Page 48 of Heartfelt Pain
“Dad?” I question.
But Mom answers, turning back to the orchid. “Your father had a rival, vying for Emma’s affections.”
Emma.
Elijah’s mom. She came to New York on a scholarship. The British woman had no idea she’d fall in love with a mafia prince destined to rule the bratva one day.
Dad met her in a shitty dive bar close to her university. She didn’t give him the time of day. He went home and learned everything he could about the Premier League.
She died just days after Elijah’s third birthday. Cancer took her swiftly. So swiftly that sometimes I wonder if Dad ever found his stability again.
It’s another thing I only began recognizing as an adult. After I lost Ren’s love.
Dad’s love for Mom. . . let’s just say we all know she’s the second wife.
“I’ve never heard this story.” And Dad has a lot of Emma stories.
He rubs the back of his neck again. “It was. . .”
“John Hope,” Dima helpfully supplies. “He pissed his pants before you dropped him into the Hudson.”
“You didn’t really kill him?” I ask.
“Oh, he killed him,” Dima confirms. I think I might understand now why he so willingly thought I might be a serial killer.
“Love does strange things to us sometimes.” Dad shrugs.
“You killed John Hope, Dad.”
He picks lint off his shirt. “In my defense he was a little bitch.”
“And how. . . did Emma take that?”
“Wouldn’t speak to him for weeks,” Dima says. Dad’s jaw clenches. “Almost left the country.”
“Okay. . . well, good thing I didn’t kill anyone.”
I relay an important message to the beast inside me—don’t become a serial killer. It freaks girls out.
“We’re all clear on the fact that I didn’t kill any of Ren’s ex’s?” I ask the room. It’s silent. “We’re all clear?” I ask a little louder.
Dima fidgets with his hat. “Sure, yeah.”
“Of course, son.”
Mom keeps staring at her orchid.
My curiosity wins out. “Where did you get that?”
“I bought it for myself.” There’s a little garden shop nearby. I assume she went there, but I can’t picture her there in her heels.
“You hate plants,” Dad points out. She doesn’t reply.
CHAPTER 11
Ren
Trevino gives me crap about ordering pizza. Not because of the calorie content but because he doesn’t believe in ordering things to one’s house.
