Chapter Nine #2
“So I heard. But that’s easily rectified when you’re dead. Now, do you want me to start shooting this place up? Because I will. Or you can give me back my daughter and we can all go our separate ways.”
“You’ll just come back for me and Gabriel. We all know it. I am not giving you Emma.”
Leo’s words make my stomach tingle. They sound protective but they’re only possessive. I am nothing to him, I remind myself. I cannot forget that.
“I know where you live,” Alessandro says. It sounds more like a threat than a fact. “I will come for my daughter.”
“How do you know she’s even your daughter? Emma claims that she doesn’t know you.”
Alessandro looks me right in the eye. “Because she looks exactly like her mother.” I startle. Being compared to my mother is not a compliment. “Now, give me back my daughter,” he says to Leo. “Before I kill you.”
“You’d kill me right here in the middle of the theater?”
“I’ll do anything if it takes to win.” He nods at a man standing behind him, who steps forward and takes out a small knife, jabbing it towards Leo.
Leo just barely backs away in time to avoid getting stabbed. I gasp. Leo dying would solve my problems and yet… it wouldn’t really. I’d still have no money or ID. I’d have nothing.
But I can’t stand here and let these men debate my life. I need my freedom. It’s why I fought so hard to escape my mother.
When the man goes for Leo again, I take a step back. Alessandro’s eyes are glued to Leo and not on me. Leo punches the man in the face, drawing all the attention of the people around us. Security guards come running over and that’s when I take my chance.
I walk away from the crowd gathering around Leo and my father and walk right out the front door. I only take one deep breath before I start running.
The high heels Leo made me wear hurt my feet. They’re nothing like the shoes I grew up with. This fancy, elegant world that Leo has me in seems like a fantasy but it’s actually a nightmare.
I don’t stop running until I’m down the street and need to take in a breath. That’s when a car pulls up beside me.
When the window rolls down, I’m expecting another man to be there, ready to kidnap me. But instead… it’s my mother.
The sight of her makes me freeze. The small mole on her chin. The hazel in her dark eyes. The sneer of her lips.
It’s my mother.
“Emma,” she snaps. “Get in the car.”
“How did you find me?” I whisper.
“Your father called me. Told me where you were. I came to get you. We’re going back home. Now. Let’s go before he can come back.”
“Before who can come back?”
“Your father. I didn’t want him in your life.
But it seems he’s finally found you. You’re not safe, Emma.
Only I am the one who can keep you safe.
Let’s go before he finds you. He told me you’ve been kept as a prisoner by another mafia man.
You never should have left, Emma. It’s a dangerous world out here.
I told you that. But I can keep you safe. Come back home with me.”
I shake my head. “You kept me locked up all my life.”
She gets out of the car and I’m expecting her to slap me like she has done so many times but instead, she opens her arms wide. “Come here. Let me protect you.”
I am not safe with Leo. I feel it in my gut that I am not safe with Alessandro. But I know my mother. She is not perfect and can be cold and cruel sometimes but she’s the person who raised me. Who fed me.
I tried running from her but this world is too much. I can’t do it on my own. I need my mom.
With a sudden sob, I run into her arms and let her hold me. She tightens her arms around me for just a moment before motioning me to get into the car. I only hesitate for a second and then I get in the seat next to her.
My mother drives me away from the theater. Away from my father. Away from Leo.
“What have you gotten yourself into, Emma? You should have stayed at the farm. I kept you safe at the farm.”
“Why did you never tell me I had a father?”
“He’s a mafia man. He’s dangerous. I kept you hidden away for your own protection.
I didn’t want any other mafia men finding you and using you to their advantages.
But it seems you ended up getting yourself involved anyway.
You shouldn’t have. Your father is pissed at me for keeping you hidden.
He said once he found you, he was going to make me pay for keeping you from him.
I can’t let that happen. I have to keep both of us safe. ”
“So that’s why you kept me so sheltered,” I murmur. “You could have told me. I would have understood.”
“It was too dangerous. It was better to keep you in the dark. I couldn’t risk you going off to find your father. I just never expected you to try and leave me the way you did. I am disappointed in you, Emma.”
My mother’s words fill my heart and head with shame. “I’m sorry. I never should have left.” Tears bubble out of me and I cry out all the frustration and sadness and pain I’ve been in over the past few weeks.
“No. You shouldn’t have. But we’re back together again.
That’s all that matters. Let’s go home now.
” She doesn’t stop driving until we return to the farm.
I would recognize it anywhere. The tall trees.
The large patch of barren ground where the cows and pigs are kept.
The old house that needs a new coat of pain.
It’s my home and for a moment, I feel safe.
I made the right choice in coming back with my mother.
We go inside together and she leads me back to my old bedroom. The floorboard on the second step squeaks like I remember it. I’m safe here, I remind myself. I am safe.
But once I enter my old room, my mom shuts the door on me, locking me inside.
“For your own protection,” she claims.
I feel my heart drop to my feet. Once a prisoner, always a prisoner.