Ignite Book 2: Burning Down the City
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A. Duncan
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Chapter 1
Book 2: Burning Down the City
LEXI
He hates me.
I knew at some point the choices I made would eventually bite me in the ass. Grief makes you do crazy things. Loss makes you believe there’s nothing left to live for.
Trying to put the pieces of your life back together is easier said than done when the one person you counted on—the person you always considered your home—was suddenly snatched away in the middle of the night, just like my dreams for our future. Just gone, stolen away to be no more.
I couldn’t handle the sudden death of Maxwell, the one who saved me and then just left me all alone.
I made a mistake. I put myself in a situation that never should have happened, but I was hurting.
I wanted to forget. I regret the choices I made that had me walking out on West that night and landing in Luca’s bed, but I will never regret the decisions I’ve made since then.
West has helped piece me back together. We’ve been married for three years now, and the beautiful little wildfire of a girl proves how well it’s been going.
He didn’t want to know. West didn’t want to know if she was biologically his, and he never once cared.
Never once had West raised his voice. Never once had he brought up the past, but recently, something has changed. He has changed.
He questions everything, and we argue a lot. I find myself sleeping more with my daughter, Isabella, than with my husband, and it makes my heart hurt.
I crave him, but the last thing I want is to feel the coldness of his beautiful eyes and the heat of his back as he turns away from me.
I’ve gotten better at holding in my emotions again. Old habits die hard, and my tears now only mingle with the water of the showers I take.
“You didn’t come to bed last night,” West’s voice rings through the kitchen.
I look up at his glacier-blue eyes. “I slept with Bella.”
“Why? So you wouldn’t have to be near me?”
“Let’s not do this right now, West.”
“Do what, Lex? You’d rather spend time in any other bed than ours. What’s the problem?” he accuses.
“You. You’re the problem. It isn’t just any other bed. It’s our daughter’s!” I whisper, my voice sharp.
“Her bed, his bed… Semantics,” he fires back. He walks off to the bedroom to get dressed, and I hang my head, trying my best to hold everything in.
Getting my things together, I call for Bella. She runs out with her new princess backpack, raring to go.
“Ready to go to daycare?” I ask her.
“Yeah! We painting today!”
“You are?”
“Yep!”
“All right, let’s go!”
As we’re about to open the door, West calls out, “You’re not going to tell Daddy bye?”
She runs and gives him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Bye, Daddy, love you!”
“I love you too, munchkin.” He looks up at me and stares, saying nothing.
***
I walk into my father’s office at Blakney Group and sit down in front of the windows that overlook the city.
Dad moved his company from California to Toronto just to be closer to me. Ever since Mom died, he says it’s his turn to take care of me.
Even though I’m technically an adult, he spent most of his life—and all of mine—waiting to get to know me while he protected and fought for our country.
Laying my head against the window, I sigh heavily.
“Everything okay, sweetheart? How are things at home?” Dad asks.
“Not good.”
“What about my spitfire of a granddaughter?”
I smile. My daughter is what makes my life worth living. “Painting.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I really hate to see what she looks like when I go to pick her up.”
“She is still coming to Grandpa’s tonight, isn’t she?”
“Yes. She’s not going to let me forget Friday night at Grandpa’s.”
“Good. It will give you and West some time to yourselves, though she will sleep at home,” he nods, but it’s only met with silence. “Alexis?”
“Hmm?”
“Is there something you want to talk about or something I need to know?”
I can’t look him in the eye and instead stare out the window at the city below as I say, “No, Dad.”
He sighs. “Give it some time, Alexis. I’m sure it’s hard for him knowing Luca’s back in town.”
Silence. What Dad doesn’t understand is that I grew up listening to the arguments. I grew up listening to the belittling.
My mom and I did everything we could to survive the verbal and physical abuse of the man I thought was my father my whole life.
I made it out thanks to Max, but my mother… She’s six feet underground. Killed by the same man who was supposed to love us.
West has never once laid a hand on either me or Isabella, but sometimes…the words that come out of your mouth hurt more than the strikes of a hand. Either way, you can’t take them back, and the damage is already done.
Without looking away from the city below, I say, “I won’t live a life like Mom.”
I hear Dad drop his pen on his desk and the squeak of his chair as he turns to face me. “What are you saying, Alexis?” he asks.
“Mom stayed because she felt like she had to. I absolutely will not subject Bella to anything close to what I grew up with. She’s already noticed the strain between West and me. No matter how much I love him…I’ll leave before it taints her childhood.”
I stand up and kiss my dad on the cheek, then head to the door.
“Where you headed to, sweetheart?” Dad asks.
“Campus library. Whoever said it was a good idea to go for my master’s should be shot.”
