Chapter 22
DOVE
One credit I’ll give Felix is that his showers are amazing. I haven’t stood under a spray this powerful since before my family was murdered and now I’m here, I never want to leave.
Pounding droplets rain down on my shoulders and back, soak into my hair, and send swirls of soap cascading down my legs to swirl around the drain and vanish.
Every touch against my body reminds me of him.
Felix.
The way he kissed me until my lips ached.
The way he held me close like I was the most precious thing in his life.
The way he worshipped my body and left just enough marks that I’m all decorated like he owns me.
The way he held me up and fucked me like I was weightless.
It all compounds into a light feeling in my chest and I find myself smiling without meaning to. Maybe Felix is right. Maybe there is a chance we can be together.
Would it really be so bad?
Spending time together, safe in his presence, tucked away in some secret Manor somewhere.
As long as it’s far away from here and all the pain Alex has endured then I’ll be happy.
Then, in time, I can tell Felix some of the truth and he’ll get to spend time with his son.
The rest? It can stay dead and buried.
Dragging my hands back over my head, I gather my hair and squeeze the ends until water cascades down over my bare feet.
Reminds me of Felix kissing my ankle. In such a short time, he’s reignited that old flame in my soul, one that never truly died out, but I was sure wouldn’t see the light of day ever again.
How wrong I was.
Turning into the spray, I press my face into the flurry of droplets and let my mind drift until something catches my attention.
Under the patter of water droplets against the tiles and the soft hum of the shower, there’s something else. Something high-pitched and constant.
A phone call?
No, it’s too loud.
An alarm?
Oh no.
Leaping from the shower, I manage to grab a towel from the wall and wrap it around myself in one swirl as I wrench open the bathroom door and stumble out into a hallway filled with smoke.
What the hell?
“Ale—!” Taking a deep breath to yell my son’s name, the smoke immediately clogs my throat and I choke while ducking my head away as my eyes sting.
Fire!
Something’s on fire!
Was it me? Did I leave something to cook?
I’m pretty sure I didn’t but the smoke is thick enough that I’m not a hundred percent.
Securing my towel by rolling the edge around my chest, I cover my mouth and nose with my elbow and sprint barefoot down the hall to the bedrooms.
“Alex?! Alex, are you in here? Alex, where are you?!”
Silence greets me in the bedroom and the smoke is thin enough that it only takes me a few seconds to scan the room.
Empty.
He’s not here.
From there, I sprint to the other bathroom, hoping he’s taken refuge in there with the water but it’s as empty as the bedroom.
My heart races faster and faster, my damp feet slip on the wooden floor, and my stomach twists into knots as I race to where the smoke is the thickest. The lounge.
“Alex!” I scream as I dart in the door.
“Mom!” His cry rises up from a lounge completely ablaze.
Every piece of furniture is covered in flames.
Flames claw up the curtains, melt the fixtures on the ceiling and send light fittings and plaster raining down in miniature balls of fire, and heat up the alcohol in the bottles until they start popping and exploding like fireworks.
“Alex!”
He cowers in a corner near the desk with his arms up over his head to protect himself. I brace against the heat, quelling the fear in my heart now that I’ve found him, and ignore the pain of heat licking at my bare legs while I sprint toward him.
“Mom!”
“Alex! I’m here, honey. I’m here, come on.
Get up. We’ve got to get out of here!” Taking him by the arm, I haul him upward just in time because the curtain railing creaks and whines, then crashes to the floor and brings a chunk of the wall with it.
It all lands where Alex was hiding mere seconds before.
“Mom, I—!”
“Come on!” Hand in hand, I drag him through the burning lounge as fast as I can and we stumble into the hall with a flurry of coughs and chokes.
Already the flames are spreading across the ceiling in the hall, flooding the entire place with thick, black smoke.
It’s like breathing in burning shards of glass.
“Follow me!” I yell in between coughs and something crashes down to the ground in the lounge. “We have to get out of here!”
He sticks with me as we sprint back to the bathroom where the shower still pours, creating a collision of hot steam with thick smoke. The flames race with us, clawing their way across the ceiling like they’re determined to cut off our escape route.
In the bathroom, I grab two washcloths and soak them, then thrust one over Alex’s face. “Breathe through this, okay?” I pant at him. “It’ll help!”
“Mom, I’m sorry,” Alex gasps while I tear through my discarded clothes for my phone. “I’m so sorry!”
“You don’t need to apologize, honey. Just hold on, we’ll get out of here.
” This entire place is sealed, Felix made sure of that.
Codes and fingerprints that he’s hid from me but given the circumstances, he better tell me what they are.
Fumbling with my phone, it takes too long to unlock but I manage to scroll to his name and his dial.
My phone immediately beeps.
Call failed.
“Are you serious?!”
“Mom, it’s all my fault!”
My eyes dart up and Alex stands there with large tears filling his eyes. My heart stops dead. “Alex?”
“It was only supposed to be a small fire! After everything you and Felix told me about the life you used to live, I didn’t want you to be stuck here anymore.
And the seals on the doors, I thought if I triggered the fire alarm then the doors would auto-unlock and we could leave!
But it sucked the fire up into the vent and then everything went to shit and I’m sorry, Mom! I’m so sorry!”
Everything pours out of him like vomit and he chokes every so often in his desperation to get the words out.
For a moment, the entire world freezes.
He did this?
He started this fire?
Anger wells up within me but it’s immediately quelled by the pain that he did this for me.
For us.
A desperate way to escape and prevent a terrible life from taking us back.
What he doesn’t understand is that Felix is right.
There is no escape.
Not really.
Unless…
If we die in this fire, Alex and I can slip away and start new lives somewhere else. Somewhere free from this.
I’ve done it before and Felix will undersand, won’t he? He’d probably help if I asked him properly.
“Say something!” Alex yells, dragging me out of my racing thoughts. “Please!”
“It’s okay!” I snatch up his hand. “Come on, we’ll get out of here and then… it doesn’t matter. Come on!”
Hand in hand, we sprint from the bathroom into a scorching hallway almost consumed with flames.
A penthouse this fancy should have a fire suppression system but it’s not kicked in, leaving the flames to scar their way across every surface they touch.
Keeping Alex close to me, we race to the elevator and then along the wall to the door next to it.
To some degree, Alex is right. The previously sealed door swings open under our weight and we stumble out into the cold, clear air of the stairwell.
Unfortunately, throwing the door open feeds an alarming amount of oxygen to the fore and the flames explode forth, sending us both crashing into the railing with burning pain at our backs.
“Oh my god!” Alex coughs so hard he ends up retching mouthfuls of saliva onto the ground while sagging against the metal railing.
I end up on the floor, chest burning and heaving while the smoke itches and tears at the inside of my throat. Each lungful of clear air is like an injection of adrenaline and I’m quickly back on my feet.
“Come on!” I yell, holding out my hand. “We have to go!”
Hand in hand, my bare feet slapping on the stone stairs, we race down the stairwell leaving the flames to consume the upper floor and flood the air with smoke.
It all stays up there while we sprint down, but the fire is taking on a mind of its own, and no matter how fast we run, the smoke doesn’t stop pouring.
It weighs down against our shoulders, following us as if it has no intention of letting us escape.
“Mom!” Alex screams out suddenly as he loses his footing. His hand rips from mine and the jerk throws me against the bannister while Alex tumbles down the next few steps and lands with a grunt of pain.
“Alex!”
“Ow!”
“You’re okay!” I gasp, reaching him and crashing to my knees. “You’re okay!”
He lifts his head, cradling his casted arm to his chest and squinting at me as blood trickles down from a small wound next to his eyebrow. “It hurts.”
“I know, honey. It’s only small, though. Come on.” Helping him to his feet, I take his hand once more but this time we run slower, taking more care on the infinite stairwell that never seems to end.
If we survive this, I might kill Felix for having the shittiest fire-suppression system known to man and for having a penthouse. These things are far too fucking high in the sky.
Eventually, we leave the smoke behind, and the last floors are nothing but empty, cold stone and clear air that I’ll never take for granted ever again.
Abandoning the water-soaked cloth, we make it down to the ground floor and I throw myself against the door.
It swings open and we both rush out into the dark street where all hell has broken loose.
People run around screaming and gasping in awe at the inferno consuming the top of the building, fire trucks litter the street with hoses pointed skyward and several ambulances are parked up tending to people injured by falling glass and debris.
I’d applaud their reaction time if it hadn’t taken us so long to run down that stairwell.
I clutch Alex to me, kissing the top of his head while we walk over uneven ground to the sidewalk.
This could be it.
Alex and I could run. Melt into the crowd and never be seen again. It’s what I should do.
But something makes me hesitate. Is leaving Felix again really affecting me this much?
“Mom?” Alex croaks and immediately starts coughing.
“It’s okay, honey. I’ll get us some help. I just need to—!”
“Are you fucking crazy?!” An iron grip seals around my bare upper arm and I’m jolted away from Alex, finding myself face to face with Reese. “You think we don’t know what you did?!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I gasp, wrestling with the burning urge to cough. “Let go of me!”
“No, this is the last straw. You couldn’t stay there quietly, could you? Couldn’t just let everything blow over. I was almost willing but you know what? You’re too much of a fucking threat. Felix might be blinded by you but I know the truth!”
He wrenches me backward and Alex lunges forward, clutching my arm. “Mom!”
“Alex!”
“Don’t worry kid, you’re coming too. By the end, you’ll be right with us when you see what a monster your whore of a mother is—!”
Everything else he says falls on my deaf ears because a sleek, black car suddenly screeches to a stop a few feet away from the sidewalk and Felix leaps out with his face twisted in worry.
Relief floods through me, only to turn to ice when a tall, elegant, elderly woman follows and loops her hand around Felix’s elbow.
Caterina.
I haven’t seen her in over fifteen years but the sight of her is enough to send a pulse of nausea right through my gut like a spear. Felix turns to her and she smiles.
Then her sharp eyes lock onto me and I freeze.
“Alex.”
“Mom!”
“Alex, run.”
“What?”
“I don’t think so!” Reese lunges past me for Alex, so I lift my leg, slamming my knee hard into his crotch.
“Alex, honey!” Our eyes meet and he stares at me, fear warping his face as tears streak through the smoke stains on his cheek. “Run, Alex. You run, and you don’t look back! Run!”
There’s no way in hell she’s getting her hands on my son.
Alex stares at me with his mouth wide open, but when Reese surges up once more and punches me in the face, the last thing I see before I hit the ground is Alex sprinting into the crowd and vanishing.
Good boy.