The Russian Billionaire’s Secret(37)

“I promise,” she said softly. She felt proud to have a mother who would take on a job she hated in order to protect and provide for them, but felt disgusted and lied to as well. She didn’t want to think of her beautiful mother, naked on stage, under the watchful eyes of predators.

So, she had grown up under the hovering protective watch of her mother; eyes never really physically upon her, but woven within her, flowing through her like her blood, with the message that ran through her veins to do well. She joined sports and clubs at school, and excelled in her studies. She had applied to every scholarship there was and worked weekends at Subway, saving every penny for her college career.

When she had graduated high school with honors, her mother had wept like a young child. She knew she needed to be a role model for her younger brothers, and stayed on them as adamantly as her mother had taught her to.

At the age of 18, she had attended parent-teacher conferences when her mother couldn’t do so, had signed permission slips and even worked overtime for her brothers to attend field trips. She ruled the house with an iron fist, punishing Leo when he had gotten suspended when he was in ninth grade for sneaking off campus to smoke cigarettes. She had rifled through his room, finding a pack of Marlboro Lights, and, furious, made him finish the back, each cancer stick back to back. Drastic, she realized later, but he had thrown up so many times after her punishment that she knew it would make him sick to imagine another cigarette for the rest of his life.

There was a night, right before her high school graduation, that Leo had knocked on her bedroom door as she was reading in bed.

“Yeah, come in,” she said. Their walls were paper thin and she had heard him attempting to tiptoe down the hall.

“Hey…I just gotta say somethin’ to you,” he said, embarrassed and looking at the ground. She closed her book and sat up, patting her bed.

“Okay. Come on over.” He fumbled with his hands, nervous and anxious.

“I just gotta tell you how much you mean to me and Devon. I just don’t know what our lives would be like without you. You can be real crazy at times, but you’re alright. I’m going to miss you a whole lot,” he said.

Her heart folded into itself and she felt a warmth fill her body. She and her brothers did not discuss their emotions, but this sense of worth and acknowledgment for a brother she raised like a son, reiterated that all of her hard work was worth it all. She had missed out on a lot during high school; parties, boyfriends, even her Junior prom when she couldn’t afford the tickets and dress, football games, movies with friends…but she had kept a picture of her family as the background on her phone from the very first day she had bought it to remind her of her purpose and reason for being.

“Thanks, kid,” she said, a nickname she had developed for him as a child, as he was always by her side. She took in a deep breath, “You are kind and important; do not ever forget that. I would not have ever done these things for you and Devon if I didn’t believe in your own potential. When I leave, I will always only be a phone call away. But, you need to know that the brunt of the responsibility will fall onto you now, and you need to watch over Devon and take care of him as your own. This might, and most probably will, mean putting him before yourself.” She waited for the truth of this to sink in, and saw Leo nod slowly.

“I just get real mad at mama sometimes over it all.” She turned his head and looked him dead in the eye.

“Don’t ever say that and do not ever live your life with resentment in your heart. Our mother does what she can. We’re family. We pull our own weight. We do our best and then move on from there. Do you hear me?” He nodded again, slowly.

“But what if I wanna go out on a date?” Alicia laughed.

“Then you go, but you bring Devon with you.” He shuddered at the idea.

“I got you. I will make you proud.” And she knew he would. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Get outta here, kid. I gotta finish reading this. But, you remember, to also make yourself proud.”

Two weeks later, she was packing up her small high school room, going to the University of Chicago months earlier than other incoming students to do an internship and begin a side job on campus.

The University of Chicago had been her first choice because it was only a few blocks from their apartment, and, an extremely prestigious school. She planned to major in Business and was truly ecstatic to begin her studies in the fall.

Chapter 2

The Beginning Of A Future

Alicia’s college career went as she expected. There were parties and football games she attended, but certainly not as much as her fellow coeds. She had devoted one year to a serious relationship with a boy who was studying law, so he was as devoted to success as she was. She had actually met Clinton at a college party. Alicia had given herself permission to go out and have fun one Friday night, something that was usually hard for her to do; letting loose seeming like a sin at times. She had sipped enough beer to quench her guilt and forget many of her inhibitions and sat outside with her friends and laughed uncontrollably, not truly remembering what it was they had originally began laughing about.

“You girls want to play a round of beer pong?” a handsome gentleman had asked from afar. She had jumped up, grabbing her friends’ hands, feeling dizzy at first, but agreeing. While they set up the table, she had walked over to the barbecue to grab a burger to help absorb some of the beer she had drank too quickly on such a hot day. The one gentleman she noticed from campus followed her over to the food.