Chapter 36
HOLLIE
“Mom?” Knocking softly, I walk into my parents’ home to the mouthwatering scents of apple pie and cinnamon.
“In the kitchen!” Mom calls.
Quickly shrugging off my coat, I glance back outside where poor Toto is forced to wait in the car with another guard thanks to my mom’s insistence that she didn’t want extra people in her home. I’ll bring them some hot chocolate once I’ve tried to persuade my mom to let them come in.
Rubbing my hands together against the cold that seeped in through my gloves, I enter the kitchen with a smile.
“If you’re here to tell me you can’t make dinner tomorrow, then you just turn around and walk right back out.” Mom stands over the stove, staring intently down at the compote she’s cautiously stirring with a wooden spoon.
“Ironically, that is what I want to talk to you about.”
“Oh, Hollie.” She sighs as if my presence exasperates her.
“Can’t you ever arrive with good news? Maybe some excitement to spend Christmas with your family?
You didn’t invite us to your wedding, you missed Thanksgiving, you were late to the friends and family party last weekend. Can’t you give me one thing?”
Frustration buds in the back of my mind while I lean on the island counter and watch her back. “Actually, it’s my future I want to talk about. I have an interview tomorrow.”
“Let me guess, it clashes with our dinner.”
“Yes.”
“Who interviews on Christmas Eve?”
“Do you remember at lunch on Tuesday, I was talking about what I wanted out of my work?”
“Before you left me there?”
My gut tightens. I had left, but given that it was to sneak away to my doctor, it was a worthy trip. “I told you I wasn’t feeling well, but yes.”
“Alright.” Mom sighs and turns toward me, removing the compote from the heat. “Tell me about it.”
“It’s for a private cruise liner that departs in February and won’t redock here until November. They’re looking to fill a spot on their orchestra and I’d kind of be perfect for it.”
“Ten months?” She halts her pouring of the compote over the fruit nestled into several pastry cases. “Hollie, you can’t be serious!”
“I am.”
“So you’re just going to leave me and your father? What about your new husband? What does he think about this?”
I know she doesn’t really care about what Maxim thinks. She’s just using it to pile on the guilt, but Maxim is the reason I’m considering turning it down.
Until that killer is caught, no one is safe.
On one hand, leaving the country might be the only way to stay safe, but I don’t want to give birth on a cruise so far away from real medical care and a hospital.
And I don’t want to leave Maxim. Enjoying our relationship hinges entirely on how he feels about me and how he’ll react to this baby, but even if he rejects me and his child, then I still don’t want to have a baby in open ocean.
Leaving New York is no longer my strongest desire, but if it comes to it, then I’ll go to L.A.
“Hollie?” Mom drags me from her thoughts. “What will your father say?”
I follow her gaze to the back garden where I see my father exit his shed, grab some wood, and hurry back inside to hide from the cold.
I can’t imagine what his reaction will be, but given how quietly he supports me, I hope he’ll be happy for me.
Maxim’s revelation that my father knows who he is was shocking, and I keep waiting for him to speak to me about it, but he hasn’t said a word.
I hope that means he trusts me and in turn, he’ll trust whatever I want to do for the future.
Never mind how they will both react when they find out I’m carrying their grandchild.
All the possibilities clash together in my mind and I groan softly.
Maybe I’ll go home tonight and everything I’m worried about will all be over. When I left the penthouse, Maxim was on his way to meet his father. After Vinnie’s appearance at the club, Maxim’s been working with his father to track the bastard down once and for all.
Despite Igor’s distaste for me, his protectiveness over his only remaining son gives me hope. A man like that who tried to kill me based on the possibility of hurting Maxim will surely stop at nothing now that Maxim’s being toyed with.
Until then, it’s a waiting game.
“Well?” Mom drags me from my thoughts again and in the time I’ve been thinking, she’s covered all the pies with freshly rolled dough. “Are you just going to sit there and hope I’ll forget what you’ve said?”
“No,” I sigh, straightening up in my seat to ease my back. “I’m just… I need to know you support me, Mom. No matter what I decide. I can’t stay here forever and having a decent, continuous income would be amazing.”
“You could get that at any job,” she replies bitterly. “Why one that takes you away from me?”
“Don’t you see how great an opportunity this could be for me? Imagine the contacts I’ll make in the music industry.”
“Is that what this is about?” The pies clatter as she shoves them into the oven. “You want to be famous?”
“Not that kind of famous. I like being freelance, but yeah, I’d like to play somewhere more substantial than a hotel lobby or a restaurant.”
“And for that, you need to miss dinner with your family. Again.”
“I wouldn’t be missing the whole thing. I’d just be late. I don’t want to pass this up, but I don’t want to upset you either. Please, Mom.”
“Why are you here?” She faces me suddenly, scrunching a tea towel between her hands.
“You’ve clearly already made up your mind so what’s the point of discussing it.
All my preparation for dinner is just useless, pointless!
What’s another ruined dinner, hmm?” She tosses the towel onto the counter and stomps out of the room.
I rise to follow her just as Dad stumbles in the door and hurriedly closes it against the cold.
“It’s barking out there,” he grumbles. “Hollie! What a surprise.”
“Hi, Dad.”
“What brings you here?” He peels off his gloves while stamping his snow-covered boots on the mat.
“I have a job interview tomorrow and thought telling Mom face-to-face would go better than over the phone.”
“Ah.” He nods knowingly. “You will miss dinner?”
“Only a part of it.”
“How did she take it?”
I motion to the empty kitchen. “She always acts like every Christmas is the last one we will ever have.”
Dad chuckles softly. “When you get to our age, you worry it will be. It starts with missed dinners, then a call once a week, and then suddenly, you haven’t seen your loved ones in a few years because everyone is just so busy. It’s not personal, Hollie. She’s just…”
“Moody?” I mutter.
“Your marriage scared her.”
“Scared her?” I lift my gaze to his as he peels himself out of his coat. “Why?”
“It was a huge life event and you didn’t include her. Now all she has is the holidays to make memories with you until you decide you’d rather make memories with your new family.”
“Oh, Dad. It’s not like that.”
“I know. And deep down, she knows it too. But she’s worried.”
Before I can reply, rapid knocking at the front door draws my attention so I slip from my stool and move past my dad. “If she were honest with me, then I could tell her that.”
“Your mother is anything but honest.” Dad chuckles, turning on the hot tap and shoving his cold hands underneath as the door knocks again. “Could you get that?”
“Mhm.” Trudging into the hall, I mull over his words. If she's really worried about missing out on other great life events, maybe it’s time to tell her I’m pregnant. If she’s the first to know, then it might soothe my absence tomorrow.
“Yep?” Opening the door, I expect to see Toto standing there shivering in the cold, eager for the bathroom so his dick doesn’t fall off.
It’s not Toto.
Vinnie’s beady, dark eyes glare down at me and it takes me a second too long to recognize him. Danger blares through my mind as our gazes lock and despite the sharp burst of panic in my mind, only one question makes it through clearly.
How?
I slam the door closed but instead of the satisfying clack of wood on wood, the door doesn’t close and Vinnie grunts in pain as his foot jams in the doorway.
“No!” I shove hard at the door again, but Vinnie throws his entire shoulder into the door and it bursts open, sending me stumbling back into the hallway.
My feel catches on the rug and I fall, hitting the ground hard.
I scramble up immediately but as I lunge away, his fist tangles in my hair and he yanks me backward.
“Not this time, bitch,” Vinnie snarls, jerking me so hard that my entire scalp burns and I lose my footing again. This time, I fall at his feet, landing awkwardly on my knees as his fist in my hair keeps my body raised like some kind of leash.
“Hollie, what’s— hey! What the fuck are you doing?”
“Dad, no!” The words don’t escape in time as Dad rushes toward us both, but Vinnie snatches the gun from his hip and swings his arm out like a whip.
His fist and the butt of the gun crash into Dad’s face, and he grunts, collapsing back into the side table.
He, the bowl of keys, and Mom’s ornaments all tumble to the floor.
“Dad!”
“Outside, I don’t have time for this!” Vinnie wrenches me backward and throws me out into the yard. Landing face-first in the snow, I have no time to get up before Vinnie’s on me again. He hauls me up by the scruff of the neck and the bloody sight before me turns my stomach immediately.
Toto’s car sits parked where I left it but the doors are open.
Two dead men paint red angels across the snow and Toto lies near the Christmas tree, silent and motionless.
Blood splatters the snow all around, as if someone had passed by with a hose, and as Vinnie drags me down the path, I can’t get a long enough glimpse to see if Toto’s even breathing.
“Stop,” I gasp. “Let me go, let me the fuck go!” I lunge forward, trying to knock Vinnie off balance with my sudden movement, but he’s ready for me and he drags me back with a growl.
He wrenches my head back painfully, and the barrel of the gun presses hard against the soft flesh under my chin.
“Walk,” he barks down at me. “Get in my fucking truck or I’ll walk back up that path and see how many bullets I need to put in your old man to stop him from following us, got it?”
Stale cigarette breath washes over me as he presents the ultimatum.
Before I can reply, he throws me forward with all his strength and I land on my hands and knees in the street.
My heart pounds, my head throbs, and the sight of the dead bodies littering the lawn draws a mouthful of bile up my throat.
I spew onto the snow-covered ground, which pisses Vinnie off more, but as he kicks out at my stomach, I scramble out of the way and climb to my feet with a gasp.
“Alright!” Tears threaten at the corner of my eyes. “Alright. I’ll come with you, just please… Please don’t hurt my family!”