by Bethany-Kris
She had been hoping for a quick sale, really. The house was priced reasonably on the market, and it was in good shape. Not too old, all things considered. She’d done a hell of a lot of upgrades since she moved in, and brought it up to spec.
It should have sold quickly.
So far, there’d not been an offer.
The realtor came around the corner of the hallway, exiting from the kitchen. In his tailored suit with not a speck of dirt to be seen, and his hair slicked back, Haven thought the man seemed more suited to be sitting behind a desk somewhere.
She didn’t assume it, though.
Not anymore.
Andino had taught her not to assume anything about anyone that she crossed paths with in her lifetime. Nothing good came from underestimating who or what someone was underneath their nice clothes, and charming smile.
All that meant was you wouldn’t even see them coming for your heart, and you’d miss it entirely when they broke it to pieces except when you felt it.
And God knew …
God knew Haven felt it all over now.
Funny how that worked.
That lesson she learned … it’d been simple. One person could change your life, and not necessarily for the better. It only took one single soul to rip away yours, and keep it forever. One moment in time could put you on the same path as someone else, and there you would be, entirely ruined.
You didn’t get to choose.
Love didn’t work that way.
This was not the lesson Haven wanted to learn.
Not yet, anyway.
“You’re still firm on the price?” the man asked.
Haven folded her arms over her chest. “Any less, and I’ll be losing out. I’m not doing that.”
“It’ll sell quicker if you drop it even ten grand.”
No, she needed the money.
She wasn’t telling him that, though.
“The market is tough right now on starter homes, which you know—”
“Is basically what this is, yeah,” Haven said. “I know, but that’s my bottom line. It’s the number I want, give or take a thousand.”
The realtor nodded. “How’s your mom, by the way?”
Haven hid the way the frown threatened to dance over her lips. She was doing pretty good with this whole holding herself together thing, even if the only thing she wanted to do was hide away from the rest of the world.
She was too strong for that shit.
Nothing was taking her down now.
“Good—started her first round of chemo last week,” Haven said.
“Praying for her.”
“Thanks.”
She wished—fuck, she wished so badly—that her parents would have told her the truth about her mother’s health when she had come to visit. Instead, they’d simply chosen to focus on the fact that Haven was there, and the time they spent together. They didn’t think to mention to her at all that her mother had just gotten news only a few days before her arrival that the cancer had come back, and it was more aggressive than ever.
They didn’t want Haven to move to Florida to help. They wanted her to keep living her life, and handling her own business. It’s your life, and your time, they kept telling her. She didn’t care about any of that. She had years yet to go; her mom might only have a few months if the chemo didn’t work.
Nothing here mattered to Haven anymore. All it took was a single man to upend her entire fucking life, and remind her that she wasn’t good enough for him to choose her … and that told her all she needed to know, frankly.
She didn’t need to be here at all.
She didn’t care if she was.
Haven walked the realtor to the front door to say goodbye. The man plucked up a toy from the floor—a doll Haven must have missed in her effort to pick up things that had fallen to the wayside while she packed. It was one of those dolls that Maria loved the most with the big heads, funny colored hair, and huge eyes.
“You have a niece, or something?” the man asked. “I didn’t think you had kids.”
“I don’t,” Haven replied, taking the doll from the man. “It was my roommate’s daughter’s toy. She left it behind.”
Like everything else in her life now, something else was gone, too.
Valeria and Maria.
Haven remembered the night she’d come home vividly, and her friend was gone. No note, no nothing. Valeria had taken only a few things, and left almost everything behind. Haven tried calling her friend’s phone, but got no response.
Valeria had said once she might go, and she wouldn’t say a thing. Haven accepted that was what happened because maybe Val felt it was time to move on, or she was scared that her past was going to catch up to her again.
Who knew?
Haven didn’t.
Nobody thought to tell her.
Nobody thought to worry about her.
This was her fucking life now.
Jackson pushed off his seat on the bar the moment Haven came into the club for the meeting. She could already see how the girls who danced and served or worked behind the bar glanced her way with a wary stare—unsure of what was happening.
That was her fault, she supposed.
Haven hadn’t really told them anything.
Maybe she hadn’t been ready to.
And then, the realtor showed up at the club a couple of hours before opening a few days earlier, took pictures of the inside and outside, and slapped the FOR SALE sign on the front. There was no hiding what was going to happen. Her employees had questions, and Haven was here to try and answer them as best she could.
Without getting too personal.
Hopefully.
Nothing was ever that simple.
“Sorry I’m late,” Haven said, walking across the floor. “Traffic was horrible.”
Jackson nodded, and took the coat and purse Haven handed over before sitting the items on the bar top. “Everybody is here, and waiting. So, no worries.”
Yeah.
No worries.
That was a fucking joke.
Haven didn’t expect that her girls were going to be happy about the things she had to say, but she was prepared for their anger. That was something. Something was better than nothing at all.
Taking a seat on one of the barstools, Haven turned to face the waiting girls who had scattered themselves in various seats around the club. She didn’t even bother to wait for anyone to ask her questions, she simply started talking.
Better to get it all out, then to try and explain while people asked questions, she supposed.
“As you may have noticed—or heard, if you weren’t working that night—there was a realtor who came in to take pictures of the club, and I am sure many of you have noticed the sign out front. The club was put on the market the day after the realtor came here.”
One of the girls opened her mouth to speak, but Haven lifted a hand to quiet her, saying, “Let me finish, please. Selling Safe Haven is the very last thing I ever wanted to do—this club is where I grew up, even if it did look a little bit different then than how it does now. Point is, I love this place, and it’s as much my home as it is yours in ways. But that’s the thing about life, right. We don’t always get what we want, and sometimes, things are just out of our control.”
Haven glanced down at her hands, but kept speaking. “I am not selling the club because it’s failing. I am not selling it because I’m tired, or because I don’t want it anymore. I am selling it because I have other important responsibilities to take care of, and I won’t be here anymore to handle this business. And I don’t want to manage it from afar—I don’t want to hope that whoever I let manage the club doesn’t run it to the ground with me still attached to it, regardless of how far away I am while it happens.
“My mother is sick,” Haven said, refusing to go into more details in that regard, “and so, I need to be where I am needed. I know you may feel like I am leaving you all hanging, or that I don’t care about what happens to you a
fter I leave, but that’s not the case. The details of the sale will be clear to the buyer—the club is to remain as it is, with the same name, and the same business. You will all still have employment as long as you continue to act like the employees I hired. Jackson will remain here, too, because this is what he loves doing. But beyond that, there is nothing more I can do. And I am sorry. Any questions?”
Haven waited a minute, and then two. The girls were quiet, but she expected that. She figured they were trying to absorb the information she gave them, and how they wanted to deal with it, or respond.
They were all adults.
Sure, this felt like a little family at times. She looked out for the girls, just like the security, and even Jackson. They looked out for her, too. This club was her happy place, in a way. And she hated to give it up … but what choice did she have?
For her mom, she needed to go.
For herself, she needed time.
“I hope your mom gets well soon,” one of the girls finally said.
Haven found the one in question, and smiled. “Yeah, me, too.”
Slowly, the same sort of condolences trickled in. A few of the ladies had questions, and Haven tried to answer them all as best she could. The meeting lasted maybe an hour or so, and then once everyone was satisfied, she said her goodbyes.
Today was her day off.
One of the very few.
Every single time she left the club now, she got the strangest feeling in her chest. It was as though a heavy weight came to sit there, and make itself at home. Like her mind and body’s way of reminding her over and over again that she was saying goodbye.
And soon, that goodbye would be permanent.
Unlike her house, she didn’t expect Safe Haven to stay on the market long. Already, with only a few days being listed, she’d gotten three offers. All were lower than her sale price, but she knew what that meant. Someone else might bite at a quick sale, but if she chose to wait for the right one, her sale price was going to be well worth the effort and time.
She’d just stepped out of the club, and felt the cold air bite against her skin, when an ambulance blew down her street. Sirens raging, and lights blazing. Two cop cars followed right after.
Haven tightened her coat, and watched them go.
Her first thought was Andino, even though she had no reason to assume that. Yet, every time she saw one now … she thought of him. She did watch the news in her office, after all, and it seemed that organized crime in New York was getting a hell of a lot of attention.
Apparently, the streets were dangerous.
So yeah, she thought of him.
And right then, she just felt cold.
Haven dropped her bag to the floor beside the kitchen island, and kicked off her shoes right at the same spot. She didn’t see the point in taking them off at the door anymore—even the fucking welcome mat was gone, now. Her gaze drifted between the bottle of whiskey she’d left on the counter from the night before, or the instant coffee jar tucked into the corner beside the electric kettle and the fridge.
A good shot of whiskey was needed after an evening like the one she just had. Not that the employees at her club had been bad, or even awful about the sale. They hadn’t. Far from it, really. Although sad with the fact she would no longer be their boss, they were understanding of her position and why she chose to do what she did.
Not that she was surprised.
It was all just stressful anyway.
This whole thing was the very definition of stress.
She opted for the coffee instead of the whiskey. She planned on calling her father after she filled her empty stomach, and she didn’t think he would appreciate hearing her sloshed. It wasn’t like he needed more things to worry about what with her mother being sick again, and all.
Once Haven had her steaming coffee in hand, she sipped from the drink as she fiddled with the knobs on the small radio in her kitchen to bring in the station she liked the most. Since she’d put the television into storage, the radio was the only thing keeping her sane during the quiet moments at night.
Music was good for the soul. The closer to the brain, the better. As far as she was concerned, anyway.
A song she didn’t like that much blasted through the speakers once she tuned into the station. Turning down the volume just a bit, Haven tried to focus on drinking her coffee, and letting go of the tension weighing down her shoulders. Very little worked lately to do that, and this was no goddamn exception.
Unfortunately.
It was only when the host came back on the radio station to announce the upcoming songs did Haven break out of her zone, and turn the radio back up. She listened to a few of the commercials—loans for cheap interest, and car salesmen with promises of great deals. She almost tuned the noise out until the host started discussing the news for the day.
Different things that happened in the city.
A major pileup on an exit ramp had caused the terrible traffic in Brooklyn—not that Haven could say she was surprised. A robbery in Hell’s Kitchen had ended with a shop owner shooting the would-be thief. A drive-by shooting in Brooklyn—
Haven’s head snapped to the side as the details of the drive-by in Brooklyn started coming through the speakers; the location of the shooting hadn’t been all that far from her club, which was what surprised her the most. She liked her location because it wasn’t a violent neighborhood. Drive-bys were not at all common.
The host spoke in a monotone which told her that he was likely reading from a paper, and not from memory. He wasn’t a news reporter or journalist, after all.
“One gunshot injury was reported at the scene,” the reporter said. “The victim, according to police, is in fair condition, and is being treated at the trauma center in Brooklyn. The victim was identified by police as Andino Marcello—they believe the drive-by to be related to the infamous Marcello family, and not a random event.”
Haven blinked.
She heard his name, that he was okay, and yet … it still felt like an echoing whisper humming through her mind all the same. An echo of fucking pain, and of fear. For him, and for herself. For her heart.
It took her far too long to realize, at the same time, that the police seemed to have no issue with outing Andino’s name to the public as the victim involved in the shooting. Not to mention, adding his family and their history into the mix like it should be used as an add-on to the fact he was shot.
Like that was the only reason why.
It was shocking.
And infuriating.
Haven’s anger was only a backdrop, though.
Her fear was far more present.
THREE
“Stop hovering,” Andino snapped.
His mother didn’t stop, though. She barely even gave him one of her looks for his tone, actually. Guilt compounded in his chest even as she quietly moved to fix the pillow on his bed that he wasn’t even using, for Christ’s sake.
All she wanted to do was love him, and help. All he could do was act like a spoiled little shit.
Andino was quick to grab his mother’s hand before she could move away from his bedside. With a little tug, she turned her attention on him. There, he saw the fear she’d been hiding with her silence and gaze turned away from him. There, he saw her pain.
“I’m sorry, Ma,” he said.
Kim pressed her lips together into a thin line, and nodded. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. I’m just … edgy.”
He hated hospitals with a passion. Every memory he had of hospitals were bad ones. No Marcello came to a hospital for good things … a baby hadn’t been born into their family for years.
His recent memories of hospitals were not ones he cared to remember. Like the time his cousin tried to kill herself, and his entire family spent the night in hard, plastic chairs waiting for word on her condition. Or back when he broke his wrist as a kid, and the doctor told his father he’d given Andino something for the pain, but actually hadn’t b
efore he reset the bone. Gio had not been happy about that—someone died for it, he imagined. Andino never thought to ask, really.
It didn’t matter.
Hospitals meant bad things.
Usually death.
Today was not an exception to the rule except for the fact Andino hadn’t died. He had been shot, though, and the burning that was constantly radiating from his upper arm was enough of a reminder of just how close he had come to losing his life today on a quiet Brooklyn street.
And he knew …. knew without a doubt and without needing to ask … that his mother was even more aware of just how close he’d come today than even he was. He’d been there; he’d taken the bullet graze that left a jagged chunk taken out of his arm. Him.
But she was also his ma.
“You’re supposed to be safe,” Kim whispered.
“I know, Ma,” he replied. There was nothing else he could tell her that would make this any easier. No apologies he could make, not that it was really his fault. She was still going to worry, and fret. It was what mothers did. And when it was a mother of a made man? Andino suspected that only made it worse. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
Kim’s hand came up to pat Andino’s cheek with a light touch. He was acutely aware that the reverberation of her palm against his face made his arm sting even worse, but he held back the flinch. He didn’t want her to think for even a second that she was causing him pain. That would only make her worry worse, and the guilt would start.
No one needed that.
“I knew what this life meant,” she told him, “and what could happen. Of course, I knew. I don’t know anything different, my boy.”
Andino frowned. “It’s okay, Ma.”
Kim nodded. “It’s not, but it is what it is. I just … you’re my only child. Don’t make me bury you, Andino. Parents shouldn’t have to bury their babies.”
He blinked.
He was a grown man, and yet, still his mother thought of him as her baby. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.
Instead, he simply said, “You won’t bury me, Ma. I promise.”
