When we first met a few years ago, I thought he was handsome, in an unconventional way. His face is all hard angles with a nose that you can tell has been broken one too many times. His dark eyes are a little sunken in, but it only adds to his roughness. Even his hair, a shade too red to be brown but too brown to be red...it was odd, but not unattractive.
His personality is what threw me off. He was too nice for a man who looked as rugged as he did. Nothing fit. Now I know why it felt off. Why he felt off.
It was all a lie.
“Tell me something, Wade.” His eyes spark with curiosity as I take a step forward. “Does Vivianne know?”
It’s been bugging me ever since I realized who she was to him. She’s been my best friend for the better part of a decade and I don’t want to believe it was all fake, but I can’t ignore the facts.
He laughs and lights another cigarette, his last one not even cold on the ground in front of me. “Oh, yeah, Viv knew. It was her idea to get close to you in the first place. She was a little mad about having to go to law school but...” He flicks his cigarette, some of the ashes flying right onto my shirt. “It was easy when she couldpay off most of the professors. Now, getting you to Denver...” He chuckles, standing from the stool and beginning a walk around my cage. “That was the hard part.”
My body turns, following his every move as he continues to pace around my square prison. His finger points to me as he laughs, “You almost didn’t come. You remember that?”
I nod, the memories were still so fresh in my mind. I had made a home for Abel, and I didn’t want to leave it behind. I didn’t tell the guys the whole truth. About four years after Kortez...went missing, I decided to live for my son instead of for revenge. Vivianne is the one who told me I couldn’t stop. She convinced me I could be a mother and still get vengeance for Kor. She supported me, pushed me to come to the city because of the criminal world that thrives in the dark alleys of Denver. But...this still doesn’t make sense.
“You’ve only been after the Valente’s for four years. I met Viv seven years ago.”
Wade finishes his first lap and begins on a second, his third cigarette clenched in his fingertips and ready to be lit.
When did he turn into such a chainsmoker?
“Atlas may think I’ve only been after them for four years, and that’s partly true, but my family has been working to destroy the Valente throne long before that. Three decades, to be exact.” He says the last bit so matter of fact it’s like he knows the exact day it happened.
“Why? What did Atlas ever do to you?” My hands clench into fists at my sides in anger – more at myself than at Wade at the moment. Just a few months ago, I never would have questioned him. I wanted to believe Atlas was this horrible person because it’s the onlything that made sense in my head. It’s the only way I could understand why Kortez would be taken away from me.
“Not Atlas, Evie – Aldo. Atlas is…” He waves his hand around, “Insurance. A way to make sure Aldo’s vile bloodline never continues. Your son was safe, free from the influence of his Valente blood. Until now, that is.”
My body is slamming against the bars before I recognize I’ve moved, my hands reaching through the small openings and trying to grab at Wade. “Touch my son and I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll kill you and drown your traitorous bitch of a sister in your blood!”
Wade smiles, wiping at his face where I spit on him in my rage fueled rant. “There’s that violence I’ve always admired in you. Such a wild spirit. I was worried for a moment. Never fear, Evangeline, I won’t touch your boy. It’s a line even I won’t cross, despite my father’s previous behavior.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” The bars are gripped so tightly in my hands that my knuckles are turning white.
“Perhaps I should start at the beginning.” Wade drops his cigarette, snuffing it out under his foot as he walks toward me, our faces mere inches apart with only the bar between us. “When I was seven years old – Vivianne five – my mother had another child. The entire pregnancy was horrible for her. She never stopped crying and refused to partake in the joy my father felt for growing our family. You see, my father had worked for Aldo nearly his whole life, meeting my mother while she worked as a maid in the Valente mansion. It was a match made in heaven. Up until her third pregnancy, my mother was a saint. She never yelled, never cursed, never even shot a dirty look at myfather behind his back. She was perfect.”
Cue the Freudian mommy issues.
Ignorant of my internal thoughts, Wade continues, his breath heavy against my own as he speaks. “One day, she came home from work crying. She never told anyone why. I remember my father begging her to tell him so he could fix it, but his words only made her cry harder. A month later, a doctor confirmed her pregnancy. In that month’s time she had slowly picked up the pieces from whatever happened but the news sent her spiraling. No one could understand why. Until we did. Aldo Valente.”
Wade says his name like a curse and a promise all at the same time, his voice dropping down to a whisper. “Mother tried to tell my father it wasn’t her choice, that she was forced, but father wouldn’t hear of it. He tried to beat the bastard out of her but one night, she left.” He shakes his head, “Father began to beat us instead, Viv and I. There was no way for us to leave, he had us trapped. He began to plot against Aldo – stealing from him and planting whispers of a mutiny in the ears of his men. When I was old enough, I got Vivianne and I away, but I continued my father’s quest for vengeance. I never stepped foot back in New York until I heard of his passing a few years ago, doing my dirty work in the shadows with the help of hired guns. When I went to the Valente estate to gather my father’s things, I overheard Aldo speaking to a capo about theidiot guardwho died without knowing the truth.”
As much as I hate it, I’m hanging on to every word he says, desperate to know the truth. In my gut I know whatever he says next is going to break my world off its axis.
“It took some digging but after all those years, Ifinally found out what happened to my mother. I knew he raped her. I believed my mother the moment she tried to tell my father the truth – but there was more to the story none of us knew. My mother went to Aldo begging for help, asking him to protect his son when she couldn’t fight my father any longer. She asked him to step up and beresponsiblefor his own fucking mistakes. The mess he got her into!”
Wade steps away from the bars, his body shaking as he lets out a roar and throws a fist into my cage. Blood immediately begins to drip down to the floor, staining one of the plush rugs lining the tile on the other side of the metal bars.
“He laughed, Evangeline. He fucking laughed! He said, if she couldn’t keep her own child safe then she wasn’t a real woman. My mother was brought to the basement where she gave birth to my brother, a little boy who looked exactly like the monster whose blood ran through his veins. They were moved to a warehouse across the country and given some extra room for a growing boy to stretch his legs but even then, men would come to drag my mother from her prison to repeatedly use and break her body. Aldo never cared about her. He never cared about his bastard son. My mother was a way to keep his men busy and compliant until she outlived her usefulness.”
His shiny loafers are now surrounded with blood, his fist continuing to drip.
“My father beat us for years thinking she left him when she was imprisoned for years only to be murdered when I was the same age your boy is now.”
This story…it feels too familiar. Now it’s me shaking on my side of the cage while Wade watches with knowing eyes. “What happened to your brother, Wade?”
He steps forward, reaching out and grabbing my neck with his bloody hand. He doesn’t apply any pressure, only touching me long enough for his bloody handprint to stick to my skin. “You know what happened to him, Evie. He was taken away, bound and kept for days before they dropped him off at a run-down orphanage.”
I shake my head, memories flashing through my eyes of a little boy showing up on the orphanage steps with his face swollen and his wrists raw from ropes.
