Page 24 of Bittersweet Endings
I think we all knew the answer.
***
“God. I have no energy for this,” I muttered while tapping on my phone.
“It’ll be good for you to see them,” Rocco commented. “For them to see how good you’re doing.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He glanced in my direction before turning back to the road. We were headed to the family compound for Sunday dinner. Apparently, while I wasawayas my mother called it—becausekidnappedwas too harsh—they started a new tradition. Every Sunday, the entire family was summoned to the compound.
I’d gotten out of it thus far, but my mother was no longer accepting my excuses. I hadn’t seen any of them since the club. Truth was, I’d been avoiding them.
I continued to scroll through my socials. My newly formed company had a few authors who were interested in meeting. Their marketing potential was promising, considering they ran everything themselves.
We pulled up outside and I swung my door open, slamming it closed again before Rocco followed me into the house. I could hear the women laughing in the dining room, the kids screaming, but noticed the light on in my father’s office.
“I understand that, genetically, she is family. At the same time, I’m compelled to once again remind you the leukocytes within her body won’t stop her from turning against us,” Apollo said.
I paused while Rocco took an angry step forward. I threw outan arm to stop him. Motioning him towards the side as I pressed my back against the wall and listened to myfamilyattack me.
“What’re you trying to say? A few months away and all of a sudden Octavia will turn against us?” my father scoffed. “I know her better than that.”
“Do you?” Lucky chimed in. “She’s kept secrets for years, Pops.Years.She allowed the enemy to walk amongst us.”
“That wasn’t her fault!” my father shouted, making my heart hammer in my chest. “We didn’t protect…Ididn’t protect her. That’s not her fault.”
“She should’ve come to us. We all saw her cracking. Years of silence, and she let them keep walking through our door. She let it rot. And then at the club, that asshole’s father is right behind Sienna? How’d he know to be there?”
Lucky was dead to me. Officially.
“What was she supposed to do? She was scared.” My father sighed.
Apollo’s voice moved as he paced the room. “While it’s a contested illness, I assure you Stockholm Syndrome is a very real possibility here.”
Motherfucker… they thought I was that weak?
“It’s an empathetic and emotional attachment to your captor. Carmine Ragetti is a master manipulator. He took her when she was at her weakest, forced her to confess her trauma, then killed one of them for her. That could create a sense of allegiance to the man that slayed her monsters…” He paused. “To turn against those who didn’t.”
“I saw the way they looked at each other. It’s a mutual attraction… Carmine clearly cares…” My father really was trying.
“Did he call a truce?” Lucky snapped. “Did he say the war was over because he loves your daughter? No. JP’s lighting up the west, and now he’s in our city. Gunning for us.” Lucky’s tonewas harsher when he asked, “And at the hospital, what did Carmine say?”
“It doesn’t matter. He was overwhelmed by the truth of his uncle?—”
“He said he wanted you dead.” My brother’s words cut like glass. “Said he’d finish you when he got back. What’s the cleanest way to do that?”
“From the inside out,” Apollo muttered.
“And Octavia knowseverything. About us. All of it.” He was nearly shouting now. “She’s his weapon, and you handed her the ammo by letting her leave this house.”
None of them trusted me.
“Fuck this,” I mumbled, straightening my spine as I walked into the office and sat in an open seat.
“O-Octavia.” My father started to stand, but my face made him flinch.
“Hello, family. I figured since you had so much to say about me, I’d allow you the opportunity to say it to my face.” I stared each one of them in the eye. None of them had the gall to say a damn thing to me. As if they hadn’t just so freely named me as their enemy.
