All of them were being normal. Or at least they were pretending.
It was just Misha who sat with me awake. Silent. Crying. Curled up on the couch opposite the bed with his arms around his knees and his blonde locks unruly.
I looked down at my hands, my fingers twisting together, nails digging into my palms. The hospital gown I’d been given after a doctor had checked me over had felt scratchy and too thin against my skin. It was supposed to make me feel better; I think—like I was being taken care of, tended to. But it didn’t. Nothing felt better. Nothing felt right. So all of my boys had dispersed to find me things I needed to make me feel better.
All of them had run around, dealing with the fallout of my mansion burning, people dying, and the body that was in my club.
The body that Miguel had offered to take and keep until her children decided if they wanted a funeral or if they wanted to just get rid of her.
I’d pay to have her buried. I’d pay to have her in a grave her children could visit.
It would kill me, but I would do it if they needed it.
I would do anything they needed.
“I thought it would feel different.” Misha said suddenly, his voice startling me a bit.
“What,papi?”
He coughed, clearing his throat as he slowly and weakly got to his feet, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I thought winning this thing would feel different.”
“We didn’t win.” I corrected him, swallowing down the lump in my throat and the tears that threatened to spill again. “Your mama is… was…”
“She hurt you.” He stepped toward me, trailing his fingertips over my cheeks. “Mymom would never have done any of this stuff.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… you know how Elaina is your mom?”
I flinched. “Yes.”
“But she’s alsonotyour mom, right? She’s just… just a thing. A technicality. Luciana was your real mom.” I let him talk without interrupting, wanting him to finish his point before I replied. “Retta was my mom. I love… loved her. I always will.” He wiped away the tears on my cheeks, then kissed the tip of my nose. “Cassie deserved to die, though. And I won’t ever feel bad for killing her. I just wanted you to know that because I feel… I feel fucked up.” He said, using swearwords that were unlike him.
I understood what he was trying to tell me. Elaina Gomezhadmade me. Birthed me. Contributed to some of my DNA. But she wasn’t my mom. She wasn’t my family. She was just a blip in a small part of my life that I would never think of again. She was nothing. Nobody. A corpse that I had created and still relished in making weeks after her death.
“You can hold your mama in your heart forever.” I sniffled. “Retta can stay there as the woman you knew, and I do not care. I do not… feel angry or hurt by this. She was your mama, and you are allowed to grieve her or feel pain about her being gone.”
His head cocked. “And you won’t be mad about it?”
“I would never be mad at you. How could I when… when all you’ve done is help me?” I reached out, wrapping my armsaround his waist and hugging him tight. “You saved my life, time and time again. You did something that I would have spent forever hating myself for. I couldneverbe mad at you.”
He held me tight enough I felt like I wasn’t going to fall apart as he whispered, “I just want to ask something else. Before I clean myself up and pretend everything is okay.”
“Sure.” I mumbled into his shirt.
“Do you care that we… that Linc and I… that our mom was…”
“That you are O’Malley’s?” I guessed as I pulled back to look at him, and he nodded. “No. I don’t.”
“How?” He said. “Won’t you see her when you look at us? Or see John?”
“I look at you and see the man who brought me clothes and made me feel safe when I was covered in my daddy’s blood and scared. I see the man who offered me his friendship and love when I desperately needed it.” My words were nothing but true. “I see the man who was tortured for me and loves me. There isnothingin this world that could make me hate you.”
He seemed to believe me. Or at least he believed me enough that with another hug and a kiss on top of my head, he felt comfortable enough to leave, and go find his brother for a conversation the two needed to have.
I hoped it helped. Healed. Did something to set them on the right path.
Anything to just make things better.
