Chapter 28
“What are you always writing in those journals?” Mother sits in her library, scribbling furiously at a page.
She always does this. Father thinks it’s silly, always snapping at her for it.
He thinks she’s plotting some grand scheme against him, but she isn’t.
And even if she was, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to write it down somewhere as accessible as her journals.
At least, any of the journals he has access to.
“Anything that comes to mind,” she replies before finishing her thought and closing the leather-bound book. “Come.”
I follow her beckon, sitting in the chair across from her. The fire warms my cheek as I scoot closer. “What is on your mind, lyubov’?”
Mother’s not stupid, in fact, she’s as calculated as Father.
I know this because I study her like a hawk.
The way she’s acutely aware of anyone in the room with her, subtly tracking their movements, listening when her back is turned.
She told us once she was trained extensively to always be the smartest and strongest in the room and you’d never know it by looking at her.
Which she says is her greatest asset. To be the one no one would suspect.
That’s what I’m learning from her. To be misperceived, underestimated.
My twin brother, however, is oblivious to her techniques. How, I have no idea since he spends the most time with Mother. Fourteen years he’s been by her side, and he’s nothing like her.
And he doesn’t even appreciate their time together. Father drags me around like his shadow and Enzo gets to read and bake and learn knife skills from the smartest woman I know.
“Can we…” The words are difficult to say. What if she already has plans with Enzo?
“Rafael, do not stutter. Speak clearly and confidently.” Her tone isn’t sharp or demanding but inspiring. I want to speak as she does.
Straightening my spine, I relax my shoulders and do as she does. “I would like to spend the day with you, Mother.”
Her chin tilts up, as she beams at me with pride. “Very good. What would you like to do today?”
I…hadn’t thought that far ahead. I don’t have hobbies like Enzo, nothing I do for pure enjoyment. I frequent the gun range but only because Father demands it of me. I guess I do enjoy boxing, but Mother wouldn’t want to do that.
She dresses in fancy gowns and her hair and makeup is always perfect. “Rafael, do not get lost so far in your mind you lose your surroundings, my dear. Ask what you want.”
“Would you box with me?”
Where I expected shock and rejection, Mother simply smiles. “Let me change and I will meet you in the ring in fifteen minutes.”
I can’t contain my glee as I skip down the hall to my room to change. She’s going to spend time with me and Father is away, one of the few times he hasn’t taken me with him. Enzo still sleeps so it’s only her and I.
She’s already waiting for me when I arrive at the gym, her hair braided out of her face and dressed in shorts and a tighter fitting t-shirt. She’s the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen. I wish I was more like her and less like my father.
I notice the bruises on her arms and legs, and it sends fire through me, a fire to burn the flesh from my father’s bones. I would if Mother hadn’t asked us not to interfere, to not react with our actions but to think clearly. To focus on the long game.
When I enter the ring, I begin my warmup, bouncing on my heels. But before I can finish my routine, she comes at me with force, swiping my feet from under me and I land hard on my back.
“Always be ready,” she warns before reaching out to help me up.
Standing, I block my face with my fists, leaving them unwrapped as Father demands. He wants me to know how flesh on flesh feels. Absorb the pain, become numb to it.
“Run your combos, Rafael.” Her arms block each strike, but I don’t put my full strength behind any of my hits. Of course, she notices.
“Rafael, I’m strong enough to take your hits, don’t hold back.”
“You’re a woman, Mother. I don’t want to hurt you.”
I strike again but she blocks it and steps into me.
At only fourteen, I’m a couple inches taller than her and have significantly more muscle mass but she uses her small frame to maneuver into my weak spot, trapping me in a headlock.
“You make the same mistake your father does, underestimating someone who appears weaker. Do not let your weakness be ignorance.”
My lungs burn as she continues to cut off my air supply with her surprisingly strong hold.
“I…have…” She releases me slightly, allowing me to breathe. “No weaknesses.”
Releasing me fully now, she steps back as I haul in deep breaths, panting as I crouch low. “Again, you are thinking like your father, Rafael. Weaknesses show us our strengths. We cannot have one without the other. When you find your greatest weakness, you find what you truly fight for.”
“Does Enzo know his weakness?” I ask, falling to my butt on the canvas, resting my elbows on my knees and Mother mirrors my posture, sitting across from me. My jealousy toward my brother begins to surface.
“He doesn’t, but I do.”
“And what is his weakness?”
“His heart,” she says as if she were proud of his weakness. As if it’s something to protect and cherish. When in reality it will get him killed.
“Despite being only three minutes older, Enzo admires you, he seeks out your guidance. As Dante’s chosen heir, you have a responsibility to protect him.
The expectations placed upon you are heavier.
And I am sorry it falls on your shoulders.
But it’s the truth. You two are day and night, the sun and the moon.
But remember, the moon is not the absence of the sun.
You are your own unique light, he is his.
While one always burns brighter, it does not make either of you more important.
The only way to survive is to share the sky, rest when it’s time and trust your brother to rise when you fall. ”
I take in her words, viewing my responsibility and my brother’s differently through her lens.
She views the world in a way I fear I never could.
Despite the demons she sees daily, the monsters who have hurt her, she finds peace and purpose in the world.
She infects me with the same ideas while my father does everything he can to drown out her light.
My biggest fear is one day he will succeed.
I stare at my fingers, picking at the skin of my cuticle repeatedly. They bleed with how much I mess with them. “What is my weakness?”
“Me.”
My head lifts at the sudden change of voice. Finding a woman with one blue and one green eye.
I jolt awake from the memory turned warning. The Belaya Sova haunts my memories of my mother. Each time I dream of her, red-tinged glasses slip over my mind.
Images of Lucy return to me as I lay in my bed, the broken, lost fear in her eyes almost identical to the blue and green-eyed girl from my nightmare.
And I’m not sure why it is Lucy my mind conjures escaping from the library window.
The blonde hair shifting to brown, the contrasting irises melting into deep pools of amber.
My brain plays cruel tricks again, morphing the woman I desire to protect into the woman I despise.
Lucy is an enigma, a novelty I can’t afford. She has become a distraction I can’t seem to let go of. All those years ago, my mother told me what my weakness was, and I never believed her.
“Your desire,” she had said. “Desire to please, desire to belong, desire to be seen.”
Not until this moment as I conjure images of the only woman who’s captivated me to the point of lunacy, the only woman to challenge my nature, to bend my mind and contort my wants and needs, do I understand her meaning.
Climbing out of my bed, I make my way to the shower, turning the water hot.
It sears my skin as I let it wash over me.
The heat clears my thoughts. But despite Mother telling me to fight for my weaknesses, I cannot afford such a distraction at this time in our lives.
Cloud Nine is developing into exactly what we had planned, Father’s hold on his empire is beginning to slip, investors and clients are realizing where the power lies in the Alessi name.
Lucy is a weakness. Enzo and I have worked too hard to let her derail our plans.
She needs to go. I’ll post for a new position when I get to my office.
When the position is filled, Lucy will be gone, and our lives will go back to how they need to be.
As I descend the staircase, the house carries an eerie silence. Ludo, the man who killed Sienna, has no remorse for his actions, seeing the girl as nothing more than a pet. But our men, the few we have in this house, carry the weight of her loss.
It’s exactly what we fight to prevent, why we are changing the system, to avoid deaths like hers. But I failed her.
Ludo will have his day. He’s flying literally high as a kite right now, basking in his feigned freedom but we will come for him. Sooner rather than later, before he can kill another one of our Angels.
“Where is she?” I ask Enzo as he sits at the kitchen counter, eating a bagel with smoked salmon.
“In my bed. Where she belongs.” He smirks and I can’t find the energy to engage in his antics at the moment. Sienna’s death has rattled me, but I will never show it.
Her and her sister were runaways, kidnapped off the street by Dante’s men and brought to Cloud Nine.
I try not to keep underage girls, but Sienna’s older sister was desperate.
She didn’t want to be separated from her.
I knew the feeling. For some of these young girls, sex work is all they know how to do, it’s where they feel comfortable and until we can get them working with our therapist and started in GED courses, it’s what they need to feel purpose.