by Lane Hart
“My father?” I say. “You mean Jimmy Russo?”
“Keep your voice down,” she warns me softly, glancing around the room again. “Never know who could overhear, and then it would get back to him…”
“Not anymore,” I assure her. “Jimmy’s dead. And I’m the one who killed him.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ivan
I wait for and expect a look of horror or disgust to appear on Jenny’s face after I confess to murder.
Instead, she throws her arms around my neck and hugs me tight again.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she murmurs softly, not the reaction I was expecting at all. Pulling away, she looks up at me with moisture filling her hazy eyes and tells me, “Your mother was so kind to me and everyone else. She didn’t deserve what he did to her. I’m so sorry you had to grow up without her. Annette was terrified of Jimmy, and I know she would be happy that you stood up to him and avenged her death.”
“Um, thanks,” I reply since I’m at a loss.
I feel like a horrible human being on the inside, likely conceived by force by a man my mother hated and with the blood of an evil bastard running through my veins. Part of the reason I admitted what I had done to Jenny was to try and have someone understand that I’m a monster too, just like my father. And she let me down.
But the morality of a whore is not the same as an innocent girl like Maylin. When she finds out about my bloodline, I bet she’ll see me for the villain I am. One who could never be the hero with Jimmy’s blood on my hands.
“I, ah, I better get going,” I tell Jenny as I stand up and take a step backward toward the front door.
“Thanks for coming by,” she says with a half-smile. “It was good to see you again and to know that you’re doing so good.”
Right, if doing good can be defined as following in my murdering father’s footsteps.
“You too,” I tell her. “Bye, Jenny.”
“Bye, Ivan. Take care of yourself,” she says with a wave.
Once outside, I trek right over to the detective’s car and slip back into the passenger seat.
“So?” Knox looks over and asks, the car still running but not in gear yet.
“I got answers, just not the ones I wanted,” I tell him.
“So it’s true?” Cain asks. “He was your…”
“Yep,” I admit as I pull the seatbelt around me and click it into place.
“Now where to?” Knox asks.
“The apartment,” I tell him.
“What? Hell no!” Knox and Cain exclaim.
“You can’t go back there. We need to hide out at Liam’s safe house until Jade calls with the all clear,” Knox tells me.
“And I’m gonna lay low with Gabby at the flower shop,” Cain says. “Take me there and then you two get your asses back to Liam’s.”
“No,” I say. “I just want to go home. I need to be alone.”
“Well tough shit,” Knox replies, shifting the car into drive and pulling onto the street. “I’m driving. So, unless you want to jump out of a speeding vehicle, you’ll go where I take you.”
“Whatever,” I grumble.
“Why don’t you want to go see Maylin?” Cain asks. “I thought you were head over heels for that girl.”
“I was. I am,” I tell him. “But you two saw the look on her face after I killed Jimmy. She was terrified and now she looks at me like…”
“Like what?” Knox asks.
Watching the houses fly past us in the neighborhood, I tell them, “Like she’s scared of me.” Like my mother was probably scared of Jimmy and didn’t want to be with the murdering asshole, but didn’t have a choice. Not until she turned him into the police and went to live in a whore house where he eventually found her after he got out of prison.
Thinking back to that day, I try to imagine how different my life would have been if Jenny hadn’t helped me run. What if Jimmy had found me and forced me to go with him, raising me instead of Mrs. Engle back at the house with Knox and later Cain? If he had not been arrested for the gun possession, would I have grown up in the mafia, not as a no-name fighter but as the third in command’s son? Would I have become a ruthless killer like him?
I pulled the trigger on Jimmy easy enough. In fact, it was almost too easy. That can’t be the typical reaction, right? And I keep waiting for the remorse to hit me, but so far it’s completely absent. All I am is relieved that the asshole who took my mother from me is no longer breathing.
“Could either of you have done it? Shot him?” I ask Cain and Knox for their honest opinions.
They’re both silent for several long moments before Cain speaks up.
“Doubt it,” he says. “I’ve already killed two men on accident and they both haunt me in my dreams. I don’t need to add a third.”
The difference is that Cain didn’t mean to kill Gabby’s brother in a fight. And maybe he wanted to get back at his mom’s boyfriend when he set the fire, but he regrets taking it to the extreme where the man died. Both are completely different than pointing a gun at someone with the intent to stop their heart for good.
“What about you?” I ask Knox, who is silent as he drives.
“Don’t know,” he answers. “If Jimmy had hurt someone I cared about, then yeah, I probably could have done it. Hard for any of us to put ourselves in your shoes, though.”
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh.
“We don’t think less of you or see you differently for what you did. You know that, right?” Knox says. “At least I don’t.”
“I don’t either,” Cain agrees from the backseat. “You never blinked an eye when you found out that I had played a part in killing Robbie. Besides, this was different. It was revenge for your mom. That is something I understand. I just hope your decision doesn’t haunt you like mine still does me, even after all these years.”
“I’ll never regret putting a bullet in Jimmy Russo’s head,” I tell them. “Regardless of who he was to me, he deserved it; and the only thing I’ll regret is if I get caught.”
And if Maylin can’t stand to be around me anymore.
She’s so young and innocent that she deserves to be with someone who doesn’t drag her into their fucked-up darkness.
For years, I thought I was pathetic because I was a nobody. The truth is even worse than I imagined. Now that I know the truth about Jimmy being my father, I’m starting to think that the darkness I’ve carried for so long is only going to keep growing until it consumes me and everyone around me.
…
Maylin
“Someone’s pulling up,” my father says when we hear gravel crunching out front. Jumping up from the sofa, he goes over to the door. “Stay here,” he tells me. He sounds nervous, and maybe even feels vulnerable without his guards around him. It’s just been me and him here, for the first time in as long as I can remember. Guess he didn’t trust anyone else with this safe house’s location. He sent the guards to the one miles away in Cary.
“It’s Ivan and one of his friends,” Daddy says with relief. Unlocking the three deadbolts and chain, he opens the door for them to come in. “Did anyone follow you?” my father snaps at them.
“No,” Knox tells him when he enters the house first, followed by Ivan, who thankfully changed shirts. “I took several exits and made a few turns before I got to the driveway. All clear.”
“Good,” my father says. “Can’t be too careful. I don’t want anyone to know about this place.”
When Knox glances over his shoulder at Ivan, they trade some sort of look. Then Ivan says, “He has a right to know, man, so you better just tell him now…”
“Tell who what?” my father asks, looking between them. “If there’s something I should know, you better start talking.”
Neither responds for a few moments until Ivan looks right at my father and says, “Knox is…seeing one of the RPD detectives.”
I swear the room is so silent I can hear the clocks ticking on the wall before the explosion g
oes off. “Are you out of your fucking minds?!”
The sudden shade of red coloring my father’s face can’t be good for his heart at all.
“She’s cool. We can trust her,” Knox says, both palms up in front of him in a placating gesture, having apparently figured out that my father is about to rip his head off.
“You’re even stupider than you look!” Daddy yells at him. “You can’t trust the police, not even ones you’re fucking!”
Whoa! He’s really upset, dropping the f-bomb twice within seconds. He usually doesn’t talk like that right in front of me.
“She’s pregnant with my kid,” Knox says, causing my jaw to hit the floor after hearing that news.
“Then that’s even more reason why she wouldn’t trust you!” my father tells him. “Jesus!” Pacing back in front of the two men, he finally asks, “You didn’t tell her about this place, did you?”
“No,” Knox says quickly. But after Ivan clears his throat, Knox eventually adds, “But she does have a tracker on her car that I didn’t know about until recently.”
Daddy looks at him like he’s a complete moron before he asks, “That car sitting out front? The one we used as the getaway car for a fucking murder?”
“Yes, sir. That car,” Knox replies politely.
“We’re surrounded by morons!” Daddy exclaims while tugging on his red hair with both fists. “Fucking morons!”
“Daddy, calm down,” I say, going over to the group to try and intercede on their behalf because I really don’t want to see anyone else die today.
“We should leave,” my father turns to me and says. “Right now. We’ll…we’ll go on foot until we find another car to take. Do you have your passport with you?” he asks, grabbing my shoulders.
“If Ivan and Knox think we’re safe, then we should trust them,” I tell him calmly when I cover his hands with mine.
“Trust them? Trust them to get us all arrested maybe!” he yells, lowering his hands from me.
“Guys, do you think you could try and find the tracker on the car and remove it?” I ask them.
“Yeah, yeah, I can do that,” Knox says with an enthusiastic nod. And even if he’s lying, he takes the cue to go back outside and escape my furious father until he cools down.
As soon as Knox is out the door, my overly dramatic parent goes over and turns all of the locks. “It’s too damn late now to remove the tracker,” Daddy grumbles under his breath.
“I swear I had no idea, Liam,” Ivan says. “If he had told me or if I had known, I wouldn’t have agreed to it. You’re right. We can’t trust her.”
“Hell no, we can’t!” my father exclaims.
“You’re gonna give yourself a heart attack if you don’t calm down,” I warn him. “Go rest for a little while and we’ll keep watch. It’s getting dark, so there’s nothing else to do right now anyway but wait.”
Cursing under his breath, my father finally stomps off down the hallway. A moment later I hear a door slamming shut.
“Sorry,” Ivan says to me softly when he’s gone.
“It’s not your fault that your friend is sleeping with a police officer,” I tell him when I go back over and flop down onto the sofa.
“No, but if I had been paying attention, maybe I would’ve noticed that Knox was sneaking around with her,” Ivan says when he follows me over. “Maybe your dad is right and you two should run after we remove the tracker.”
“Do you really think Knox can get rid of it?” I look up and ask him.
Lips curving up slightly, he says, “No. Probably not.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“I don’t want you to get caught up in the middle of all this shit,” Ivan says.
“Too late now, right?” I point out.
“Maybe not,” he replies, taking a seat on the end of the sofa but not close enough to touch me. “Do you have your passport? Your dad might be able to get you on a private flight or something before the cops put everything together, but we probably don’t have much time.”
“Yeah, that’s a possibility,” I agree. “Daddy and I were talking about me going to Europe for a few weeks to get away from this mess.”
“Oh. So you do want to leave?” Ivan asks with a frown.
“It’s been a lot to take in,” I explain. “What happened today…it’s all been overwhelming for me to deal with, even if it’s not that big of a deal for you.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Ivan mutters as he lowers his eyes.
“Why did you kill him?” I ask point blank.
Wetting his lips and refusing to make eye contact, Ivan says, “I’m not sure if I want you to know.”
“Why not?”
Lifting a shoulder and then letting it fall, he says, “Because afterward you may see me differently.”
“Believe me, Ivan, my opinion of you can’t get any worse,” I admit to him.
“That bad, huh?” he asks, peeking up at me from underneath his long, dark eyelashes.
“My father said that killing Jimmy was personal for you. Was it? Because if so, that would maybe make me feel better about how you…”
“Did it and don’t feel even a shred of guilt?” he supplies.
“Right.”
“Okay,” he says softly. Clearing his throat, he starts. “When I was thirteen, I watched Jimmy Russo hold a gun to my mother’s head.”
“Oh,” I mutter as my eyes widen in surprise.
Gaze locked with mine, Ivan says, “He shot her, twice, and killed her.”
Oh, no! That’s awful, and Ivan was so young. It definitely explains why he doesn’t feel any remorse for taking Jimmy’s life.
Unsure what to say to all that, I finally tell him, “God, Ivan, I’m so sorry.” Before I didn’t even want him to touch me because I was worried that he was so uncaring and emotionless he could kill someone without blinking. Now I want to touch him, to comfort him. I feel bad for assuming the worst about him when I should have withheld judgment until I knew the whole story. Reaching over for Ivan’s hand that’s resting on his thigh, I give it a squeeze.
“That’s not even half of it,” Ivan tells me, which I find hard to believe. “Today, I found out that my mother and…and Jimmy were actually married. Not by her choice, I don’t think, just like it wasn’t yours. She apparently wanted to get away from him, so he said that she turned him into the police. It must have been something bad, because he didn’t show up until twelve years later, asking for me…”
“Wait,” I tell him. “Are you saying…is…was Jimmy your…your father?” I ask in disbelief.
“He told me he was today, well, before I killed him, but I didn’t believe him. I thought he was saying shit to try and stop me from pulling the trigger.”
“And now you do believe him?” I ask. “You’re right, he was probably lying.”
“Jimmy said that he had a copy of my birth certificate in his desk, so the guys and I went to the house and found it.”
“You found your birth certificate with him listed as your father?” I ask with concern.
“No, I found a birth certificate for Anthony Russo but with my date of birth and my mother’s first name on it.”
“So it may not be you,” I point out.
“Oh no, it’s definitely me,” Ivan grumbles while scrubbing his palm down his face. “As much as I wish it wasn’t, I know for sure now. I went back to the brothel and talked to a girl named Jenny who knew my mother and helped me get away. She finally confessed to hiding it all from me this whole time.”
“Wow,” I mutter in complete shock. “That’s…jeez, all of that must be pretty hard to take in.”
“Being the son of a murdering evil asshole?” he asks. “Yeah, it’s not what I ever expected. But maybe it’s why…”
“Why what?” I prompt when he pauses.
“Why I was able to kill him without a second thought,” he answers, slipping his hand free from mine. “My only regret is that I didn’t kill him sooner before he told me all that
shit and made me have all these…these doubts about myself.”
“What do you mean doubts?” I ask him.
“If I came from evil, there must be evil inside of me too, you know?” he tells me, voicing his concerns.
“That’s not true,” I assure him. Yeah, maybe I had my doubts, but that was before I knew about Ivan’s past. “If Jimmy had raised you, then you could’ve turned out differently, but he didn’t, and you’re a good guy, Ivan.”
“A good guy? Really?” he asks with a scoff. “I just killed a man, not just any man but my father, a few hours ago.”
“He was the man who killed your mother too, and no telling who else Jimmy hurt. He deserved to die. I understand that now.”
“You do?” he asks, lifting his eyebrow skeptically.
“Yes. I do,” I tell him honestly. “Now it’s done and over with, so let’s not even think about that asshole anymore, okay? You’re nothing like him, and you’ll never be like him.”
“How can you be so sure?” Ivan asks.
“Because I’m gonna be around to make sure,” I say. Moving up to my knees, I lean over and softly kiss Ivan’s cheek and then his lips.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ivan
When Knox and I first got back to the safe house, Maylin could barely look at me. I didn’t blame her for that after what I had done and who I was just starting to realize I am.
Now, though, after spilling the whole truth to her that I thought would be the final push to drive her away forever, she’s actually kissing me so sweetly and tenderly.
And I don’t deserve to be with her. Not now, not ever.
Her father is right. Maylin and Liam should leave first thing in the morning using his money and their passports to get the hell out of the country. It’s highly likely that the police will figure out that Jimmy Russo was at the hotel for a wedding and eventually get the name of his bride, who would be a possible suspect.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk to Liam and try to convince him to take Maylin and go.