26. DANYA

We arrived at the apartment. It was how I'd left it, except with one major change. Sutton's mother. And she was nowhere to be found.

"Well," he said, sassing me. "Where is she?" he asked. "Is this another game because I honestly am too tired to be fucked around again."

"No, no, she was right here," I told him. "She was—she was sitting right there like you did, and she was on her laptop."

"Then where is she?"

That was the million-dollar question. Where was his mother? I hadn't lied, and I hadn't been seeing or hearing things. I didn't want to think she'd left him again after everything that had been said. "She was right here," I told him.

"I'm back," a voice called from the front door. "Oh god. I thought I was—" His mother paused in the hallway. She stared at him and smiled, holding two large white plastic bags. "I thought I'd beat you back here, but since you took the earpiece out and gave it to my sister. I—I didn't know where you were."

Choked at the sight of her, Sutton took my hand. "Hi," he said, softly. "I—I—"

I squeezed his hand a little for him.

"You look like her," he said. "Maura."

She scoffed. "I've been told that my entire life. You know she's older than me, right. Never lets me forget it. Or did. Anyway, I figured I'd grab takeout, I don't know what you like, so I got a lot of everything, and hope we can catch up."

"Over twenty years," he mustered.

"I'll leave you two."

Sutton yanked on my hand. "No. You're staying," he said. "We can catch up, but I don't know how you'll explain disappearing for twenty years. I guess you've had twenty years to think of an explanation."

She was visibly upset by what he'd said, and so was he by uttering the words, his grasp grew tighter.

"Are you sure?" I asked him.

"Well, I brought enough food for all of us," she said. "And if you're part of Sutton's life, then I'd like you to hear what I've done to change my life in all the ways I did just to get back to this moment."

He was apprehensive, his body gravitating toward me, pushing himself in my direction like he was expecting me to squeeze hold of him and never let him go. I suppose I had her to thank for that, he'd never had someone stay in his life long enough before. And I wanted to be someone who stayed.

I grabbed plates as a quiet settled over us. I didn't know what would happen, but I knew that I had to be there for Sutton.

We sat at the small dining table together, glancing in each other's directions to see who would speak first.

"So," Sutton began once he had an eggroll in his mouth.

"I'm sorry," she said. "For everything. I never wanted to leave you. Never. It almost killed me."

"You stole a hundred million," he said. "Why couldn't you have used some of that to get me?"

"Who—who told you that?"

"Maura," he said.

They had the same attitude, back and forth with each other, questions on questions. It almost reminded me of my family, except without any level of respect. Although I couldn't blame him. If I found out I'd been abandoned, I don't think I'd be willing or quick to accept their return either.

"Well, she was right, I stole a lot of money, and but it wasn't mine," she said. "Maura thinks I stole it from her. We were stealing it together. But at the time, they had my—your father and—and it was a ransom. He came from money, disinherited, and they believed his family would pay. It was my choice. I—I did everything I could, I paid them, but they still killed him. After that, I was wanted by Interpol and all those agencies. Maura threw me under the bus."

"How are you back then?"

"Fake passport, fake documents, everything I've been working on for years," she said. "I didn't have the money, not like Maura thinks, I worked in a lot of places over the years, and for a lot of shady people. But I've always kept an eye on you."

He sighed, almost like he wasn't expecting that answer from her. "And why didn't you reach out?"

She chuckled. "I did, but not in the way you thought," she said. "I helped you so much, those texts that brought the two of you together, that was me. And the first time you hacked your way through the security of that hedge fund guy's personal account, I was there, virtually, adding strings of code, and make sure to clean up after you."

"Wait. What?"

Petra sipped some water, nodding at Sutton. "Why do you think you were never caught?" she asked. "Or on anyone's radar. Of course, because you're skilled, but mostly because I was there."

"So, what you're saying is, I'm not actually as good as I thought I was," he grumbled, grabbing at another egg roll before devouring it.

"You are good, I'd say it runs in the family," she said, extending her hand across the table toward him. "I'm not sure what to say to you. And I've had all this time to think about something to say. It's a weird feeling to be stuck for words. I'm never usually lost for words."

"Well, I've had a long time to think about all the shit I was going to say to you as well," he said. "Like, how much I hated you, but now I don't think I have it in me."

She nodded. "You should hate me, but I want to make it up to you. And I think I can. I want to take you away from here. I want to spend time with you, getting to know the man you've grown into."

He looked away and back to me, taking my hand under the table.

I wanted them to have this moment alone, but I couldn't leave him now that his hand was clinging to mine again.

"All I can say is I'm sorry, again, and again," she said. "Until you understand that I am sorry. Completely. There's nothing I've regretted more in my entire life. Well, I also regret giving all that money away."

"Who was my father?" he asked.

"Jack Francis Levan," she said. "It always made me happy to know you kept the name. I know you must've looked into the Levan family, and—"

"I did," he said. "I kinda took advantage of it sometimes when people saw my last name and assumed I was part of them."

I didn't know much about the Levan family, other than they were a wealthy family in Manhattan, but any family that could afford to buy a place in Manhattan was wealthy.

"Technically, you are, and you aren't," she said. "I don't think they even know you exist, and I don't think I want them knowing you exist. They don't deserve to know that Jack had a son, and to be honest, none of us deserve you for what happened."

"I told myself I wouldn't cry when I met you," he said, sniffling. "But I guess I'm a liar."

There was a shared chuckle, both of their eyes were red with tears.

"I should take my plate and sit in the bedroom or something," I said. "You two need to bond."

Sutton wiped his eyes and looked at me, the little tears blinking from his eyelashes. "You left your family," he said. "And I'm not asking you to leave. You're important to me, maybe because you saved my life, or because you're this giant overwhelming presence that makes me feel warm, but I need you beside me."

His mother continued to shed tears. I didn't know if they were happy tears or sad tears, but there were tears, and I was feeling uncomfortable, even with Sutton's show of affection. It was nice to feel his sunshine on me, but I didn't want to be the shadow on their memory if this went south between us.

"I'm leaving in the morning," she said, "early, it'll still be dark out when I go. I'm heading to Florida, hopefully I'll find someone to fly me under the radar over to the islands."

Sutton nodded. "I can't go with you," he said. "I want to, but I can't. I need my own thing." She smiled at him. He accepted her outstretched hand and held it. "But if you want to have a relationship with me, I'm open to it."

"I'd like that," she said.

"Now." He removed his hand from both mine and his mother's hands. "I'm starving. And I want to know about you, since you know everything about me, I want to know like—like—" he shrugged a couple times. "Your favorite color? Favorite food? What music do you listen to when you're coding? Are you a morning person or a night person?"

"Fuchsia, seafood, usually piano, or a good instrument, and I'm a morning person," she answered with succinctly. "And I know that pale blue is your favorite color, but I'd never been able to pin down a favorite food." She squinted, staring at him. "I've seen all your banking history, pizza, Chinese, sushi, and a whole lot of coffee."

"Oh, did you know that Danya has his own espresso machine?" he bragged. "I don't know how to use it, but it tastes good."

"I did," she said. "I poured myself a coffee while I waited for him. He's such a slow driver."

They both seemed to get a good chuckle out of that. "I'm not slow," I said. "I'm cautious."

"Good," she said, staring at Sutton. "I like knowing my—"

"You can call me your son," he said.

"I know, I don't think I've ever been a great mother. It's almost like I need to earn it. Probably why I've been a little bit of a helicopter mom when it came to helping you."

I tried not to devour all the dumplings and noodles on my plate, but today had drained me. This was required sustenance. I almost tuned them out as they bonded. It was nice to see them come together after what I thought would've been an explosion.

Sutton was firm in his decision to not go with his mother. I wanted to encourage him to go and do what he wanted, but once he had decided, he stuck to it.

"I think we're going into business," Sutton revealed out of the blue.

My belly was far too full for me to turn as fast as I did in his direction. "We are?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "You've left your family business, and there's about to be a huge arrest which means there's a space for me to take over." He flicked fake hair from the side of his face.

"I disabled all of Maura's remote access tools," his mother revealed. "So, even if she isn't found guilty, it'll take her a while to build her portfolio again. And her son—" she shook her head, tutting. "Santiago is already on a flight out of town. I saw the booking."

"What?" he groaned. "Wait. I was using her stuff. And does she know that Santi left? Damn."

"It's tough luck, but I doubt he'll stay away," she said. "And I also looked into her finances while I was in the system. She had millions."

"Oh my god, what will happen to that?" he asked.

"Had," she repeated. "She had that money. Santi already tried getting at it after me. Really unfortunate. And now, I've done what she's accused me of all those years ago. I took it. And if you ever change your mind about coming to spend time and live with me out on their island, half of it is yours."

"You keep it all," he said. "I have a nest egg, and I'll use some of the contacts I stole from Maura's desk."

"What? When did you do that?"

"Her rolodex," he said. "I grabbed it with my bag. She's old school."

"Use it," she said. "It's what I would do if I had it."

"We can split it," he said, surprising to hear him want to share it.

"No," she said. "Keep it. But make use of it. And when you've made a name for yourself, evaded arrest more times than you can count, and have been involved in a couple car chases, you can come to the islands, and I'll have a place made for you, both of you. They don't have extradition treaties there."

I let out a chuckle. "I like the sound of that."

She smiled at me. "I know all about your history."

"And you still pushed us together," he said, looking at me with the side of his eyes. "It doesn't sound like something any responsible mother would do."

"Responsible has never been something I was accused of before," she laughed. "But you two go well together, you're the muscle, and you're the brain. Together, I'm sure you'll do a lot of great things together, many heists, I hope. I want to hear everything about them when we meet again."

It sounded like the last time they would ever see each other, and it possibly was, but there wasn't any sadness between them anymore. They were both smiling and cheerful. It made me wonder what my family had done so wrong to end up the way we did. Potentially a cultural thing, my family were fond of teaching the hard way and punishments. But I was out of their grasps now and waiting on confirmation in the form of a text or call to say what they'd done with the Sokolov siblings.

In the corner of my eye, a tear formed, shedding them would be hard, but I was ready to reinvent a Danya 2.0.