She nods. “Well, they weren’t members, but they had friends. They got a lot of pressure, living in this neighborhood, and it only got worse the older they got. Then about five years ago, I was raped outside my work one night. That’s when they joined.”
“Oh my god,” I breathe.
She takes a sip of wine. “I forbid them from joining, but they said it would protect me and everyone in the family. I didn’t see how. It couldn’t change what had happened. But I knew who the man was. I knew him, and he came into work sometimes. So I went to the hospital afterwards and filed a report and did everything you’re supposed to do. They brought him in for questioning, and I thought he’d go to prison, but they let him go the next day. He only spent one night in jail. A single night.”
She shakes her head, swirling her wine in her glass, her jaw set.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, sinking down into a chair at the table.
“I found out a few days later he’d been murdered. I saw it on the news. That’s when the boys told me they’d joined the Skull & Crossbones, and that they’d protect other people on this street, get vengeance for them when they needed it. I would never have asked them for that.”
“Of course not,” I mumble, wondering if they did it themselves or just joined and told the gang they needed revenge on someone. It doesn’t really matter now. I’m sure they’ve killed since then, even if they didn’t kill that man. At least Maddox has. It’s hard to imagine a sensitive artist type like Lennox being capable of murder.
Valeria stares off over my head. “Sometimes I wonder… If that man was hired or maybe even a member, and that was supposed to drive them to join. That’s what they do to boys, push them into joining by saying it offers protection, even though it puts them in more danger. And my boys are the kind of people they want—strong and smart, real leaders. They formed the street crews, the Murder of Crows on Mill, and the whole idea. The other neighborhoods made their own to take care of their own. That was Lennox’s idea, though.”
Despite her disapproval of the gang, I can tell she’s proud of them, too. I can’t really blame her. They protected her, and I know exactly how good that feels.
The conversation is interrupted by heavy footsteps in the hall. I tense, for some reason expecting Maddox for a split second. But Lennox steps in, dressed in black slacks and a rust-colored button-up shirt that makes his golden eyes practically glow behind his glasses. He looks so beautiful I want to cry, knowing where the broken places under that beauty come from. He once told me that it was his idea to join. He may not rave about her terrible cooking the way Maddox does, but he’s the one who wanted to avenge his mother. They love her so much it hurts deep in my chest, as much as it hurts to know how deeply she loves them.
No one has ever loved me that way, and I’m taking him from her.
“How’s my two favorite ladies?” Lennox asks, kissing her cheek before coming to the table. He pulls out her chair across from mine then takes the one on my right, leaning in to kiss my cheek. He lays his hand over mine, and I turn my palm to face his and lace our fingers. Meeting his eyes, I smile at my beautiful, broken, bitter artist boy. I feel closer to him than I ever have now that I understand him in ways I didn’t before.
“I was just telling Rae about how the Crossbones has damaged you boys,” Valeria says, delivering the plate of blackened chicken to the table. “I’m glad you have a normal girlfriend who can remind you how to treat a woman.”
“Mom,” Lennox groans. “Don’t.”
She rolls her eyes. “O qué?I’m your mother. I worry about the ideas that crew put in your head.”
“Rae’s not a Crow, so I don’t treat her like one,” Lennox says, squeezing my hand. “She’s wife material.”
A tense silence falls, and I glance at Lennox from the corner of my eye. His beautiful face is frozen, his expression so still it’s like he’s carved from marble, a statue of the most beautiful man on earth. He seems to be having trouble speaking, so I slide my hand across the small table to touch Valeria’s hand. “Are you okay with this?”
“You’re getting married?” she asks, her gaze flitting from her son to me and then back.
“Yes,” Lennox says, clearing his throat and picking up his wine glass. He takes a gulp and blinks hard at the burn, then flashes me an apologetic smile, like he’s not allowed to have doubts about this too. Then he takes my hand again, and I give him a reassuring squeeze.
“We’re engaged.”
A charged silence fills the room, interrupted only by the slamming of the front door. I jump a mile and start to pull my hand away by instinct, like we did so many times the last few weeks we lived here, when Lennox was proving he was sorry for his mistake but would still love on me when Maddox wasn’t around. Now, he tightens his grip, reminding me aren’t hiding our love anymore.
“Well, what do we have here?” Maddox asks, striding in and pulling out the last empty chair. He drops his huge body into it and scoots in, sniffing the smoky air. “Smells amazing, Mom. Why isn’t anyone eating?”
He digs in without waiting, sliding a couple burnt chicken legs onto his plate like this is just a normal dinner when we all lived here, like he didn’t threaten me in the parking lot, fuck my enemy in front of me and then parade her around school for the next few weeks like he’d won a prize for how badly he hurt me.
Because it’s Maddox, and of course he didn’t beg forgiveness after he hurt me. He didn’t flaunt her and throw it in my face the way she did, but in a way, that would have been better. Then at least I’d know he still cared enough to want to see my reaction. Instead, he acted like I didn’t exist, like I was a ghost. And I wasn’t about to follow him around begging him to talk to me. Not after he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with me.
Even though he and Lennox both told me he didn’t do girlfriends before that, Scarlet must have changed his mind with her apparently virginal tightness, because he moved from the Crows’ table to the football table after that. Every day, Scarlet perched on his knee and crowed louder than Poe ever did. I swear the bitch wanted the whole cafeteria to turn her way, so they’d see that she tied down the powerful, elusive, unattainable Maddox North.
She can have him. I have his brother, the one everyone else overlooks. I don’t overlook him—not anymore. I don’t know how I ever did. He’s hotter than Maddox anyway, so beautiful he’s a piece of art in himself.
Without him, I don’t know how I would have survived the devastation to my ego that Maddox inflicted. Instead of getting dumped and having to walk around alone, seeing Maddox with his new, upgrade of a girlfriend, I had a gorgeous boyfriend of my own. Not only that, but Lennox did things Maddox would never do, showing him up and proving every day that I made the right choice. In the end, he was even more of an upgrade than Scarlet was for Maddox. Instead of looking pathetic and used, I spent the last few weeks of senior year with a doting boyfriend who held my hand, brought me flowers for no reason, and took me to dinner after graduation when everyone else went out with their families.
“Apparently this is an engagement dinner,” Valeria says, breaking the silence at last. “So I’m glad you showed up. Now, if you and your brother can get along for a few hours, let’s try to make this a celebratory evening.”
She gives him a tight smile, but he’s not looking at her.
The news seems to have derailed his plan to pretend everything is all hunky-dory. He stares at Lennox in disbelief, a bite of chicken forgotten halfway to his mouth.