Chapter 56
“FAKE SMILE” BY ARIANA GRANDE
Quinntessa Dawson.
Quinntessa Dawson.
Quinntessa Dawson.
I’d called her every name I could come up with in a weak attempt not to get attached. Now, as she laid in my bed, locked up in my room under Estelle’s baby cam, I was grieving for the loss I will have in the morning.
I watched her for a while after bringing her home.
She made me smile. She brought such joy out of me.
I laughed, cried, danced until she fell asleep, and that world disappeared.
It disappeared as my inner demons whispered about how beautiful she looked when she slept, how stunning she would look in death.
I had so many questions, so many regrets with my time.
She was dying, and I let her worry about the coils in her hair and if she needed to order pizza when I came over because they had no kitchen.
Her father wouldn’t let me be at the funeral.
I would have to break into the coroner’s office or pay off someone at the morgue to see her beautiful body before they settled her in the ground.
There might be a chance her grave would be here, in Murdafest, near where Sebastian’s father and mother were buried.
I investigated everything about him since knowing he was Christian’s father. It didn’t lead me much farther than a photo of my father and Sebastian in high school, a photo Papa wouldn’t breathe a word about.
“Is she asleep?”
My sleeves brushed my tears away, and I quickly put my cigarette out. “I-I was just?—”
“It’s okay.” Mom rubbed my shoulders a moment before settling on the back stone steps with me. She looked out over the garden and sighed. “I know you feel something for her. It was obvious the day you brought her here. I just hoped you were stronger than this.”
I looked away from her and swallowed.
“No,” I mumbled. “She’s just a girl I have to kill.”
Mom brushed down her robe and crossed her legs, looking up at the night sky over the large trees around this side of the property.
“Tell me about her,” she insisted.
“What?” I frowned.
“Tell me about the girl you have to kill,” Mom insisted. “What have you learned about her?”
“I…” I shrugged weakly and looked down at my shoes. “She likes football.”
“What else?”
“She, um, she likes to read.” I exhaled and felt the weight in my chest grow. “She likes fantasy books the most. Epic romances too. Helps her escape her life.”
I scanned the garden and watched the flowers sway in the night breeze.
“She pretends to be a straight-A student, but she struggles to focus. Quinntessa has ADHD, and Olivia says she fidgets a lot in class or sneaks her book out. And if that’s coming from Ollie,” I looked to my mother and chuckled, “it must be bad.”
“Well, then,” Mom chuckled.
“But it’s not like she has bad grades. She has okay enough grades.
Lots of Bs, a C in English.” I wrinkled my nose.
“Which is surprising, considering she loves to read, but I think it’s the participation killing her.
She has anxiety attacks. She doesn’t like to speak to people, or in front of crowds.
It’s also one of her morning classes, and she doesn’t do great in the mornings. ”
“No?”
“No, she has nightmares.” I smile sadly. “Her parents aren’t great. One’s a rabid cop and the other’s mentally incompetent. They’re practically abusive to her!”
“Quincy, I’m sure her father loves her. He’s always been a family guy.” Mom raised her brows in surprise when I scoffed and leaned back on my hands. “How do you see it?”
“I see the truth! He forgets about her! He doesn’t even notice her most days!
” I spat, anger flowing through me. “He puts all his focus everywhere else but her. She’s in that big house all by herself after losing her mother, and he doesn’t see how much it kills her.
She reads to avoid. She sleeps during the day because she can’t sleep at night.
She runs and runs and run—because he wants to see her get better.
She is better. She’s the best damn football player in this state, but he wouldn’t know because he’s never there!
He’s never fucking there for her. No one is. ”
My chest heaved as I finished hissing out the last words. I turned my head and frowned as my mother chuckled in amusement.
“It’s not funny. She’s hurting!”
“Quinnie, baby, you should have told me you liked her.” Mom’s eyes softened, though full of concern. “I could have helped you work through this. Offing her won’t be easy if you’re feeling?—”
“I’m not feeling anything!” I pushed up from my place on the floor and stomped down the steps to the middle platform.
Mom sat calmly on the steps and watched me closely. After a few minutes, she stood and moved to sit a few steps down as I paced.
“I know I wasn’t there for you much when you struggled with having Estelle, but I don’t want you to feel like that anymore. You can tell me these things.”
Her words stuck deep in my back, the same backstabbing feeling I got when she refused to look at me when she found out Papa wanted me out of his house.
“You will always have a home here. You don’t need to worry about what will happen.” She paused when our eyes met, tears swimming within mine. “Quinnie buns.”
“You left me with Estelle in a car I stole from the yard,” I slowly reminded her. “A child I almost killed because I am a bad mother.”
“You’re not a bad mother. Don’t believe those thoughts of yours. It gets you in trouble.” She stood and tried to approach me, but I backed up. “Baby, PPD is a scary thing, but it’s common. It happens. We got you help. Petra was certain you’d make it out of it.”
“Congrats.” I looked her up and down. “You did the bare minimum next to asking me to kill people to be in this family. Brava, Momma! Brava!”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that.” Mom grabbed my jacket and ripped me back toward her when I tried to turn away.
“I have fought through blood and water for you since the day you were born. This family is hard. I know. I was just like you were—born under a boss—but there is nothing you can do to change your legacy.”
“Let go of me.” I tried to get away from her grip, but she stepped closer and clenched my jacket so hard, her hand shook.
“Look at me, Quinnie.” Mom waited for me to look at her before releasing my jacket and taking my face into her hands.
She pressed our foreheads together then kissed me between my brows.
“You need to finish your assignment and move on. The longer you drag this out, the more pain you’ll be in.
Quick and fast. She’s a nice girl, but there is nothing you can do besides protect yourself and your child. ”
“Then why didn’t you protect me?” I asked. “Ana?”
“You think Ana left on her own? You think I missed the way she said goodbye to you and me every other day like it was the last? How many times she said she loves us before leaving?” She flicked the cross hanging from my neck.
“You think your sister paid someone to weld that cross upside-right so you could wear it without feeling like you were welcoming the Harrekson linage into your heart?”
I looked away from her and closed my eyes. Anastasia and I had received necklaces from my father when we were young. Golden crucifixes. It was a family symbol beside our stars. A symbol that could be worn by anyone with Harrekson blood.
Anastasia saw how people looked at me when I wore mine.
The upside down cross in a town like this was deadly.
People still believed Miss Angie was a witch, and ghosts haunted the graveyards.
If I walked around with an upside down cross, welcoming the words of the devil into our line, I would be expected to believe the old Murdafest tales about the old ghost tales.
As if the old tales about Amelia Lynch being used as a ghost vessel wasn’t enough to freak a child out.
I hate ghosts. I don’t believe in them. I had enough to worry about in my own family than some old woman that claimed she could let the worst of ghosts speak through her.
Most were rumored family members trying to crawl out of hell. Or so the tale dictates.
Like I said, sometimes I felt like the bratva was a fucking bloodthirsty, cannibalistic cult.
Mom flicked my jacket collar after I had been silent for so long. “You think Lukas ended up with you as a punishment? That took some convincing with your papa. He would have drowned that poor pup!”
Oh, so I could blame her for the dumb dog too. Perfect.
“Baby, I was born into this family as the only girl. I know exactly what you’re going through.”
“No.” I bit down, growling at the thought. “You’ve loved me with limitations, just like him.”
“You,” Mom pointed a nail at me, “have no idea what goes on in this family. You will, but not until you show some damn strength and do what needs to be done. No. I don’t want you to have to do this, not to Chris’ kid either, but you and Estelle are safer this way.
You always put the family first. That is what will make you a good Harrekson, Quinnie. ”
“I’m going to Chicago with her, so it doesn’t matter.” I crossed my arms and watched my mother’s brow arch dangerously. “Dedushka said I could go. I’ve made some hits for him.”
“Have you?” she asked, her face a shade or two paler than normal.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Four?”
“Since?”
“A few weeks ago.” I shrugged. “We made a deal. I’ll do a few hits, and he’ll make Quinntessa’s last day good. Estelle gets to go to a private school up in Chicago, and I just need to show I can live by our name.”
Mom inhaled sharply and stepped back, rubbing her temples. She paced a small circle before turning around and slapping me upside the head.
“Are you fucking insane?!” she shouted. “You can’t kill that girl upstairs, but you can kill four others? For our pakhan? Eleanor Quincy, do you even know how much one must do because a pakhan considers it a paid debt?”
I stared at her, a sinking feeling in my stomach.
“I know my papa.” Mom huffed. “Nothing that man does is without a benefit to him. What did he say to you? Anything? What’s the big move?”
“Just that there’s a rat infestation. He’s making me get rid of rats,” I mumbled. “He’s helping me. He thinks I’m strong enough to take what I need, and?—”
“You’re not that na?ve, are you?” she whispered, looking around with a paranoid glint in her eye.
“Momma, what?—”
“Put a stop to this before you have to live with the consequences. You have no idea what you have done!” Mom hissed, wrapping her robe around her body tight and starting up the stairs. “I am going to bed. You need to stop pissing around and go get rid of that poor girl you’re tugging around.”
“I have till Valentine’s Day!” I threw up my hands at everyone’s rush.
My mother stopped at the top of the steps and turned around with a shake of her head.
“Does Estelle?”
And with that, she turned and walked off, leaving me in a heap to unravel the emotional turmoil this family continued to pound me with.