The only one who is not making idle conversation when I get downstairs is Kortez. He’s making his way through my living room when I reach the bottom stair, his hands deep in his pockets as he walks from photo to photo, staring at them like…like he knows he should have been standing beside me in every single one.
He wasn’t, though, because of Aldo Valente – Atlas’s father.
He wasn’t there for my high school graduation or my first day of college. I never got to see the apartment he picked out for us because it was too painful…I didn’t even go to the same college. He…
“There you are, Little Moth. I was starting to wonder if you needed help in there.” Roman’s easy smile seems to take the pressure off, the subconscious need to be perfect, to not let them see the cracks in my self-made armor. His eyes dart down to the black shoebox in my hands, “What’s that?”
Wyld and Atlas join us from the dining room as Kortez spins around, his dark eyes sweeping over me with more tension than I ever thought he could hold.My prince has been touched by the darkness.
My fingers tighten around the large shoebox, the one that held my very first set of platform boots Kor bought me in my freshman year of high school. “It’s…memories. It’s a run down of the last ten years of my life.”
Kortez walks closer, his fingers stroking down my arm until they rest on top of my own, his hand closing around mine as we hold the box together. “You still have it.”
I shoot him a smile, brushing past him to sit on the sofa. “Of course I do, there’s just more in it now.”
He follows, sitting down beside me so close that there’s only an inch of space between us. “Like what?”
I look up and motion for the other three to join us. They sit, Wylder taking a place on my other side as Roman and Atlas sit across from us. I see Atlas’s eyes lingering on the windows where we can all see Abel playing in the backyard, pieces of rope tied together all around him.
“He’s practicing…for a boy scout competition.”
Atlas barks out a laugh as his eyes swing over tomine. “Imagine, a Valente child in the boy scouts.”
His eyes twinkle with amusement as I laugh along with him. “Imagine.”
My hands fall back to the box sitting on my lap, my fingers shaking as I reach over to open the lid. I place it on the floor with shaky hands before looking down into my lap. “You told me your story yesterday…about what really happened that night.” I hesitate as I look over to Atlas once again. “I’m sorry I thought you hurt Kortez…It’s just…”
I let out a deep sigh and flip through the worn cardboard box to see hundreds of pieces of my life staring back at me. Pictures from graduation and college, of Abel when he was a baby – photos showcasing every milestone in my life. Then there’s my diplomas, the documents for the house, medical papers and proof of everything I accomplished and overcame in the last ten years.
It’s all shoved in this one black shoebox.
I clear my throat, digging through the box until I reach a newspaper clipping at the very bottom. “I went back to the warehouse after graduation.”
I hear the intake of breath from everyone except Wyld. He knows the story, and he knows more details than I can give them right now. His hand lands on my thigh and he gives me an encouraging squeeze as I continue. “Some guy was there burning Kor’s car. I asked him what happened, and he said someone was killed by orders of Mr. Valente. I…”
Atlas nods from his place across from me. “You thought I had Tez killed.”
Tez? Cussing, tattoos, the gun I see peaking out from his waistband…who is this man that wears the face of my best friend?
I nod and lick my lips, handing Atlas the newspaperclipping I pulled from the box. “I left town that night, but I kept watch on the Jacksonville papers. The only mention of the warehouse was in a single article on the third page saying it was demolished two months later.”
Atlas’s eyes narrow as he reads through the small article with a photo of the demolished warehouse.
Kor reaches over and takes it from him, nodding as he looks down at the weathered paper. “I remember Aldo talking about this. He was pissed because…” Kor turns toward me, his eyes telling me he knows the answer even as he asks, “What happened to the man you spoke to? The one who said Mr. Valente had someone killed?”
Wylder squeezes my thigh again as I meet Kortez’s dark eyes with a hard stare, “I killed him.” I turn to see Atlas staring at me with interest in his eyes. “I used his blood to write a message to your father – to you.”
Roman leans forward in his chair, his hands clasped together out in front of him. “What message, Little Moth?”
Memories of blood staining the asphalt while the smell of Kortez’s car burning in the background plays through my mind as my mouth voices the words I fingerpainted in blood so many years ago. “It said…it said I’m coming for you next.”
The living room is silent as I let them process my words, my fingers already digging through the box to find the next trip down memory lane. “I left Jacksonville, left Florida altogether actually, and ended up in Chicago. I thought that if Atlas killed Kor, then he may come back for me, and I didn’t want that. I got settled and then I changed my name.”
Atlas’s voice is low and troubled as he reaches across to grab the paper from me, the one confirmingmy name change. “Why Patton?”
I let out a soft laugh and pull out a picture, handing it to Atlas. He eyes the woman in the photo, her light brown hair somehow shining even in the dim lights of the woman’s center I used to stay in. “It was for her, Lurie Patton. She ran the woman’s shelter in Chicago where I stayed, and she bent over backwards to keep me alive. She even watched Abel while I went to school.”
It’s Kor that catches the small detail I let slip a little before I meant it to, “Alive?”
