Page 12 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

I don’t want her watching over me. I want her home, in the house when I come in from school, the smell of her famous chicken tortilla soup filling the air. “Mom…”

“Listen to me. I lied to you, Tomas. I said he died, but he’s alive.”

They told me she would be delirious at the end. It’s tearing my guts out to hear her babbling about some guy who probably doesn’t even exist. My father is dead; I’ve known that my whole life.

“Shh, Mom. Just relax.” I don’t know what else to say. I’m not going to tell her it’s okay to let go. It’s not okay. It will never be okay.

But she’s going anyways, no matter what I do or don’t say. “Tomas, your father is alive. I lied to you.” She grips my fingers hard. “Bogan Dubrovsky. That’s his name.” She swallows and closes her eyes.

“Mom!” She’s not babbling. She means what she’s saying.

I watch the pulse point in her throat as she inhales deep, slow. “I didn’t want you to grow up that way … his way … but go to him now. He knows about you. He’ll take care of you.” She opens her eyes and stares at me. Then it’s finished.

The light in her fades.

And the light in me dies with her.

* * *

That’s why it’s easy to do what I do. I lost the last bit of love I ever knew that day. Not just Mom.

I losther, too.

The hotel room door suddenly opens. I look out the slight opening in the closet.

According to the photograph I was given to study, Douglas Giordano is a fat, late 50s Italian with greased black hair and the face of an English bulldog.

This isn’t him.

This guy is ten years too young, twenty pounds too scrawny, fifteen shades too blond. And he’s bitching in a voice too high to be the Italian mafioso who sounds more like Stallone than Stallone does.

“Wrong fucking room. Can you believe that? For all the fucking money we paid, the least they could do is get it right.” I can’t see the woman’s face, but she gasps when he gives her shoulder a little shove. “I can’t believe you chose such a bullshit venue that it can’t tell a honeymoon suite from a presidential suite.”

Wrong room. Wrong guy. What the fuck? I absolutely do not want to be stuck in this closet until morning when they finally leave. But it doesn’t look like I have much say in it. How the hell am I going to explain what I’m doing in a closet without raising an alarm and all the attendant unnecessary attention?

“It’s a better room.” And I know her voice. The soft lilt, the enunciation of each syllable, the soft melody of the sound.

Fuck. It can’t be. But it is. I know it is.

It’sher.

As soon as I admit that truth to myself, my stomach clenches. I can’t catch a fucking break. Or a breath. Because the woman, the laugh … it’sher. Myher. And I’m going to end up stuck in this closet watching and hearing her wedding night.

This is my fucking nightmare.

Lips smacking. And a … slurp? Was that really a fucking slurp?

A piece of fabric rips. I shift so I can peek through the door.

Her body is outlined by a form-fitting snow-white dress that leaves her shoulders bare and the nape of her neck exposed. There’s a bite mark. Top of her back, on the left side. A red, angry bite mark.

“Stop, Alvin. I wanted to save my dress.” Oh God. The voice. It goes through me like a hot blade. Again, I lose my breath.

The whiny man’s cruel laugh grates on my last nerve. I want to shoot him. Stab him. Break his fucking skull open.

“I paid for it,” he snarls. “I’ll do what I please with it.”

He yanks the back of the dress with two hands and it splits open. She cries out and stumbles backward toward him.

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