“What do you miss most about her?” Olivia asks as she assesses the icing, slowing the mixer down a little.
I haven’t spoken about my mother with anyone ever. But, with Olivia, I want to. I have the strong sense that my mother would fucking love her.
“I miss the way she looked at me, with an unconditional sort of love. She knew all our family’s demons. I wasn’t the best … version of myself when I was a teenager, but she loved me exactly how I was.” I think for a breath. “And she always made sure I knew it.”
“What happened to her?” Olivia’s eyes search mine as I fight the walls I’ve so carefully put in place all these years. I reach out and tuck a copper lock behind her ear, thinking maybe the best way to protect her is to arm her with a little of my truth …
CHAPTER 42
Asher
AGE SEVENTEEN
My heart is thumping faster the closer I get. I’m almost done; the battery is the last piece before I add all the fluids to the motorcycle I’ve been working on for months. My phone says it’s one o’clock in the morning. I shake my head. I shouldn’t be surprised. My dad said he’d be home by now, but I know he’s with Denise, or one of his other side pieces. He doesn’t bring them here to Scarsdale, our upper class neighborhood outside New York. He stays in the city with his mistresses. It used to piss me off that he cheated on my mom, but now I know that’s just the way it is when you’re the king of the Saints. You get all the pussy you want.
At seventeen, I’m not the king yet, but I’m James Donovan’s son and the fly half on our school’s varsity rugby team, so I already get all the pussy I want too.
Moment of truth.I stand back and look at my bike. A 1973 vintage Harley. A gift from my uncle Pete. I’ve restored the whole thing with the money my father gave me for my seventeenth birthday when he told me I have only a year left to play. After that, I belong to the family. I’m old enough now to knowwhat that means: One day, I’ll control this empire.
I turn the key and my bike fires right up, filling the open garage with a beautiful deep rumble.
“Fuck yeah,” I grit out, turning up my iPod in celebration. Eminem fills the space and adrenaline rushes through my blood because, tomorrow, I’ll be riding. I’m so consumed by the sound of the bike, my music, and the thought of what I have to do next that I don’t hear the group of men as they make their way across our vast property to the house. I don’t hear the windows break as lit Molotov cocktails are thrown through them.
It isn’t until I smell the heady scent of smoke coming from somewhere close by that I pause and turn down my blaring music. And that’s when I make my way to the door of the garage and see the flames a hundred feet away. I hear screaming and then, I’m running, knowing, once again, that my father pissed off someone he shouldn’t have.
I pull my gun from my hip, ready to shoot any mother-fucker on our property the way my father and my uncle trained me to. My stomach lurches as I round the corner of the yard to see the east side of our house burning.
It’sbeenburning. Flames shoot through the living room window as I hear the sound of glass breaking. I don’t see anyone on the premises, but I hear another scream, and I feel like I might throw up because I know it belongs to my mother.
“James! Asher!” she cries as the heat hits me like a fucking tsunami the closer I get to the house. I search for an open space to get inside. The front door is impossible; the flames are out of control behind it. I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing as I run to the back door off the kitchen and kick it in without thought.
Another wave of heat blasts over me and I can hear my mom’s sobs. I cry out for her as my lungs fill with smoke. I know I’m too late because, holy fuck, our entire living room ison fire.
Panic rises; I can’t evenseedown the hall where the screams are coming from. My mother’s bedroom is on the other side. The horrific sounds continue over the deep crackle of fire and the crash of items falling and smashing on the ground. I hold my shirt to my face and keep trying to find a way through the burning rubble because I can’t leave her. I have to save her.My mama.
Images of her flood my head as I call out, telling her I’m coming, while I choke back sobs; in our yard, on the swings, chalking in the driveway when I was young. The way she kisses the top of my head before ruffling my hair. The way she watches from the stands when I win my rugby matches. Birthdays, breakfasts, masses, family gatherings—it’s all flooding me now as I narrowly miss being smothered by one of the ornate beams from our living room as it falls and hits the floor. The sounds of sirens fill the air, drowning out the screams of my mother that are already dimming. My lungs grow heavy and dots line my vision as I try to lift the searing beam. It’s too big, too heavy, and the wood is charring my flesh, but still, I try. I still have to try. I can’t let her die.
Olivia’s eyes are filled with tears when I look up at her, finishing my story.
“It was too big to stop by myself. I was living a life of insolence: drugs, arrogance, entitlement. I wasn’t a man. I was a boy who thought he was a man.” I swallow the boulder in my throat. “And I wasn’t strong enough then. The smoke was too thick, and I guess I passed out. Firefighters pulled me from the room and said I was moments from death myself.”
She swipes a tear from her cheek. “The scars on yourhands?”
I lift them, studying, remembering. “I didn’t feel anything. All I could focus on was her screaming: my father’s name, my name, crying out to God to save her. And then it was over. Everything was quiet.”
The silence is what haunts me the most.
“I’m so sorry.” Olivia’s face is full of genuine sorrow and understanding. “That’s why you fight fires now.”
I nod. “After she died, you’d think I’d stop partying. Stop living that life. But I ran toward it to do my best to bury everything. I was angry at everyone and everything, so I used people, women mostly. I drank too much, took every drug I could get my hands on. I let that anger fuel me to work for my father. I told myself it didn’t matter, but I always heard her voice in my head telling me there was another way, that I should get out. But after I went to jail, I never touched a drug again. Never took advantage of another woman drawn to the power of my father’s world. Prison changed me. It made me a better man, but it also put up solid walls around me. I vowed to never again let in anyone that could hurt me. About a year after I got out, my uncle told me Staten Island was looking for recruits at the one-thirteen station.”
“Is that when you left?”
“Not quite. You don’t just leave my family. I had to train first and find a way to ease out. But I remember thinking, maybe I could save someone else’s mother.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve thought of that, fuck.
“When I was about twenty-three, I began distancing myself, because I felt like a better man when I wasn’t in that world, but there were too many ghosts. The pull was too strong. I was still heavily involved, and family was always trying to suck me back in.”
