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The morning sickness had finally seemed to settle down, but when I woke up I was brimming with anxiety that didn’t let me lie still. I got up to get a long shower, finding Aleksei awake and dreamily staring at the ceiling when I peeked out to check on him. His poor face looked even worse than yesterday, but to me, the bruises did nothing to mar his good looks. It was his soul I saw now. He was beautiful, through and through, so his face hardly mattered anymore. I still hated seeing him look so battered, though. He put on a brave front, but it had to be agony.
He caught me looking at him and smiled, luring me back to bed. He did everything in his power to get me to stop worrying, but I slipped away from him to get ready. The lunch date was hours away, but I wanted to look my absolute best.
After trying to tempt me into the shower with him after I had my hair and makeup done. I escaped to the kitchen to make us some coffee. I surely didn’t need any caffeine, but it was something to do.
“Ugh, you’re out of coffee,” I called to him, letting him know I was going to run to the small grocery store just a few doors down from his building. It wouldn’t take me five minutes and then maybe I’d take him up on his tempting offer to join him in the shower.
It was still early so the heat wasn’t at maximum yet, but it was still plenty muggy as I walked briskly to the shop. What if his brothers found some fault with me? Their family ties were strong so I had an automatic in because I was carrying Aleksei’s child, but if they really didn’t like me, what would happen after the baby was born? If they were as ruthless as everyone made them out to be, they might just take him or her and find a way to get rid of me.
I stopped outside the shop and tried to get a grip on my nerves. There was no way that would happen because Aleksei would never allow it. I trusted him and felt strongly he’d choose me over his brothers if it came down to it.
But, oh, I hoped it didn’t come down to it.
A car rolled up to the curb and let out a short, sharp beep. I jumped from the ingrained paranoia from a lifetime of being my mother’s daughter, but no team of masked men swarmed out to stuff me in the trunk. It had probably just been a slip of the driver’s wrist. I turned to go into the store, when there was another quick beep and the passenger window slid down.
“Theresa,” a familiar voice called. Familiar, but without any of its trademark whiny attitude or conceited bluster. The voice was laced with sadness. I leaned down and saw Donny leaning toward the window. “Hey, Theresa,” he said again, sounding even more pathetic.
And he looked more pathetic than he sounded. In the short few days since I’d left the apartment, he seemed to have lost ten pounds. His gaunt cheeks were stubbled with patchy beard growth, his eyes were sunken and ringed with dark circles that rivaled Aleksei’s black eyes. His shiny black hair that was his crowning glory, hung limp and greasy over his forehead. And his clothes! His outfits normally looked like they were carefully cobbled together from various designer items ripped straight from a men’s style magazine, but now he wore a saggy gray t-shirt with a stain on the collar and sweatpants. Sweatpants, on Donny.
There wasn’t a person on earth that wouldn’t be able to feel sorry for him in his state. With a sigh, I leaned against the door and shook my head at him.
“Hi, Donny,” I said. “You’re still here in town, I see.”
His bloodshot eyes filled with tears that he swiped away with embarrassment. “I didn’t want to go back… with her…” his head tipped to his chest and he struggled not to cry in front of me.
How could I tell him not to take my mother’s treatment personally and that he was no different from anyone else, even me? The exact reason he was in this pitiful state was because he’d believed he was special to her.
“Well, I don’t know what to say,” I told him, thinking about fresh coffee, and Aleksei waiting for me in the shower.
He reached over and put his shaky hand on mine. It was only out of pity that I didn’t jerk it away. “I don’t know what I’m going to do next,” he said. “I thought if I made things right with you—If I apologized...” He sniveled and choked back a sob. “I knew you didn’t care about me and it seemed like she did…”
“It’s fine,” I told him.
I’d had a lifetime to come to terms with the fact my mother was an apex predator, looking out for herself first and foremost. Everyone else was only as important as they were useful.
He shook his head. “It’s not fine. I’m not like that, Theresa. I’m not like her. I really thought—I really believed—” Tears finally began to roll down his pale cheeks.
“I know.” I pulled open the door and sat down beside him. “Believe me, I know.
“Can you just talk to me for a few minutes?” he asked. “I can’t talk to my father about this. Can you imagine how upset he is right now? If I go home, he’ll probably kill me, or ship me off to some dank hole in Italy.”
Aleksei was probably out of the shower by now. “Sure, I guess. Let me just send a text real quick.”
I opened my purse to dig out my phone, as he erupted into heaving sobs, his whole body shaking as he gripped the steering wheel. “You don’t know how much that means to me,” he cried.
Oh God. I patted his back awkwardly, letting my purse slide down to my feet. “She’s not worth this much pain,” I said.
He glanced at me and shuddered. “You don’t know what pain is!”
I kept patting his back, trying not to roll my eyes at his dramatics. “I’m really sorry. It’ll get better, I promise.”
He kept sobbing until a car behind us laid on the horn. He jerked and looked in the rearview mirror. “It’s a loading zone,” he said. “Look, will you just get a cup of coffee with me? You’re the only one who understands what I’m going through.”
“I don’t know, Donny.”
He began to pull away from the curb. “Let me just get away from that guy before he gets out and threatens us. I’ll drop you up the street.”
That was Donny, as courageous as ever. Tears kept rolling down his cheeks as he pulled slowly forward. He passed the next open spot, and I frowned at him.
