Page 84 of A Favor Owed

“I didn’t have a choice, Angela. It wasn’t my call. This was always Lou’s show.”

She looks up at me with her fake blue eyes. But the tears and pain in them are real, and they’re killing me.

“I’m sorry, Angela. I would do anything to change this.”

“You thought I was taking a temporary break from my life of luxury until it all blew over and then I’d be back home with Daddy, while your dad went to jail. I was the mafia princess who put your family in danger. You didn’t care what happened to me.”

The coldness in her voice and eyes sends chills down my spine. I’m losing my girl. It’s happening right now, right in front of me, and I don’t know how to stop it.

“It was like that at first,” I say, slamming the medicine cabinet shut and backing away from her. “It’s obviously not like that now.”

She leaves the bathroom and returns to the bedroom to retrieve her bags. I follow her, not willing to let her out of my sight for a second, knowing I’m down to the last few minutes.

“He can hold me as a material witness, Brady,” she says. “Did that ever occur to you? If he finds out I know anything about my dad’s clubs, he can arrest me.”

“He won’t,” I say, but I don’t know that. I’m terrified for her and hating myself.

“I gave them enough to stop the trafficking,” she says. “They just want my dad as icing on the cake. I can’t help them any more than I have.”

“I wouldn’t let you anyway,” I say, more fiercely than I intended. “No way in hell are you giving the FBI any more intel.” The thought of Angela strolling into an FBI office and rolling on Angelo Pini is enough to make me want to throw up. “Please, Angela,” I say, my need to protect her overwhelming all rational thought and any remaining shred of pride. “I’m begging you. Please let me stay with you. It’s too dangerous for you to be alone. I won’t touch you. I won’t even talk to you. Just stay here, take the bedroom, I’ll sleep on the sofa—”

She shakes her head, tears streaming down her face. “I’m leaving, Brady. We don’t owe each other anything anymore.”

“You never owed me anything, Angela.” I pull her against me, careful of her hand, impeded by the bags she’s slung over her shoulder. I have to try. I can’t do what she wants and let her go without a fight. “But you do now. We owe each other. We owe each other a chance. I told you I would never love anyone the way I love you. I can fix this. We can have a future together. Don’t walk away from it.”

For a moment, she leans in to me, her head resting against my shoulder, her uninjured hand grasping my shirt, her breath warm on my neck. My last few seconds with her drift away, time stops, and for a brief moment I think she’ll stay.

“Goodbye, Brady.”

And she’s gone.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Angela

If there’s one thing in life that I understand, it’s the concept of a favor owed. I get why Brady did what he did. Loyalty, I learned growing up, is more important than anything else. Under different circumstances, I still wouldn’t have forgiven him.

But as it is, I don’t have much of a choice. Despite the heartless bitch DNA running through my veins, I can’t erase the image of six-year-old Brady losing his dad, or fault adult Brady for wanting to protect his protector and save his mom more heartbreak. But as he bandaged my hand and told me about Brendan and Connor, I knew that despite forgiving him, I couldn’t stay.

I love him. No, it’s more than that. I adore him, crave him, feel safe and loved and happy with him. I am head over heels, ridiculously, foolishly in love with him. Brady is all of my unreasonable expectations rolled into one person—loyal, protective, brave—and he’s shown me that love is more important than anything else. But the pain of his betrayal is too powerful. I will always look at him and see the guy who went behind my back while he was making me fall for him, who threw me to the wolves when he should have protected me. I love him too much to get over it.

For the next three weeks, I take ghosting to a whole new level. I email all of my professors and let them know I won’t be attending the final week of classes. I go to Student Counseling Services and apply for the same anxiety-related medical accommodation I had throughout college: permission to take exams in a smaller setting with fewer students. I let Cliff know that Brady can’t come into Finnegan’s when I’m working. I don’t go anywhere near campus, and I don’t go back to Lizette’s; instead, I stay with Elisa. With all of those plans in place, I manage to avoid seeing or hearing from Brady for the last three weeks of the semester.

It doesn’t erase him from my life, though. I feel like he’s ingrained in every inch of my skin. I can’t erase him from my heart, as much as I try. Every night, while I lie on Elisa’s sofa, I fall asleep to his words in my head.We owe each other a chance.

Despite my anxiety, and okay, I have to admit it, my depression over Brady, I ace my exams. I spend the winter break working extra shifts at Finnegan’s and taking on more cases at Legal Aid. A week before school starts in January, I move back into Lizette’s garage. She bought some nicer furniture and everything is new and upgraded, but I still cry the first night I sleep there, remembering the comfort of Brady’s body, the warmth and love and security he brought to my life.

We owe each other a chance.

No. He’s gone. We’re done. He’s left the University of Dos Torres for good and is at Columbia where he belongs. I heard his former study group lamenting his departure and talking about how cute he looked in his cold-weather clothes.

I’m leaving class one afternoon in late January when a text flashes on my phone. As always, my first thought is,It’s him, but of course it isn’t. When I see the New York area code, however, the acute feeling of disappointment is replaced with anxiety and fear.

I call, and he answers right away, his voice gruff. “Rivera.”

“What do you mean, there’s a problem with Brady’s dad?” I say.

“Hello, Angela.” He sounds smugly pleased to hear from me.

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