“Daddy wants to see you,” he tells me simply.
My heart drops. Of course. My dad. Those phone calls. I remember it all now. It feels like someone hit me hard on the back of my head which is why I can’t remember everything easily.
“What about?” I ask flatly. “Why couldn’t he just come to see me like a normal person?”
“Oh, son.” His voice, which could sound warm if I didn’t know any better, rings out from behind me. “You know that I don’t like to do things in… shall we say, the traditional way.”
I slide my eyes closed and say a silent prayer to any deity that might be listening to me. Not that it will work because I’m already here now. So, I turn to face him. The man who could never deny that he’s my father. He’s like an older version of me. The future that I have to look forward to. Looks wise, which I suppose isn’t bad.
“Yeah, I know.” I nod my head slowly. “You never do. But then it isn’t like we spend a lot of time together.”
Dad stuffs his hands into his pocket and smirks. “No, but that’s more your choice than mine.”
“You know why.” I look around at what appears to be an abandoned warehouse surrounding me. “Because this isn’t the life for me. It never has been and I think I made that clear to you early on.”
Dad rolls his eyes at me. “I know, I know. You’re much too good for a life of crime. However much it pays off. However much of a good life it has given you. You’ve made your feelings on the subject really clear.”
I did that at fifteen years old, when I turned my back on the only family that I ever had. I didn’t need the ‘life of crime’ anyway. My life has turned out alright without it anyway, not that my dad cares about that. He loves his life too. He is happy masterminding his gang and that’s all there is to it. Our lives don’t need to cross paths.
Until now, of course. Not that I understand why we’re crossing paths now.
“So, what the hell are we doing here?” I shrug my shoulders. “I’m assuming there’s a reason.”
“There is, and I think you’ll want to be sitting down when I talk to you about this.” I part my lips, about to protest that I just want to hear whatever the hell it is here and now so I can get out of here, but my dad shuts me down easily with his next, very unexpected, sentence. “It’s about your mother.”
Oh shit. My mother. A woman that I don’t even know, a person who hasn’t ever bothered to get to know me, but that I feel a terribly strong bond with nonetheless. It’s because of her that I was able to turn my back on the life of crime, it’s how I can afford my home and current lifestyle. Without her, I don’t know where I would be.
“M… mom?” I stammer back. “What’s going on with Mom?”
My dad doesn’t answer me right away. Instead we take a seat in a room that I can only assume is his makeshift office, ready to all be moved at the speed of light if it needs to be, and wait for coffee to be brought to us.
“So, I take it you haven’t heard the news about Lady Saffron Jones, then?”
My mother’s name makes my heart flip flop. To the rest of the world, she’s a wealthy heiress with the world at her feet, but to me I feel a bond with her. She might be a bit of a mythical creature in the distance who I don’t know anything about, but we share blood, a part of her belongs to me and always will be.
“Should I have heard about her?”
“I don’t know, I presume her father is doing all that he can to keep it out the media, but they will get hold of it soon enough no matter what he does, they always do.” Dad looks thoroughly pissed off by this fact. “But he has spoken to me about it. And if that doesn’t tell you how serious this all is then I don’t know what will.”
I do understand. That’s crazy. I might have only heard one side of the story, my father’s opinion, but there has to be at least some truth to it. Dixon Valentine met Saffron Jones by chance when they were both young, just bursting out of their teen years. She was annoyed with the stifling life that came with being rich and she was attracted to his bad boy ways. He was only a petty criminal then, not like he is now, but that was enough to lure her in. It was a classic case of opposites attract which led to an explosive affair.