couldn’t think of anything but Angelo at the time? It’s so fucking pussy.”
She smacks my shoulder, and wouldn’t you know it. Nonna’s age doesn’t measure the strength of her strike. “Language.”
Her Italian accent faded with time. It’s barely noticeable now.
I rub my shoulder as the children and another teacher help Lachlan transport the contents of the car inside.
“Come have a cuppa.” Nonna motions at me to follow her.
We go into her small office at the back of the kindergarten. She’s the new director after Lachlan’s father’s early retirement. I sit like an obedient kid on the old wooden chair and wait while she pours hot water on the tea bags. The scent of jasmine fills the office. It’s Nonna’s smell.
Memories of the time I was her Angelo try to barge into my head. I don’t even remember the name. Maybe because it’s really such a pussy name.
Angel. The fuck. How can someone like me be an angel?
However, I remember Nonna. She found me in that rubbish can and named me Angelo and worked in the foster facility I was enrolled in. She beat the hell out of anyone who called me Rubbish Boy. ‘His name is Angelo and you’re jealous you don’t have a magnificent name like his.’
No idea how these patches of memory stayed with me, even after Omega, but they did.
I forgot about her all these years. However, when I came around here for Lachlan’s father a month or so ago, she was the one who recognised me. All she had to do was say, “Angelo?” with tears in her eyes and I recognised her, too.
She’s been the reason I’m not a full-blown Omega addict again. I hated the past but never Nonna. She was the brightest thing in it.
“Here.” She places the steaming cup of tea on the table and sits across from me with her own chipped cup.
She retrieves a flannel blanket and places it over her knees.
“You look like hell, boy.” She sips her tea. “Are you eating properly?”
I grin in my most charming way. “I still look hot, though, right, Nonna?”
She swats my knee with a magazine. “That mouth of yours is still full of shit.”
“Language, Nonna!”
“I’m older I get to say whatever I damn please as long as we’re not in front of the kids.”
I laugh, and I feel genuinely carefree when I’m with her. That’s perhaps why I sneak here every week. But like Ghost, if Nonna knows that the little Angelo she raised turned into a lethal shadow, she won’t want anything to do with me.
Once again, I'll be fucking selfish and enjoy this as much as I can.
“Have you ever looked for your parents?” she asks, her tame brown eyes staring at me from behind the rim of the cup.
I take a sip of tea. “The ones who threw me in a rubbish can?”
“They’re still your parents, Angelo.” Her voice softens. “Besides, maybe they’re not the ones who threw you there.”
“Even if they aren’t, they didn’t do anything to stop it.” My grip tightens around the handle. If I find those fuckers, I'll slaughter them with my own hands. They’re lucky I’m not actively searching for them.
Nonna stands up and opens a drawer in her desk with a key. Then she retrieves a small wooden box. It appears old but well-taken care of. Nonna has been trying to give me the thing since we reunited.
It’s a sign to find your parents, she said.
I shake my head for the thousandth time. If I didn’t know it would hurt her feelings, I would sneak here at night and burn the thing.
A small rustle sounds behind the door. Not one of the children. Someone is trying to be discreet.
I place a forefinger in front of my mouth to give Nonna the sign to stay silent.
I tiptoe to the door, crouch, and retrieve a knife from my calf – to not startle Nonna with a gun. I yank the door open and point the tip of the knife at the newcomer’s throat.
Bright green eyes stare at me in pure horror.
Fuck.
Fear. The trigger to my dark tendencies. My drug and my aphoristic.
She should never show me fear.
One thought remains: kill.
Chapter Eight
My breathing hitches and my legs almost fail me.
There’s no emotion in his washed out eyes. They’ve turned too dark, they almost flicker to black. His face is unreadable lines of doom. I compared him to a storm and a hurricane before, but there’s none of that now. It’s the silent type of darkness that