by Marie James
Alex doesn’t want to stay in this house any more than I do. He wants to live in St. Louis where the foul-mouthed bird is, and he wants to go to a private school where he doesn’t have to worry about his safety. He wants his dad there every night. He wants family dinners and conversations with both parents after his games.
He wants a family.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes knowing I can give him those things, but it may be short-lived. Would it be better to have all of it now even if it’s for a little while before it’s all ripped away or to deny him that pain altogether?
I swipe the backs of my hands over my eyes when I hear the hard pound of Ignacio’s boots near the front door.
I stand to tell him that I’m willing to take the chance, but he has to promise me that no matter what happens between us, we have to protect Alex. He’s already been through too much as it is.
But Ignacio doesn’t look my way when he leaves the house. His face is filled with pain as he stares ahead, walking right past me without saying a word.
When the front door opens again and Alex walks out with a sad look, I know it’s already beginning. What I wanted to protect my son from is already happening.
“He’s going back to St. Louis,” Alex whispers, his arms circling my waist as we watch him drive off.
I press my lips to the top of his head and squeeze him a little tighter.
Chapter 33
Ignacio
“I think that’s what it’s going to take.”
Quinten looks over the top of his cup of coffee, steam billowing from the top. He takes a long sip, making my own mouth burn before answering. Calm and controlled. This man always thinks before he speaks, always mulls over many scenarios before voicing an opinion. That’s why he’s the best fixer, the man who comes in and cleans up messes after idiots fuck up. He doesn’t think in straight lines, his mind formulating options as well as their outcomes.
“I think you’re wrong.”
I glare at him. He may not have much experience with women and long-term commitments because and I quote—there’s too much risk with love. The probable outcome of staying together is very slim, and those that do end up hating each other—but the man is my best bet for advice right now.
“Okay,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “How do I make it right?”
“Going to her and telling her what she’s going to do sounds like something Wren suggested.” He takes another drink of coffee, alarmingly bright blue eyes pinning me in place.
“He used more colorful language than I did.”
He shakes his head. “Figures, but women don’t go for that macho, demanding shit in real life. You do that and you end up in jail. Ever been inside a jail in Texas?”
I raise an eyebrow in curiosity because although I haven’t, he’s making it sound like he sure as hell has.
He waves me off. “A story for a different day. Back to you. Do not, and I can’t stress that enough. Do not tell a woman who has been raising a son on her own, making every decision for her family, that she’s going to uproot her entire life and move to St. Louis because you think that’s what’s best for her.”
“But it is,” I argue.
“And that may be true, but she’s not going to go for it.”
“Because you know so much about women,” I grumble. “When was the last time you—”
“I know people, Torres, and you asked me over here for advice. I could easily be at the range right now.”
Taking a deep breath, I calm myself down. It’s human nature to ask for advice when really you just want confirmation that your idea on how to solve a problem is the best idea.
“Suggestions, then?”
“Talk to her.”
“I told her I loved her,” I confess. “She didn’t want to hear it.”
“Did you tell her during an argument? Did you yell it to get a point across or did you do it while cupping her face and looking lovingly into her eyes?”
I glare at him.
“Exactly. I said talk to her, not yell at her. Women don’t listen when we yell. They aren’t thinking about what you’re saying, they’re formulating their response.”
“Have you not been list—” I clamp my mouth closed. “I’ve tried to talk to her. She doesn’t listen.”
“Make her listen.”
“Which is why I suggested—”
“Never take Wren’s advice. I don’t know how he scored Whitney’s sexy ass, but it was a damn fluke. He’s lucky he didn’t end up with kidnapping charges himself. Did you know he put a bag over her head and carried her out of a damn hotel room? Do you know how many points in his plan could’ve landed him in trouble?”
“From my understanding she loved it.” I shrug.
“She’s definitely one of a kind.”
“Enough about him. I need help fixing my own problems.”
“She’s terrified you’re going to hurt her.”
“Comes up in every single conversation.”
“You hurt her in the past.”
“I was fucking horrible, man, but I did it to protect her.”
“Nonetheless, you hurt her. It’s just going to take time.”
“I’ll spend a lifetime, man. Every second of every day, but she makes it damn hard. She’s fucking adorable, like a little chihuahua, snarling and baring her teeth.”
“You could start by not thinking of her like a dog,” he mutters before draining his still piping-hot coffee. “I need to jet.”
“We didn’t solve shit. You’re supposed to solve shit.”
“These aren’t the types of messes I normally clean up,” he says, placing his empty cup in my kitchen sink. “Matters of the heart, man. There’s so much in play, it’s hard to determine an outcome, and even the outcome you get now may change in a month, a year, a decade. It’s a fucking gamble, and not one I’ll ever take.”
He gives me a quick salute and a you poor fucker smile before leaving.
He didn’t help a damn bit.
It’s an hour later and I’m buried in the very back of my closet clearing shit out when there’s a knock on my door. I take my time answering, certain that it’s one of the guys from work. I get no other visitors, and I’m sure Quinten went back to the office and gossiped about the shit going on in my life. Knowing Wren, he’s bugged my damn house and knew before Quinten even rode up on the elevator.
But when I pull my door open, it’s not a guy from work.
I should be ecstatic that Tinley and Alex are standing there, but my son is covered in bruises, his right eye swollen so badly I can’t see the white part of his eye.
“What the hell happened?” I snap, anger my first response to knowing someone hurt my child.
She hasn’t answered my call in the last three days, and that’s why I’ve been rushing around packing up my damn condo. I needed to get back to Texas. I knew she was ignoring me, and that pettiness was killing me. I wanted to speak with her and Alex, but she wasn’t allowing either.
I clear my throat.
“What happened?”
“Can we come in?” Tinley darts her eyes around me as if she expects me not to be alone, and I step out of the way immediately.
Does she really think I’d have someone here? Then I recall me telling her that I’d fuck her even if I did have someone else significant in my life, making me realize I acted like a dick more recently than I thought.
“Have a seat and explain.” I urge them toward the matching sofas in the living room. “I’m losing my sh—my mind right now.”
“Cedric,” Alex says the second he takes a seat. “When you left a couple days ago, he caught me walking to school.”
“You catch the bus in the mornings.”
“There’s a girl—”
“Mooommm,” Alex says with a roll of his good eye.
His neck is stiff when he tries to look at her, but he refocuses on me. “Cedric stopped me and wanted me to keep working for him.”
“Selling drugs
,” I clarify, because even though me saying it tells her that I knew it had happened in the past, I need her to hear all of it.
“Yeah. He wanted me to keep working for him, but I told him no.” He points to his face. “This is how he showed me he wasn’t happy about my decision.”
I’ll kill him. I’ll round up all the guys, and I’ll fucking murder him.
“And you didn’t think I needed to know about this?”
Tinley sighs, looking more exhausted than I’ve ever seen her, and that’s saying a lot because losing her mother nearly took everything she had.
“I had to get out of there. Alex came home looking like this, and I freaked. We packed our bags and left. My cell phone is somewhere in the house.”
“We took the bus. It took two days to get here,” Alex adds.
“The bus? Tinley, I bought you a car.”
“He slashed the tires.”
I look at Tinley to confirm.
“I don’t know if it was Cedric but three of the tires on the car were slashed while I was at the grocery store. I didn’t have the money to get it towed much less pay for new tires. It’s still sitting in the lot or it’s been towed. I don’t know.”
“Have you taken him to the hospital to be examined?”
Her eyes flash with hurt, and I know it came out as an accusation, can see in her eyes that she thinks I’m judging her.
“Let’s go. You got yourselves to safety first, and that’s important. Now let’s go make sure everything else is okay.”
“I’m fine,” Alex grumbles. “It’s been days.”
“Did you pack your medical license and bring it with you?” I ask, a small smile on my face because I need to lighten up the situation.
Alex huffs as I look around.
“Where are your bags?”
“Down in the Uber. The guy was really nice and said he’d wait for us in case you weren’t home.”
I tilt my head at Tinley’s explanation. The Uber drivers around here aren’t that nice. They move on to the next assignment. My Spidey senses are tingling as I guide them out of my condo. Instead of going to the garage where my truck is parked, we head to the front of the building where they say the Uber is parked. It would be shitty luck that they escape Houston only to have all of their shit stolen.
But their belongings are safe because when we step outside, I find Wren, smiling like a damn Cheshire cat in his car at the curb.
“This motherfu—” I yank open the passenger door. “Take us to the hospital, you dick.”
Chapter 34
Tinley
“I need my damn truck up here also,” Ignacio snaps at the man who clearly isn’t an Uber driver. “And don’t think for a second that we aren’t going to talk about this.”
The guy chuckles but doesn’t say anything as we all pile out of his car and head into the hospital.
Coming here was hard, finding out things were much worse with my son were harder.
I knew he had trouble at school. I knew he sometimes hung out with kids that he’d get into trouble with. I had no idea he had been selling drugs before Ignacio came to town. I want to hate the man for not telling me the second he found out, but Alex’s assurance that he stopped that very same day helps ease a little of that anger.
When Alex came home bloody and beaten, I knew where I had to go. I knew he would help us, and I’d shoulder all the judgment if it meant that my child was safe.
Even on the two-day bus ride, Missouri didn’t seem far enough away, but I calmed some with each passing mile.
Ignacio, ever the leader, handles check-in at the front desk, but instead of sitting beside us while we wait, he paces, his long legs striding back and forth across the room. His handsome face is set in a scowl and I wonder if some of his anger is directed at me or if he’s solely focused on the man who did this to our child. He’s probably got room for both.
With each pass, I hold my breath, waiting for him to voice his opinions on my parenting. It can’t be any worse than how I already feel about myself, but he never opens his mouth, and when he does look over in this direction, he focuses on Alex.
I knew what I was risking coming to him. I know this could be more ammunition to use against me, but I also know that I’ll do anything to keep Alex safe. I haven’t been able to do that, but I know his father can.
The visit to the ER is the shortest, according to the clock, I’ve ever had. Although it feels like days, we spend less than two hours at the hospital, coming out to find Ignacio’s truck in the parking lot.
We walk to it as if he parked it there himself even though he never left our sight. He stood to the side while Alex was evaluated, nodding and listening to the doctor give the good news that although it looks bad, the bruising is already starting to turn yellow on the edge. He has a few bruised ribs, and that’s the only thing of significance. I don’t think about the bill from the X-rays and the scans. I’ll get to them eventually. Or maybe never. They don’t throw people in jail for medical bills, do they?
“Both?” I hear Ignacio ask, making me realize I’m lost in my own head again, or maybe I’m just dead on my feet.
There’s not really any form of good sleep to get on a bus, and I feel like I haven’t slept in days.
“If you don’t mind,” Alex says from the back before yawning himself.
I watch as Ignacio looks at his son in the rearview mirror, and the love I see there makes me want to cry.
“Why don’t we stop for a burger and fries, and if you’re still hungry, we can order pizza to the condo?” he compromises.
Alex readily agrees. “Pizza is amazing when it’s fresh.”
Ig chuckles. “You’d probably eat week-old pizza from the trash. I’ve seen how much you eat. Didn’t I catch you putting ketchup on your mac and cheese a couple weeks ago? Don’t start acting all picky now.”
They both laugh, and I suddenly feel like an outsider.
The stop for food is quick, Ignacio ordering extra even though I told him I wasn’t hungry, and then we’re back at his place. Alex knew the address. He had so much information written down on his dad I was shocked. Not only did Ig give him money in case he needed it, but he also gave him numbers and addresses for every guy on his team in case he called and couldn’t reach him. He made himself available at all times, giving Alex backups so he never felt abandoned. I don’t know if Ig told him to keep that information from me, but he never shared it until a couple of days ago.
“Don’t make a mess,” I tell Alex as he heads to the living room with a bag full of food.
“Are you going to eat?”
“Can I shower first?” I look away from Ignacio. My mind is so full of everything, I don’t know why I asked that. I came for his help, but I’m making it sound like I expect him to put us up or something. “I mean. Shit—”
I drop my head, but he doesn’t let it hang long before a crooked finger urges it back up.
“Come on.”
I follow him through the condo, noticing the boxes everywhere but not opening my mouth about them.
“I have two rooms. You can stay in here.”
The lights, motion-activated, come on when he walks into what is clearly the master.
“I’m not taking over your room.”
“Will you ever stop arguing with me?” When he turns to face me, there’s a small smile playing on his lips, and either I’m too tired to see it or it’s because it’s not there, but I don’t see an ounce of judgment or anger on his handsome face.
“Probably not,” I answer honestly, breathing him in when he gets close enough to press his lips to my forehead.
“Take your time.”
I do take my time in his shower, but not because I need to relax. It takes forever for the tears I’ve held back for the last couple of days to subside. I didn’t want to cry in front of Alex. I didn’t want him to think this entire situation is his fault, because it’s not.
When I climb out of the oversized shower, I find the bag
I packed in a rush right outside the bathroom door. My trek back to the living room is silent, and Ignacio’s and Alex’s voices drifting toward me makes me pause.
“I understand,” Alex says softly.
“Because some bad choices have lifelong consequences.”
I grind my teeth. Is he really in there hinting that me getting pregnant at an early age was a bad choice and that Alex is a lifelong consequence?
“You’re lucky you didn’t end up hurt even more,” Ig continues, and my heart slows a little. “Now, it’s my fault for not making it more clear to Cedric that you were out. I hate that you were hurt because of me.”
“I wasn’t, Dad,” Alex says on a sigh. “It was my choice to sell. I put myself in that situation and no one else. I wanted to help. I could see Mom struggling. I didn’t want to ask for things. All the guys made it seem so easy. I just wanted to make things easier for her.”
Oh God, the guilt. My eyes start to burn again.
“It’s all over now,” Ignacio assures him.
“Do we get to stay here with you?”
A long silence fills the air, and I hold my breath to wait for his response, expecting him to say that Alex is welcome, but I can’t stay.
“I want you here, so bad.” And here comes the rest. “But I can’t stop your mom from taking you away if that’s what she wants. I’d never ask you to choose. I’ll go where you guys go, though. That I do promise.”
“I want to be here.” My son lowers his voice, so I can barely hear him. “But I’d never leave her. She needs me. I have to protect her.”
I spin around and head back into the bedroom Ignacio offered to me. I almost don’t get the door closed before I’m overtaken with sobs.
Chapter 35
Ignacio
You don’t understand just how uncomfortable your own furniture is until you spend a night on it waiting for the woman you love most in the world to come out of your room and ask you to join her in bed.
That wait for me took all night, as in Tinley never opened her door back up after her shower. She didn’t eat or come out to tell Alex goodnight. I imagine she passed out, exhausted from the trauma of Alex being hurt and the long trip to get here.
