmur, “Call when you are ready to come home.”
That’s all he says before he pulls back and schools the pain on his face.
And he leaves.
Just goes through the door, back into the lane, and leaves me in the stairwell.
I look down at the watch in my hand.
I stare at it for a moment too long—time that I should be using to get out of here, to get a head start.
But it takes everything in me to not run out there and chase my brother down.
It takes every scrap of will to focus on Sal in my arms—and getting him to Serena.
I turn on my heels and race for the back door.
I run all the way to the filling station on the edge of town. The car is parked there, a brown station wagon next to the pumps.
Holding onto Sal, I throw myself into the backseat and slam the door shut after us.
“Go,” I shout at the trembling, tense Serena in the driver’s seat. “Go, go, go!”
She does.
She speeds out of town—and we leave behind everything we own in the apartment, including the bags of money hidden under the bed.
But the cold touch of the watch in my hand might just be a lifetime of funds.