Chapter 13 #4
That is never how I want Cora to feel about me.
I take my time washing her hair. I reach for the shampoo and give her hair a deep lathering.
Rinse. Repeat until all the leaves, needles and dirt wash away.
Her moans and sighs tell me I’m doing something right.
After rinsing the shampoo, I palm the conditioner and work it in one section at a time.
It makes me come alive inside to see her relax into my arms and trust me with her body.
I don’t care what it takes, but I will spend the rest of my life making sure she knows she can trust me with her heart and soul, too.
As the conditioner sets, she drops her head to my shoulder. Holding her, I follow the thin red line of a scratch. My jaw tightens. She got this running from me. Running because she believed I was the man her ex taught her to fear. It is an extra level of bitterness in my gut to know he’s my son.
After I help her rinse the conditioner, I do the same for myself.
After we are both rinsed, I reach out and grab a towel for her and one for me.
She is quiet when we dress. Not her usual quiet where she’s contemplating something she’s read or is wanting to ask me something.
After drying her hair, she pulls on a fresh shirt. This one a deep purple from my side of the closet. She goes for panties next, but leaves off the bra. I love that she’s comfortable in what is her home, but the lingering doubt I feel coming off her has me pulling her to me.
I tip her chin up. “What is it, Cora? What has stolen the light from your eyes?”
“I have something I have to tell you and it’s going to make you pretty mad I think.”
She steps out of the bedroom and comes back a few seconds later holding a piece of paper.
"I need you to forgive me before I give you this."
Her voice is steady, but the shake in her fingers has me worried. Her chin is lifted but I see fear in her eyes again.
I step up to her. “What did we just talk about, Cora?”
“Trust.”
“Right. You never have anything to fear either. Not with me.”
“It’s more the fact that what I am about to share with you will hurt you and I hate to do it.”
She holds the paper toward me.
“But there’s no way around it. I’m truly sorry.”
She eases her weight to the edge of the bed and I pull a chair up to face her.
“What is it?”
She motions to the paper. "The truth about what your son is up to is on that paper.”
“And you’ve had this the whole time you’ve been here?”
She grows pensive for a moment before answering. “In all honesty, yes and no. Let me start at the beginning. The last customer who came into my shop was the man who was shot in the alley.”
“Right.”
“He was nervous, kept checking the windows like his wife was gonna burst through my door and beat him into a pulp any second. Anyway, he asked for a back door and I told him no problem. He threw some money on the counter before dashing out and I think that is when he dropped that.”
She looks at the paper in my hand again before coming to rest on mine. "I picked it up and followed him out, thinking he might need it.”
“That’s how you found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
She nods. “I shoved that paper in my boot and ran for my life. I didn’t have the guts to read it until yesterday. I felt it had bad juju and I was right."
Iopen it. My name at the top in bold ink, handwritten. Below it, dates. Locations. Cargo manifests. Shipping routes through Eastern European ports, routes I control, routes only a handful of people can access. Payment amounts large enough to be operational. Notes in the margins, cramped script.
At the bottom. One name.
Nikolai Volkov.
I turn the paper over. Block letters, a different hand: You have a mole. Your son has your routes. Found this on a dead man at a warehouse Nikolai uses. Be careful.
My thumb runs across the words. I turn the ring over and over as I read the words again.
My jaw locks shut. The weight of this settles just below my sternum.
I finally have the proof I need. I know my brothers will back me up, but we need more men on our side.
And this will get them to move. Namely the men of Genesis.
If Nikolai will move in on our territory, what is stopping him from doing the same to them?
This paper will show them it is in their best interest to help us take out the threat.
I never wanted to think that about my own flesh and blood, but I see no other way that won’t cost lives.
"You should have told me sooner."
"I know."
"I would have listened."
"I know that too." She rises off the bed and steps closer. She falls to her knees in front of me and I lift her chin so our gazes meet. "The second I realized it was about your son, I dreaded telling you. No one wants to deliver that kind of news to a parent."
"I know who my son is, Cora." I brush her hair from her face and trace the tips of my fingers over the delicate line of her jaw.
She flinches at my tone and I reach for her hand.
"That is not anger at you. It’s at myself for not doing everything I needed to make sure he was not pulled into my lifestyle and poisoned."
Her fingers close around mine and I look at her for a long moment. Morning light filters through the compound in pale stripes. “Never at you,” I swear to her. I pull her against my chest and hold her to me.
Letting go requires acknowledging my failure in being a father.
This moment is over twenty years in the making and it is my own fault.
I can’t see a day where I will ever have the strength to tell her my sins.
But I know one day I will have to pull the curtain back and show her the real me.
The bastard son of a murderer. The father of a killer. A sinner at heart.
I have no right to ask her to love me when I despise the man I am to the core.