29. Antonio
Antonio has all of the nerves. All of the thoughts. All of the questions. Everything.
On the elevator, he wonders if he should send a text. Or maybe he should just knock.
No. Knocking might be too aggressive.
And if she’s asleep, the bell would wake her. So he sends a text, and when he walks up to Alex’s condo, the door is already open.
“Thanks for calling me,” he says to a weary Ben.
Ben nods. “She’s in the shower.”
“Y-You sure I should…? You really think she—” Antonio chokes on the rest of his words as his body forces him to take a breath he’s desperately needed.
Frankie was actually the one to call him with the story first. Immediately afterwards, Antonio felt like he was on autopilot, as if only a part of his brain was fully functioning. He’d called in a favor for an off-the-record detour before Alex’s attacker made it to the nearest station.
That detour was the noxious underground of prism, where the bastard ended up with his blood and teeth on the ground, and Antonio’s gun pointed in the middle of his chest. Antonio could have easily pulled the trigger. And he would have, if it weren’t for Ben. More specifically, if it weren’t for his words.
To think, he technically hadn’t even answered Ben’s calls. At the time it was an unknown number, so he’d ignored the first, but Gio answered the second time and held the phone to his ear.
She needs you.
Why was that so surprising? Clearly, they were both having lapses in judgment after the ordeal. Antonio had been contemplating murder on her behalf (consequences be damned), and Alex thought, what? His hands could offer her comfort? He’d washed them six times before he left prism, and although Gio, Makeo, even Evren the damn custodian swore they could see nothing there anymore, Antonio could. So how could he dare continue to willingly contaminate her?
At least, that’s what ran through his mind at first.
Then he remembered his promise.
Safety and happiness.
Antonio thought he was granting her both by exploding their bubble now before she… Before it was too late. But he was wrong.
Of all the ways people have tried to steal her light lately, this was the most bold, to say the very least. To be that fragile of a man to feel like he needed to forcibly take something he hadn’t earned is one of the most vile things on the planet.
Antonio would never let Alex be in that kind of danger again.
He’d never break that promise again.
So, here he is.
“Just…prepare yourself,” Ben said. “If you want to be helpful, she’ll probably need some more ice.”
“Alright,” Antonio croaks before taking off his shoes. As he starts to accept his presence, his awareness heightens, letting him draw in a citrus scent and notice a candle burning on the kitchen table. He breathes in deep before opening the freezer and taking out a bag of ice. Then he breaks off chunks into small plastic bags and wraps them in towels he finds in Alex’s guest bathroom. Antonio feels Ben’s eyes on him as he moves about, but he’s only got enough in him to talk with Alex for now. By the time he preps four bags, Alex hasn’t come out yet, so there’s not much else to do but explore.
Antonio is instantly drawn to her childhood photos in the living room area, most of which capture her making silly faces. “Goofy since forever, weren’t you, gorgeous?” Thank God his subsequent thoughts stay on the inside, because one comes out of nowhere like a torpedo, making him wonder what theirs would look like.
Theirs. As in his and Alex’s children.
What the fu–
“Antonio? What are you…? H-How did you…?” Alex looks at Ben, and Antonio expects both of them to get cursed out, but instead, she doubles over and wails. Like she’s letting out every single sob stored in her body.
Antonio wastes no time taking her in his arms, and he’s relieved when she goes limp against him. Even if it’s all in his head, it’s like she’s trusting him to keep her from completely falling apart. As he helps her to the couch, Ben grabs his keys and nods to the door, which Antonio takes as an indication of his departure.
Once it’s just him and Alex, Antonio feels like they are back in a bubble—a vastly different one than before. One that’s necessary to pop immediately, and it’s one that only he can.
“I’m so sorry, Alex. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for leaving things the way I did. I’m sorry I ever made you think you were not enough, when that’s the furthest fucking thing from the truth.” He sighs. “You said something the last time we talked. About giving so much of yourself away. And I took that to heart. The night of the Ball, it was you who stopped me from going too far. I thought about the other times you’ve done that for me, all the times you would do that for me, and I just couldn’t imagine being the one who drains you of everything that makes you so damn amazing.” He cups her chin. “But you are worth it. Worth figuring out h-how to not do that. How to give you more than I take. ‘Cuz I don’t want to be like him, gorgeous. So please… ” Antonio hesitantly kisses her forehead. ”Forgive me.”
Alex stops crying instantly, making Antonio wonder if he said something good or bad.
“No,” she says after a dramatic pause.
Fuck.
Then she says, “I wasn’t.”
“Huh?”
“You asked if I was always goofy.” She leans her head against him. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t always the purveyor of humor you see before you.”
“Nah,” Antonio says, somewhat sarcastically. On the inside, he’s trying to recover from his mini heart attack. “I don’t believe it.”
“Laughing is medicine. That’s why you’re always so damn moody. You don’t laugh enough, and your brain is sick of you.”
“You laugh enough for the both of us.”
“If only it worked like that.”
Antonio grins, and for the first time in weeks, takes Alex in without feeling like he has to turn away. Their fallout made looking in her eyes impossible, because they held memories of that laugh, the way her skin felt against his, and how she breathed his name. Antonio has missed being Alex’s “Leo”. He almost doesn’t want to hear “Antonio” leave her lips ever again.
He carefully helps Alex arrange the towel-wrapped ice around her hips and arms before placing her legs over his lap.
She shudders for a few seconds, but then nuzzles into the pit of his arm.
“I’m so proud of you, gorgeous.”
Alex shakes her head. “It never should have happened. I should’ve been paying attention. I promised myself I’d never let anyone get me like that. Make me feel so powerless again.” She breathes through her teeth. “I hate it so fucking much.”
I’m sorry, baby. Antonio pulls her tighter, hoping it’s more consoling than painful.
“I do…compare you to James, you know.”
“Oh.”
She laughs pitifully and then her body stiffens. “James Reynolds. The first man I thought I truly ever loved.”
James fucking Reynolds.
Antonio burns the name into his memory and kisses Alex’s forehead again, with confident tenderness this time.
“You remember all the stuff I told you before, right? How I’d met a guy around the time I’d started looking into my parents?”
Antonio nods.
“I’d started going to this café every day after school. I would lose track of time so often that I’d lie to my parents. I didn’t want them to feel like I was ungrateful. Or that I was letting my investigation into Charlie and Tracy consume me. I’d tell them I was at debate, choir, book club, test prep, whatever worked. One day, I’m on hold, drifting off to elevator music, and I feel this presence.”
“Let me guess.”
“Yeah. Sixteen-year-old me was mesmerized. So much so that I didn’t even notice when the music stopped and someone started speaking to me on the phone. And when James asked if anyone was sitting next to me, I eagerly moved my shit over so he could. I tried to refocus, but as I’m about to fling my laptop off the table, I hear, ‘there’s another way to go about that, you know’.”
“How did he even know what you were doing?”
Alex sighs and her hands fall to her lap. “How, indeed. Obviously, I wasn’t worried about that much back then. He had the means to do what I needed, and that was all that mattered. I would have begged if I had to, but he didn’t hesitate to show me. It was like magic. That’s how I dove into the cyber world—and James, too.”
A dive Alex never would have had to take if the Morettis took responsibility for what they’d done to the Foxes.
She goes on to explain all the experiences she had because of James, and they weren’t all technological.
“Alex. How…old was this guy when you met him?”
“Twenty-two. So, he was…”
A fucking creep? The more Antonio hears, the worse things get.
“I now recognize what happened to me as grooming, but like I said…not back then. Not even when we moved on to more complicated objectives. That’s when he got more…touchy, I guess. Subtle but affectionate gestures.”
Alex unglues herself from Antonio and starts pacing the length of the couch. It”s tough for him to let her do so once he notices a slight limp, but he realizes she must have needed to walk off her anxiety, so he decides to give her a few minutes.
“It wasn’t until I turned seventeen that we did our first real job together,” she continues to narrate. ”He guided me through it, but he was excessively happy for me. He took me out to dinner, and he kissed me for the first time. I was over the moon. And I called the person I felt would be as excited as I was.”
“Ben.”
“Mhmm,” Alex says, rubbing her ear. ”But he wasn’t. He was the total opposite. He thought it was wrong, and he tried to tell me I knew it was wrong, too. Otherwise, I wouldn’t still be keeping my double life from my parents. He was right. I ignored all of that, though. I was so happy to have someone willing to help me. I convinced Ben that I was OK, that things were PG-13, and they would stay that way. And they did. For a while.”
Antonio stretches his back against the couch and braces to hear the shift Alex implies.
“I didn’t see the truth, at first. We were getting closer physically. But other than that, it was pretty imbalanced. James deflected almost every time I asked about his life or the jobs we did, or why we always went to hotels instead of his place. He had an answer for everything, but he never answered anything. But Ben…Ben wasn’t having any of that.” Alex chuckles, then winces. “And so, James told me I couldn’t hang out with him anymore. Him or any other guy. As a result, Ben and I started hanging out less. And then not at all. He didn’t like that I’d blow him off after school, so he cut me off during the day. I tried to schedule time for all three of us to work it out, but neither James nor Ben were willing. So, I…had to make a choice.”
Antonio grunts. If Ben and Alex’s teenage selves were anything like them now, Antonio can only imagine the kind of hold James had to have for her to make that choice.
“I’d become such a droid,” she says, confirming Antonio’s thoughts. “James knew how to exploit the weaknesses of technology and me, too. It’s like he could just” —Alex’s hands act out her words— “unscrew my head, pour in his bullshit, and I would digest all of it. We’d get into fights about the dumbest things. Where to eat, what movie to watch, what clothes I wore. He’d yell at me and storm off.” She walks to the TV stand to light a purple candle. “I’d text him or call him, but he would only accept my apology and show up when he was ready. Wash, rinse, repeat. Then came our biggest fight—at the beginning of senior year. When it was time to apply for college, I told him I wanted to go away.” A shaky breath swallows up her voice.
Maybe a few minutes have passed, maybe they haven”t, but Antonio feels a nudge to hold Alex again, so he gently reaches for her arm and pulls her back onto the couch, cradling her against his chest.
“I told him I wanted to go away, to take advantage of my opportunities and explore another city. He thought I was lying, that I wanted to be away from him so I could explore other people. He yelled that if he weren’t around to protect me from other men, somewhere down the line, I’d turn into a single mother that couldn’t afford to care for my baby. Just like Tracy.”
What a fucking piece of shit, man.
Alex wrings her hands. “I was so angry. It was like I’d snapped out of his spell. Up until then, I never thought he was in the wrong. But I trusted him with my past, and he used it against me. I did the only thing I could think of. I slapped him. Didn’t give a fuck about what would happen. I just slapped the shit out of him. But after that, everything happened so fast. He knocked me out of my seat, pulled me up by my hair, and pushed me against the wall so hard that my head instantly started pounding.” Antonio wipes the tears from her eyes. “I didn’t even recognize him. From the look in his eyes, I thought he was going to kill me. But he just held me down on the wall by my throat and kept staring. Then he pushed me again, and he left.”
So that’s what it was. Antonio drifts back to four months ago, when he’d cornered Alex in her bedroom. That sight of her is even more haunting now, knowing her true fear. He wishes he could erase that feeling for her completely.
“After that, I avoided Ben, and I only saw my parents for a little at a time. I gave my usual lies and said I was busy with applications and extracurricular activities. I told everyone else that I was sick, so they’d leave me alone. I became a shell of myself.”
“But he must’ve come back?”
“Not for a while. A few weeks passed, and the holidays were approaching. I’d missed Ben so much. Once I got better physically, I called him, and it was like nothing had changed. That’s because he didn’t know what had really gone down. I won’t lie. I was still trying to contact James, but he’d either blocked me or changed his number. So, I focused on other things. I got into my top choice for Computer Science.” Alex’s voice brightens. “And when I told my parents I was doing things for school or with Ben, it felt great not to be lying. It felt great to feel like me again. So, when I got a text on the morning of my eighteenth birthday saying, ‘please forgive me, I love you’, I trashed it. He had abandoned me for over six months at that point.”
Antonio starts to see he’s given Alex plenty of opportunities to compare the two of them.
“I went out that night with Ben and a few other classmates. They dropped me off in front of my house, but pulled off before I actually got inside so they could make their own curfews. When I got to the top of the steps, I heard ‘Gizmo’. His name for me. But I didn’t move. I was confused. Conflicted. I didn’t know whether to be scared of him or happy that he came back. I didn’t know if I was allowed to feel both. When I finally faced him, I felt like I was sixteen, again. He looked like my James. The James I thought I’d fallen in love with. Not the one who hurt me. Who left me.” Alex pauses. “I didn’t even try to make him explain. I just ran to him and let him guide me to his car. I texted my parents that I would be spending the night at Ben’s.”
Antonio cracks his knuckles, and again braces for what he strongly believes is next.
“During the ride, he tells me that the day he left me, he was so disgusted with himself. He was so ashamed of the way he acted and how he had never put his hands on anyone, let alone someone he loved. He claimed to have sought counseling, and they advised him to stay away from me until he got better. He told me he’d changed, and I believed every word. After all, he took me to an apartment and not a hotel like I was used to. We talked for a while, and I caught him up on everything that had happened in the last few months. He seemed so serious and genuinely happy for me. One thing led to another…and, you know.”
I know, unfortunately.
Alex rubs at her wrist. “For the next few months, things seemed normal. So, I finally told Ben we were back together. They still didn’t trust each other, but I swore things were different this time around because I was gonna introduce James to my parents. Ben backed off, and so did James. Kind of. And my parents… They weren’t pleased with the age gap, but when I told them he was the reason I had the skills to get into college, they eased up a little, too.”
“Yeah, I know that was one of your dad’s biggest regrets.”
Alex presses a palm against Antonio’s chest and looks up at him suspiciously.
He chews his bottom lip. It shouldn’t be a big deal that Eric Agneau paid him a visit at the club. The man wanted to protect his daughter. But Antonio panics, anticipating a cyclone of theories if he’s unable to explain things correctly. “I mean…I would assume. If I were in his shoes, it’d be mine. Knowing my daughter was dating a grown man?”
“Yeah, well, like I said, they weren’t happy. Eighteen is a wild age, though. That’s when you really test the boundaries of adulthood. But also, I could tell my parents were handling me very delicately after I turned sixteen. Like they were afraid to lose me.”
Antonio thinks of all the boundaries he tested (well before eighteen) but…they’re not talking about him right now. He makes a face after tuning back into Alex; she never stopped talking, so he’s missed a few sentences. Or he hopes it was only a few.
“…the start of freshman year, we had the same big fight as last time. Instead of ending it there, though, I convinced him we were strong enough to make it long-distance.”
As Antonio predicts, it turned out to be a nightmare. Reynolds would call her nonstop in the middle of class. He’d want to video chat before bed to make sure Alex was alone, and sometimes he’d call in the middle of the night. Antonio has had a few experiences like that himself, but he knows they don’t hold a candle to Alex’s.
“Whenever we disagreed, he’d ignore me for days—sometimes weeks. I’d talk to Ben about him, but I was pretty vague. His response was the same every time; ‘girl, dump him’. It took that entire year, but I finally decided enough was enough and that I would break up with him when I came home for summer break.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. And no. When I came home, I called James and told him I wanted to meet up. I picked a public place—the very first place we met. I told him I wanted to end things. He stayed calm, but he still tried to talk me out of it. When he realized I wasn’t budging, he begged me to do one last job. One he said would turn out well for both of us. I also let him convince me to spend that night with him. And, umm…yeah.”
Antonio loops his fingers through hers. “Are we at Komarov, now?”
Alex nods. “Remember when I told you that at first, I didn’t know who Ivan was or how much power he had? Well, I’m pretty sure James did. After that night, I didn’t hear from him again, which I thought was how it should be now that we were broken up. But next thing I know, Serg showed up at my job at this mobile app start-up. And from the moment I saw him, I knew what he was there for. So, I didn’t put up a fight. I didn’t want to drag anyone else into my shit. And I didn’t want to make things worse for myself. Whatever worse looked like, ‘cuz that’s the second time in my life I thought I was about to be killed. But that was the risk for what we did.”
“You don’t think it’s a possibility that Reynolds set you up?”
“Sometimes. But he’d never get caught on purpose. That includes leaving it to chance that I wouldn’t fold under pressure and sell him out. So I think it’s more likely he was just sloppy. I know ending our relationship fucked with him.” Alex sniffles. “That’s so crazy.”
“What is?”
“Just now, there was a part of me that felt sorry for him.”
Yes, that is insane. To Antonio, though. It makes sense for Alex. He cups the back of her head and kisses her temple. “I don’t even think you have it in you to hang on to animosity like that, gorgeous.”
“Maybe. Anyway, Ivan didn’t believe for a second that I was working alone, so he…persuaded me to take him to the guy that got me involved in this mess, but imagine my surprise when we arrive at James’s apartment, and it’s spotless. Only furniture. So, again, I was expecting to be” —Alex does the kill gesture across her neck— “but Ivan told me you can’t get your money back from the dead. He said that if he or I ever found James, I could walk away. But I never did. I tried to trace the money, but James bounced it between dozens of accounts, which made it hard to follow. As for everything else, it was like he’d stopped existing after a certain point, just like my—Charlie and Tracy. So, no James, no freedom, and thus, my serfdom. I was told I’d be able to finish school, as long as I followed the rules.”
Alex squeezes a throw pillow, and Antonio gently pries her fingers away.
“It seemed like I was paying for my stupidity. I found out I failed two of my classes, which was fucking ridiculous considering the cost of tuition. I thought that was bottom. But then… I find out that I’m pregnant,” Alex whispers. “I was pregnant with the child of a man who shattered me. Everything just hurt so bad, and I wanted it to stop.”
Jeez.
“I found one of Ivan’s men. I asked him to get me some pills. I can’t remember what the doctor told me, some kind of opioids or something. I don’t know. I just remember waking up in the hospital with Ben, Nik, and Sergei surrounding me. Apparently, I’d locked myself in the bathroom at the church. Ben had called me like a million times, and Nik kept hearing the phone vibrate. He broke the door down and found me passed out. Serg drove us to the ER. Ben tore me a new one, but I know it was only because he was scared.”
Antonio feels Alex soften against his body, so he holds her even tighter. He does his best to appear calm, but he can also feel his heart pummeling his chest. All that talk about protecting her, and he never knew the half of it. To only be able to listen now is…infuriating.
But she had Ben. He’d transferred from his school in Philly to one a few minutes away from Alex in Pittsburgh.
There was also Kiara. Antonio has never met her, but as he learns her to be the co-creator of “tomorrow’s problems are tomorrow’s problems”, she has to be somewhat as brilliant as Alex.
“My mom and dad believed I had a terrible breakdown,” Alex continues. “I didn’t mention my pregnancy at first. I was barely a month, and after all they had to do to make me better… Afterwards, I tried to grasp at a semblance of normalcy. But I felt like I had no idea what that was anymore, so I focused on looking the part, and the rest kinda came along. I ended up telling my parents the full truth about a year later. They wanted to go to the cops, but—and I don’t even remember how—I convinced them not to. It was a tough road to get to a point where they felt like I would be OK. They supported me, as always. So yeah, I had them, and Ben and Ki. And I would,” —Alex takes a peek at Antonio— “hang out with Nik. Sergei made sure I stayed out of trouble. And…here I am.”
Antonio nods casually, but internally frets at the mention of Alex’s most recent partner. Though, if it wasn’t for Nik…
“I never tried to find out anything else about my parents. There was no way for me to separate them from James anymore. I decided I couldn’t risk turning back towards that darkness, and I accepted I wasn’t meant to know more than I did. Until I met you. But…”
“What?”
Alex adjusts her body so they can see each other’s faces. She looks more relaxed than earlier, but still rather serious. “I didn’t tell you all of that just as a history lesson. I’m telling you because I was so freaking happy to see that you came for me. But I had to remind myself and you why that’s not enough on its own. So–”
Antonio presses their foreheads together. “I understand, gorgeous.”
“Good.” She exhales, and not even five seconds later, her stomach grumbles, and it makes Antonio smile.
“You want pizza or tacos?”