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Our exit plan could have used some tweaking, but the message was delivered loud and clear. Reaching into my pocket I retrieve my cell phone and a coating of crimson stains my fingertips. I wince sharply.
Franco catches my reaction as I discreetly wipe it along the side of my pants. “Boss?’
“Just drive.” I hiss out, leaning back against the seat. My pulse is pounding out the adrenaline and pumping a steady stream of blood through my shirt.
Chapter 21
Callie
Dominic snuck me out early this morning, weaving a trail of misdirection in case anyone is watching. While they caused a distraction, I was tucked into the backseat of Franco’s SUV. After a quick stop at the hospital so I can see for myself that Lanah is recovering well, he snuck me down a flight of stairs into a dark parking garage. Handing me the keys to a small Honda Civic that can’t be traced back to Dominic, he sent me on my way.
I spent most of the morning on a self-inflicted trip down memory lane. To embrace my new life and move forward as Dominic’s wife and all that entails, I have to make peace with my past and say goodbye to the memories that weigh me down. After stopping in to check on Collin, I spent most of the morning at the cemetery. It’s been years since I last visited my mother and there was so much I had to tell her. Afterwards, I stopped by Alejandro’s Bistro and helped with the lunch rush. It felt good to be there again. Familiar. Which brings me comfort when everything in my life is new and chaotic.
It’s late afternoon by the time I pull into my dad’s driveway. I told Dominic the reason I needed this trip was to see my dad yet for some reason, I hesitated all day. Telling myself that Saturday nights are poker night and he’d be sleeping most of the morning. The truth is, I haven’t seen him since the wedding and while I’m surprisingly happy, there's some bitterness at the roots of my family tree. This is the man who traded me into an arranged marriage after all, like we’re living in the Renaissance ages.
Walking up to the house, I gather the overflowing mail from the box by the door and work my key in the lock. It takes some finessing, but it’s worked like this for as long as I can remember. I pause inside the front door and the wretched smell of cheap alcohol invades my senses turning my stomach. Another thing that hasn’t changed in years. I don’t know why I expected anything different. I haven’t been gone that long, although walking into my old life right now seems like a lifetime ago. Just as I have many times before, I find my father passed out on the couch with a half empty beer bottle in his hand dangling over the edge of the couch. A dozen other empty bottles are sprawled out around him. An all too familiar scene.
I try not to think about the past, how life was before my mother died but it wasn’t always like this. When I was a child, this house was full of life. Every room felt warm and inviting. Laughter echoed off the walls that are now barren of anything that could remind him of her. Every photograph is gone. The faded paint spots where they used to hang are now dark and dingy like everything else. I know my father loves me, but I often wonder if I remind him of her. If that’s where his lingering pain stems from. Losing the love of your life can’t be easy but being left a single father of a fourteen-year-old girl must have seemed impossible. At my mother’s funeral family members, neighbors and even strangers I never met before, would offer me words of comfort, telling me how much I look like my mother. I couldn’t see it. Not then. The night he tore the pictures off the walls, I tucked one away for safekeeping. I wasn’t ready to strip myself of her memory. There were plenty of nights when the tears wouldn’t end. I’d grip that photograph tightly to my chest imagining I was hugging her. As the years went by, I’d see more and more of myself in that picture. I have the same deep blue eyes and chestnut hair. When I was sixteen, I tried to copy her perfectly styled bob with a pair of rusty kitchen scissors, but I was left with an uneven mess of straggly strips and stripped ends that couldn’t hold a candle to her beauty. I remember my father’s face when he saw what I had done. For just a moment his smile lit up the house that had begun crumbling down around us. In that fleeting moment there was life in his eyes before it quickly faded away again.
I get a glimpse of that same look in his eyes when they flutter open as I pry the beer can out of his hand. “Olivia?”
My heart aches at the sound of my mother’s name. “No Daddy, it’s Callie.”
I place the beer can on the dirty coffee table and by the time I face him again the look in his eyes is darker than I’ve ever seen. There’s something tearing him up, triggering this relapse. “What happened, Daddy?”
He tries to sit up, but his body is as shaky as his voice. I slide my hands underneath his arms to hoist him upright. Blinking his bloodshot eyes rapidly, he looks me over and slumps his head in his hands, “How are you here?”
“There’s so much happening right now, I don’t even know where to begin but Dominic and I thought it would be best if I laid low for a while, so I came home for a visit.”
“You can’t be here. I must be dreaming.” He says wiping the back of his hands over his eyes.
“Let’s get you sobered up and we can spend the rest of the day together.”
He looks at me questionably and reaches for the discarded beer can. When he picks up one that is empty, he chucks it across the room and chooses another, “you shouldn’t be here.”
“Do you want me to go home?” A wave of disappointment hits me. In my heart I know it’s the alcohol talking but I don’t know how long I can keep doing this. The guilt is already eating away at me. I don’t know if I could leave him in this state but at least at home with Dominic, I don’t have to keep watching this self-destruction. One of these days he won’t be able to pull out of these spirals.
He grabs me by the wrist and yanks me towards him. Stumbling forward I land on my knees in front of him. “That’s not your home. This is.”
I shouldn’t be surprised that referring to Dominic’s penthouse as my home angers him. It throws me for a loop as well but as easily as the words rolled off my tongue it feels right. It’s only been a few weeks but somehow Dominic has made me feel things I never thought I’d feel again.
Happy.
Safe.
His arms are my home now. This place just feels like a tomb closing in on me.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” He shakes his head, cursing under his breath. “You can’t go back there.”
“I don’t understand.” I’ve done everything he’s asked of me despite not fully understanding the reasoning behind it. I believed marrying Dominic was a deal he made to protect me from Xander because I wanted to believe that. I needed to believe that, but I’ve always known there was more at stake. Swallowing my fear, I press for answers, “It’s time to come clean, dad. What was really in this for you?”
“That doesn’t matter as much as what was in it for him.”
I rise to my feet and start clearing the beer cans off the table.
Idol hands.
“I already know all that. He wants children to secure his legacy.”
