Page 133 of Filthy Savage

“I…um…I’ve had the same stupid dream since I was younger.” She sighs. “It comes and goes, but I don’t know what it means.”

“Tell me about it.”

Lowering back down, I pull her over my chest, my palm clasped to her back.

“I’m in a hospital, around Fia’s age, and in my arms, there’s a baby. My mother is there, but I can’t see her face. It’s fuzzy. The baby cries, and I calm her down, but then my mother starts flickering and so does the baby.” Her breaths tremble out of her as she goes on. “Then they’re gone and I’m alone in a pitch-black room with nothing there. Until I’m swallowed up by the darkness too.”

Jesus.

“I kept thinking that maybe it’s a sign of some kind that I have to find my father. That I have to know why he left me.”

That’s right; she told me he left when she was two.

“I wonder if my subconscious is telling me I need to close that chapter of my life,” she continues. “That I need some kind of closure from the sense of abandonment, you know?”

“Of course.”

“But I don’t know his name or anything about him. My mother won’t give me my birth certificate or his information.”

My fingers feather up and down her spine. “She will to me.”

“What?”

“I’ll go pay her a nice visit. Maybe bring a plant. Does she like plants?”

“If she can smoke it.” She snickers.

“I’m gonna find out everything you need to know, and then you can have your answers.”

She bites her bottom lip. “Sometimes I wonder if some things are better left in the past, but I just can’t seem to move on from knowing why he left. Every time I look at Fia, I ask myself how he could’ve just walked out on me like that.”

“I don’t know either.” I cup her jaw and kiss her, my body filling with adrenaline. “But I swear if he tries to hurt you again once we find him, I’m not gonna be able to stop myself from killing him.”

Her eyes pop. I drop my lips to her forehead, leaving them there for a few seconds. She can’t hide the shock, her face disappearing in my chest.

Once she’s asleep, I stay awake, wondering if I should’ve said any of that.

AMARA

“You okay?” he asks, tightening his grasp on my hand while he shows me around the estate.

But my mind is still on what he said last night. He’ll kill my father if he has to.Killhim. For merely hurting me.

What does that even mean? What is considered hurt for men like him? Is there a criteria Mafia guys use before they decide to off people? Maybe a checklist?

Ran over wife’s beloved flowers. Check.

Said he hated her cooking. Check.

Looked at her the wrong way. Check.

No matter the reasons my father left, I don’t want anyone’s life on my conscience.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lie, but from his tight expression, I know he doesn’t buy it.

Forcing myself not to think about this, I look out at the mountains up ahead, large and scenic, the smell of freshly cut grass filling my nostrils. I will never get over this view.

When we pass a looming mansion with other smaller ones on each side, I stare at it curiously. “What’s that?”

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