Chapter 2
ALESSANDRA
Jude’s hand slides over on top of mine, where it rests on the table, and he interlaces our fingers and squeezes. “Are you okay?”
His question pulls me from the trance I’ve been in, staring at Nana’s home-cooked meal I can’t even enjoy. I glance over at him, still picking at the food I’ve mostly been moving around on my plate, hoping no one would notice I’m not really eating it.
As if I could ever really get away with that at Nana’s Sunday dinner table…
The people seated around me—some family by blood, others by choice—all see far too much to get away with that.
Especially Jude.
Best friends are incredible when you need them or they need you, but not so much when you’re trying to hide a massive secret from them and they can read you like an open book. And, unfortunately for me, books are Jude’s specialty.
I force a smile he will never buy rather than have to get into it with him. Again. Here, of all places. He’ll surely be right up my ass as soon as we’re alone, but for now, the lie will have to do. “I’m good.”
Angie leans forward from his other side and narrows her eyes on me. “You don’t look good, and you’re barely eating.”
I scowl at her.
She points her fork at me. “Don’t give me that look, Alessandra Rose McCabe. You’re about to have a baby. You need to feed it and yourself.”
She’s right, of course.
And I’ve been careful to ensure I do, even when my nerves make it difficult to want to eat, but I can’t seem to get anything down tonight.
Not only because these Braxton Hicks contractions keep me uncomfortable but also because every time I try to take a bite, my stomach turns thinking about the decision I need to make soon—potentially to leave New Orleans and all these people I love so much.
As the entire table chatters on, mostly about the incoming storm and preparations for it, I can’t stop thinking about the text messages I’ve been deleting for the last several days since my run-in with Pope at the hospital. Hoping they’ll simply disappear. Praying it won’t become the showdown I think it will.
It would be easier to work through my predicament in my head if Pope weren’t sitting directly across from me at the table, his entrancing gaze locked on me far more than it should be at any typical family gathering.
Jude pulls his hand from mine and slides it along the back of my chair so he can lean in closer, brushing his lips against my ear. “What’s going on, Allie Cat? You look spooked.”
I turn my head toward him, and those crystal-blue eyes stare back at me, far too knowingly for me to be able to bullshit my way out of this. “I’m just nervous about the storm.”
Good lie, Al.
That seemed completely legit.
His blond brows rise slowly, his disbelief obvious—not only because I’m a shitty liar but also because he knows me better than anyone at this table. “Why? It isn’t like we haven’t been through them before.”
Called the fuck out.
We’ve had at least half a dozen serious storms that I can remember, and the Hawkes always operate like clockwork when these things hit. We all know our duties and our places, and gathering here at Nana’s in Metairie to ride it out is the family tradition no one would ever dare break.
Together, we’re safe.
An unshatterable unit.
At least…that’s the theory.
The last year has tested that belief in so many ways. Between Jack and Vivi showing up with Satriano hot on their heels, the explosion at The Grind, Roselli’s threat, and then the shooting and Damiano showing up…the only good thing that’s come of any of it has been Isaac’s new son.
I glance over at him where he sits with his family, baby Giovanni sleeping against his chest, head resting on Isaac’s shoulder, his tiny little fingers clutching his father’s shirt.
Gio looks so happy.
Peaceful.
Despite entering this world in the midst of all the turmoil the Hawkes have been through.
And I’m only about to make things worse.
Swallowing through the panic threatening to choke me, I turn back to Jude. “I know. But I wasn’t a month away from having a baby then.”
The corners of his lips curl. “We’ll all be safe and sound here at Nana’s.”
I offer him a tight smile and nod, and he reaches up and tousles my hair playfully. Groaning with annoyance, I elbow him to push him back toward his seat, and Ang gives us a look that tells me he’s going to be filling her in on our little private conversation as soon as they get home tonight.
Savage clinks his knife against the side of his wineglass, suddenly taking on his very serious head-of-the-family role. “Everyone. Everyone.”
Oh, Lord, here we go.
He’s been in one of his moods ever since we all got here. Whenever a storm builds and threatens New Orleans, Savage gets all up in his feelings after he almost lost Uncle Gabe all those years ago during one.
The man himself couldn’t seem to care less. Gabe reclines casually in his chair with his arm behind Aunt Skye, and she leans over and whispers something to him that makes him smirk.
Savage glowers at his best friend and sister. “Will you two knock it off for a second? I’m hoping we can avoid anyone getting kidnapped or shot during this hurricane.”
Gabe rolls his eyes and his hand along with them to encourage Savage to continue.
The patriarch of the Hawkes releases an annoyed huff while half the table tries to cover their smirks. “I just want to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing over the next two days before the predicted landfall. We have a lot of locations to get locked down and ready.”
Nana pushes back from her seat on the other end of the table, her plate empty, and starts walking around behind everyone, clearing the others from anyone who has finished. “They all know to come here, Savage. We don’t have to go over this like everyone at this table is a child.” She looks at Jude and me, the two youngest, and gives us a bright smile. “I think, at this point, Jude and Alessandra are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.”
If she only knew…
A muscle in Savage’s jaw tics. “Thanks, Mom. Yes, we all know the plan is to come here. But there’s a lot to take care of before that point.”
There always is.
With dozens of businesses under the Hawke Enterprises umbrella and the major external construction on the hotel almost completed, splitting them up and ensuring each and every one is locked up and protected from damage takes top priority before we all hunker down in Nana’s house on high ground.
Saint grins at Savage from his seat between Aunt Caroline and Bishop. “I have the security teams boarding up windows already at all of our locations, and we’ll be officially shut down as of tomorrow night.”
Isaac’s brow furrows, and he looks to Savage while he rubs Gio’s back gently, trying to keep the baby calm and asleep with all the loud voices around the table. “Do we need to be shutting down for a full twenty-four hours before the storm?”
Savage waves a hand dismissively. “Stop worrying about the money. A one-day shutdown isn’t going to break the bank.”
Stone snorts and shakes his head. “I am just glad he’s the one worrying about it, so I don’t have to.”
It’s meant as a joke. But my chest tightens at the statement and the way his hand shakes as he brings his wineglass to his mouth.
His injuries from the shooting were far worse than anything Isaac or Kennedy suffered, and the potentially permanent damage remains visible to anyone who knew him before.
The slight tremor in his hands.
The cane he now uses to move around because he’s so unstable and can’t trust his body anymore.
He hasn’t lost any of his mental faculties or attitude, though.
Nora leans in and says something to him before looking to Pope. “Pope and I will likely both be at the hospital starting around then and stay throughout the whole storm.”
Pope nods. “We know what a shitshow it’s going to become as soon as it makes landfall.”
Savage snorts. “That’s an understatement. I want everyone here by Tuesday morning, at the latest, since the worst is supposed to come that night.”
Everyone nods their agreement, and the buzz of various conversations resumes, leaving me staring at my plate again, unable to make myself worry about the incoming storm.
My phone vibrates in my purse, hanging on the back of the chair, and I cringe.
Shit.
Anyone who would be texting me is already here, seated around this table we’ve had to expand over the last year to make room for Jack, Vivi, Cass, and Charlotte. Which means it’s him again.
He’s getting more persistent.
More forceful.
More angry.
I’m surprised he hasn’t come looking for me at The Grind again. But given the current situation in New Orleans, he’s likely too busy—or he’s afraid of the same thing I am…the family finding out he fathered this baby.
I push back my chair, and Jude and Ang both look up at me.
Ang’s dark brow furrows, her mothering instinct kicking in immediately. “You all right?”
Another fake smile. “Just going to go use the bathroom.”
I snatch my purse off the back of the chair and try to hurry down the hallway, pulling my phone out to review the message.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
I’m serious, Allie! You and I are going to talk. If that means I need to hunt you down, I know where to find you.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
My stomach roils, the few bites of Nana’s lasagna I managed to eat churning and threatening to come back up, and the baby kicks, almost like it’s reacting to my blood pressure spikes.
I walk straight past the hallway bathroom and into Mom’s old room, closing the door behind me and beelining to the bed. If I don’t get away from everyone soon, I’m going to lose it. Keeping this secret, knowing what’s coming, it’s all too much.
Slowly lowering myself to the mattress, I release a heavy breath, but another damn contraction hits me, making me grit my teeth.
How did I get myself in this goddamn situation?
I squeeze my eyes closed against the answer screaming at me in my head.
Because you’re reckless…
Everyone at that table always accused me of being just that. Reckless with my life and my heart. Jumping before I look. Going all-in without knowing the stakes or consequences. And they’re right.
My own actions brought me to this moment, and this sweet baby is going to pay for it.
The pain passes, and I rest my hands protectively over my stomach. “I’m so sorry your life is starting out this way.”
I’m already a shitty mother and I haven’t even started yet.
Tears sting my eyes, and I blink them away as footsteps move down the hall toward my hiding spot.
Please don’t let it be Uncle Stone, or Isaac, or Kennedy, or Cass, or anyone else who’s going to be on me about the very subject I can’t talk about right now without completely losing my shit.
The doorknob turns, and the solid slab of wood pushes inward, revealing the one person who could actually be worse than any of them.
“Pope, what are you—”
He steps in and closes the door behind him with a deafening click of the latch securing. I hold my breath as he turns to face me, his jaw hard, determination in the set of his strong, lean shoulders. Frustration vibrates off him as he places himself directly between me and the only way out of the room.
Crossing his arms over his chest, all six-four of him towers over the bed—a gentle giant like his father. But right now, he’s using his size to ensure I can’t run from him again.
Pope locks his heated gaze on me. “You are not running from me this time, Teeny. You may shut everyone else out. But we’re going to talk, whether you like it or not.”
* * *
POPE
As soon asI call her “Teeny,” she knows she’s in trouble. I don’t even know why I said it when I don’t think I’ve used the nickname for her since we were in high school.
Likely not since that night.
It didn’t feel right afterward. After what I did, what I said. But in this moment, I need her to remember who I was to her before all the bullshit so she’ll talk to me.
A friend.
A confidant.
Someone she could always trust and run to instead of away from.
Because this can’t go on any longer.
I can’t bear it, and everyone else around that table is feeling the same way. When one of us is suffering, the entire Hawke clan seems to suffer with them, and her utter silence on this matter while we can see it destroying her isn’t healthy for her or that baby.
Watching her not eat at dinner, pushing her food around on her plate, had both the friend—or at least, former one—and doctor in me tensing up with concern. Even more so than I already was after her flight from the hospital the other day.
By this point in her pregnancy, she should be over any bouts with morning sickness and her appetite should be back, if not even greater, than it was before—yet she’s barely gained any weight and was hardly showing until almost the end of her second trimester.
Whatever she’s hiding and holding back is literally eating her alive.
And I can’t watch it anymore.
She shifts nervously on the bed, her hands over her belly, clearly uneasy with my arrival and pronouncement. The blue eyes she inherited from her mother plead with me, and she shakes her head, sending dark strands floating around her face. “Please, Pope, I don’t want to do this. I can’t talk about—”
A slight sob cuts off her words, and her pain permeates the air so heavily I can feel it with each breath I take, like acid burning through my lungs.
I take a step toward her, then kneel, putting me at eye level with the tiny woman who holds so much power over me even after all this time. Seeing her like this—lost, hurt, terrified—claws at something deep in my chest that I’ve pushed down for so long. Trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist anymore. Trying to pretend it never did. To protect myself because if I acknowledged it, it would drive me utterly mad.
Time hasn’t changed anything, though.
She’s still the only woman who ever held my heart and the one who is still breaking it. With her vulnerability. With her desperate plea for the wrong fucking thing. This isn’t when she should be shutting down and pulling away. She should be reaching out to the lifeline I’m throwing her, grasping it, and clinging to it so she isn’t lost, floating out in the abyss she’s been living in by trying to keep this secret.
“Then you’re going to listen, Al. Something is wrong. Everyone can see it. Kennedy told me you had a conversation with Uncle Stone, and he told you we need to know what’s going on so we can help and be prepared for whatever’s coming. The same way we always do with these hurricanes. But you keep pushing everyone away. Even Jude…”
A tear falls from the corner of her eye, and I force myself not to reach out and brush it away. My fingers itch to do just that. To touch her again. To comfort her. To be that person for her.
Allie swipes at her cheeks, leaving wet streaks across her pale skin. Her body trembles, but she doesn’t respond. She merely keeps staring at me like she’s searching for something in my gaze but isn’t finding it.
“You have to let us help you, Al.”
She stiffens, her pretty pink lips falling open slightly. “Help me? Don’t pretend you all of a sudden care, Pope. This savior complex might serve you well at the hospital, but don’t turn it toward me to ease your guilt over what you did to me.”
Each word she throws at me hits like the tip of a poisoned arrow designed to tear straight through my chest and directly to my heart.
That’s what she thinks.
I see the truth as she believes it to be darkening her eyes. And I can’t let her go on with such a tremendously huge misconception about me or why I’m in here with her.
It has nothing to do with being a doctor with a “savior complex,” nor the fact that we were raised together and are basically family.
Shifting closer, I reach out and grasp her chin, tilting it to force her to hold my gaze. Heat radiates from where I touch her, into my hand, up my arm, and through me, warming me in a way no one else can. “I always cared, Allie. Too much.”
Before I can talk myself out of it, I do what comes so naturally, what I used to do without even thinking about it. I lean in and brush my lips over hers.
A fleeting whisper of a touch.
Barely a kiss.
But the instant our mouths connect, that same crackle of energy that did me in where Alessandra McCabe is concerned so long ago hits me like a freight train, sizzling through my body and going directly to the places it shouldn’t.
Where it can’t.
After initially leaning into the kiss, Allie jerks back like she felt it, too, her eyes wide, tears brimming and threatening to spill over again. Her gaze dips to my lips, like she’s debating whether she wants to do that again or smack me there. Then her small hand comes to my chest, and she pushes, urging me to back away.
I’ve always given Allie what she needed—even when she didn’t realize it—so I rise to my feet and retreat a step, letting her have her personal space.
With one hand pressed to the mattress to give her leverage, she pushes herself to her feet. Leveling her icy gaze at me, she straightens her shoulders that don’t even come up to the middle of my chest, gathering her courage for whatever she’s about to do.
Staring down at her now, she looks so small, so fragile.
But looks can be deceiving.
Alessandra McCabe isn’t a porcelain doll. She’s one of those Russian nesting things—beautiful for sure, but with multiple strong layers you have to fight through to get to the core of who she is.
I was there once…and I hurt her more than anyone else probably has in her entire life. Now, I’m paying the price for that.
The eyes that once looked at me with such affection now glare at me with a fiery hatred. “You say you care, Pope, but you didn’t act like it then. Don’t try to start now.”
She brushes past me, leaving me standing in Storm’s old bedroom, dazed and pissed in a way I haven’t been in a long time.
Not because of her reaction to the kiss.
I shouldn’t have done that.
But because she didn’t tell me anything.
I came in here for answers. To help her. And all I managed to do was send her running away from me again.
Footsteps make me turn toward the hallway, hope that it could be Alessandra returning blooming in my chest, but instead, Bishop appears in the open doorway, dark whiskey eyes wide when they find me.
“Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking for you.” She motions over her shoulder as she leans against the jamb, her long braids falling past her shoulders, down for once instead of twisted up into the bun she usually keeps them in. “Nana is putting out the tiramisu, and Dad and I made gizzada this morning.”
Normally, the mere mention of my favorite Jamaican dessert would send me running for the table, but I can’t think about eating right now, not after what went down with Allie.
I scrub my hands across my face. “I’ll…be there in a minute.”
Bishop narrows her eyes on me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
My answer comes a little too quickly to be believable, and leave it to big sis to pick up on it immediately.
She takes a step into the room, determination written all over her face. It’s the same look she wears before she gets into the ring to destroy an opponent, so I never want it directed at me. “Spill, or I’ll take you down and put you in an arm bar until you break.”
Fucking hell.
I turn away from her, pacing over to the window to stare out at the darkening sky and light rain already being brought in by the coming storm. “I just tried to get Allie to come clean with me about whatever is going on with her.”
“Aaaaah.” She snorts. “Well, that’s a lost cause. You shouldn’t have wasted your time. She sat with me for a bit last week while I was getting my braids done, brought me coffee a couple times and some snacks from The Grind, and yet, somehow, she managed to dodge every question I asked about that baby’s father and why she’s been so cagey about him.” She tsks. “That girl plays a mean defense. It’s too bad Atlas and I can’t convince her to step into the ring. She’d be a natural.”
Turning back to her, I grin. “She certainly knows how to throw a jab, too.”
Bishop smirks. “And I’m sure you did absolutely nothing to justify her ire, right, baby bro?”
One of her dark brows rises, and I stare her down, trying to decipher if she really knows anything about the past Al and I don’t talk about or if she’s fishing.
Thankfully, I don’t have to answer.
Mom appears in the doorway and props her hands on her hips. “There you two are! You’re missing dessert. Alessandra already left because she was tired, but everyone else is still here. We’re thinking maybe a Scrabble tournament.”
I point at Bishop. “Watch me take you down.” I amble toward the door, intentionally bumping my shoulder against hers. “You may have gotten all the brawn, but I got the brains.”
She scowls at me and punches my bicep hard enough to make it sting. “Shut up.”
Grinning, I wrap my arm around her shoulder and maneuver us toward the door, where Mom watches with a careful eye to ensure we’re joking around and not actually fighting.
But Bishop knows I’m just messing with her.
We both understand how easily our roles could have been reversed.
Everyone always expected me to go into the “family business” and work for Dad, organizing all the security for the various Hawke Enterprises businesses, and for Brainiac Bishop, with her perfect SAT score, to go the lawyer or doctor route. But she always leaned toward more physical pursuits, wanting to spend time with Dad and the rest of the guys at the gym or setting up new surveillance equipment. Strapping a gun on my hip and using my size and strength as a weapon was never my calling.
I knew it from a young age, watching Aunt Nora at the free clinic Hawke Enterprises hosts once a month. Treating ill patients. Patching up wounds. Giving them the care they couldn’t get anywhere else.
Thatwas what I was meant to do.
Helping people.
Saving them.
But they have to want it.
And right now, it seems Allie doesn’t.
Bishop is right…I was wasting my breath to even try.