Chapter 104

[ALEX]

“Do you have a family?” she asked. Suspicion was my immediate reaction. It didn't seem like a carefully considered question; more like something that popped into her head.

“I do,” I replied.

“What? Really?” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t think you were a family man.”

“I have a mom, a dad, a twin sister, a younger brother, an uncle, and an aunt. The whole package, actually.”

“No way.” Her eyes bulged as she sat on the wooden steps leading to the garden, her feet still in the grass. She seemed compelled to touch it. Who the f*** touches grass? “Your parents encouraged you to be part of the…” she hesitated, her voice dropping to a whisper, “…Mafia?”

I rolled my eyes at her dramatic flair. “Mafia. You can say it.”

She shrugged.

“And no,” I said, unsure why I was explaining. “My father wanted to kill me when he found out, but I think a part of him always knew about my destructive tendencies—ever since I started a fire at school.”

Her eyes widened further. “You started a fire at school? How old were you? Sixteen?”

“Twelve,” I smiled, reminiscing.

“Why?”

“I wanted to watch a football game.”

She gaped. “Unbelievable. What did your parents do?”

“I was grounded for a month. Mom didn’t talk to me for a week. It was… tough.”

“Aww. Mama’s boy?”

I was, very much so. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. “I was.”

“What happened then?”

“Then I picked up a gun and started shooting people.”

She frowned. “If I had a family, I would never leave them. I would just stay with them forever.”

Tired of hovering, I sat beside her, keeping a few feet between us. “Did you ever try to find them?”

“I did. I found the social worker who placed me in the system, and she told me I was found outside an orphanage when I was three days old.” Her voice softened. “I think they gave me up because they didn’t want me, but I missed them my whole life. There was this huge, mom-and-dad-shaped emptiness inside me that never went away, no matter how much I told myself I should hate them.”

“What then?” I asked. “No friends? No found family?”

“I had friends,” she mumbled. “But every time I was moved to a new foster home, I lost them. At some point, I felt, why bother getting attached if you’re just going to leave them anyway?”

A heaviness hung in her voice, and she looked straight ahead, avoiding my gaze. She was clearly hiding something.

“And what about your boyfriend?” I pressed. “How did you find him?”

She looked at me, a slight scoff escaping her lips. “You really want to know?”

“I really do,” I insisted.

“I lied. There was no boyfriend.”

“Hm.” I studied her—the slight flaring of her nostrils, her grey eyes turning almost icy, her hair whipping in the wind. “Then why did you lie?”

She gulped. “I thought I was getting to know you. Why do you live alone in this huge house?”

“I live alone on my floor, except for you now. The other floors are staff quarters.”

“Then why do you have so many rooms on your floor if you’re the only one?” she retorted. “It must get so…creepy.”

“If I don’t keep empty rooms, where do I keep my hostages?”

Her eyes widened. “There have been others?”

“Maybe,” I lied.

“Other girls?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Jealous, cupcake?”

She scoffed. “Yes, that they’re not here anymore. Which means they got to leave, and I don’t.”

“Maybe they’re not here because I killed them.” I said, and she visibly shuddered. I suppressed a smile. “But you’re right, you don’t get to leave. You’re stuck here.”

She blinked. “Will you kill me too, when you get bored of me?”

“What?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Will you kill me when you’re bored of… of f***ing me?” She avoided my eyes.

“Is that what you think is happening here?” I asked, stiffening. “That I brought you here to f*** you, and I’ll get rid of you once I’m…bored?”

She gulped and nodded.

People had always had misconceptions about me, and I never bothered to correct them. They never bothered me, so I wondered why this was different, but it was; her question had ticked me off.

“There were no other girls, Mia,” I said, suddenly distant. She seemed to sense the shift. Her mouth opened and closed. “And since you think I’m f***ing you until I’m bored and then I’ll kill you,” I hissed, “I will not be touching you.”

“Alex,” she breathed, “That’s—that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean, because that sentence has only one meaning?”

“I…” She looked down. “I—I didn’t know why you came to my room, why everything happened. I just figured it was because I was convenient.”

“Convenient?” I wanted to laugh. She was anything but convenient—a pain in the ass, a glitch in my plan, a virus. But she didn’t need to know that. “You weren’t convenient, Mia,” I gritted. “Anything but convenient, trust me.”

I didn’t give her a chance to reply, getting up and walking away, consumed by anger, the urge to punch—to kill—overwhelming me.