Page 25 of Vicarious

“Not yet.”

Bella taps her finger again before saying, “She’s going to be a problem. Best figure out a way to deal with her.”

“Deal with her? It’s Phae. She’s my children’s,”—I look around to make certain the children are nowhere nearby before continuing, “She’s my children’s birth mother. I can’t just deal with her.”

“You don’t have to kill her. She’s already legally dead. Her life as Phae Blake is gone. Send her back home to Italy. They’ll be happy to have her back.”

I frown. “You know Phae’s Italian?”

“I know what family she’s from. I know she’s related to Stephen Pray. We’re distantly related cousins,” Bella reveals. “She’s never been suited for this life or wanted anything to do with it. She committed her life to bring it all down and expose it. The only reason she wasn’t killed is that her father has too much of a bleeding heart for her and he’s definitely not someone whose bad side you want to get on even from across the way.”

“So that’s how she knew you all. I always thought you all were just a secret source.”

“A source for exactly what I wanted her to know when I wanted her to know it, and she knew that. But also a friend.”

“I thought there weren’t going to be any lies between us.”

“There never were. You just never asked, and it was never relevant,” Bella says with a shrug. “Point being, she’s a danger to everything you and I are and represent. She’s going to be an enemy to you and Viper when she finds out what you’re really doing. And you’re letting her sleep under your roof.”

“I can’t be that cruel to her. Bella… She didn’t die in that hospital. And I left her.”

“You’re doing her a kindness by not killing her. Besides, Viper’s moved on with you. You’ve adopted her children and they’ve never wanted for a mother. What place does she have here?”

I huff. “I don’t know. Viper and I are trying to figure that out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out.”

“Bella. Viper thought she was dead. And then she wasn’t. He’s not just going to throw her away.”

Bella pauses to look at me. Then, “So that’s why you were so moody over the phone. He won’t cut things off with her. Even though he’s been fucking you, and you’ve been helping him stage a hostile takeover for years.”

“I can’t just ask him to—”

“The hell you can’t,” she snaps. “I’m going to tell you something about men that they’ve got too much ego to admit. They don’t have a damn clue how to figure out what’s best for them on their own. It’s our job to show them. So don’t just lay down and roll over and hope he can see past whatever it is he saw in Phae. Show him that you’re indispensable to him. And that he can only have you if he lets go of Phae and sends her packing.”

“I thought you didn’t like Viper.”

“I think he’s dangerous. I think he’s unhinged. And though I fear one day he’ll lose control and not even you’ll be able to handle it, I do think that you may be the only one close enough to being his match to keep him under control. That’s never been Phae.”

Before I can ask what she means by that, Bella adds, “If it weren’t for the hold that Phae, the Soles, and Pray had on him, I would have brought Adrian into the family a decade ago. And then I would have brought you. People like you and him, you’re made for this life. Born ready for it. You’ve got something in you that can’t be nurtured.

“When you came to me and got into this revenge scheme, it’s like a light switched on. I didn’t have to teach you certain things. You just knew. And you accepted it. You transitioned seamlessly into something you’d been fighting against your entire life.

“People like you and Adrian are the kind of mafia bosses and crime lords who get shit done, die peacefully in your bed of old age, and keep our business running for generations to come. Phae’s not that. She was never going to be compatible with this life. Adrian was never going to be happy with her. He’s definitely not going to be happy with her now. You just have to make sure you show him that. Show him you’re his mafia queen. Or mob queen or whatever the fuck it’s called in Pray’s hierarchy and structure.”

I smile a little at Bella.

“You sound like you know from experience.”

Bella give a lopsided smile as her eyes twinkle with mischievous knowing. “Maybe I do.”

One of these days, I’m going to get out of her exactly what she did to marry Bond. But today is not that day.

Later that evening, after dinner and after Phae has spent time with the twins telling them all about her journalism days and letting them show her the things they’re interested in, Phae comes to my room.

“So it was Bella and her family who helped you,” she states.

As I brush my hair to braid after I’ve taken off and put away my wig, I ask, “Does that concern you?”

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