Walking down, the lights turned on behind my guns, knives, and a few color-coded bottles of poisons, along with my favorite desk and dark-red velvet chair. This hidden room was actually bigger than my closet itself, with a small bathroom, too. It was a bunker of sorts. I ran my hands over my guns, then my needles, only pausing when I saw a folded letter sitting on top of a gold, black, and ivory gun that I didn’t recognize in the center of my collection.
The gun looked more like art than a weapon. The slide was black covered in gold vinery, the barrel and the trigger gold; however, the side grips were made of ivory, and the same design included them as well.
“My father had that gun made for my mother. She said it was too flashy and stereotypical for a mafia leader, especially a woman,” Ethan’s voice said from behind me.
Taking the gun, I checked it before speaking again. “Did you replace any of the pieces?”
“No.”
I shook my head, taking it apart slowly, nodding when I saw the recoil spring guide as well as the slide lock spring. “She used it and replaced pieces that would give. Some pieces are newer, and the color is slightly off. She was maintaining it as if it were new. She must have really loved it and didn’t want him to know.”
“That was her nature. She hated showing how much she loved anything,” he said, unsurprised.
I turned to see him in the middle of the staircase, entirely at ease as his green eyes stayed focused on me.
“Of course, you took it apart and noticed, too.” He wouldn’t admit it, either, because that was in his nature.
“The gun is less interesting than the letter,” he replied.
I lifted the envelope. “Is it a love letter between them? I honestly don’t think that it is more interesting.”
Love letters were easy enough to understand. But the gun was just further proof of how much Melody had tortured herself. Leaving her children behind must have been the hardest. Normally when people tore themselves from the ones they loved, they at least took one thing—a reminder. Something they could hold on to. However, from what I could tell, she’d left everything. Well, everything except her husband. But still, that was impressive.
“My mother wrote the letter to whoever was to be my wife.”
I paused, much more curious. Spinning on my toes, I held the paper closer. “Are you sure that’s me?”
“Do you need me to pinch you?” he said drily, taking all the fun out of it.
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “On the day of my brother and sister’s birthday, your mother told me I wasn’t good enough. Her children were so damn precious to her, so of course, back then someone like me didn’t impress her much. I didn’t even impress you.”
He made a face.
“Yes, I’m still mad about that mouse comment. Snob.”
“You will never let me forget that, will you?” He sighed, leaning against the wall opposite me, and I shook my head.
“Nope. I’m petty, deal with it.”
“I’ve noticed; however, there is something I wanted to ask you about that day.”
“Yes?”
“You told me you’d be an elephant when we were kids. What the hell were you talking about?” He frowned, and I would have laughed if he weren’t so serious. After all these years, he was still trying to figure out what I meant. Sometimes he could be unexpectedly cute.
“Of course, you’d be the one to remember that, Ethan. I was a kid. I misspoke; it happens,” I answered a little amused by my own childishness back then. “Since you called me a mouse, I thought of the strongest animal I could become. I thought that would be an elephant. Back then, I never understood why they called lions the king of the jungle. Elephants were so big they could crush them.”
“Did you figure it out?” he asked, the corners of his lips turned up as he came closer now that he understood.
“Elephants are not kings because they are not predators. After all, is strength really strength if no one fears it?” I replied as I looked back at the letter in my hands. “I’ve come a long way, don’t you think?”
“Maybe that was her plan all along.” He smirked, reaching up and brushing my hair from my face. “She lit a fire under you, and now look at you.”
“Maybe, but it doesn’t matter because she wins either way. I proved her wrong that I could make it here…to this position. But in the end, in doing so, I gave her son all the support he needs. I win, and I lose. She wins either way.”
“Don’t take it personally,” he countered. “My mother always got her way. Everyone always chooses my fucking mother. Even my father faked his death to be with her. My sister left to become a queen in another country because she wanted to be more than my mother. My brother is here because my mother trained him to be here. Now you are the one thing I can say was because of me, but it’s truthfully because of her, too.”
“The further you try to get out of the web, the more you get tangled in it. Smart,” I replied, moving to take a seat in the chair behind the desk in the corner.