Revenge.
I'm familiar with it. You have to be when you're the firstborn son of a notorious mafia leader. Death and vengeance have been the very foundations of my life.
So who in their fucking mind would be stupid enough to cross me?
My brother and...
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I didn't tell my mother I loved her before she died. I had the chance to, but I didn't.
I didn't know what to do with myself when she became lucid. I was in my office going over all the bank statements for Sin when she stumbled inside. It caught me off guard because she needed someone to walk her from place to place at all times.
"Mother?" I'd stood up, eyes darting around her. "Did the nurses bring you downstairs?"
She had two that took care of her around the clock but I didn't see them nearby.
She'd smiled at me and it made her look years younger. My mother was a beautiful woman, with long and wavy brown hair and a dimple in her right cheek that neither of her sons inherited. Her hazel eyes shone as she walked over to me. They looked like they had life in them. For so many years they had looked cold and vacant.
"Knox," she'd whispered when she reached me. I inhaled sharply. She recognized me. "Oh, look at you. You've gotten so big."
That was definitely recognition in her eyes. I felt wary as she reached her hands up to cup my face. "Mom?"
"I'm here," she assured me softly. "I'm sorry I've been gone so long, my love."
My breath was knocked out of me. I hadn't heard her call me that since it happened.
"Hello. Hi." I stumbled over my words and she laughed when I cursed at my own stupidity. "Christ. I don't know what to say."
"That's okay." She placed a hand over my heart. "I know what you're saying in here. I may have been gone but I always listened."
I swallowed hard. It all seemed too good to be true.
Mother was always around but I hadn't had a mom for twenty years. I took care of her until I was eighteen and when I closed the deal on Sin and collected enough money to take care of all of us, I hired additional help. Aside from checking in on her in the morning and before I went to sleep, I didn't talk or interact with her much. She just wasn't there and my hopes had been shattered one too many times for me to allow myself to get hurt again.
"I want to admit something," She bit her lip, looking nervous. "This isn't the first time I've been lucid."
I blinked at her. Had I missed the previous times? I was usually gone out on business so that seemed entirely possible.
"You didn't know," she rushed out when she saw my expression. I guess she still knew me and that brought me immeasurable relief. "It's just, every time I became lucid I remembered it all and I couldn't bear it. Couldn't face you or Felix knowing I'd failed my darlings. God, I'm so sorry for the coward I've been."
"Mother." I brushed her fallen tears away with my thumb. It felt like an odd gesture. I had no affection to give anyone but for her, I tried. "You will not apologize for how you've had to cope. If doing so meant being able to stand here in front of me, alive, then that is all I could hope for."
