We walk through to the kitchen and we find Cruz’s mom sitting up at the counter going over some paperwork. She doesn’t see us, and Cruz can’t resist sneaking up behind her and scaring the absolute shit out of her with a loud, roaring “RAAHHHHH.”
She shrieks and spins around, only to playfully swipe at her son, her hand against her chest as she desperately tries to calm her racing heart. “I swear to God, Cruz, if you weren’t my son, and I didn’t love you so much, I would have packaged you up in a box and sent you to live with my sister in Germany years ago.”
Cruz laughs and glances back at me. “She says that now, but she wouldn’t be able to live with herself when she realized that her sister was trying to force me into an all-natural lifestyle.”
I hold back a laugh as Cruz’s mother eyes me with caution, probably wondering what the fuck I’m doing standing in her kitchen, but if she has a good relationship with her husband and they actually talk, then I have no doubt that she already knows.
“Elodie,” she says, bowing her head in an awkward little gesture. “Welcome to my home. Is there anything I can help you with? Are you looking for my husband?”
Cruz laughs at his mother. “Knock it off,” he says. “She’s not the queen of England. She didn’t come for business, she just came to chill. I promised I’d introduce her to you and give her a tour of the place.”
Her eyes bug out of her head for a quick second before she controls her features. “Oh, well in that case, welcome to my home. I’m surprised, have you not been through here before? I’d love to take you on a proper tour. Unfortunately, Cruz’s idea of a tour is just pointing toward things. We’ve only just finished remodeling. We’re lacking in furniture, but you’re the first person through, so I’d love to show you.”
“Of course,” I say, warmth spreading through my chest at the fond way she speaks of her son, something I wish I could have experienced with my own mother. “I’d love that.”
She starts to walk toward me when she stops. “Oh, how terribly rude of me. I’m getting all excited about the tour that I forgot to offer you a drink. What can I get you, love? Water? A soda?”
Cruz grunts. “Water,” he says, his voice filled with authority. “She can’t drink anything else just yet.”
His mother’s brows drop as she meets his stare. “Excuse yourself,” she demands, putting the asshat in place. “Since when do you have the right to tell a lady what she can and cannot drink? If Elodie, the leader of our people, decided she would like a chocolate fudge ice-cream sundae, mixed into a milkshake by Italian gangsters and served through a twenty-four-carat gold straw, then you better go to the ends of the earth to make that happen for her.”
I blink a few times, staring at the way she so effortlessly put him in his place, only in this instance, it’s not called for. “It’s more than alright,” I tell her, stepping forward to stand by Cruz’s side. “He’s right. I should only be drinking water. I’m sure you just caught my little display going up and down the street on my bike.”
“Ahh, yes,” she says, her eyes flicking between me and her son. “I certainly did catch that, but I wasn’t sure that it was my place to ask.”
I shrug my shoulders, not really knowing what I can and can’t share with her—but screw it. I like her and I’m in a sharing mood. “I just had a little run in with another hitman and the bottom of my pool.”
She sucks in a sharp gasp as she races forward and takes my hands. “Oh, you poor, sweet, sweet girl. What happened? Are you okay? I heard about the attack in the woods. I can’t understand how these awful men could do that to such a young lady. You’re barely even an adult with so much already on your shoulders.”
I give her a warm smile, never having experienced an older woman showing me this kind of motherly love and getting emotional over my well-being. “Thank you,” I murmur, instantly deciding that this woman before me is now my favorite adult … ever. “That means a lot to me, but for the most part, I’m fine. He had me under the water until everything went black, and the next thing I knew, Grayson was above me forcing the water out of my lungs and he was dead on the other side of the pool.”
She gasps, and in the blink of an eye, her arms are wrapped tightly around me with tears sitting heavily in her eyes. “Oh, Elodie. Your mother would have been sick to hear the awful things that have been happening to you. How are you holding up?”