Libby
PICTURES FLASHED BEHIND MY EYELIDS like unwelcome reminders of my grief. Little snippets of everything I lost.
I flinched and automatically tried to push them from my mind but stopped and clung to them instead. Used them to fuel my anger.
Anger was good. It was better than what I’d been drowning in. It was necessary to get through the coming days.
Get through the next forty-eight hours.
Feel nothing.
Get through—
I blinked quickly and looked at the table to see what had hit my face.
A sugar packet. Assholes.
My gaze drifted up and around. Everyone in our group was staring at me from where they were all piled into one of the booths at Brooks Street Café.
I didn’t react to their expectant looks. I couldn’t.
I was treading a fine line between anger and agony and blissful nothingness.
My heart raced and it felt difficult to breathe.
Shit. I don’t have time to panic.
Feel noth—
“Libby,” my brother pressed, as though he’d been saying my name for a while.
“I’m not hungry,” I responded automatically.
“Yeah. No. We got that when you didn’t order.”
I glanced at the table again—to the empty plates there—and wondered when everyone had ordered and eaten.
How long have we been here?
“Libby.”
“What?” I snapped, and immediately regretted it when Dare’s face fell into a look of understanding.
“Have you heard anything we’ve said?”
“Yeah, that’s not likely,” my best friend, Einstein, murmured from beside me.
When I didn’t respond, Dare said, “I asked if you’re working the Henley show.”
My chest hitched and throat tightened.
Einstein gave me a knowing look before turning back to her conversation with the twins.
Feel nothing. Feel nothing. Feel nothing.
“No,” I wheezed. “No, I’m not.”
Dare’s stare shifted to his wife before settling on me again. “Are you going?”
Everyone except Einstein went still.
She already knew the answer.
It felt like a bubble was suddenly surrounding our booth, encasing us in deafening silence while they waited for my answer.
And I couldn’t breathe.
He pressed his body close to mine and framed my face with his hands.
“This,” he said softly. The word was almost lost in the roar of screaming fans waiting for Henley to take the stage of The Jack. “This is what’s missing from every day and night. From every show. You here with me.”
Funny. All that was missing from my life was him here with me.
I smiled coyly and let my eyes drift to the door of the room. “Your fans are waiting for you. Go play so I can have you to myself for the night.”
“For always.” He kissed me soundly, dragging my bottom lip through his teeth when he pulled away. “It’s gonna be you and me forever, Libby.”
My chest ached so badly it felt like my heart was literally breaking.
I struggled to find the anger I’d been grasping like a lifeline, but that brief memory had ripped open my wounds, making them feel so fresh and so raw. My pain was consuming and blinding, and it was impossible to feel anything else in that moment.
“No,” I said on a shallow breath.
The twins shifted uncomfortably while Dare and his wife, Lily, shared another quick look.
“Do you . . .” Lily cleared her throat. “Do you want to talk about it?”
No. Because then it would be real.
I tried to stand even though I was farthest in the booth, then hurried to press against Einstein in a silent and frantic plea for her to move.
She settled in deeper to her seat.
She’d bribed me with caffeine from our favorite coffee shop to get me in the car after literally dragging me out of bed this morning . . . and brought me here instead. Considering we all ate together a few times a week, and my family owned this café, I hadn’t known why she’d lied about the coffee.
I got it now.
I should’ve known an ambush was waiting for me since Henley’s show was tonight at the bar where I worked.
“Libby,” Dare said gently. “He’ll be back tonight.”
“I know,” I said through clenched teeth.
Feel nothing.
Get through the next forty-eight hours.
Dare gripped my wrist to stop me from leaving. As if he knew I was about to crawl over everyone to get out of the booth.
He was younger by a few years, but he’d always seen me as his responsibility. At a young age, he’d been forced into a role no one outside our life would ever understand.
He’d taken care of an entire family. Become a father figure and boss to many and kept us together no matter the threat we faced. He’d kept me with the family no matter how many times I’d tried to rebel and run.
“I know you’re hurting, Libby,” he said. “Jesus Christ, I know. We’ve given you time, but it’s gone on long enough. This isn’t you.”
“What does it matter? They’ll be headed back to LA in a couple days anyway, and I’ll be fine.”
“It matters because this won’t change when they leave.” Dare gestured to me with his free hand, his eyes a wild mixture of worry and anger. “You’re a goddamn zombie. You barely talk. We hardly see you. When we do, you pick up Beckham and walk into another room to hold him and cry.”
I glanced at the wriggling baby in his wife’s lap, then looked away.
“We just want you back,” Lily said. “We’re worried about you.”
“You’re faking every smile and word to get through work,” Dare continued. “You’re forcing movements to get through days. But life is going on around you, and you aren’t seeing any of it. And now you want to hide because fucking Ma—”
“Don’t,” I pleaded. “Don’t . . . just don’t.”
Don’t say his name.
He nodded for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his tone was gentle. “You’ve been through shit most the world will never have to experience. Nothing broke you. But you’re letting this.” His hand tightened on me. “Talk to us. Let us be there for you.”
I ground my jaw to keep it from shaking and prayed for the tears pricking the backs of my eyes to dry.
What did they want me to say? They wouldn’t understand.
Einstein was there when I found out. I knew she was waiting for me to pull myself together. I knew she didn’t agree with the way I’d reacted.
But I hadn’t just been devastated. I’d been wrecked.
It was one thing to be consumed by overwhelming heartache. To live life on autopilot. It was another to admit to my friends—my family—that a man had the power to ruin me so completely by doing nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Because in hindsight, I should’ve expected this. I’d been unwillingly pushing him toward it all these years.
That doesn’t make it hurt any less.
“I always love seeing these tables filled with my favorite kids.”
I bristled at the voice behind the sentiment and focused my stare on the table when everyone else looked at her and exchanged greetings.
She sighed gently, the sound like nails on a chalkboard, and murmured, “Seeing all of you together like this gives me hope that one day soon, you’ll stop pretending to be something you aren’t.”
“Mom,” Dare groaned when a soft laugh escaped Lily.
“Who’s pretending?” Einstein asked with a huff. “I’m still doing me, thank you very much.”
“You sure about that?” Maverick, one of the twins, mumbled under his breath before shoving out of the booth.
I looked their way in time to see Einstein’s wounded expression before she could cover it.
“For a good reason,” Dare cut in, his voice now stern. “Not for the old ones.”
“Whatever you say, Boss,” Einstein said wryly.
The look Dare gave her in return promised so many horrible things. “Call me that again. I dare you.”
“Rain check?” she asked as she slid from the booth and followed Maverick out the front door.
“You should’ve never asked them to stop calling you that,” Mom said.
I rolled my eyes.
And here we go. Just another meal with our family.
“You don’t understand the repercussions of what you’ve done. Of what you’re attempting to do. You’re all naïve if you think you can escape that life. It can be days, months, or years . . . but eventually, that life will find you and bring you back.”
“Enough,” Dare said gruffly.
“Your father wouldn’t have been careless enough to try. Or turn his back on his promises.”
I faced her for the first time since she walked up, and she was staring right at me.
“I said enough.”
She didn’t flinch at Dare’s harsh tone.
She held my gaze unwaveringly, making sure I knew her last words were meant for me.
As if I had any doubt.
If there was anything I was sure of in my life, it was my mother’s disappointment in my decisions.
To be friends with Ma—with him. To love him. Choose him.
To turn my back on my dad’s choices for me. To rebel against my family’s lifestyle, and to support Dare when he disbanded it.
It was his plan and decision to disband the family, yet somehow, I was the one Mom blamed.
I could take the blame. I had most of my life. Like I said, I’d always rebelled against the lifestyle. Dare had kept it together—kept all of us together—for over fifteen years after our dad was murdered.
To our mom, he was the one who could bring it all back.
After all . . . mob families need bosses.
And Dare was ours.
I cleared my throat and broke away from the staredown. “Well, this has been fun,” I mumbled dryly. “I think I’d rather go back to sleep though.”
Dare caught my wrist again when I began sliding out of the booth. “We still need to talk.”
Everything in me seized.
For a few precious moments, I’d been able to forget what was coming. What was happening.
I guess I could thank Mom for that. For once.
“No,” I whispered. “We don’t.”
“Say the word, and I’ll talk to him,” Dare said in a low tone that assured me there would be more fighting than talking. “Say the word, and none of us will go.”
My shoulders sagged and a lump formed in my throat. “I want you to go. I just—” My gaze drifted to where Mom was listening to our conversation with rapt attention. “Can we not do this? Please.”
Dare’s hand tightened when I moved. “Libby.”
“Nothing,” I said urgently as tears filled my eyes and raced down my cheeks. “He literally did nothing.”
“Let her go, Dare,” Lily said softly when I tried to pull my hand free again.
I could tell from the look in Dare’s eyes that he didn’t want to, but the instant he released my wrist, I slid from the booth and didn’t spare another glance at them.
I didn’t make it halfway to the door when the gentle, sweet, awful voice of my mother sounded next to me. “I may not know what the two of you were talking about, but I’ve seen the papers and the flyers. I know that boy is coming back to town.”
I ground my jaw and stood there, stiff as a board, trying my hardest to stop the tears.
“If you know what is good for you, you will not see him. You will go nowhere near him. Do you hear me?” There were a few seconds before she hissed, “Libby, you are playing a dangerous game with him, and one day it will be your ruining if it doesn’t come for him first. Tell me you hear me for once in your life.”
I shot her a sidelong look. “I’ve always heard you. That didn’t mean I was okay with what you expected from me. That didn’t mean I could’ve stayed away from him. But it looks like you finally got your wish. He made it loud and clear that we are done.”
She didn’t even have the decency to look sad for me. “Maybe now you’ll fulfill your duty to this family. It should’ve been done long ago.”
I laughed in disbelief. “I’d rather die.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“Oh, but I learned from the best,” I drawled, giving her a meaningful look. I took a couple steps toward the door before turning back to her. “My heart has been torn from my chest. I have been in agony the last six months. And you can’t show even the slightest hint of sadness for your only daughter when she’s in the worst kind of pain. What the hell is wrong with you?”
She swallowed thickly, her head bobbing slowly.
I hated that she looked so sweet and caring, and yet she couldn’t spare those emotions for me.
“I am sorry you’re hurting. But I tried to keep you from this, Libby. If you had listened to your father and me, your heart would’ve never been put in this position with the James boy in the first place. And I’m more concerned about what’s coming for you.”
“It was dealt with ten years ago. It’s over, Mom. Nothing is coming. If they do? I’d rather die,” I repeated the words slowly, then turned and walked outside.
There was that anger. And I was going to hold on to it like my life depended on it.