Chapter 25
“REMEMBER EVERYTHING” BY FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH
Quinntessa Dawson infected me with something today. I didn’t know what the hell she did to me, but I couldn’t stop thinking of parts of her I knew injected me with a ruin-me type of attraction. Stupid fucking attraction.
She was beautiful. Cute, even. A great balance of everything I loved, but I had to kill this girl. I couldn’t get attached to someone whose future was inside a rectangular box with a bullet hole in her head.
I should be fighting this off with more strength than I was committing to. The fire inside me was only the beginning if I didn’t put an end to all this now. She was in my head, in my heart, fucking me in the stomach with butterflies every time she surprised me with her refusal to enjoy my company.
I knew she did. She enjoyed when I was around her. She wanted more of me, but she didn’t know how to unravel it. Quinntessa was infected by the same poison she injected me with.
And now, all I wanted to do was submit to this pull and see where it took me with her.
My father’s incredibly annoying voice ruptured my peace. The image of Quinntessa in my head faded away as he approached where I sat on the steps in the garden. I didn’t take my eyes away from Lukas, his nub of a tail wagging violently as he returned the ball to my giggly toddler.
“No, no,” I corrected Estelle when she reached for Lukas’s mouth. “What do you say, Stell?”
My little girl jumped in excitement and pointed to the ground with a fat grin.
“Drop!” she squealed.
Lukas never got this much excitement. He dropped the ball and quickly backed up, his entire body wiggling about as Estelle picked the ball up and clapped.
“Thank you. Thank you.” Estelle made a little circle and giggled when Lukas tried to follow her. “Mommy, make my perro ’top!”
“Lukas,” I warned.
He stopped walking and looked toward me. When his eyes returned to Estelle, he took a testing step.
“Lukas, sidet!” I snapped.
The Doberman’s butt hit the floor in a second, making Estelle all giggly again.
I didn’t mind her playing with Lukas. She loved animals, and I wanted her to know they weren’t bad. However, Lukas was once trained to protect. He was encouraged to bite. As stupid as he acted at times, I knew he could still do it if he tried, and I wouldn’t have that day be on my little girl.
Estelle was a mindless child who didn’t understand dogs had boundaries. This was my best way of showing Lukas and Estelle they both needed to have patience with each other.
“Ah, look at that!” Papa’s footsteps stopped behind me in the doorway. “You’re imprinting the dog to the child.”
“He’s not going anywhere, so I don’t have much of a choice,” I grumbled, side-eyeing him as he stepped into my peripheral vision.
“Well, he might. I’ve come to whisper a few ideas in your ear,” he said with a loose laugh.
I flexed my jaw and slowly looked in his direction. He grinned down at Estelle as she rushed up the steps to hug his leg.
“Isn’t it rude to show up to your ex-wife’s home unannounced for visitation with a child over eighteen?” I asked, raising my brows questionably.
“Not when I’m picking up my grandchild.” He emphasized his words by yanking Estelle into the air and planting a big kiss on her cheek. “Do you want to go to the farm and see the piggies with?—”
“Give me my fucking kid. She isn’t going to the farm. Ever.” I rushed forward and yanked Estelle out of his grip. I cradled her head when she whined, eyes darting around in confusion. “What do you want? Mom would have told me if you wanted to visit.”
“I don’t need your mother’s approval to do as I please. I am the man of this house,” Papa reminded me. “She is still my wife, papers or not. My blood and sweat spills for this family, and until you start proving you can do the same, expect me here. At your feet. Watching your every move.”
“You didn’t even care about being here when you were here,” I hissed, turning away and walking off with Estelle tight in my arms.
I could hear his footsteps close behind me. I tried to jog toward the door to avoid him, but his fingers wrapped around my forearm.
“Let go of me!” I shouted, yanked back by his strong grip.
“Is this the example you want to set for your child?” Papa squeezed my arm, his dark eyes baring down at me. “You want to teach her to be some pussy who lets this family be walked over by the law?”
“Mommy,” Estelle whimpered, digging her head into my chest.
“I said let go of me.” I inhaled deeply through my nose, nostrils flaring. “Or I swear to God?—”
“Oh, you swear to God? That’s what we’re doing now?” Papa’s eyes filled with a burning fire. He yanked me again and grabbed at Estelle’s shirt. “Give me my granddaughter before I put you down in a cellar to speak to your demons, Eleanor! You want another go with the dark one?”
“Back off!” I tried to roll out of his grip, but Estelle shrieked with fright.
When I was younger, and misbehaved in his eyes, he’d toss me in the church cellar.
It was a large part of the reason I stopped attending once I had some free will.
My blood baptism happened in that church.
I got my first bratva tattoo there, as was tradition.
What wasn’t tradition was hazing your daughters into understanding the power the dark father had over our souls.
The cellar was cold, I remembered that much. There was a fire at the far end with limited wood. The longer the fire lasted, the more time I had in the light. If the fire went out, I had been at the mercy of the horrors the family protected.
I went down there eight times—eight mornings my father dragged me out of the cellar and asked me to sin for forgiveness, eight nights I hid under my bed with a knife and wondered if my thoughts had got the best of me down in that cellar, or if the church would really come after me for not allowing my genetically-wired blood lust control me.
It was the first time I tasted Harrekson blood, the first time I truly understood how fucked up my family was. The mental games they played in the darkness of the cellar left many weak kids dead days later.
According to the church, I was one of the strong ones.
Oh, the price I had to pay for that.
“Let go of me!” I shoved my father and tried to keep Estelle away from him. He grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and ripped me back toward him.
“Don’t you disrespect?—”
Suddenly, Papa’s grip dropped us both, and he let out a loud, deep groan of pain. I turned and ran for the garden glass doors, Estelle tight in my embrace.
“You useless dog!” I heard him shout.
I looked over my shoulder and gulped in surprise when Lukas shook his head roughly and bit down again on Papa’s calf. I didn’t stay to see what would happen, but seeing two of the men my dad posted here take off running with their guns drawn was enough to give me an idea.
My feet never stopped. I sprinted down the long hallway into the front corridor. Estelle whined. I was sure I felt a few tears from her as she held onto my shirt.
“Quinnie?” I heard my mother call my name. I didn’t look her way and continued sprinting up the main staircase. “Quinn, baby, what’s wrong?”
Mom jerked in front of me before I could rush past and wrapped her arms around the both of us. I could have broken free if I wanted to, but truly, did anyone want anything more than a hug from their mother?
“What happened?” she asked, examining me closely. She frowned when she saw the redness on Estelle’s arm, brushing her fingers over it carefully. “Did Xander put his hands on you? I saw him run that way.”
“No.” I clung to Estelle and leaned into my mother.
Tears pricked at my burning eyes. I knew once these words fell from my mouth, it wouldn’t matter anymore.
It was more acceptable for me to confess it was Xander, one of our hired security leaders, who put his hands on me over my own father. “Papa.”
My mother tensed.
“Graeme is here?” she asked. Her lips pressed to my temple, long nails fixing the way my hair fell in front of my eyes. “What happened?”
“You said he wouldn’t come back here.” I swallowed and stepped back from her, looking into her eyes. “You told me this would be safe for her, but it’s not, not with him coming and going as he pleases!”
“Quinnie—”
“Can’t you keep a damn promise in your life?” I hissed, backing up further. “This is why Ana left! You could be here. Be my mom. Be a grandmother. Tell him to leave!”
My mother’s eyes flashed with hurt. I knew it wasn’t a smart thing to say, but in the moment, that was how it felt.
It felt like she was letting him in again after trying to convince me he wouldn’t be allowed here for more than a few dinners with Estelle and me.
She was my mother. Mothers were supposed to protect their children.
I was doing all this to protect Estelle, and it wasn’t fair. I was barely an adult. I was eighteen. I’d been a part of this mob much longer than I was a part of this family, and half the shit I grew up doing wasn’t okay.
If I had the strength to save Estelle, couldn’t she have enough strength to save me? Break the chains that bound our family and take a note from Anastasia’s book.
Mom’s eyes watered. She inhaled deeply and looked over the staircase banister as Lukas came running down the hall, a soft limp to his front leg. She listened to the angered stomping of my father as she twirled the star necklace around her throat.
“Mom, please,” I weakly whispered. “Tell him. Tell him to go.”
“Take Lukas to your room. Estelle as well.” She inhaled deeply and leaned against the banister.
“Momma—”
I saw her jaw clench from this angle as my father’s shouting grew closer. I regretted shouting at her. Estelle shouldn’t have to see this. That dumb dog that just risked being shot to save our life shouldn’t either.
I liked him a little more now.
“Go, Quinnie, please.” She swallowed and forced a smile to her face, passing it to me over her shoulder like we weren’t waiting for the devil to appear. “It will all be okay. I’ll come see you in a few minutes.”
My boots didn’t move. Tears flooded my eyes and threatened to spill over the edge.
“I’m sorry,” I whimpered. “Momma, I love you. I don’t want you to face him, not like this. I-I’m just worried about Estelle.”
“You’re right, baby.” Mom stepped back to me and cupped my face. She kissed Estelle’s head, then my cheek. “I promised you she would be safe here when you came back home. So, go. Go now, and we’ll go to dinner afterward, us three.”
“Mommy,” Estelle whimpered against me as Papa’s shouting grew closer.
“Eleanor, get back here!”
Mom gently pushed me down the hall and gave me a reassuring smile. It was so fake, it physically pained me.
“Go now, baby.” She rubbed my cheek a final time before stepping away. “Take Lukas.”
I took a small step back and nodded. My throat constricted as I tried not to cry, but I kept my head up and rushed down the hall to my bedroom.