Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

West Scott

W ork dragged the following day, and I was out the door an hour early.

I drove toward Manayunk and texted Alfie when I stopped at a light halfway there.

I left early. I’ll be there in fifteen. What’s the parking situation?

The festival had been in full swing since this morning, and with people getting off work soon, I had a feeling it was going to be packed.

Alfie responded when I got off 76 and crossed the Schuylkill.

Just managed to snag a sweet spot outside the church on Silverwood. You should probably try a block or two away. It’s pretty crowded. We’ll wait for you here.

I pinched the screen on my GPS and zeroed in on three nearby streets to try.

In the end, I parked three blocks away, and judging by the families on the sidewalk heading toward the park, I wasn’t the only one who’d struggled to find parking.

After leaving my suit jacket in the car, I slipped on my shades and folded up the sleeves of my shirt. Another hot-as-hell day in Philly.

Getting closer to the church, I spotted Alfie’s SUV immediately. The gleaming black stood out when it was surrounded by old sedans and rusty pickups.

Alfie was pacing the sidewalk, talking on his phone, and I didn’t spot the kids. Perhaps they were still in the car, which… I cleared my throat and picked up the pace, because a woman was approaching the SUV at a jog, and then she peered inside.

“Oi!” Thank fuck, Alfie spotted the woman too. “What’re you eyeing my car for?”

“You have your children in there,” the woman accused.

“I also have the AC running, and the doors are unlocked,” Alfie snapped.

My mouth twitched.

The woman huffed and walked away.

Was this the unfiltered Alfie I’d once gotten to know? No more suits either. Cargo shorts and tees suited him much better in this heat, even more so with all his ink on display. His arms were completely covered in tattoos.

With no chance to study them, I had no idea about their significance, but I had spotted Ellie’s birth date on there—and if I wasn’t mistaken, a street grid that could be Los Angeles.

He hadn’t seen me yet, and he turned away to finish his phone call.

“No, I’m just sayin’—if you get there late, you’ll miss your window and compromise the location.” He was irritated. “So fucking reschedule. Be there at one, not a minute later, and you’ll need at least two guys.”

I furrowed my brow. Compromising a location didn’t sound shifty at all.

He ended the call and muttered “motherfucker” under his breath, before he turned back around and saw me. “Shite.” His eyebrows crawled higher. “Uh, hi.”

Heartbreaking little mobster liar.

Mobster. Mobster. Mobster.

“Hello.” I nodded down the corner where the woman had disappeared. “I’d consider it our civic duty to keep an eye on children who might be left unattended in cars in the middle of summer.”

He swallowed. “Yeah, well.” Then he walked to the driver’s side. “I have enough doubts about my parenting hanging over my head. I don’t need a nosy Karen thinkin’ I’m killing my kids in the car.” With that, he opened the door. “Let’s go get our faces painted.”

I suppressed a sigh. At some point today, I needed to tell him I trusted him with the kids. It’d been a knee-jerk reaction—one I found fucking valid.

Trip spotted me as he opened the door on this side, and we smiled at the same time.

“Hi, Dad!”

“Hi, sweetheart. Your hair looks great.”

“Thanks!”

“Daddyyyyy!” Then Ellie was running for me, and I was quick to pick her up.

“Hey, baby. Have you decided what you’re gonna paint on your face?” I smooched her cheeks to the sound of her giggles.

“We’re gonna be butterflies! Right, Daddy?”

“Damn right,” Alfie said. He grabbed Trip’s hand, and it was as painful as it was wonderful to slip right back into old habits. Back to the days when we did all this together—and often, too.

At night before bed, I’d end up forgetting the book I was currently reading whenever Alfie was Googling activities for the kids. Concerts, food festivals, farmers markets, theme days, summer events, beach days, and on it went.

“Are you gonna paint your face too, son?” I asked.

He glanced back at me and grinned. “I will if you will.”

“Ooh! I don’t know if he has the guts,” Alfie teased.

I pulled off an excellent mock-outrage expression, and Ellie mirrored my expression.

“You hear that? He doesn’t think I have the guts.”

“But you do, right? Right?” she pressed.

Absofuckinglutely.

I guessed I was going to get my face painted too.

The wider upper end of Pretzel Park was reserved for the children’s festival, where we walked down lanes of food trucks, face painting, kiddie-sized chess, water balloon fights, clowns, pony riding, two stages for concerts, and a bunch of other activities. The children bought cotton candy, while Alfie and I wanted homemade potato chips, one bag each, because Alfie wasn’t good with sharing food.

Truth be told, I didn’t want to share my chips either. They were hot, crispy, salty, and delicious.

The line for the face painting had become a little shorter when we walked by again, so we figured it was time.

“And I’ll ride the pony after?” Ellie asked to make sure.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Alfie replied. “Then we can eat dinner.”

I nudged Alfie. “The food truck with the sliders looked good.”

“Yeah, sign me up. Didju see the loaded fries? I need to get in on that action.”

I smiled and hated how easy it was to pretend with him. Because it never felt like pretend. We’d gotten together with the kids in the past too, and it was always the same.

Admittedly, I had pushed for activities that forced us to spend the night somewhere, and this was the reason. I soaked up every minute. Even now when we had so many new problems. Even now when I was so fucking angry with him.

Maybe I was hurt more than angry.

I stuck a couple chips into my mouth and counted the people ahead of us. They had four stations with young women turning children—and some parents—into works of glittery art, so it shouldn’t take too long. Six or seven families stood in front of us.

When we walked another few steps forward, Alfie reached up and lifted my shades a bit.

“You look tired.”

I frowned. “Thank you.”

It was his damn fault. I hadn’t slept well lately.

Then again, I wasn’t sure I remembered the last time I’d slept soundly. Long before Alfie and I had separated, at least.

Since we were fairly protected from the sun by the trees, I removed my shades and tucked them into my shirt.

“So, uh…” Alfie cleared his throat and dug through his little bag of chips. He liked the ones that were either folded in half or a little burned. “How’s it goin’ with the new man?”

I had a new man? That was news to me.

“Who would that be?” I quirked a brow.

He rolled his eyes. “The one you went out with, fucking obviously.”

Ah yes, the evening he’d texted me to ask if I was fucking Lance yet. I also recalled the text that had followed.

“We’re not together,” I said.

“Oh?”

An even more important text was the one where he admitted he wasn’t ready to be happy to see me moving on.

I’d read it a dozen times. Minimum.

“I dread the day I have to join dating apps,” I admitted, keeping my voice low. The children were distracted, but they picked up on things easily too.

Alfie nodded. “Here’s an idea. How about you don’t fucking tell me when that day comes?”

I knitted my brows together. I could pick up on things as well, and I hadn’t imagined the hostility in his voice.

He bunched together his bag, still half full, and walked over to the nearest trash can to throw it out. He looked so…down. Annoyed and depressed.

It wasn’t the first time I wanted to ask him what kind of feelings he harbored for me. But as the one who’d demanded the divorce, I felt I didn’t have that right. I also wasn’t sure I could cope with the answer, regardless of what it was. I didn’t want him to be over me—over us . At the same time, the sooner he could move on, maybe I could, too…? Fuck, but the amount of hurt that slashed through me at the mere thought called me out on my bullshit.

I missed him terribly. Every night when I went to bed, I looked over at the side that’d been his.

Goddamn him. Goddamn him and his lies and…

All of it.

He couldn’t be trusted.

Roughly fifteen minutes later, I didn’t know what felt more fake, the smile on my face or the makeup the girl was applying.

Trip had decided that he and I should be monkeys. Sans glitter, thankfully.

I sat patiently while the girl painted streaks of brown, beige, black, and…blue?

What kind of monkey was this?

Ellie was done first, and she bounced over to me with a big smile on her butterfly face. She was covered in streaks of pink, orange, purple, green, and yellow. Plenty of matching glitter lines too.

“You totally look like a monkey!”

I chuckled quietly, keeping still, and welcomed her on my lap.

Smile, idiot.

I fucking couldn’t.

I was getting sucked into a pit of despair. The curse of spending time with the kids and Alfie as a family. I felt so damn weak. I missed this more than I could say, and Alfie lying to me, hiding what he did for a living, was clearly not enough for me to manage an emotional distance.

“There! All done,” the girl declared with a bright smile. “I just think it’s so great when mommies and daddies get their faces painted too.”

Yeah, it was amazing. It felt great too, with the drying paint making it impossible to be comfortable. The slightest movement made me feel like the paint was going to crack.

Alfie and Trip were finished too, and someone offered to take our picture in front of a cartoon backdrop of Philly’s skyline, complete with monkeys swinging between the buildings and animals roaming the streets.

Alfie and I exchanged a brief glance, and I could practically read his mind. He was as miserable as I was. But we huddled together after handing over my phone to the guy, and he took our picture. Like a happy family.

Trip and Ellie were over the moon.

“I want that picture in my room!” Ellie exclaimed.

“Will you send it to me?” Alfie asked quietly.

“Of course.” I attached the picture in a text. “For what it’s worth, you make a very cute butterfly.”

He smirked a little.

“He totally does,” Ellie giggled. “Don’t scratch it!”

“But it itches,” Alfie defended. “I think I have glitter in my nose. If I sneeze, it’s gonna look like the Fourth of July.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

One pony ride for Ellie later, we were starving, and the line for the sliders was too long. So we found a barbecue truck instead and ordered a big family platter that we brought over to the picnic tables.

A table near the end had just cleared, and Alfie cleaned up the leftover napkins and two straws while I divvied up the food onto paper plates.

Considering we were very close to the petting zoo, I had a feeling Ellie was going to finish her food fast and go over there.

“Goddamn littering,” Alfie muttered and sat down.

“I almost flipped my lid in traffic the other day,” I mentioned. “Someone dumped a McDonald’s bag right out the window on 95, and I honked and dusted off my middle finger.”

He shook his head. “People suck.” He had Ellie next to him, and she watched her fingers, as if figuring out which the middle one was.

When the kids had food on their plates, they didn’t waste a second. Trip dove for the ribs, and Ellie went nuts for the cornbread and pulled pork. The burnt ends were terrific, but my mac and cheese was better.

“This has nothin’ on your mac and cheese.” Alfie echoed my thought.

“I was just thinking.” The trick was to use real cheddar and to pour a mix of shredded cheese and crumbs from nachos on top. In addition, finely chopped jalape?os. “Oh—remember the steakhouse in Nashville?—”

“—where you got jalape?os on the mac and cheese?” he chuckled. “Yeah. That’s where it’s at.”

I’d thought my heart couldn’t sink any lower. I was wrong.

It hurt so goddamn much to know we were still so in tune with each other. Because we shared too many memories and views.

I ate on autopilot and tried to direct all my attention to the children, who weren’t as chatty as I needed them to be. Trip was rocking sideways in his seat, humming to himself and mumbling how much he “appreciated” the food. He didn’t say it was yummy or super awesome; he appreciated it. And Ellie, our rambler, was eating and looking over at the petting zoo.

Alfie and I had shared countless moments of comfortable silences over the years, but never during a meal. We were talkers. We could start off with something we’d seen on the news or read somewhere, and by the time our plates were empty, we were two hundred topics away without having noticed a single segue.

Sitting here quietly with him felt entirely unnatural and forced, yet I had nothing to say. My brain was chock full of all the stages of grief. Part of me wanted to bargain. Part of me wanted to forgive and forget. Another part couldn’t close the open wounds that were still bleeding too heavily. I was so profoundly hurt—and angry—that it was like Groundhog Day. It felt like I was going to recycle all these emotions every day for the rest of my life.

I was constantly going back and forth with his blurted-out confessions, his texted rambling, and his apologies laced with finality and defeat. He’d admitted to having screwed up majorly enough that even he didn’t see a path to forgiveness. For no other reason would he let me know he wasn’t anywhere near ready to see me move on with someone else—but…he knew it was what I deserved.

I scratched my cheek, only to make a face, which in turn tugged at the dried paint. Why did kids want that cakey nonsense? My face felt like it was full of cracks, like a desert with dried-out soil.

Biting into a cornbread roll, I was struck with a loss of appetite so forcefully that I immediately returned the roll to the tray. It was difficult to swallow.

Too many voices, set to different volumes, argued in my head. To forgive or to scream. To apologize for my family or to…scream.

Fuck.

Pressure was building up inside me, and I had a feeling I knew how I was going to self-medicate tonight when I came home to an empty house. It was going to be me, my phone with his texts, and a bottle of something very strong.

Like so many times now, I’d scroll past the whole thing about Phil being his stepdad. I truly could not care less. I understood Alfie’s reasoning on that point, and there was nothing to forgive. But after that…?

I didn’t know what hurt the most. The complete lack of trust in the person I thought I could trust the most at one point, the fact that he might actually be in the mafia today, or his most recent confessions and the blame he was taking—because what could I do? How could I find an outlet to express my anger? He didn’t have to argue with me anymore. We were over. So I just sat here with all this shit dumped in my lap, and I had to process it alone. Then…how he’d taken a job with the Sons of Munster shortly after we’d moved back to Philly, keeping it from me with millions of tiny lies about his job search…how he could be gone all day and then say he’d worked for his dad, or my own gullibility over how rarely he’d needed money.

For months and months, I’d had him pegged as a frugal spender when I went through our credit card statements. Turned out, he had cash hidden away!

I clenched my jaw and?—

“Okay, I’m done!” Ellie declared. “Can I go over there, please?” She pointed at the petting zoo.

Alfie nodded. “Just stay where we can see you.”

“Me too!” Trip scrambled out of his seat and shoveled some more mac and cheese into his mouth. “I wanna pet the baby goats.”

“All right, uh—be careful,” Alfie cautioned. “Don’t touch any animals unless someone from the staff is watching.”

“I wanna hold a bunny!” was Ellie’s excited response. And then they were off. They ran over to the little zoo, and I glued my stare to them.

Dread crept up my spine at being alone with Alfie, almost as much as relief loosened tension in my shoulders. Not because I wanted to be alone with him but because I didn’t have to put up a facade. I’d lost the will and energy to care about his seeing me upset.

I took a swig of my water and wiped a hand across my forehead. The heat wasn’t helping. Even in the shade, under the trees, it was brutal.

Farther up toward the widest part of the park, a concert began and attracted some of the children from the petting zoo.

Alfie cleared his throat, and I automatically tensed up.

“I just wanna come to an agreement about what I said earlier when you mentioned going on dating apps,” he said. I side-eyed him and furrowed my brow, and he shifted in his seat. “We’re never gonna become the exes who cheer each other on when we meet new people. I know how I fucked things up, and I’ll live with that till I die. So I ask for mercy or whatever. Spare me any details about who you date.”

He was serious.

More than that, he believed I was in that next phase of my life where I was gearing up to move on with someone else. Given the date I’d had with Lance, perhaps it wasn’t weird Alfie thought I was ready to be out there more, but Christ… To me, this only proved how little he grasped how fully he’d fucked me up.

I could barely get out of my head long enough to watch the news in the evenings. How in the actual fuck was I going to take an interest in another man? I had the attention span of a toddler with a drinking problem.

I took a breath and… “Alfie, you went from waging war against me whenever I brought up your changes, shutting me out of your life when we broke up, utter silence for two years unless it involved our children, to now confessing what you’ve lied about, admitting to the changes you had, in fact, gone through, and doing a complete 180 in your appearance.” I paused as he winced and looked away. “Dating could not be further from my mind, because I’m too busy processing your split personality.”

He nodded with a dip of his chin, keeping his gaze trained on the kids.

I could only see half his face.

I swallowed and knew I had to let him know that I’d spoken to my dad.

Despite it all, Alfie deserved to know the odds had been stacked against him from the beginning—and the part I’d played in that mess.

“With that said—” I cleared my throat “—I was ignorant and threw you to the wolves when I introduced you to my family.”

He looked to me sharply, and it was my turn to focus on the kids.

“I talked to my father,” I said. “He didn’t deny anything. He essentially cornered you to tell you he knew who your biological dad was.”

He averted his stare once more, and I saw his chest rise and fall with a tremble to each breath.

“I never should have dismissed what you said about them—my mother and my sisters too,” I admitted. “In retrospect, I was…I was so adamant about believing things were going well—that we were merged as families, and… I just refused to acknowledge there were any issues.”

And this right here brought on the guilt within me. It formed a fist around my chest whenever I thought about how lonely Alfie must’ve been in those moments. And how it obviously had prompted him to change. To tone things down. Because, if I didn’t listen to him, who would? His own husband had waved him off.

I despised how this muddled things, because there were causes and effects—consequences to every action. No matter how much Alfie had lied, I was desperate to believe I knew him enough to claim he had a good heart. The best heart. He didn’t lie because he was sinister. He hadn’t lied to me because he’d gotten a kick out of it or because he hadn’t cared enough to tell the truth. He’d tried to tell the truth—at least where my family was concerned.

It didn’t excuse his future deceit in joining the goddamn mafia behind my back, but all those changes…? My dismissal had been the starting point. He’d changed in order to protect himself from judgment from people I’d constantly taken him to meet. Alfie had always been supportive of my career, and whenever I’d asked him to come with me for a social function, he’d said yes. Knowing full well he’d be on his own against the worst in my circles, whether that was at work or within my family.

Ironically, I’d wanted him there because I loathed those people too. My field was filled with hypocrites who’d climbed from nothing to suddenly be able to afford nice suits and look down on anyone trying to get up. I’d never fucking understood it. The behavior went beyond competitiveness.

I cleared my throat again, and the guilt pushed me to go further. When I was angry, apologizing wasn’t on my radar—but right now, I needed to say something. I needed to acknowledge what I’d done.

“I’m so incredibly sorry for putting you on the front line without me as your defense,” I said quietly. “I understand how and why you felt the need to modify your behavior.”

He turned back to me with a confused expression, as if this had been the last thing he’d expected.

Truth be told, whatever flew out of my mouth these days was a bit unpredictable. My apology was heartfelt, but in order to get there, I had to make my way through this particular line of thinking first. I had to put myself in his shoes; I had to think back on all those functions. And there were many of them. I’d grown up at garden parties and banquets. Discovering that my line of work came with an abundance of networking events hadn’t even fazed me.

“Thank you.”

I nodded minutely and watched Ellie, unable to decipher the look in Alfie’s eyes. A young woman was gently positioning a rabbit in Ellie’s arms, and I could already predict what she wanted for Christmas.

I released a breath and started gathering the paper dishes back on the tray. Discarded napkins too, before they ended up on the grass.

“You’re a sad monkey.”

I flicked a glance at Alfie. He didn’t smile or anything, and that was good. I was in no mood for banter or lighthearted topics. Nothing about this was light—but sure, I bet I looked ridiculous in my damn monkey makeup.

He didn’t look too badass with his glitter butterfly either.

“We can’t all sparkle like you.” I rose to my feet and carried the tray over to the nearest trash can.

Like a flip of a switch, the grief took over again, and I was mourning the outcome of my life. How all my fucking dreams had shattered.

My eyes burned as I threw away the trash, and then I went to return the tray to the food truck. Maybe I’d missed a garbage station. Surely the trays weren’t meant to be thrown out.

When I came back to the table, I sat down again, and Alfie had a pensive look on his face.

“It’s ironic, innit? Your dad was right,” he said.

I lifted my brows. “Pardon?”

He smiled faintly, without any trace of actual mirth. “I am what your family feared I was. I just stopped denying it.”

Was that… Was he confessing to being in the mob?

“Are you a Son?” I had to know.

He glanced around us, subtle-like, before shaking his head. “Not yet.”

But he would be one day?

“Kellan branched out when he gave me that job,” he said. “He went outside the syndicate to get someone who’d remain on the outside.”

I had no idea what that meant. “I’m not going to pretend I understand.”

“In short, I stayed outta sight,” he replied with a shrug. “I carried around his work phone all day and scheduled sit-downs and deciphered code. I knew countless names but not the faces they belonged to. I responded to messages from members without ever meeting with them.”

Oh.

All right.

I…

Fuck. I didn’t know how to process any of this. My knowledge of the mafia came from documentaries and Wikipedia. I’d had four investigative reporters put together specials for the show, specifically about the Sons of Munster, and they’d had high ratings. People always wanted to see behind the curtains of organizations that ran parallel infrastructure with normal society.

It disgusted me to know Alfie’s affiliation. Sickened me. Made me feel like the man next to me was a complete stranger. But what sickened me more was this natural curiosity and intrigue to know more, to pull me back in.

“But things have changed now…?” I half asked. “You’re suddenly showing up at O’Shea’s for a barbecue. Our son and daughter call the head of the Sons uncle .”

He offered another shrug. “Family is everything to him.”

“And it isn’t to me?”

“I didn’t say that.” He scowled. “I don’t gotta hide shit no more, though. You don’t know how fucking liberating that is.”

Was he kidding me?

“If you’re implying I pushed you toward them?—”

“No! Jesus Christ.” He upgraded his scowl to a swift glare. “I made some dumb moves all on my own, and then there they were.” He lost some of the heat, and he eyed our kids briefly. Trip was making friends with the two baby goats. “But I’m not sorry,” Alfie went on quietly. “I’m gonna find the balls to be upfront with Mom too. Not about…whatever. Not about what I do, but—family. I’m not gonna hide anymore. I don’t have the energy for it.”

I unclenched my jaw, and his evident exhaustion rubbed off on me.

No matter the actions that’d led him to knock on Finnegan O’Shea’s door and ask to be part of their family, this was his reality now, and it created a distance between us that had never seemed so vast.

Fuck moving on with a new partner. He’d joined a whole new family that survived on secrecy and crimes.

One of the last sentences in his texts came back to haunt me.

Consider me cut out of your life.

Had he not already been cut out the past two years?

“Were you just bullshitting me when you said you were never gonna hurt anyone?” I asked. “Or do you honestly believe the O’Sheas will let you keep your hands clean?”

He cocked a brow and had the nerve to chuckle. “Funny you should use those words. It shows how little you know about this, West. The management does keep their hands clean—and yeah, I trust them.” He took a breath, and I did my best to keep calm. If I wanted more information, I couldn’t yell at him. “Don’t believe everything you see on TV. This ain’t New York in the ’50s. Hell, half the wiseguys today run a podcast or a YouTube series. There’s no juice left.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re using lines from my own fucking show—and don’t come here and tell me they don’t commit heinous crimes like murder anymore.”

“I’m not sayin’ that,” he defended. “I’m just sayin’ it’s not an everyday thing for a mobster to go up and shoot someone. Mob-related killings make headlines today because they’re so rare. I’m not gonna hurt anyone, West.”

I shook my head and had to look away from him. I couldn’t make eye contact with a glittery butterfly who spoke of organized crime in such a casual manner. I knew very well that the mafia today was very different from the glory days before RICO—and the couple of decades that followed. But there was more to go to prison for than murder.

Alfie had been on the phone earlier, something about someone compromising a location. What the hell had that been about? Even if he spoke the truth and he ended up never hurting anyone physically, what would he be doing? And what had he meant by the management keeping their hands clean? Was Alfie management? Just like that, because he happened to be related to an old boss he’d never met?

My God. My head was swimming.

“Lemme ask you this,” he said. “Why do you still own a gun? You stopped competing in your twenties.”

I frowned at him. Where the fuck was he going with this?

“Do you own a gun?” I countered.

“Yeah, and that’s neither here nor there,” he replied flippantly. “I’m asking why you do. Don’t tell me it’s only sentimental value.”

“It absolutely is,” I insisted. “It was the one sport I shared with my father.”

“I don’t believe you. I think it makes you feel safer. I think it brings you some comfort to know it’s there in case you’d need it.” He jutted his chin. “The Sons are my gun. I’ve never felt safer. Ellie and Trip…? Yeah, they were probably as safe as they’ll ever be when we were at their pool party. My house is now rigged tighter than a bank. The windows in my car are bullet-resistant, and if I ever need help with something, I have people I can call.”

I stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. I didn’t know this man. Who the hell was he?

It killed me as much as it brought me relief, because maybe, just maybe, I could move on after all. Maybe I could mourn him as if he were dead, because clearly, the man I’d fallen for was nowhere to be found.

Maybe he saw it too. He flashed me a self-deprecating smirk, one that screamed of pain he didn’t want me to see. “Good thing I told you I’m outta your life, huh? You don’t wanna be near me anymore anyway.”

I swallowed.

My chest hurt. My face felt hot and itchy. I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted. I didn’t know what to think at all. I was a mess of temporary and extreme reactions and emotions.

“I should go home,” I heard myself say.

His expression shuttered, and he nodded once. “Aight.”