Chapter 15
DOVE
Everything still hurts.
Consciousness trickles back to me in waves.
The sensation of softness beneath me.
Something is propping my head up. Tightness pulls along my temple when I screw up my eyes, and the back of my throat burns.
I’m exhausted.
Utterly, bone-deep exhausted.
But something isn’t right. I was on my way somewhere. I had to do something, didn’t I?
What was it?
My thoughts escape my focus, like wisps of smoke drifting through a net, and in the comforting warmth I find myself sleeping in, it’s really difficult to focus on anything other than that comfort.
But there’s a pinprick in the back of my mind.
An alert I can’t place.
Building anxiety because everything was going to shit and I was supposed to—
A creak to my left halts all of my thoughts, and one single name bursts into my mind with the heat of a glaring sun on a hot summer’s day.
Alex.
My eyes snap open, and I’m face-to-face with an alarmed man whose blond brows raise dramatically as we lock eyes.
There’s nothing familiar about his bulbous nose, thin lips, or scarred cheek, so in the same second that we lock eyes, I ball one hand up into a fist and launch it at his face.
He jerks back with a yell of alarm and scrambles as far away from me as I can.
Which isn’t far at all because I follow him instantly, throwing myself out of the bed and onto unsteady legs.
This isn’t my bedroom.
I’ve no idea where this is. The wallpaper behind the stranger is red with silver swirls, the floor is incredibly soft under my bare feet, and the door the stranger is sprinting toward is an unfamiliar dark-stained wood.
“Who the fuck are you!?” I yell, throwing myself forward as hard as I can.
The man scrambles away, so I drop forward onto my hands, spring upwards and spin while throwing my leg outward. My bare foot catches him in the centre of his chest and he crashes back into the wall with a cry.
“Holy shit, you’re fucking crazy!” he yells in alarm, ducking my next blow and scrambling away as I withdraw my fist from the wall.
“Who are you?!” I yell again, pushing off the wall and racing after him but he makes it to the door, wrenches it open, and darts outside.
The door slams closed just as I reach it, so I collide with it full force and slam both my hands against it while locks click into place.
“Open the door motherfucker!” I scream, battering the wood with my hands. “Open the fucking door!”
“Mom?” Alex’s soft, trembling voice cuts through my adrenaline-fuelled panic, and all concern about where I am, where Alex is, and how I got here melts into utter relief that Alex is with me.
Spinning on the spot, I lock eyes with him across the room and lunge toward where he sits on another bed tucked up against the wall.
“Alex! Oh my god, are you okay? Are you hurt? Did he do anything to you? If anyone hurt you, I swear I will kill them!” Landing on the bed next to him, I cup his face and quickly look him over, then glance down at his clean t-shirt and the now blue cast on his broken arm. Nothing looks out of the ordinary.
“Mom.” Alex’s face crumples, and tears flood his eyes. Then, he sags against my chest, and I wrap my arms tight around him.
“It’s okay, honey. I’m here now. It’s okay. Are you okay?”
“I didn’t know if you were going to wake up,” he sobs, curling one fist into my t-shirt. “I was s-scared.”
“I’m awake, honey. I’m awake. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m right here.” Tightening my embrace, I cradle the back of his head with my hand and glance around.
This room’s pretty empty. Two beds. A side table with a lamp and a sealed window.
Judging by the flashing lights I glimpse outside from radio towers, we’re pretty high up, which means breaking that window isn’t an option.
How did I get here?
Fog clouds my thoughts and I shake my head slightly, then I lean back from Alex and cup his tear-stained face. “Honey, answer me. Are you okay? Did anyone hurt you?”
“No one hurt me,” he sniffles. “I’m okay.”
“You promise? Because if anyone hurt you and threatened you not to tell me, you still have to tell me.”
“No one did,” he insists through his tears. “But—.”
“But?” My chest tightens immediately. “Honey, tell me what happened? What happened at…” I trail off as the memory of poor Mary face down on the ground with blood staining her white curls pops right into my mind.
“There were people,” Alex cries, tightening his grip on me. “These men came knocking and they broke down the door. They were yelling about you and Mary, she tried to call the cops, Mom. She was telling me to run but they had guns, and I was scared. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I’m going to kill Felix with my bare hands.
“It’s okay honey. Nothing that happened was your fault, you hear me?” I swipe some of his tears away with my thumb. “Tell me everything.”
“They kept yelling and yelling and Mary was trying to stay between them and then… I don’t know.
It looked like she started having a heart attack.
She couldn’t breathe. She was clutching her chest and she fell into one of the men and he hit her, and she went down and then…
and then—!” He’s gasping desperately through his tears. “Your friend turned up!”
“My… friend?” My brows twitch. “Who?”
“That man… the one who came to our apartment. He crashed through the door and he shot those people, Mom. He shot them and he killed them, but it was too late, Mary was already—.” He chokes and breaks into a wail, then sags back into my arms and cries.
Felix… arrived later?
He saved Alex?
Confusion warms my gut with a small ache of nausea so I close my eyes and wrap Alex tightly up in my arms. “I’m here,” I murmur. “It’s going to be okay. You did so good, Alex. You did amazing.”
Mary.
She’s dead.
I can’t believe it.
It’s all my fault.
I should have taken her money when she offered it. I should have taken it and run with Alex and her. Then she’d be alive and we’d be safe.
“And then you came in,” Alex chokes against my shoulder. “And that man. He hit you and you fell and I thought you were dead but he told me it was to protect you. And they brought us here.”
“How long ago, Alex? Can you remember?”
He shrugs against me. “I dunno. That man, Reese he said his name was, he brought me food once.” Alex leans back from me and gazes up with red-rimmed eyes. “Mom… how did you do that?”
I meet his gaze. “Do what?”
“The… the way you attacked him just now. I didn’t know you could fight like that. I didn’t know you could fight at all.”
Cupping his face again, I caress his cheek. “It’s a mother thing,” I say softly. “And I took gymnastics as a kid.”
“Gymnastics,” he repeats softly. “Wow. It was cool. A little scary but cool.”
“Thanks. I’m sorry Alex. I’m sorry this is happening. It’s all my fault but I promise I will make it better.”
“Is this because of the car and that cop?” The terrified, haunting look in Alex’s eyes makes me shake my head immediately.
“No, honey. This is just… some huge, messy misunderstanding. But I’m going to fix it, okay? I promise.”
He nods, wiping his eyes with the heel of his good hand. “I’m scared.”
“I know honey. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
Alex doesn’t look entirely convinced but he does sag back into my arms and cling to me so tightly it’s like he’s a toddler again.
So, Felix didn’t kill Mary.
Someone else did.
Someone else tracked my son down and tried to take him, and Mary died for it.
The same people who attacked me in my apartment?
If either of them is linked to the man who tried to run me off the road, then Felix is behind this somehow.
What the fuck am I going to do?
I have to be careful.
Everything I do now carries the weight of a threat against Alex and as much as I will break my back to keep him safe, I won’t allow Felix or anyone to use him as a pawn.
Alex eventually falls asleep in my arms and I gently tuck him up into the bed, struggling to get my thoughts to settle.
So much of this entire mess is unknown to me but getting Alex out of here is my first goal.
Maybe attacking that man, Reese, wasn’t the best idea.
Kissing Alex’s temple, I ease to my feet and slowly take in the repairs to my own body.
Stitches close the gash at my temple and brow, as well as the gash on my palm from brandishing the broken shard of lamp.
My clothes are clean, my hair no longer matted with blood, and other than some dull aches around my face and throat, everything else seems okay.
Someone patched me up.
And given the dullness of my pain, I’m definitely on painkillers.
I’m mulling over how best to get someone’s attention when the locks on the door suddenly click once more so I immediately position myself between Alex and the door.
It swings open slowly, but instead of the man from before, Felix fills the doorway and he meets my eyes with a painfully gentle look.
“Dove,” he says softly. “Come on. Let’s talk.”
“I’m not leaving my son,” I mutter quietly, not wanting to wake him.
“He’ll be safe here,” Felix replies. “If I wanted to do something to him, I would have done it while you were unconscious.”
My lips part but no words follow because he has a point. Glancing back at Alex’s sleeping face, I quickly scan him to soothe myself that he’s still breathing, then I slowly follow Felix out of the room.
He leads me down a dark corridor that opens out into an open-plan lounge with windows covering one entire wall.
Outside, the city of New York twinkles and sparkles against a blank night sky.
Soft lights warm overhead, triggered by Felix as he walks around a leather sofa and toward a wall unit holding more beautiful glass bottles than I care to count.
“Drink?”
“You have me on painkillers,” I reply. “Is that wise?”
He reaches for a bottle of Scotch and pops the topper, pouring two generous glasses. “Never stopped you before.”
“I have something to live for now.”
“Alex.”
My eyes narrow. “I warned you what would happen if you said his name.”
Felix turns to me with both glasses in hand. “I saved his life. Doesn’t that earn me any kind of good grace?”
“My son is not and never will be any kind of bargaining chip.” My heart slowly begins to race as Felix approaches. “So no, it earns you nothing.”
He stops just in front of me and holds out one of the glasses.
Dressed in dark slacks and a teal shirt that’s rolled up to his elbows, it’s difficult to keep my eyes off the ink gracing his forearms.
Same for the ink peeking out from the three open buttons near his collar.
In the low light, the shadows accentuate the sharp angle of his jaw and the darkness in his eyes as he waits patiently for me to take the drink.
I do, eventually, and wrap both my hands around it.
“What are you playing at?” I demand as he walks to the couch. “Why the hell am I even here?”
“You know why,” Felix replies as he sits and relaxes back on the couch. “At least you should.”
A shard of ice spears through my racing heart as Felix fixes me with a level stare.
Shit.
Does he finally know the truth of fifteen years ago?