Phantom's Baby: A Mafia Secret Baby Romance (Mob City Book 3) (14 page)

Every second I spoke, I felt the blackness consuming me. It licked at my ankles like cool floodwater, pulled me in like quicksand. I thought about fighting it, thought about throwing off the shackles… But I chose not to. I embraced it, reveled as it salved my guilt. What I was doing to this junkie was inhuman. The blackness told me not to care.

He broke. "No! I'll tell you anything, anything."

"That's better, birdie. Sing. You can start by telling me where you got this," I pointed at the rucksack. "It can't have been too long ago; else you'd be in the damn fetal position with your eyes rolled back in your head."

"Boss…" Dimitri said, but I didn't listen. If I had, I'd have noticed the concern in his voice. But like I said, I didn't listen.

"Squeak, birdie," I roared.

"Boss!"

I spun to face him, ready to tear him a new one if whatever he wanted wasn't
damn
good. "What is it?"

He gestured at the AK-47 in his hands, his face black. "It's not loaded."

"What the fu–"

The explosion sent a plume twenty feet high into the night sky. For a second Vista Beach lit up like it was noon, and then it was gone. My ears rang, a bright flash was seared onto the backs of my eyelids, and my nostrils filled with the scent of burning flesh. Dimitri dashed to look out over the roof, but it was all I could do to stay on my feet.

The world spun around me; I'd been outplayed, outfoxed, and out thought. Arkady had played me – let me think I'd got the jump on his man – when he had the upper hand all along. He played to my pride, and to pay for it, my men had died. I was a fool, and I was disgusted with myself.

"Boss," Dimitri croaked. "I think they're gone. What are we going to do?"

I jabbed the needle into the junkie's neck and depressed the plunger. I didn't bother searching for a vein. I didn't care. There was only one thought on my mind.

Arkady would pay for this.

I
suppose
you never know which way life's going to sweep you, but most of the time you can guess. Most of the time those guesses are gonna turn out okay because you know they’re coming.

But for me – right now – try as I might to predict what was going to happen?

I didn't have a clue.

Ever since Val careened back into my life at his typical one hundred miles an hour, life's tidal wave swept me up and away again – without asking. It had me bobbing like a tiny plank of driftwood in the maw of its fifty foot wave – a broken boat without a tiller. At least when I broke out of Russell's place, with nothing more than a few dollars in my hands and a dog hard on my heels, I was in control. Well, kind of, anyway.

But now here I was in this situation, and did I get any say? Locked up in Val's opulent palace every hour of the day, I felt like Rapunzel in her tower. But Rapunzel's Prince came and rescued her – mine locked me away.

"I get it, Val," I grumbled to no one. "But it doesn't make you any less of an asshole."

Here’s the thing: I wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world. Well, most things anyway. After all, my prison was nothing compared with the horrors Val experienced in
his
cell. And I was getting what I wanted, wasn't I? Val was an angel whenever he was around, and even if we hadn't told Kitty the truth yet –
and we would, soon
– I could tell, just by the smile on her face whenever he was around, how good he was for her.

And the sex we had? Geez. I'm not even sure it's legal to
think
about the way he makes my toes curl. Our chemistry was undeniable. I dreamed about him; hungered for the taste of him every time he left the room; even touched myself as he slept…

So why the hell did I feel like this? Confused; nervous; on edge; sometimes all three; and sometimes none at all; it all depended on whether Val was around or not. Don't get me wrong. I'm anything
but
the kind of girl who pines away for her man. I know I sound that way, but I'm really not. It's just that every time he set out on one of his missions, I was left behind, alone in an apartment with a toddler. And Kitty's the kind of girl who sleeps fifteen hours a day. You know – the good kind…

But not when you're this bored.

The truth was I wanted to be out there, with him, not stuck in here. I wanted to be out there helping make the world safe for our daughter, not waiting with my heart in my mouth to find out if my lover was even going to make it home.

But if I can't do that, then at least I can
vent
.

There was one gal who was always there for me, even when Val wasn't. I dialed her number. Val's iPad was really just one of dozens that seemed to litter the apartment, a pair for every room. The video call indicator blinked twice, and then faded away.

I frowned. "The hell?"

"Cara, is that you?"

"Sure is," I said lightly. "Hey, Lexie – let me call you back. I think there's something wrong with the line."

"No, don't bother," she replied quickly. "I think my tablet's the problem."

"Okay, sure," I said. "I guess this is fine, too. How are you doing, girl? Hell, I know it's only been a few days but you won't believe –"

Lexie cut me off. "Listen, Cara," she whispered. "I've been thinking. I'm not sure I can see you for a while."

I laughed. "You're breaking with me!? Nuh uh, never going to happen. We're like two peas in a –"

"Cara!"

I flinched. Lexie’s voice was hard and ragged.

"I'm serious. You're dating an Antonov, and I've got two babies to be thinking about. Your dad was one thing, but he's just a drunk. The rest of what’s in your life? I can't handle it, Cara. I'm sorry."

My mouth dropped open. There were so many things I wanted to tell her. That Val wasn't an Antonov, not really, not at all. That he was only playing a role, that once he was done –
he was done
. But there were things, now, that I couldn't tell her. And it burned me up inside.

"Lexie…" I whispered. "You don't –"

"I'm sorry, Cara. I've got to go."

The line went dead.

I sat on the couch in stunned silence, clenching and unclenching my fists. My mind was blank and numb. Lexie was my oldest friend, the girl I could count on to be there for me whenever, wherever, and I was the same for her. At least, I thought I was.

This blow hit me doubly hard. I'd been abandoned by everyone I'd ever loved. My mother left, never to return, without saying any type of goodbye. Val left once. He was back now, but who knew for how long …

Don't think like that
.

Now Lexie was gone.

Images of our childhood together swirled in my mind like early-morning fog over a glassy-still lake. The time we broke into her parent's liquor cabinet aged what, fifteen? We got drunk on peach schnapps and damn Appletinis and thought we were so cool – at least until the nausea hit and I had to hold her hair back.

I clenched my eyes shut and choked back a sob. I couldn't let myself fall apart. Not with Kitty around. I'd let my own problems mess with her life way too much already. The last thing she needed while we were living out of a mobster's apartment and hiding from her drunken granddaddy was to see her mama crying.

I just needed something to take the edge off, to remind me of happier days.

I fumbled in my handbag for that something. It was a silly little thing, really; a tiny scrapbook Lexie made for my eighteenth birthday. The only gift I got that year. But, as my hand rummaged around the mess, my fingers brushed against something else –

the envelope –

marked with my mother's handwriting.

The discovery sent an electric chill through my body. Every hair on my neck stood on end, and I froze, staring at the yellowed paper. I couldn't believe that I had forgotten about it. That, in all the terror and excitement of the last few days, I could have dismissed something that could answer so many of the questions I'd spent my whole childhood wondering. Wondering – and knowing better than to ask my father.

Understanding even then, at eight years old, what asking about where mama went would mean for me.

The breath caught in my throat. I reached out and grabbed the envelope, grasping at it like I was afraid a stray breeze might pick it up and steal it from me. And yet … and yet … I was too scared to actually open it. It felt like it weighed a ton in my hands, pressing down on my fingers. It was a double-edged sword, razor-sharp, as ready to cut me as to slide into a sheath by my side.

A sea of questions flooded my mind.

Am I ready for this?

Do I really want to know?

Could I live with myself if I didn't open it?

The answer was a resounding no – to all of them.

That made what I had to do a thousand times harder. I felt like a cart with a team of horses leashed to either side – one pulling in the direction of burying the letter and never thinking about it again, the other galloping in the other direction with foam pouring from their mouths in the eagerness to know.

You might think that my fingers would be tearing at the paper already, desperate to read what was inside. You might think that, but you'd be wrong. You can't imagine how it felt to know that the answer to every question you'd ever asked was at your fingertips – and how terrifying that truly was.

But I had to know.

"You can do this, Cara," I muttered, bouncing my palm against my thigh. The leg jittered too, up and down, up and down in a relentless motion. But no matter how long I procrastinated, I'd never be able to burn off all of the acidic sea of nervous energy that was burning me up inside like napalm.

My fingers tore at the frail envelope gently, like I was an archaeologist brushing gently at a long-lost relic. In a way, I was.

And then I stopped.

The envelope was unopened.

That meant…

That Russell never opened it
.
That he’d had it all these years, and never once bothered to look inside
.
What the hell kind of man does that make him?

The thought spurred me on, greedy fingers tearing at the paper as quickly as I could. I should have treated it like an omen. This letter was a Pandora's Box. It was the kind of secret that, once revealed, could never be locked away again, no matter how desperate the need to push it back into nonexistence once more. Feeling this –
knowing this
– I began reading the letter anyway.

"Cara.

You don't know how many hours I've spent wondering if this is the right thing, this thing I'm doing. I'm doing it for you, baby. Even if it doesn't feel that way right now, I'm doing it for you. Dad's going to give you up now that I'm gone. He's going to let someone else bring you up. Good people, people who can treat you the way we never could.

I'm sorry that I'm too weak. I'm too weak to live like this anymore.

I'm doing this for you, baby.

Mama."

I reeled back, dropping the yellowed paper on the floor with shock and disgust. Bile rose in my throat, and I bit it back while part of me wanted to spew it out. I never should have opened that envelope. Never knowing would have been better, so much better than the truth.

You’re a silly, silly little girl
.

My stomach cramped, and waves of nausea ripped through my body. It was like some sick parody of an orgasm – instead of joy and sparks and electricity, it was misery and pain and depression. When a girl grows up like I did, she makes up fantastic stories; stories that explained where her mama had gone, and why she went and left her little girl alone. Maybe, I once thought, maybe she was saving elephants in Africa, or helping orphans somewhere. That sounded like the mama I knew.

But now I realized, that
mama
was an illusion. She never existed.

I wanted to wrap myself back up in the blanket of the world that existed before I knew the truth. I wanted to scrub the words on the page out of my mind, to forget them, and to relegate them to the deepest, darkest recesses of my brain.

Every time I closed my eyes, her words echoed in my mind. I could hear her voice.
"I'm too weak to live like this anymore."

That sad, desperate little girl who wanted to know the truth still screamed at me that this wasn't what I thought it was – what I knew it was. But her voice was faint now, frail. She was screaming into a hurricane, and only snatches of her voice came through to the other side. She was trying to tell me that the letter was simply a parting note.

But I saw it for what it truly was: a final goodbye;

a suicide note.

After I don't know how long, after my mind was black and numb, the first gut punch of emotion began to recede. I was in a no man's land, stranded in a desperate darkness. I was closer to being an orphan than I had ever believed. All those years, I had still harbored hope that my mother would return to me – it was the gossamer thread that held me back from the edge in my darkest moments. It was the last vestige of light to cling to when everything else was black.

And now I had nothing.

"No!"

I slammed my hand down on the couch, and an emotional outburst ripped past my lips. The letter still stared up at me, words ringing in my mind from where it lay accusingly on the floor. But I knew I needed to draw a line under it. I wasn't kidding myself. I knew I wouldn't be able to process what I'd read in a minute, an hour, hell – even a year.

But dwelling on it would get me nowhere. And for now, until I could come to terms with what I knew, I had to push it away. I needed to lock it up in a vault deep inside my mind; in a place it couldn't hurt me –

because I had a life to live –

a child to care for –

and a man to love.

My afternoon had turned into an emotional roller coaster. I wanted so desperately to throw myself off, but if I did, I was nowhere. I was not going to become my mother. I was never going to let that cycle repeat itself.

I was not giving up on my family before it even had a chance to
be
a family. I was going to be strong – to be what my family deserved.