“What would make you happy? College? Traveling?”
Me?
I could make you happy if you’d let me.
She shrugs, leaning into my touch. My heart kicks against my ribs, wondering if she’ll voice my thoughts.
Disappointment stabs the organ when she doesn’t. “I don’t know. But I think I’d like the chance to figure it out.”
The evening before Alistair’s gala, I find Mileena rocking slowly on the back porch swing. One of her hands curls around the chain hanging from the ceiling, and there are three suitcases sitting beside her, stuffed to the brim.
“Sirts,” she greets, not even needing to turn around and see who’s there. Almost like she can sense me, even after a lifetime apart. Clearing her throat, she glances sideways as I approach. “Sorry. I… old habits die hard, and all.”
“Yes, well. Not hard enough it seems.”
An awkward silence descends. “Your fiancée is nice. We didn’t get off on the best foot, and I’m not sure she likes me, but she’s sweet. Very good at painting, too… not that I know a lot about art. But she’s been decent company.”
And I haven’t. I tug at my necktie, trying to loosen it as it becomes suffocating, and nod at her luggage. “Are you going somewhere?”
Pursing her lips, she gives me a quick once-over. “You look…” Trailing off, she scoffs and shakes her head. It’s then I notice the brown bottle in her hand, sans its label, and she tilts her head back to take a sip. “So different.”
“The passage of time does that to people.”
“It’s not just that.” She frowns, twisting a piece of hair between her red fingernails. “Your clothes, your attitude, your… job. God, you kill people for a living, Jonas. Murder for hire, just like your father.”
“And his father, too. Don’t forget, Wolfe men are hardly new to this career field.” Leaning against the wooden railing, I stare out at the ocean, wishing I didn’t feel such a vast disconnect between us. That I could pick up the pieces where she tossed them. Be the bigger person and forgive.
My father taught me how to tie a Windsor knot, build a bookshelf, and make homemade cold brew.
He taught me how to kill. How to aim a sniper rifle and discard a body so it would never be found.
But he died bitter, paranoid, and angry.
At the people he’d worked with for years for betraying him.
The woman he loved for leaving.
Angry in general, and that’s the emotion I attached myself to. Collected wrath like lucky pennies and used it as fuel for as long as I can remember.
No one ever taught me how to stop.
Mileena frowns. “I’m sure you think I’m passing judgment—”
“Sounds like it.”
“—but it’s not you I’m upset with. It’s me.” Drawing a shaky breath, she bends and sets her bottle on the ground, pulling her legging-clad knees to her chest. “There is no way I will ever be able to atone for my sins or to get back any of the time I’ve lost with you. I know that. I’ve grieved, Jonas.”
“Oh, piss off with that sorry sob story, Mum. What did you lose?”
“I didn’t get to watch you grow up—”
“Because of a bloody choice you made.”
“Do you think it was easy?” she snaps, pointing at me. “For me to leave? My baby?”
“Then why did you?” I shout, slamming my fist against one of the wooden pillars holding the porch roof up.
The outburst is sudden, an explosion of hurt and rage erupting from me like hot lava. Normally, it’s the kind of thing I settle with violence, but even though I wouldn’t mind wringing her neck, I realize as the hurt verbalizes that I want the bloody explanation more.
“You didn’t come back. Didn’t reach out.” My throat burns, flames caught in the passage. “I was just a kid, and you left. Where the fuck was my goodbye, Mum? What kind of coward does that to someone she loves?”
Her hands shake in her lap. “There was so much going on back then. I was young, and scared, and—”
“I was young. I was scared. Confused, broken, hurt. Do you know how many nights I spent standing at our front door, praying that you’d come back?” Scoffing, I just shake my head. “Of course, you don’t. How could you, when you were gone?”
With ice in my veins, I drag a hand through my hair. Press a palm to my chest, beneath my suit jacket, trying to calm my erratic pulse.
“I prayed every bloody night. For you to return, then when that didn’t work, I tried bartering with God. Said I didn’t need you to come home, if only he’d let me know you were okay. That you were safe.” Glaring at the night sky, I huff a bitter laugh. “Kind of fucked, isn’t it? It seemed like such a simple request, and yet…”
With a shrug, I wave my hands around. “Nothing. I was abandoned by my mum and my belief system within months of each other. And you wonder how I could’ve ended up any other way.”
Tears well in her eyes, and I snap. Stalking over to her, my hand whips out and my fingers dig into her cheeks, squeezing roughly. “No, you don’t get to fucking do that. You don’t get to cry or make me feel bad for being upset. You hurt me. Not the other way around.”
A sob still manages to work its way from her throat. Disgusted, I shove back, and she crumples against the chain, burying her head in her arms.
My heart rages inside my chest, beating so hard against my ribs that I’m afraid it might actually break free.
“I know,” she says quietly. “I know I hurt you, sirts. You have no idea how sorry I am for that.”
Snorting humorlessly, I put my hand on the kitchen door and pull it open, pretending I didn’t hear the apology.
“I was young. Young, Jonas, when I had you.”
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and pause at the threshold.
“Your father didn’t know, but I was only sixteen when I got pregnant.” Her voice falls to a barely audible whisper. “I lied to him. Said I was eighteen, because I knew when we met that he was far too old for me.”
My mind flickers to Lenny, how I told her all those weeks ago that she was too young. I try to imagine my father saying the same thing.
Imagine the heartbreak he could’ve avoided.
“I’m sure you’re about to ask why,” Mileena says. “And the short answer is that I was a dumb kid. My parents were gone, I’d been living in what was essentially a halfway house for troubled teens, and I just wanted out. So, I used what little money my parents left me to forge official documents, and then booked a flight to London.”
She glances over, her eyebrows creasing together like she’d expected me to leave. When it becomes clear I’m interested enough to stay, she nods to herself and continues.
“He was such a gentleman, your father. Caring, suave, totally charismatic. I fell for him immediately, even though the few friends I’d made in the city warned me not to. They said he was dangerous. Involved in organized crime.” She pauses, staring off into the distance. “I grew up hearing horror stories about people like that. My parents moved to the States specifically to avoid that life and the things it entailed, but Duncan seemed so… normal. So, I stuck around.”