Chapter 16 Where Did He Come From?
Where Did He Come From?
Max
Fiona walking away is no less earth-shattering than the view that turned me into a speechless, drooling boy. Who wears a wedding dress to work?
Doesn’t she have a care that when she looks like that, she reduces a man’s mental capacity? That dress alone should be illegal outside of an engagement party or an elopement. At least then every man would be prepared…every man.
My whole body goes tight.
Fiona didn’t wear that dress for me. Did she wear it for another man? Was this her hinting at a ring? Because that’s the first thing I thought of when I actually saw her.
Was Nonna wrong? Is she taken already?
Nonna's little decree last night has my head so messed up, Fiona is going to think I’m a nut.
A nut who saw a woman in a white dress and imagined our future together. I don’t even know what color she likes. What her favorite food is. What makes her smile. I shouldn’t be imagining her walking down the aisle to me.
Get it together.
She’s going to come back here and talk to you again.
You’ve got to figure out how to keep your tongue in your mouth and how to make friendly conversation before she gets back.
I break off a piece of cookie and shove it in my mouth absentmindedly, and all my attention shifts.
What is this magic on my tongue? It’s sweet and salty with hints of nuts. There’s a chewiness to it while the dough is light and crumbly. Then, the bitter hint of chocolate melting balances out the sweetness.
What is this? And why is this the first time in my thirty-plus-year life that I’m tasting it?
Cookies are my favorite, but this is on a whole new level. It’s like a cookie on steroids without all the side effects.
***
The records for our new money-launderer friend don’t make sense. I mean, on the surface, they do. Cash-based businesses that are prosperous scattered all around Urbium make perfect sense. But this guy doesn’t exist.
He’s a ghost, and ghosts don’t exist.
I don’t like this. Not at all.
There’s got to be a birth certificate or criminal trail somewhere. You don’t just become a money launderer out of nowhere.
The scent changes from the mottled mixture of sweet delights to fresh citrus and cinnamon. Are they—I’ve smelled that exact scent before. An image of a white dress flashes before my eyes.
Fiona. I glance up from my keyboard and find her walking towards me.
My heart stops for the longest moment.
That dress should definitely be illegal.
Pull yourself together, man.
She notices me and starts to smile. I’m lost. Speaking is an insurmountable challenge, and all I need to say is one syllable. Something I mastered before I was nine months old.
“Hi.” Fiona lifts her hands to show two steaming mugs. “I realized I brought you a cookie, but what’s a cookie without a cup of coffee?”
Actually, I prefer it with milk.
“I wasn’t sure how you liked yours. So, I brought one of my favorites and one black.”
What’s her favorite? The urge to know more about her overwhelms the desire for my regular plain black coffee. “I’d love to try yours.”
Her smile turns a little wicked.
What have I gotten myself into? Did she make some weird concoction with rose water, lavender, soy, and matcha?
“Do you mind if I join you?” She gestures to the empty chair across from me. “I thought you might have some questions for me.”
Dozens. Who hurt you?
But she isn’t going to tell a total stranger that. Let’s start this easy with questions I know the answers to. “Please.”
She settles into the seat across from me, reaching for the cream and sugar. The amount of both that she dumps in her cup makes me question my choice.
You eat octopi with the heads still attached. Sweet coffee won’t kill you.
Most likely.
I close my laptop and slide it to the side, moving the coffee cup closer.
Don’t show fear. “So, do you own this place or are you the manager? Dahlia didn’t mention which.” This way, she won’t suspect that I spent a few hours researching everything there is to know about her digitally.
Which isn’t much. Maddox’s tech guy does a good job protecting his people. Though I know she pays her taxes. Lives simply except for a slight clothes addiction—which, what beautiful woman doesn’t—and buying gifts for others—which, given her job, makes total sense.
Fiona lifts the mug with a smile. Her whole body relaxes. “That should be an easy question to answer. Your grandmother sold me the place years ago.”
“Sold it to you?” Nonna has so much money from when my uncle, the former Don, died, not to mention Ethan is loaded. Why did she charge a street kid for this place?
“Yeah. She said we’d appreciate it more if we worked for it. But it really isn’t mine. I’m a guardian of sorts. This place will always belong to the kids who come here to find refuge.”
“So, it’s a calling more than a job.” I love that. I knew even back then when I saw Fiona with the kids that her heart was her best feature.
“You could say that.”
“But you wouldn’t?” Is she humble or embarrassed?
“No. These people are…They’re my family. There’s nothing special about being there for your family. It’s just what you do.”
Those words hit me hard. “Not many people understand that.” I take a sip of my coffee and remember that I wasn’t supposed to do that. I wait for a cloying sweetness that never comes. It’s sweet and nutty, but the bite from a dark roast or espresso balances it out.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s delicious.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.” She lifts her own cup to her lips with a smile verging on a smirk.
“Everything about you surprises me.” And I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud.
A blush steals up her face.
“Like that cookie. It should have tasted like a mess, but it was amazing. Where did you get the recipe?”
“Well, there’s actually a story with that…”
***
Five hours and seven cookies later…this might be one of my favorite places on earth.
Fiona wasn’t wrong. Nonna's recipes are definitely here. But there’s something unique about the way they were interpreted by Fiona.
If I cared about cooking, I might make an effort to figure out what, but buying them will be easier.
Though my nonna left her mark here, Fiona has left her own mark on the place.
Which is why it’s also becoming one of my least favorites. Fiona and her orange and cinnamon perfume are everywhere. She’s been to my table ten times already, checking on me and reassuring me that Hope is doing well.
It’s been impossible to focus on my work.
Between Nonna and that irritatingly amazing perfume, I can’t keep anything in my head. We’re just going to ignore the fact that sixty-nine teenage boys have come in already. My little girl is in the back, where there are only two pimply-faced, lanky boys who aren’t my daughter’s type.
Wait, Hope doesn’t have a type yet, does she?
Impossible. And it certainly wouldn’t be pimply-faced boys.
That isn’t true at all. I taught my daughter to see the person and not judge them by appearances.
I hate this place.
“What happened?” Maddox asks as he slips into the chair across from me, unnoticed until now.
Huh? “Didn’t Fiona tell you?”
“I’m not talking about that. I went back and watched the video. Nice reflexes, by the way. There aren’t many people who could have moved that fast.”
He must want an update about our money-laundering friend. “I haven’t had time to go in-depth on our new friend.”
“I’m not talking about that. What happened with Everett? He said you fired him. There’s no way he wasn’t good enough. That kid is some kind of genius. Wait, did he already hack your system? I warned you about that.”
“You did. This isn’t the venue to talk about what happened.” The place is swarming with people.
“Somehow I figured Everett would complicate my life.” Maddox nods towards a man sitting by the door. “That’s Canyon. He’ll keep an eye on Hope while we chat. No one will bother her.”
Maddox’s guys are trained, but to varying degrees. Is this guy good enough to leave Hope with? It would be a faux pas to question his skills, but—
“You’re worried he isn’t good enough, aren’t you? I should be insulted, but I’m not a father, so I’ll let that slide. Canyon has killed more people than any other man or woman on my team—though to be fair, I’m not sure of Dyce’s head count, and I really don’t want to know.”
Dyce scares me in the best way.
“But I’d trust Canyon with Mindy’s life.”
That is all the information I need. “Let’s go for a walk.”
He doesn’t wait until we reach the empty bench across the street to ask, “Why did you fire the kid? It better be a good reason, because that kid looks stricken, like you stole his dream and shot his dog all at the same time. I can’t abide by that happening to my kids for no good reason.”
After the shock of yesterday, I’m not surprised. “Good, because I don’t either. He wasn’t fired.”
“What? Everett told me that you fired him. Why would he lie about something like that? He knows we’re friends, and there was a possibility that I would talk to you.”
“Everett didn’t think I would talk to you about what happened yesterday. If I were a gambler, I would put money on his believing that.”
Maddox shakes his head and steps back. “Why? That doesn’t make sense.”
Nothing has made a bit of sense in the last two days. “Where did he come from?”
Maddox shrugs. “Where do any of them come from? We don’t ask questions like that.
” He walks over to one of the benches, sitting down heavily.
“But Everett was different when he arrived. He wasn’t looking for a place to live.
He tested us to see if The Street was really a safe place for kids to land.
And I got the impression that he was scared of someone or, more like, some group that was big…
powerful.” Maddox shakes his head. “I could have questioned him, but that kid is all kinds of jumpy. It doesn’t matter where he comes from. We’ve got that covered.”
“If only that were true.” A simple life would be way too easy.
“What do you mean?”
“Everett thinks he’s my brother.”
Maddox’s jaw drops open. “Say that again, because I thought I heard you say—”
“Everett thinks he’s my brother.”
“That kid is a lot of things. What he isn’t is mentally unstable. He’s sharp as a tack and quirky about how he does things, but not mentally unstable.”
And that’s another person to say the same thing. “Mentally unstable would have been better, but I said he thinks we share a mother. That we are biologically brothers.”
“Biological…impossible.”
“Do you know how old the kid is? I mean exactly. Not sort of.” Math never lies.
Maddox shakes his head. “I think he’s fifteen or sixteen, but you never know. Most of our kids just pick a day for paperwork. With his skills, I figured that when he needed the paperwork, he’d do it himself.”
Makes sense. It wouldn’t take long for him to put himself in the system and request copies be sent to himself. “He’d need to be closer to seventeen or eighteen.”
“Why that old—your mom.”
“Yeah.”
“Is your dad going to kill her? Because we can’t allow that. She can seek sanctuary here.”
Kill? Sanctuary? What are— “MY MOM DIDN’T CHEAT ON MY DAD!”
The Street gets unusually quiet as dozens of little eyes turn to me.
“Take a breath. I only meant—”
“I know what you meant.” My mind does. The rage inside of me wants to unleash itself on someone. “My mother wouldn’t cheat on my father.”
“Then Everett is lying. Kids do that.” But Maddox’s tone says the same thing as everyone else’s has. He doesn’t think the kid is lying.
I don’t think the kid is lying either.
That’s the part I hate the most. “My mother won’t need sanctuary. My father would die rather than harm her.” But they will have one massive fight when he finds out someone might have harmed her. “I’m going to get some DNA and my employee back.”
“You’ll keep me in the loop.”
Yeah right. “This is family business.”
Maddox stands up. “Everett is my business. You’ll keep me in the loop.” Then walks away.
This is going to make for an interesting Sunday dinner.