Page 5 of Ivory Oath

I drop my arms and turn towards him. “Hey, Dante. I thought?—”

“Where is my mom?” he asks.

It’s a blow I’m not expecting. I swallow down the bile in my throat. “She’s gone.”

“When is she coming back?”

“She isn’t.”

He frowns. “What did you do to her?”

We’ve been through all of this before—several times, actually. That doesn’t make it any easier to handle now.

“Nothing,” I growl. “I didn’t do anything. It’s why I’m here and she isn’t. She is the one who?—”

Who what? How am I supposed to explain any of this shit to Dante in a way that makes any sense?

I saved your mom from my violent big brother, got her pregnant, and now, I have to take care of you on my own because she killed Trofim the way I probably should have six years ago.

“Tangled web” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

“Have you boxed before?” I ask instead of finishing my sentence. I reach out to steady the bag in front of me.

Dante frowns, still as suspicious of me as he probably should be. Between me and Viviana, Dante comes by his distrust of authority naturally.

“That’s not a box.”

I bite back my first smile in days. “No, it’s not. I don’t know why they call it boxing, actually. But what I do know is that it’s fun. Er—it makes me feel better, anyway.”

He crosses his arms and I see so much of Viviana in him.

Bringing him here was a mistake. The gym is the only room in the house she’s never been to. The only place that doesn’t smell like her and isn’t dripping with memories of the weeks we spent living together.

But I’ll always see her in Dante. No matter how much I wish I didn’t.

I blow out a breath and grab the roll of tape from the mat. “Come here. I’ll wrap your hands.”

Dante’s curiosity wins and he inches over to me, a frown on his face.

Ever since I met him, he’s been a bright, bubbly kid. He loves everyone and is excited about life. Or, he was.

The last few days, he’s shifted into something I’m more familiar with. When I look at him, I can see the same rage that swirls inside of me. It’s the same storm I’ve been learning to tame my entire life. Now, it’s Dante’s turn.

The kid in front of me now isn’t as innocent as he was a few weeks ago.

The last thing Viviana made me promise before she left is that I’d let Dante be a little boy for as long as possible. I’m not sure that’s a promise I had any business making. Less than a week in, and it’s already proving impossible to keep.

“Why are you putting these things on?” he asks, flexing his knuckles through the tape. “I’m not bleeding.”

“And we want to keep it that way. Hence the tape.” His hands are impossibly small against mine. The tape that just covers my knuckles goes from Dante’s fingertips to the middle of his palm. “Maybe one day I’ll get you some gloves, but this is all you’ll need right now.”

“What do I do?”

“Did you see me when you came in?” I ask.

“You were hitting that thing.”

I gesture towards the bag. “Do what I was doing. We’ll get a baseline for where you’re at and then home in on what?—”

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