Chapter 17
DOVE
“What?” I stare at him, utterly dumbfounded by the words spilling out of his mouth. “Are you fucking serious?”
Felix lifts the glass to his lips and drinks deeply, then he smacks his lips together and nods. “Deadly. I can keep you safe here.”
“Safe? Locked up like a fucking prisoner?” I’m on my feet instantly. “No. Not on your life. I’m not staying here like some dog locked up in a kennel.”
“I’m keeping you safe, Dove,” Felix snaps back. “Don’t you see?”
“I’m perfectly capable of keeping myself safe.”
“Really?” He closes the gap between us. “Because it looks to me like you’ve done a pretty piss poor job of it so far. If you really cared about keeping yourself and Alex safe, you wouldn’t have killed the Rossis!”
“I did that to protect my family!”
“I know you think that!” he bites back. “But the Dove I knew would have researched deeper; she would have dug until she knew every single detail of Tee’s life before taking action. You didn’t do that because you’ve been out of the game for a long time, and that’s fine. But you’re sloppy.”
I grit my teeth, battling the anger at his proposal and the shame building deep inside me.
He’s right, and I hate it. I should have looked closer.
I should have picked every detail apart.
Instead, I glanced and saw a shitty family eager to pressure me for something and I killed them.
“I’m not going to be your prisoner.”
“Don’t look at it like that,” Felix replies.
“But I can keep you safe. I mean look at you, Dove. You nearly died in your car. Hell, you nearly died back at your apartment and you probably would have if I hadn’t saved you and Alex.
Seems like I’m doing a better job at keeping your son safe than you are—! ”
My hand flies out and collides with his face before I’ve even thought it all the way through and a shocked, empty silence follows with Felix’s head snapped to the side.
My palm tingles and throbs where the impact aggravated my stitches. “Don’t you dare judge how I protect my son,” I snarl. “I’ve been doing it for fifteen years and this is no fucking different.”
Felix remains silent.
“I have a life!” I snap heatedly, struggling to get my words past the boiling anger flooding my chest. “I have bills and taxes to pay. I have a job!”
“All of which you’re leaving behind anyway.”
“I have Michael’s funeral! Mary’s funeral… my rent. Alex’s education! I’m not going to be some prisoner in your fancy castle because I have responsibilities, Felix. I’ve got a life to lead!”
Felix’s jaw works back and forth, then he slowly turns back to face me.
“I lost you fifteen years ago. I went back and forth constantly about what I could have done, what I should have done to save you and your family. I am not making that mistake again. I lost you and my best friend within a week, Dove. A fucking week. It almost killed me. I won’t do it again. ”
Everything freezes and my heart pounds up into my throat.
Nico.
He still doesn’t know.
The longer I stay here, the bigger the risk that the truth from back then will be dragged out into the open and it won’t just be Caterina I’m running from.
“I can’t stay here,” I whisper, clenching my hands into fists. “Please, Felix. Let me go.”
Felix lifts a hand to his jaw, briefly touching where my slap landed and then he turns his back on me. “No. This is for your own good.”
Time passes slowly.
It gives me time to catch up on sleep since the door locks as soon as I enter and the only time Reese comes to open it is when I threaten to throw myself out the window. By the second day, the door remains unlocked and Alex and I are allowed to freely move around the penthouse.
Alex quickly discovered that no door or call button on the elevator grants us freedom so I try to distract him with rest and recovery.
Wounds heal.
Bruises fade.
The grief for Mary weighs heavily on both of us while Felix makes himself scarce, likely to avoid my wrath.
Toph visits once and offers his sympathies for Mary’s passing while this new man, Reese, seems somewhat scared of me. Might be because I tried to kill him when I first woke up.
For a while, an uneasy truce exists between us all where resting and recovering take priority over everything else.
But it doesn’t last.
“I don’t understand,” Alex mutters, pushing his eggs around his plate. “Why can’t I go out?”
“It’s not safe.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“But why?”
“Because it just isn’t.”
“But why?”
“Alex!” I spin to face him, brandishing the spatula while bacon sizzles in the pan next to me. “It’s just not, okay?”
“That’s such bullshit.”
“Language!”
“But it is! Look at you, Mom! You’re covered in injuries!
People died! You attacked Reese. We’re staying in a place that’s absolutely ridiculous, I mean heated floors?
You don’t even have to let the shower run before the hot water comes.
This place is bullshit. We used to make fun of people who lived like this and now we’re doing it because of your friend.
And on top of that, you’re telling me we can’t leave? What about Mike’s funeral, huh?”
“I’m working on it, honey.”
“That’s not good enough! I want to go out. I want to breathe real air. I want you to tell me why we haven’t called the police about what happened to Mary?”
“Alex!” Frustration swells like a balloon in my chest as I flip the bacon. “Just trust me, okay?”
“No. Fuck that.”
“Alex, language!”
“No, Mom. Fuck that and fuck you!”
“Alex!” I face him instantly. “What has gotten into you!?”
“Mary died!” he yells at me, suddenly picking up his plate and sending it crashing against the wall near the door. “Those men died and Mary died, and you were covered in blood and we can’t leave! You’re lying to me and you’re keeping secrets and I hate it!”
“Alex, it’s not like that.”
“Stop lying to me! Stop it!
“I’m not lying!”
“Then why did Mary die?!”
“It was a terrible, terrible accident—.”
“No, it wasn’t! Men like that aren’t accidents. The cop in the hospital, the visit from your friend, Mary, all of it… It’s my fault, isn’t it?”
My heart squeezes tightly, and I abandon the bacon, approaching him slowly. “No, honey. This is not your fault.”
“I don’t believe you!” Louder and louder he yells and tears sparkle in his eyes. “You’re lying to me again!”
“Alex, honey, please. I’m not lying. I’m trying very hard to keep it together right now but I’m not lying.”
“You are! You’re always lying to me! You lied about my father not wanting me.
I heard you tell your friend that he was dead!
You lied about gymnastics because Hannah at school does gymnastics, and she can’t do what you did to Reese.
Now you’re lying about this! I hate it! I hate you!
I hope you die too and then I’ll die and it’ll all be over! ”
“Alex James!” Warmth stings behind my eyes and I grab his shoulders, shaking him to try and get him out of his spiral. “Don’t you fucking dare talk like that.”
“Then tell me the truth!” Tears escape down his cheeks and he pushes me away as he wipes them with the back of his sleeve. “Why can’t we leave? How did you get hurt? What happened?”
Fuck.
Every excuse that creeps up in my mind isn’t good enough and Alex will likely see right through them.
No matter what I say, he isn’t going to believe me.
Years ago, I told myself Alex would never learn the truth about my past or my family, and he would have a good, quiet life.
But that suspicious, rebellious streak in him is breaking through my lies and it breaks my heart to see him in such distress.
“Alex—.”
“If you’re going to lie to me again,” he snarls in a way that’s so reminiscent of Felix that my stomach knots. “Just don’t even speak.”
“I’m your mother. You’re my baby. It’s my job to protect you.”
“Because you and your lies have done such a great job so far.”
My lips part but hesitation wraps around my throat, blocking anything else I want to say.
He’s right.
In the end, my lies haven’t helped him and I’m out of reasons as to why we can’t leave here.
Casting an eye at the shattered plate, ruined eggs and burnt bacon, I sigh deeply.
“Do you remember why I taught you to drive?”
“Emergencies,” he mutters.
“And those places I took you to when you were younger, where we’d play hide and seek?”
“More emergencies,” he mutters, crossing his arm over his cast.
“Yeah… well… Alex, I don’t know how to say this. It sounds… ridiculous to say it out loud, but the reason I taught you those things and showed you those places is because I… I wasn’t entirely truthful about my family. And where I came from.”
He doesn’t reply; he just continues to glare at me.
“When I grew up, my family was… Mafia. Alex, I was in organized crime before you were born and the people you stole that car from?”
His eyes widen.
My heart bursts to life at a rabbit’s pace. “They’re from that life I left behind. And they’re really fucking pissed.”