Chapter Forty-Seven
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ANGEL
Present Day
“No!” I stumble off the lounge chair, backing up as far as I can go until there’s no place left. There’s just a wall, and even then, I still crash into it, my spine scraping against the unforgiving stone. I want to crawl inside it. I want it to make me bleed.
Pennies. Pennies. Everywhere.
“Angel…” Dominic takes a step toward me then stops, exhaling a hard breath. “ Alexandra . It’s true. I was there. It’s me. It’s been me all along. I think part of you has always known that. You’ve felt it. You’ve said it for Christ’s sake. How safe you feel with me. How you can’t explain it, but it feels like we were meant to be.”
“Lies!” I scream. My head is loud. I can’t make it be quiet, and it hurts. Dominic takes another step, and I push harder into the wall, but it just won’t let me in. “All lies!”
His hands grab me. “I watched you pull that trigger, rook.”
“No!” I fight against him, but the harder I fight the tighter he holds. “It makes no sense! No sense! Why would I kill my own mother to save you? Why, Dominic? Why? Why? Why?”
“I don’t know.” His voice sounds all choppy and rough. “God, I wish I did because that question has haunted me for fifteen years.”
I shake my head. Harder. Harder. Harder, until my ears hit the wall and my face feels wet. No. My face can’t be wet. Tears are a tool not a weakness .
“You’ll stop this crying right now, Alexandra,” I scold myself, words from the past filtering through my ears.
“Baby, you’ve got to stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“We all pay prices in life, darling. Now smile pretty and be quiet. Pretty and quiet. Always pretty and quiet.” I slip my finger between us and place it over my lips. “Shhh.”
“Stop it!” he yells, squeezing my face between his hands. “Look at me! See me !”
The whispers in my ear stop, and I see those eyes. Those beautiful, frozen eyes stare back at me. “Dominic…” I collapse against him. I’m so tired, and the static is so loud. My head feels like a balloon ready to pop. “It was you. You saved me.”
He lets out a long exhale and wraps his arms around me. “Yeah, I did.”
“Why?”
“I knew whoever wanted your family dead wouldn’t let you live if I walked away. So, I had to get you out of there.”
“Where did we go?” I mumble against his chest. He’s so warm. I want to stay here forever.
“You know, rook,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “You’ve always known.”
I think for a minute. I think about my first memory. I was eight years old and living in that group home. I asked where I was. The man sucked on his cigarette and said…
“Phoenix,” I whisper, and Dominic’s chin brushes against the top of my head in acknowledgment. “You took me to a group home?”
It takes him a few minutes to answer. “No,” he says, cursing low under his breath. “I took you to my aunt.”
His admission feels like a bomb. More lies. More truth. I don’t know what’s real anymore. Rearing back, I break our embrace. “You have an aunt?”
He palms the back of his neck. “Mom cut ties long before I came along. She’s drunk more than she is sober, but I had no other choice. I offered her all the money I’d saved up from working for Luciano, which was enough to buy her silence.”
My jaw drops. “You just left me there? With a neglectful drunk?”
“No.” He scowls like he’s actually offended. “I told her to give me a few weeks and I’d be back for you when I figured out a more permanent arrangement.” Dominic’s hand drops from his neck, his eyes glazed with frustration. “What was I supposed to do? Your face was splashed across every television screen from here to China.”
“So, what happened?”
“Within a week you were gone. She said you ran away in the middle of the night. I spent months driving back and forth from LA looking for you, but you just disappeared.”
My stomach twists again. At eight years old, I just walked away and wandered the streets of Phoenix, Arizona? How the hell did I end up at a group home? “I don’t remember that. Why can I only remember pieces?”
“Because what you went through was traumatic.” He cautiously cups my chin. “You blocked it out for a reason, rook. Your mind protected you. It picked out what it wanted and locked it away. Believe me, some things should be left in the dark.”
“Then who is Angel Smith? Where did she come from?”
For the first time since he destroyed my world, Dominic smiles, his thumb tracing my cheek. “What did you say after I told you I was the Angel of Death? Come on, you know this.”
I think hard, spinning back through his words like a Roulette wheel, until the little white ball lands in the black slot and I look up at him. “Will you make me an angel, too, so I can fly away?”
He nods. “I didn’t have to make you an angel, Alexandra. You made yourself one.”
He won’t leave me alone. No one will leave me alone.
Dominic, Hilda, and the whole staff hover like vultures ready to shove their greedy little beaks into my flesh and destroy what’s left of me.
Me.
Angel Smith.
I’m still in here, desperately hanging on by the tips of my fingers—dangling over that cliff screaming for help that no one hears. But she hears me.
Her.
Alexandra Romanov.
She’s in here, as well, forcing her way inside my head with her memories and her voices. She steps on my fingers and smiles down at me. She’ll win.
I’ll fight until I fall.
For now, my wardens have left me in peace to wander the one place I want to be.
The east wing .
Baby-proofed, of course. There’s no broken mirror, no sharp objects, no clothing, no loose ties. Even the wreath has been taken down and the window boarded up. If the whole situation wasn’t so fucked up, it’d be comical.
I walk the perimeter of the room for what has to be the twentieth time. My mind won’t let me remember, but I stop every time in the same spot in front of the door. I know that’s where she died. Where she took her last breath in a pool of her own blood.
Blood that I drew. A life that I took.
I wonder what the floor looked like back then. I squat down and run my hand along the new, pristine marble. I wonder if there are remnants of my sins buried underneath. Standing, I let out a low chuckle.
Of course, there are. The past can’t stay hidden forever. Sooner or later, it demands to be heard.
I walk again, tracing my same path, trying to remember how to fix this. How to fix me. Because Angel Smith may crack but she does not break.
I come to a dead stop.
Angel Smith may crack but she does not break.
Violet says that. Violet’s my glue. She always puts me back together and fixes me.
Digging into the front pocket of my hoodie, I pull out my cell phone and dial her number. My cheeks feel funny, and I realize it’s because I’m smiling. I’m smiling. It’s been so long since I’ve smiled, I think my face forgot how to do it.
Violet will answer, and Violet will remember.
It doesn’t ring. A computer voice tells me the number has been disconnected. That can’t be right, so, I dial again and get the same voice. Walking faster, I call again, and for the third time get the same message.
“No!” I yell into the mouthpiece. “It is not disconnected. You’re wrong! ”
Look under the bed. Remember.
“Shut up, Alexandra!” I yell, my phone crashing onto the floor as I cover my ears. “This is my time. Go back in the mirror.”
As always, part of our mind may belong to me, but this body is hers. It has always been hers, and she moves it to the mattress despite my protests. She drops me to my knees against my will. She digs my hand underneath the mattress as I beg her not to.
And wrapping my hand around the long blade, she pulls it out and holds it up so the part of our brain that’s mine can see what the part that’s hers has known all along.
This number has been disconnected.