Page 46 of Defy

I move to sit on the blue and yellow bedspread and close my eyes, letting Adriana’s memory wash over me as rain starts to pelt the windows. It feels fitting somehow that a storm would rain down on us today. It feels like I’m drowning in what is right versus what is wrong and I’m losing sight of how to get what I want as I feel Libby pulling away from me.

I’m startled when I feel the bed shift beneath my mother’s weight as she sits down next to me, putting her head on my shoulder, her voice quiet and unsure. “What do I do when the only life I’ve ever known feels foreign to me?” Her vulnerability is rendering me speechless as well as motionless. I hardly expected her to be having similar feelings to my own. I make no move to stop her when she turns and cups my face in her hands. “I’ve missed you, son. Adriana was special of course, butyouwere the best part of this family. I believe you still are.” She pauses, searching my eyes, using one hand to swipe my hair off my forehead. “I see the way she looks at you. Daniella. Like you’re the sun she orbits around.”

I correct her immediately. “It’s her who’s the sun, Mother.”

“Perhaps,” she sighs and drops her hands, looking away from me.

“Does this mean you’re going to help me?”

She gives me a small, sad smile. “I fear my fate is sealed, but yours is not. Seeing you again has brought my sins into sharp relief and perhaps I feel that I owe you.”

I want to reach out and touch her forehead with the back of my hand. Surely, she’s burning alive with a fever right now. If she isn’t, then this conversation is all the proof I need that God exists.

“I don’t think I can get your father to give up his lust for Mateo’s blood. Nor can I advocate for anything that will take you away from me again. But perhaps, I can help get the girl to safety.” My shoulders instantly feel lighter as if Atlas’s stone has been removed.

It’s not a guarantee but for now, it’ll do. Once I know Libby is safe, I can get myself out easier. Although I appreciate my mother’s change of heart, it’s too little too late and I have no plans to stay. Especially when I have a lifetime of groveling at Libby’s feet ahead of me.

“Your father can’t know I’m involved,” she says and I realize for the first time that perhaps my mother has been scared of Omar Hielo her whole life. I’ve never known her to step out against him.

If that’s true then she’s far stronger than I’ve ever given her credit for, just like Libby. Could it be that all these years, my mother has camouflaged her true thoughts and feelings in an effort to save her own life?

When I look back at my mother, she has tears in her eyes as she lifts Adriana’s dress to her face, inhaling the scent. “It’s faded now but it’s still there.”

“Youdidlove her, didn’t you?”

“God knows I tried to keep her at arms-length. But she was such a beautiful child. I begged your father to ruin Mateo some other way. I even advocated for an arranged marriage between you two. Let someone else raise her and then ruin Mateo by having his daughter become an Hielo. But your father wouldn’t allow it. He said that would mean Mateo would live on in your children and he couldn’t stand the thought of disgracing our bloodline.”

That confession hits like an arrow to my chest. I had thought about suggesting the same thing with Libby as a last resort. Although after our last couple of interactions, perhaps that idea wouldn’t appeal to her at all anymore and I’m certainly not on board with forcing her to marry me. Then I trulywouldbe like Willem.

Suddenly, it’s hard to breathe.

“No one ever told me what Mateo did that ended up being so hideous, it cost him his child…children.”

She angles her head in my direction but doesn’t look at me. Her eyes stare off into the distance as she recalls a memory. Finally, speaks. “When Mateo was just starting to get into the business –ourbusiness – he had a hard time making connections because your father already had them all. In fact, your father offered Mateo a spot in the ranks, but Mateo was hellbent on making his own way. When he set our clubs up to be raided, he declared war. Your father was angry because there is no honor in tattling to the authorities.”

“Why didn’t he just kill Mateo?” I ask, bewildered that he let the man live.

“Death is the easy way out, son. Omar wanted Mateo to suffer. Repeatedly. And for a long time. Not to mention Dimitri. He worked for us first and when he joined Mateo, our poor girl was the knife that could cut them both.”

Dimitri. Fuck, I hadn’t thought about him since the day he died. Dimitri was set to be Adriana’s husband. A match my parents approved because he was so high up in our ranks but we discovered that he’d been working undercover for Mateo for about a year when I was ordered to kill Adriana. Dimitri died that day along with my sister, but not a single tear was shed for him.

“Why did you makemedo it? I loved her.” I hate that my voice betrays my emotions right now but there’s no helping it.

Again, she won’t meet my eyes as she exhales a shaky breath. “Once I knew there was no changing his mind, I knew it had to be you. I couldn’t risk a bad shot. I couldn’t risk someone missing and letting that sweet girl live in her fear or pain a single moment longer than we’d already caused her.” As I process this, my mother breaks down next to me. “She never knew it was you.” As if that’s any consolation becauseIknow it was me. “You weren’t supposed to know it was her, either. I tried to get you out of there before they removed the cover but you were so eager to please your father back then, you wanted to stay for his victory too.”

Bile rises quickly in my throat causing my hand to fly to my mouth. Once I’m sure I’m not going to throw up all over Adriana’s comforter, I open my mouth to speak. “I need to go.” I rise off the bed when my mother stops me.

“We’re running out of time. If your father finds out I’m on your side and that we’re working against him, he’ll kill her to punish you and I. Crushing Mateo will just be a bonus.”

“I know.”

I can’t risk my mother’s life as well as Libby’s by asking Imelda to get involved. Hopefully Mateo doesn’t shoot me on the spot and my mother can convince my father to offer a fair trade. It’s time to get Libby the hell out of here and this is the only way I can think to do it.

~

OPENING THE DOOR TO the weapons room, my eyes land squarely on the pistol I’m dying to grab but it’s not yet time.

Almost.

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