Page 86 of Mine, Forever

“How many did you lose?”

“Two.”

Her answers had been short and clipped since we got back. I wondered if she blamed me for the loss of her girls. Probably, but there was no way to tell for sure.

“Call me if she wakes again.”

“Are you leaving?”

“No,” I said, looking back at Ronni. “Just getting some shut eye on the couch.”

“Take my bed,” she said, turning to look at Ebony’s back. “You’ll need the rest.”

I didn’t say anything. Frankly, I didn’t know enough about this woman to trust her, but so far she’d been okay. Moving down the hall to the main bedroom, I noted how spartan it was. There were so many unanswered questions I had about her.

How hadn’t I known about her?

What did she think of me killing her brother?

I laid down on the bed, closing my eyes. My body was aching from lack of sleep, and I had a pounding headache.

Ebony’s back was ripped to pieces because of that son of a bitch. She would always have a memory of that day with him because I couldn’t protect her. I wasn’t okay with that.

2000

I crept down the stairs avoiding the boxes littering every available space. I hated that John was making me leave this place, the one place which held all the memories of my mother. His plans for me were on track, or so I imagined. I aced everything he put in front of me so far.

John was talking to a few of his men in one of his angry tones, the sound I associated with a beating. Thankfully, he had no idea I was home so he couldn’t take his anger out on me. Sneaking toward the doors of the office, I listened in on the conversation.

“—find him, and this time don’t fuck it up.”

I heard footsteps coming toward the door. Running to hide behind the grandfather clock, I got there just in time. Two of my father’s men, Ryder and Tomasz, came out looking angry and left. I expected my father to come out, but when he didn’t, I crept up to the door again.

“You’re too hard on them. It wasn’t their fault, Johnny.”

It was a woman’s voice—one I hadn’t heard before.

“I want results.”

“This is Luca we’re discussing. He’s not going to make it easy to have others kill him.”

“If you have nothing useful to say, Ronni, shut it.”

I tried to peek through the keyhole in the door to see this Ronni person. A new girlfriend? No, he never spoke to his girlfriends about his business activities, which meant she was someone he worked with. Strange, he’d never trusted women enough before to allow them to work with him. I would have seen her before, so who was this woman he trusted so much?

She had her back to me as I peered through the tiny keyhole, but I could see she had short black hair slicked back into a tiny bob above her shoulders. She wore black clothes, tight against her body. John was relaxed in her presence, not at all like he was around his business partners.

John stiffened as he looked over toward the door, more specifically the keyhole. Shit! I shuffled away from the door, smashing into a couple of boxes behind me in the process, making a loud noise. The door opened behind me.

“What the fuck are you doing, boy?”

I tried to run up the stairs, but he caught hold of my neck and shoved me head first into the wooden railing of the staircase. My head thrummed as I fell to my knees, my vision was blurry.

“Johnny, stop it! He’s your son.”

“Waste of space, he is. Just like his fucking mother.”

My eyes suddenly opened, sweat beading on my brow just like it had back then when I’d been caught. John had been ruthless back then. I’d feared him and what he could do to me. I sat up, flicking my eyes over to Ronni sitting in a chair by the door, watching me.

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