Hate You, Love You. - Chapter 128

Twenty minutes earlier

It’s a slow Friday evening at Fiona’s World.

Evenings aren’t exactly the most ideal time for sugary bits. In my opinion, you need sugar and caffeine when you’re barely awake by 7:00am and you’re rushing to your job or school. There are barely any customers in here, the last guy in here, a college student, just bade me farewell. Aunty Fiona left me in charge of the bakery thirty minutes ago. She said something about doing a physical delivery not too far from here.

Theo is meant to join me but he said he’d swing by later. He had some things he needed to take care of at the station. No doubt, they’re still trying to compel Dave Shaw to start talking.

I grab a clean napkin and start wiping the tables and chairs, making sure that it’s spic and span. I’m sort of a neat freak so it’s in my job description to do this and I’m kind of bored. My mind reverts back to my last conversation with Jason and it suddenly becomes occupied.

What did he mean by ”even if I’m alive or dead, you would not be in the same room as Patricia?”’

What has Patricia got to do with anything? Does he know something I don’t? He was acting real strange the day he came to the apartment and it was a bit unsettling. He knows about Theo and I’s lie and I’m still trying to figure out how he found out. I didn’t tell him. Theo sure as hell didn’t, then who did?

Also, we left things on a bad note…again. After he left, I cried in my bedroom because it felt like I chose Theo over him. He felt that I chose Theo over him which wasn’t the case. I want to tell him everything, I wish I could tell him everything but I can’t. I don’t want another person getting mixed up in my drama. I want Theo, the police department and I to handle it. We’re so close to getting things wrapped up: the guy who shot at Bob and I at Lakedale is in custody and he’s the key to unlocking Pandora’s Box.

As I bend down to pick up a piece of leftover cake from under the table, I hear the double doors open. ”Hello, welcome to Fiona’s World, how can I help you?” I’ve said these same words for the past five months, so it has become somewhat of a routine.

”Hello, Melody.” A voice greets. My hands steel on the ground and the crumbs in my hand fall down on the floor. ”Not again,” I whisper.

What is she doing here?

I lift my head from under the table and come face to face with none other than Patricia. Her face holds a wide smile as she lends me a hand. I cautiously take it and smoothen my apron to remove the dust from it. Looking as gorgeous as always, her red hair is flowing in long curls and she’s wearing blue jeans and a striped turtleneck. Her makeup again is done perfectly and her feet are decorated with thigh high boots, the one with crystals decorated on each side.

”I hope I didn’t catch you at a time.”

I shake my head. ”No. I was just doing some cleaning. Can I get you anything?”

”I’m good.” She clutches unto her purse. ”I wanted to talk to you. I figured you’d be here so I drove here. Plus, you’re owing me a coffee date.” Oh right. ”Since there aren’t any customers here, we might as well have that date.”

…even if I’m alive or dead, you would not be in the same room as Patricia.

Shit, how do I avoid her? I’m literally cornered. I can’t leave the bakery and I can’t tell her to leave.

”Sure,” I grimace. ”I’d be right back. Let me drop my apron.”

She nods and settles on the leather chair next to the window. I race to the counter and head to the back room. When Jason warned me, he looked serious. Something was wrong, but he didn’t tell me. Whatever was wrong, or whatever transpired, Patricia had something to do with it. He said her name with trepidation and it confused me back then. Still confuses me now. Plus, their relationship is fractured.

Why should he be fearful of his sister?

I grab my phone from my pocket and power it on. Ignoring the messages and calls that immediately pop in, I click the Sound Recorder button. Theo and I’s original plan, when I was supposed to go on this coffee date, was to have me wired. That sort of went to hell when her records came out squeaky clean. Also, I can’t be wired now because she spontaneously showed up.

Trust me, you’d be interested in what I have to tell you.

That was what she said the last time we talked about the coffee date in this bakery.

Against better judgement, apron dumped in my locker and phone in the front pocket of my jeans, I approach the table she’s plopped on and seat opposite her.

”Sorry, I was late,” I give her a fake smile. ”My boss called me.”

”No problem.” She puts her purse on the table and I slowly move the phone from my pocket to my lap.

”You wanted to see me?” I ask so she’d start talking and get the fuck out of here. ”It sounded important.”

”It is,” she nods. ”I won’t waste your time. Have you heard from Bob?”

She really came all the way here to ask about him?

”No,” I lie. ”I haven’t. Why?”

”Did you really know who Bob was? You seem like a girl with a good head on your shoulders, no wonder my brother is so smitten with you.” I raise a brow. ”How a woman of your calibre could have been with the head of one of the most powerful mafias in the US is beyond me.”

Head of one of the most powerful mafias in the US? I knew he had affiliations with the mafia but his ties ran much deeper?

”I’m not following.”

”Oh, he didn’t tell you?” Her Parisian accent is more prominent now. ”Typical bastard, he tricked you. I’m surprised my brother didn’t tell you either.” she chuckles.

”Tell me what?”

”That Bob was not who he said he was, Melody,” she rolls her eyes. ”His real name wasn’t even Bob Stewart. Gosh, you’re so naïve.”

Rude.

”His real name was Daniel Stone. Bob Stewart was one of his many aliases, so is Vladmir Gustaf.”

My jaw slacks open and she chuckles again. ”You’re lying,” I say.

”Am I really?”

When I was kidnapped back at Jason’s base last year, there was a man named Vladmir that was on the phone. Jason revealed back at the twelfth grade retreat that Vladmir was a mafia boss that he regularly delivers drugs and weapons too. And when we were at the school’s parking lot, he said that my boss was his boss. All this time, he was talking about the same person.

It makes sense now! How did I not make the connection? Why didn’t Jason tell me this earlier since he knew?

Moreso, why is she telling me all this?

”From your facial expression, it’s evident that you believe me.” I blink rapidly. ”Bob, as you call him, is the head of the Siddeno mafia family. Are you familiar with them?”

Am I ever?

”I’ve heard of them,” I swallow. ”from talks around town.”

”Well congratulations, Melody, you were dating the head of a powerful mafia. You deserve a medal.”

I really deserve a medal-of stupidity. Only me will choose a guy who is a hardcore criminal. The first older guy I dated, scratch that, the first guy I ever dated, ended up being the head of the Siddeno Mafia family which is one of the most powerful mafias in the US.

Looking back at things now, the things are adding up: when he’d leave for days without calling, when he’d cut the phone immediately I enter in his office and when I’d ask him about his family and he’d be vague about who they were, it was all because he was knee deep in this shit.

I have to hand it to him though, he fooled me. He fooled me real good. I thought what I found out at the station was damning, but this, well this takes the cake

My phone shakes in my hand and I hope that it’s still recording this information. Theo must hear about this.

”Why are you telling me all this?” She was his ex-girlfriend, yes, but why would she come all the way here to tell me this knowing I’m dating her brother?

”Bob wasn’t a nice person, Melody. He was a murderer and he was sadistic.” She ignores my question. ”Did he treat you like a queen?”

I nod slowly.

”Did he treat you like you were the centre of his universe?”

I nod again.

”Did he give you a ring promising that he’d be with you through thick and thin?” Her tone is condescending as she looks at me through her lashes.

”He did that.”

”Of course he did. He’s a charmer. He charms his way into your heart, makes you feel like he’s the knight in shining armour and makes you fall for him. Once you’ve done that, he’d treat you like shit,” she says bitterly.

He didn’t treat me like shit. Sure, he was dishonest, but he wasn’t as bad as she’s describing. I know their relationship was sour because she cheated but I feel like there’s more to the story. Bob, or should I say Daniel, never divulged much details about their relationship and I never pushed it because it was a touchy subject for him.

”The only difference between you and I is that he actually really liked you. When he fiercely defended you back at the restaurant when we first met, I would admit, I was a little jealous because when we were together, he never treated me like that.” She flips a few strands of red away from her face. ”It was hell being with him.”

”You knew he was in the mafia?”

”I did,” she confirms. ”We actually met through Jason. I won’t go into details, but that’s how it was. I knew he was in the mafia and I was right by his side.”

She’s the opposite of me. I would have run away from him, moved to another country if I could.

”Why did you stay if he was horrible to you?”

She gives me a weak smile. ”Because when you’re dating an important member of the mafia, you can’t just leave. It doesn’t work that way. Daniel’s ancestors literally founded the Siddeno mafia. He and his brother were brought up in the system and were destined to head it one day.”

So he had a brother. Another thing I didn’t know about him.

”Did he have any family, apart from the brother you mentioned?”

She nods again. ”He did. He was Russian by descent and his parents live there.” If it’s one thing he didn’t lie about, it’s the fact that his family don’t live here. ”His ancestors are Russian migrants so he alternated between the US and there.”

That explains the ”business trips.”

”You keep referring to him in the past.” Her face holds no expression. Does she know he’s dead? ”Why is that?”

A smirk plays on her lips and it leaves me with an unsettling feeling in my stomach. ”Let me tell you a story.”