I think how scared she was at the end—more for me than herself, I think. The supposed illness took her like wildfire, but she cared for me to the end. And he stood by and watched. Did he know it was poison and not cancer? How could he not?
Everything is too bright. Feels too surreal. I try to shut him out of my mind. I slide my hand along the cold stone, trying to feel her. “I just miss you so much.”
There’s a chill in the air. Mom always loved autumn.
“Aleksio’s back. He’s the same. Beautiful and wild and loyal. Always getting into something. Such a big, fierce heart. You always liked him. You still would.” I pick up another leaf and twirl it. “Things are good at the center.” I go on about New York. How Chicago is so much better, but I’m making new friends. It’s hard not to keep focusing on Dad, though. Instead of feeling love for Mom, I’m feeling rage for Dad.
I wander out of there and sit in the BMW in the nearly empty cemetery parking lot. Tito’s phone is vibrating. A again.
Suddenly a car pulls up in the space next to me, which I don’t like at all, being that the lot is mostly vacant. I lock the doors and start up the car. I catch sight of the driver.
One of Dad’s men. No way.
With shaking hands I get the thing into drive. Another car pulls up—right in front of me.
I reverse and smash into something behind me—another car. There’s a knock on the passenger window. It’s Rondo, one of Dad’s enforcers.
I shake my head.
He shoves a slim piece of metal into the door and in a flash, it’s open. “Mira!” He slides in. “Your father has been worried sick about you!”
“Get out.”
“You need to come with us. We’re getting you to safety.”
“I don’t need to go to safety.”
“Your dad’s at the Beverly Inn. Come on.”
“I have one errand… I’ll drive there on my own. I hardly need an escort.”
Rondo shakes his head.
How did they find me? Did Jashari do one last favor for Dad? Fuck! Can I be any more naïve?
The passenger door opens and Lazarus’s brother Ioannis slides in and slips the gun from my pocket, like taking candy from a baby. Then he reaches for the keys in the ignition. I snatch them out and he grabs my fist.
“Give the keys to Ioannis,” Rondo says.
“No! Leave me! I said I’d come—”
“Orders,” Rondo says as Ioannis pries the keys from my fist. “You can’t know how upset and worried he is.”
My heart pounds. “I’m not going.”
Rondo closes a hand around my wrist. “I’d prefer to bring you uninjured.”
Another car rolls up, blocking mine from behind. I look around wildly, knowing this isn’t going to be voluntary. I yank my hand away. “Fine.”
I’m ushered into the back of the town car. “Dad is not going to be happy when he hears how you treated me,” I say.
Nothing.
Ioannis gets in back with me.
I look away from him, staring out the window. We’re heading downtown. Afternoon rush hour slows the traffic to a crawl. It’s nearly four by the time we make it into the hushed, dark lobby with the twin stallion statues and small fountain. The desk clerks key the elevator for the top floor.
Dad has a penthouse suite at this place that he sometimes uses. The elevator lurches upward. The ride seems fast. Something’s not right.
The doors slide open to a small hallway with a few sets of double doors. Rondo guides me into the living room area, and there’s Bloody Lazarus with a big smile on his hard, angular face. He’s surrounded by a handful of his soldiers and lieutenants.
My heart pounds. People are looking at me funny. The guys I know well aren’t saying anything. As if they’re holding their breath. I don’t see Dad.
Lazarus clasps his hands over his suit jacket, beaming like the psycho that he is. People who don’t know Lazarus think he has a nice smile, but when you know him, you know his smile is never nice.
“Mira. Always a breath of fresh air. Look who’s here, Aldo.”
I hear a wheezing sound from the corner of the room. “Mira.”
Dad is slumped in the corner of the room, pale, wheezing. He’s in a bed of curtains below a tilted curtain rod, as if he pulled them down.
I rush to his side. “Dad!”
“Kitten.”
All my anger evaporates, seeing him in danger. “Is it your heart?”
Stupid question. Of course.
I pull away the curtains and loosen his tie. “Did anybody call 911? He needs medical attention!” I look around at the dozen guys just standing there. “What the fuck?” I take out Tito’s phone. I don’t know the code but you can always dial 911.
Lazarus comes over and snatches it from my hand. “I don’t think so, Kitten.” He slips it in his pocket. “Say your goodbyes.”
They won’t help him? My blood goes cold, and I see this for what it is: a takeover. All these men are loyal to Bloody Lazarus now.
Why did they even keep him alive? In case they needed persuasion to get me here? Of course.
I look into Dad’s eyes. He’s in pain. “Do you have your pills?”
He moves his hand then and I see the blood he’s been stopping up with his hand, blood all over the white shirt under his jacket. Gutshot. “I tried to stop him—I’d hoped you’d be safe. But Jashari—the ME—he called me to tell me you’d been there, and Lazarus…”
Lazarus was in control and sent people to get me. And predictably, I went to the cemetery.
“Daddy.” Tears blur my vision. “Oh, Dad.” I take his other hand. He feels cold. I should hate him. Why can’t I make myself hate him?
“I know what I did,” he whispers. “I know what Jashari told you.”
“Why?”
“She was going to take you away from me…never let me see you again. I couldn’t bear that.”
“So you killed her?”
“I was weak. I was wrong. I’m so sorry—I never meant to…”
I’m sobbing. My voice sounds gravelly. “She was my mother!”
“I won’t ask for your forgiveness—it was unforgivable, what I did.” His breathing is fucked up. I squeeze his hand. “Every day I died a little, to see you sad. But you bounced back. Always so fierce and optimistic, my Mira. And the way you knew your own mind—you were a gift to me I never deserved.”
Images tumble through my memory like bits in a kaleidoscope. Him swinging me around on the playground. The time we won the three-legged race. When he taught me how to sail out on Lake Geneva. Setting up that stupid blog as cover so I could be my own person. His crimes don’t erase that love, much as I wish they would. I wish it could be simple like that.
“God, Dad,” I whisper.
The guys are on the other side of the room, talking and laughing and smoking. Like it’s a party.
“I had your back sometimes, didn’t I?”
“You did.” This seems to hearten him. “You have to hang on,” I say. “I’m going to think of something. I’m getting you out of here.”
A strange look comes over Dad’s face. “He didn’t do it.” He’s looking at my hand. My finger that’s supposedly gone. “Pull your sleeve over your hand. Don’t let Lazarus see.”