by Cora Kenborn
“I did not!” I don’t dare advance toward the little girl. Instead, I try and seek out that connection we just shared, speaking in words she understands to counteract the bullshit her mother is spewing. “Alexandra, I didn’t touch them. I hurt the bad man who made you smell pennies.”
“Pennies?” Katerina screeches. “What the hell are you saying? Shoot him!”
There’s no emotion on Alexandra’s face. No tears, no fear, just stone silence. Her hands aren’t shaking anymore as they wrap clumsily around the grip, her finger curling around the trigger.
I can’t hear anything. My pulse is thundering too loud in my ears.
Then, as if in slow motion, this tortured child who is scared of six, thinks blood smells like pennies, and believes tears are for the weak, turns the gun on her own mother and pulls the trigger.
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 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. I squat down and run my hand along the new, pristine marble. I wonder if there are remnants of my sins buried underneath. I stand with 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 an
swer, 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.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Dominic
It took everything I had in me to leave her. However, Hilda gave me her word that she’d protect Angel, and I believed her. The words have never passed between us, but they don’t need to. She knows who I am. She’s always known. Since the day Angel moved into the Romanov mansion, she spoke her truth between the lines.
“I was asleep in the staff quarters when… Well, it’s my honor to serve this family again.”
Like I said to myself on Christmas Eve, fifteen years ago. There may not have been an alarm, but the servants’ quarters weren’t that far away. Six gunshots could’ve woken the dead.
And the loyal.
So, with my mind at as much ease as it can be, I focus on getting answers. I’ve waited long enough. The game is over. Every card is on the table.
Except for one.
This time as I storm through Monty’s Auto Body Repair Shop, there’s no Sophia to stop me. No Carlo standing guard as I kick the office door open. Nothing but a smug man in a designer Italian suit sitting behind his desk puffing away on a half-smoked cigar.
A man like Luciano doesn’t clear his entire shield unless he has a good reason.
He knew I was coming.
He doesn’t bother to acknowledge the gun clenched in my hand as he tucks the cigar between his teeth. “What took you so long?”
It’s not a challenge or a taunt. It’s a loaded question. And he’ll get his answer. As soon as I get mine.
My finger curls around the trigger as I hold his stare. “Greg Rosten is missing.”
He draws in a deep inhale. “Good riddance.”
Not good enough. I’m not his soldier or his runner or his boy anymore. When I ask a question, it’s not to seek out information. It’s to verify what I already suspect. “The Vitoli family has always controlled the unions in this town. Which means Marco has his dick all up in the Screen Actors Guild’s pussy.” Folding my arms across my chest, I pace the room, tapping my gun against my bicep. “That puts you in pretty close contact with Silverline, doesn’t it?”
“Is this going anywhere, or are you just being dramatic?”
“I bet you get to know a lot of people while yanking all those SAG strings. Famous actors. Up and coming directors.” Pausing in front of him, I brace my hands on the edge of his desk. “Studio night guards.”
His pale eyes flicker. “Is that right?”
I need to maintain the upper hand, so I push off his desk and continue my slow pace in front of him. “See, I kept trying to figure out how this Salvatore guy had no record or recollection of Angel going into Silverline on Sunday or leaving. She’s positive she did. Someone bruised her neck.” Pausing again, I glance over my shoulder. “So how is it that there isn’t any record of her being there, Luciano?”
He studies me with that glare of superiority that used to force my eyes to the ground. When I don’t relent, he smirks. “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“How about you tell me something for once? Is Salvatore Guiliani on your payroll? A nice Italian family man looking to put his kids through college?”
That smirk fades into a scowl. He didn’t expect that, which is what I banked on. “If you got something to say, boy, say it. Otherwise, you’re about to cross a line you don’t want to cross.”
Wrong. I don’t care if either of us walks out of this room. I’m not backing down.
“Did you kill Greg Rosten?”
Luciano’s eyes darken as he slams his cigar into the ashtray. “No, but I wish to hell I had. That sack of shit deserved a lot more than he got.”
I want to leap across the desk and press my gun right between his eyes, but unfortunately for him, he taught me too well. “You said you didn’t kill him,” I say, forcing a neutral expression.
“Is my word not good enough for you now?”
I don’t answer, which I know pisses him off even more. When the underboss asks a question, he expects to be answered. But Luciano is nothing if not unpredictable, and instead of pulling out his own gun and making this a fair fight, he nods his head.
“I think I remember this Salvatore person. Decent guy. Would give you the shirt right off his back if you asked for it.” Giving me a pointed look, he places a flash drive on the edge of his desk. “As for Rosten, well, who knows where he is. Wherever it is, he should stay there. You know what they say about what happens when you fuck with wolves.”
I’ve known Luciano Ricci for seventeen years. The man doesn’t speak in metaphors. That’s why, after I pocket the flash drive, he has my full attention. “They bite?”
“They protect their own.” We say nothing as the clock in my head ticks away, then he glances away, reaching for a new cigar. “So, I’ll ask again, what took you so long? Every time you walked through that door, I waited. But you never asked,” he says, pointing the unlit Cuban at me. “All these years, and you kept your mouth shut. So, ask me, Dominic.”
“Who ordered the hit on the Romanovs?” The words squeeze my chest as fifteen years of silence finally breaks free.
He leans forward. “Who do you think?”
“No.” It can’t be true. But I see it. It’s there in his hardened stare.
“Who have I been busting my balls trying to protect you from, huh? Who have I told you time and time again not to fuck with? But you’re so goddamn stubborn, Dominic.” Growling, he throws the cigar across the office. “Jesus, you’d think you were a Ricci with all that vengeance.”
“Why would he do that?”
“It’s not my job to ask questions. That was Marco’s deal. It was passed down to me, and I passed it down to you and Joey.”
Something isn’t right. If the deal didn’t go straight to Luciano, then there’s no way he’d risk his balls by handing such a high profile hit to a seventeen-year-old kid. Joey was experienced—a proven soldier, respected by Marco and his men. Luciano took a major risk in trusting I’d be able to kill…
Oh fuck.
A jagged knife tears through my gut as the blind trust of a seventeen-year-old boy collides with the harsh truth of a thirty-two-year old man. “I didn’t earn that trust,” I say, my hand clenching into a fist. “You sent me because you knew I’d turn on Joey. Because you knew I’d protect the kids.”
“Marco sanctioned that shit. Not me. You want to talk about trust, boy? I didn’t give a flying fuck about Romanov and his wife. But those kids...” For the first time, I see regret in his eyes. “I don’t fuck with kids. There’s only one soldier I trusted to take on Joey and save them.”
“But I didn’t save them.”
“You saved one.”
The hits keep coming, and the strong resolve I walked in here with starts to fade. I back up, brushing the back of my hand across my forehead. “You knew then? You knew I took Alexandra out of that house?”
“My ass was on the line, too, boy. Even if you only got a few of those kids out, I knew you’d need help.”
“Help?” I roar, throwing my arms out wide. “You let me run wit
h that girl and didn’t say a damn word! I drove her across state lines and left her with my crazy aunt.”
“I know.”
“You know?” Rounding his desk, I grab a handful of his shirt, balling it in my hand. “If you know, then why the hell didn’t you help me look for her when she disappeared in the middle of the—?” It’s the defiant look in his eyes that lands the final chess piece in place. “Holy shit,” I breathe, staggering backward. “She didn’t run away. You took her.”
The truth has been there all along. One step ahead of me with a hand on my back.
“I don’t kill kids, Dominic,” he says, smoothing his shirt. “But I don’t let them run their mouths to cops, either. Some Vitoli associates ran a group home in Phoenix and owed me a favor. A doctored birth certificate and a social security number and your girl, Angel Smith, was born.” He shrugs. “Sorry for the shitty last name, but she didn’t give me much to work with.”
“But my aunt—”
“Was paid a hundred thousand dollars to keep her whore mouth shut.” A smirk creeps along his mouth. “And given a nice scar to remember her oath in case Jim Beam decided to talk for her.”
I know the scar he’s talking about. It’s a jagged, silver line down her cheek. “She never said shit to me. Even when I went to Phoenix when mom died.”
Luciano frowns, the corners of his eyes turning down. “Carlo told me about your mother. I’m sorry.”
I don’t want his sympathy. I want to know how the fuck Angel got from Phoenix to Chula Vista. “But she left that home when she was sixteen.”
“Lost track of her for a while. Finally caught up with her again, thanks to you and your shit show on Paulo Bellini. Once I saw a picture of Jade Saxton, I knew I’d found her. Tracked her ass right to Chula Vista.”
“To save your own ass in case her memory came back?” I shout.
His palm slams against his desk. “No! To save yours!”
I don’t want his protection. “When she turned eighteen, why not just kill both of us and save yourself years of trouble?”
