Chapter Twenty-One
My life has turned into a three-ring circus.
I like to think that I’m the ringmaster of it all, but I’m beginning to feel more like a fucking trained lion, one that’s sick of jumping through hoops, seconds away from breaking loose and mauling everyone. The acrobats are all around me, bending over backwards, or hell... maybe they’re more like a carnival freak show. Regardless, I know who the fucking clowns are.
One of them is currently indisposed in my trunk.
The other jumped in a car and sped away after dropping off a kid that was supposedly dead. I haven’t exactly wrapped my mind around all of that yet, but suffice it to say, that particular bozo will get to live to see another day.
How many more days is really the question... the answer dependent upon what he does after tonight.
The one in the trunk, however, won’t be so lucky.
“Christ, it feels like we ought to be halfway to China by now,” Five mutters, sweat rolling off of him. He comes to a stop, leaning on his shovel as he pulls his shirt up to wipe his face. “How come he gets out of digging?”
Five motions toward my car.
“He’s really in no condition to dig his own grave.”
“I meant Bruno, not the Russian,” Five says, pausing as he looks at me, his voice dropping lower. “Wait, shit, this is for Aristov, right? This isn’t, you know... is it?”
I glance over at Seven as he leans against the side of my car, arms crossed over his chest, watching us in the darkness. Instead of humoring that with a response, I continue to dig, throwing shovelfuls of dirt aside. “The reason he’s not doing it because I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t trust him to work a shovel?”
“I don’t trust him to take a piss right now. The jackass in the trunk has been more honest about his intentions, so no, I don’t trust him with a shovel.”
“Why’s he here then?”
“Because I haven’t killed him.”
“Are you going to?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you think he—?”
Sighing exasperatedly, I slam my shovel into the dirt and look at Five, cutting off his last question, because I’m not answering whatever it is. “Is this one of those check yes or no moments? You trying to pass me some notes here? Want to gossip like little fucking busybodies? Braid each other’s hair? Be best friends forever?”
“My fault,” he mutters, going back to digging. “Just trying to get on the same page.”
“All the page I’m on says is ‘they dug a fucking hole to bury the Russian in’ so that’s what I’m doing.”
He nods. “Got it.”
We dig in silence until I’m satisfied the hole is big enough. Takes about an hour. My shoulders ache and my back hurts, not to mention my head is viciously pounding. It has been steadily thumping since I took those hard blows to the face hours ago, when the jackass beat the hell out of me before Aristov put my own gun to my forehead.
Yeah, it has been one fucked up day...
There was a second, a brief second, where I thought I might die tonight before Scarlet got her wits about her and decided to do something. I was counting on that, counting on her tenacity.
She didn’t disappoint, but the pain in my head says it sure took her ass long enough.
Throwing my shovel up over the side, I pull myself out of the hole, brushing the dirt from my clothes. Five follows my lead, but he struggles, crawling over the side, collapsing on the ground beside it.
“You’re starting to whine more than Three,” I tell him.
Five forces himself up. “I haven’t said a word in forty-five minutes!”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t hear you complaining.”
“Whatever,” he mutters, not bothering to brush the dirt from his sweaty clothes. “That’s who ought to be out here digging holes. Declan.”
“He’s got other things to take care of,” I say, popping the trunk on my car and opening it, my gaze meeting Aristov’s as he forces his eyes open. He’s barely clinging to consciousness. He’s lost quite a bit of blood. Not from the bullet that grazed his shoulder, nor from the beating he took. No, it was the rod of metal that Scarlet rammed into his back. I don’t know what she hit, but she must’ve hit something. “You look tired, Aristotle, but don’t worry... we’ve got your bed all made up.”
Grabbing him, I start yanking him out of the trunk. He doesn’t fight, because he doesn’t have much fight left in him, which means it isn’t going to be easy for me, either. Five jumps in, helping me lug him out, dropping him to the ground between us.
Aristov groans, muttering something I don’t pay attention to, because fuck him.
Would you give a shit about his final words after the things he’s done, if he did them to you?
We haul him toward the hole, but the son of a bitch is heavy, bulky, dragging the ground as we pull him along. Seven shoves away from the car, coming toward us. “Here, let me help you, boss.”
“I swear to fuck, Seven, if you call me that one more time, Five and I are going to be digging yet another hole tonight, and trust me when I say none of us want that to happen.”
“I sure don’t,” Five mutters. “I’m tired.”
Seven grows silent, returning to his place beside the car, as Five and I drag Aristov the rest of the way and roll him into the hole.
He lands face-up with a thud.
I grab my shovel, scooping up a pile of dirt, instantly dropping it on him. He opens his eyes, looking up at me, but he otherwise does nothing.
What can he do?
Not a goddamn thing.
I know. I know. I’ve been there.
It might’ve been a world away, but I’ve laid where he’s laying.
The pain... the pain had been intense. I can still feel an echo of it sometimes rattling around in my head. Otherwise, just like my skull, the rest of it became fractured, my memory a pile of puzzle pieces that will never completely fit together. Flashes and moments, like a fucked up flipbook out of sequence. I vividly remember my stepfather standing over me, panting and sweaty, his nose bleeding. I’d put up a fight, but it wasn’t enough. He caught me off guard, swinging the metal shovel, hitting me right in the face the second I turned around.
I laid in the hole he dug behind the house, barely clinging to consciousness as I stared up at him in the darkness. My ears were ringing, and the man was talking, but I could barely make out his words. Something, something, something... you brought this on yourself. Alarms shrieked inside my skull, but I didn’t make a sound. I didn’t beg, or cry, or curse, even as he took the bloody shovel and picked up a pile of dirt, sending it raining down on me.
I closed my eyes as they burned, coated in blood. I waited for death. I knew it was coming. I waited... and waited... and waited... as he piled on the dirt.
Something jarred me eventually as I was yanked and dragged, the pain explosive as I forced my eyes open, looking up, expecting to see my stepfather, but it was another face I found. A guy, not much older than me. People were shouting into the night, fighting going on somewhere, as he knelt down, leaning over me. “Can you hear me?”
I tried to nod.
“Can you tell me your name?” he asked. “Can you tell me anything?”
I opened my mouth, my voice a broken whisper as I tried to speak. No idea if he heard me or if he understood, but he said, “My name’s Ignazio. Just hold on, okay?”
Blackness took over then, more little flashes. It took a while for me to realize Ignazio had saved my life, pulling me out of a homemade grave and finding help.
“How long does it take?” Five asks, his question catching me off guard, drawing me out of the memory.
He’s staring down at Aristov. The hole is only about four feet deep, six and a half feet long.
“What?”
“How long does it take to die this way?” Five asks. “Hours? Days?”
“More like minutes,” I say. Buried alive. “Inhaling dirt, a thousand pounds of pressure on top of you. You’d suffocate.”
“Sounds terrifying.”
It is.
Within a few minutes, Aristov’s no longer visible. He doesn’t have an Ignazio to save him like I’d had. Less than an hour later, and the hole is again filled.
We kick stuff on top of it—leaves, tree branches, stones, making it blend in, so if anyone stumbles upon the area, it won’t stand out. We’re deep in the woods, an hour or so across the border in New Jersey, in the middle of fucking nowhere. He’ll likely go undiscovered forever.
“I don’t know about you, but I feel like I could sleep for a month,” Five says as we toss the shovels in the blood-soaked trunk, adding dirt right on top of it, a forensic team’s wet dream. “Probably could use a vacation after the night we’ve had.”
“Florida’s nice this time of year,” I tell him. “You should take the trip down.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, there’s some work on the groves that needs done.”
Five laughs, pulling out the car keys to head for the driver’s seat. “It’s not really a vacation if you’ve got me on the clock.”
I shrug, getting in the passenger seat. I’ve never taken a vacation from working, so I don’t know what that’s like. There’s always stuff that needs done. Seven climbs in the backseat, staying silent, as Five drives us back into New York under the cloak of darkness, heading straight to my house in Queens.
The rest of the guys are here, waiting. Well, except for Three. He’s still off handling things.
I dismiss everyone right away, not in the mood for company, needing some time to get my thoughts in order, but Seven lingers, standing on my front porch. As much as I’m still itching to gut him, I have to admit he’s got balls. Big balls. Maybe too big, but still... it takes balls to stand here.
“What do you want, Seven?”
“A second chance,” he says.
“Why should I give you one?”
“Because I want to make it up to you.”
I shake my head. “That’s not a good reason. I don’t care what you want. Not anymore. So if you’re looking for a second chance, come back when you’ve got a good reason as to why I should give you one. Until then...”
I wave him off.
He turns away, leaving without arguing.
My brother meets me in the foyer as soon as I’m in the house, my boots tracking dirt in along the floor.
“What happened?” he asks. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I took care of it.”
“You took care of it,” he repeats, looking all around me, and I know what he’s looking for: Scarlet.
“She’s fine,” I tell him. “She’s with her kid.”
His eyes widen. “You found her daughter, too?”
“Yes.” I grasp his shoulder, squeezing it. It’s all of the reassurance I can manage. “All’s well that ends well, right? Or some other cliché bullshit. Whatever you want to hear right now.”
“But—”
He’s got questions, I know... so many fucking questions... but I’m not in the mood. “Not tonight, Leo. Let me get my head right before you interrogate me about this shit.”
He just stands there, gaping at me, as I walk away, heading to my library. He doesn’t try to follow, dropping it for the moment, going into the living room to report what he knows to his girlfriend, to set her pretty little head at ease that the world is a beautiful place again, that the sun will come out tomorrow and the flowers will soon bloom and they can sleep snug as a bug in a fucking rug tonight without worrying about monsters hiding under the bed.
Me? I’m exhausted, but there’s no way I can sleep, not with so much weighing on me. Turning on the lamp, I run my hands down my face before fixing my attention on my still unfinished puzzle.
It has never taken me so long to do one before.
After grabbing a bottle of rum from the kitchen, I decide to dive into the puzzle, hoping the alcohol will numb my pain, hoping focusing on something else will keep my head from exploding. I don’t know how much time passes, the night wearing away, but I’m feeling little more than a tingling sensation in my muscles when there’s a knock from the doorway.
I glance over, seeing Three standing there.
“How’d it go?” I ask quietly.
“Okay, I guess,” he says, stepping into the library, rubbing the side of his face. It’s red, a hint of a bruise forming on his pale skin. “I had them checked out by a doctor. Neither seemed happy about it, but they’re both okay, for the most part. Nothing seriously wrong. Some dehydration, a bit of malnourishment, a hell of a lot of bumps and bruises on Morgan, but that was obvious just looking at her.”
“Tell me about it,” I mutter. Her skin was a kaleidoscope of injuries, but the kind of shit that is just superficial. The real damage, I think, has to be rooted deeply in her, the kind of damage that fucks up somebody mentally.
I should’ve gotten to her sooner.
I’m a fucking failure.
I wavered and waited… and waited… and waited… so not to get her hurt. A lot of fucking good that did, huh? While I sat around, biding my time, he did what he did to her.
I can imagine, you know. I don’t need anyone to tell me. I saw the way she looked.
Should’ve just tossed the grenade and ended it before it started.
“Anyway, so I booked them this suite at The Plaza,” Three says. “This little pink poufy looking place. They do tea time and shit. Figured a little girl would like that, right? Cupcakes and pink shit and... tea?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble, looking back at my puzzle, picking up a piece. “I don’t know anything about kids.”
“You raised one.”
“Pretty sure the one I raised was born more mature than me.”
Three pauses to lean against the table. “I don’t know shit about kids, either, clearly, because the little girl wanted nothing to do with it. Said some shit about it looking like another palace, said she wasn’t doing it anymore, whatever that means. So Morgan gave me some address in Long Island, told me to take them there... some house they could stay at. They seemed, well... okay.”
“Okay,” I repeat.
“Yeah.”
I snap my puzzle piece into place before picking up another one. “So, at what point did she hit you?”
He laughs lightly, rubbing his face again. “When I gave her the money. She didn’t want to take it, got downright pissed, but then I told her what you told me to tell her, and well... she kind of got emotional, so I jetted out of there.”
“You told her?”
“Yeah.”
Go find your picket fence.
It’s as good of a goodbye as any, I figure. She wants the fairy tale with the happy ending. All I have are bullet holes in a house with no soul. I knew she wouldn’t want Aristov’s money, but I took it for her. A million dollars for Morgan. That was the deal. I took it so she wouldn’t go back to stripping, so she wouldn’t resort to stealing, so she wouldn’t ever have to pickpocket another motherfucker like me.
I took it because she deserves a shot at the kind of life she says she wants. Nothing will erase what he put her through, but maybe it’ll ease her hurt just enough for her to move on.
“You okay, boss?” Three asks.
I cut my eyes at him. “I’m fine.”
“You need anything else from me?”
“No,” I say. “Not tonight.”
“I’m gonna head home, then. I’ll see you later.”
He starts to leave, heading toward the door, as I sit down in my chair and run my hands down my face. Fuck. “Before you go...”
He glances back at me. “Yeah?”
“The brunette from Limerence, the one you, uh...”
“Lexie?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, look, about her,” he says. “I know she was supposed to be there tonight, that she was supposed to help, but she wouldn’t have flaked intentionally, you know. I don’t know what happened, but Lexie... she’s a good girl, so if you could maybe cut her a break, I’d—”
“She’s dead.”
He stalls, his expression falling. “What?”
“She’s dead,” I say again. “When we hit the club tonight, we found her in the basement.”
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, just standing there, staring at me, like he’s not sure how to react. I can see it in his eyes, though. The sadness. The pain. He liked her, for whatever reason, and he’s grieving. Look them in the eyes if you want to know what they’re not saying. My stepfather used to stress that.
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Is it really any wonder why mine are fucked up?
“Well... that sucks,” he says, running a hand through his blond hair, ruffling it up. “But hey, on the bright side, Bruno’s back, so I guess we have snacks again, huh?”
I don’t have it in me to tell him not to get his hopes up on that, because Seven might have shown up but I wouldn’t call him back, so I just nod. He’s deflecting. I’m not going to be a bigger asshole and call him out on it.
“Goodnight, boss,” he say quietly, walking out.
I turn back to my puzzle, mumbling, “Goodnight, Declan.”
* * *
“Lorenzo?”
“Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?”
When I get no response to my retort, my gaze turns to the library doorway, where my brother stands. He’s staring in at me, watching me, his eyebrows raised.
“It looks like you’re standing there,” he says, “doing the same thing you were doing when I went to bed twelve hours ago.”
I glance at my watch. It’s shortly past noon. Huh. “You went to bed at midnight?”
“Yes,” he says. “I said goodnight, remember?”
No. “Vaguely.”
He stares at me some more.
“I’m still working on my puzzle,” I tell him, turning back to it. “I’m almost finished.”
I only have about five hundred pieces left out of the eight thousand that make up Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
“Have you even tried to sleep?” he asks. “I’m guessing not, since you still look like that.”
I glance down at myself. I haven’t even taken my boots off. I’m covered in dirt, sweat, fuck... even some blood. It’s not very visible on the black fabric, but it still covers my hands, caked under my nails. “I haven’t gotten around to it.”
“You know sleep deprivation can kill you, right? I mean, it probably won’t, but it could.”
“I’m fine,” I say, “but if it’ll make you feel better, Pretty Boy, I’ll go to bed when I’m done.”
“When’s that going to be?”
“Tomorrow, maybe.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Maybe.”
He grows quiet, but I can feel his judgment. Seems my answer isn’t good enough for him for whatever reason. Sometimes I think he forgets I’m the adult here, that I raised his little punk ass and not the other way around.
Before he can try to lecture me, a chime echoes through the house. Instantly, I hear Melody’s shrill voice as she panics in the living room, like she’s traumatized by the sound of a doorbell.
Leo forgets all about our conversation, rushing away to console her.
I ignore it, going back to my puzzle, working on it in silence. I assume my brother answers the door, because a minute or so later, he’s right back in the doorway. “Seven’s here to see you.”
“Good for him.”
“Yeah, he rang the doorbell,” Leo says. “Seems to think his open invitation has been revoked, so he’s waiting on the front porch.”
“Ask him if he’s come up with a reason yet.”
“Uh, okay...” Leo walks away, returning a minute later. “He says because he’s sorry.”
“Not good enough.”
Leo leaves, once more returning. “He says he thinks he can still be helpful.”
“Well, I think Valet parking is helpful, but that doesn’t mean I can’t park the fucking car myself.”
And again.
“He says he’ll do whatever you say.”
“Tell him I say to come back when he’s got something real to offer, because otherwise, I’m liable to shoot him in the fucking face.”
Leo hesitates before walking away.
I focus on the puzzle, piece after piece after piece, and fall into a trance. Tunnel vision. There’s a disconnect inside of me. My mind’s working, my muscles moving, but I’m on autopilot. A fucking robot. My blinks get slower, my eyes burning, the world around me a blur as the day drifts away, darkness falling.
Leo keeps popping in, trying to engage in conversation.
Are you hungry? No.
You sure? Pretty damn positive.
Need something to drink? I’ve got my rum.
Are you almost done? I would be, if you’d leave me the fuck alone.
I scrub my hands over my face, groaning, squeezing my eyes shut, but I instantly regret it.
Whenever I close my eyes, I see her. Scarlet.
I see her smiling. I see her crying. I hear her laughter flowing through me, sending chills down my spine. The sound of her moaning creeps through my bloodstream, the face she makes in the throes of passion the pulse that spurs it on. Whatever this is I’m feeling, I want it to stop. I want it to go away. I want to stop fucking seeing her every time I blink. I want to stop fucking thinking about her every time I pause to take a deep breath. She’s like an infection that’s settling into my chest. I would rip out my own organs if I thought it might purge her from my system.
I need a witchdoctor to break the spell this woman has on me.
“Goddamn voodoo pussy,” I mutter, snatching up the liquor bottle and tipping it back, guzzling the last of it before turning back to the puzzle. Almost finished.
You’d think it would be easier, since I’m nearing the end, most of it all filled in, but you’d be wrong.
Everything that’s left looks the same.
Or maybe I’m just drunk.
Who the fuck knows?
The world around me is lightening again as I get down to a handful of pieces, the sun rising, another day dawning. I snap the pieces in place, looking at the lone jagged hole in the center of the puzzle, right there in The Creation of Adam, probably the most important part of the entire painting.
My gaze scans the table all around the puzzle, searching for the last piece.
Nothing.
“What the hell?” Annoyed, I feel around along the edges, hands skimming along the puzzle, thinking it has to be blending in, but I find nothing. “You have gotta be fucking kidding me.”
I look around the table. I look under the table. I check my chair. I check inside the box. I search the bookshelves and all along the floor and every fucking place a puzzle piece could possibly be in this room.
“No, no, no,” I chant, double-checking half those places, even patting down my own pockets, because it has to be somewhere. I’m exhausted, and aggravated, and I just want this goddamn thing to be done, to get it over with so I can move on. For months, I’ve been working on this puzzle, weeks of my life spent putting it together, and for what? Huh? To leave a hole in the center of the goddamn picture so for the rest of my life I have to live with the fact that I never finished what I started, that I never got it done?
“Motherfucker!” I yell, kicking the chair, sending it flying across the room, skidding right into the bookshelf with a bang.
“Lorenzo?” Leo’s voice calls out from the doorway. “What’s wrong?”
“His dick is gone!”
“His... what? What’s gone?”
“His dick,” I say again, pointing at the damn hole in the puzzle, right there, cutting through Adam’s crotch, cutting it out, so there’s nothing in that spot. “God is breathing life into man, but his dick is gone, so what’s the point?”
“What’s the point?”
“Can’t fuck,” I say, anger building up inside of me, my fingers tingling, my chest burning, my face going hot. I’m sweating. “Can’t even take a piss. He’s just there, half a goddamn man... can’t do a fucking thing for Eve like that, can he? No, he can’t! Even his goddamn balls are gone. There’s just... nothing. There’s a fucking hole there, Leonardo, right where his dick’s supposed to be, and I can’t do shit about it!”
He steps into the library, carefully approaching. “You’re spiraling, bro. I think you need to go lay down.”
“Fuck you. And fuck laying down. I’m fine. Sleep isn’t going to change a goddamn thing, is it? There’s still going to be a hole, right fucking there. It’s not going to just fix itself. It’s pointless... all of it. All of this. I bust my ass trying to put it all together, but why do I bother? Fuck all of it!”
Something inside of me snaps, hitting me so damn hard it’s like a punch to the chest, right in the sternum. It hurts. I almost lose my breath. Grabbing ahold of the table, I shove it, throwing it, flipping the fucking thing over, sending the puzzle flying. It breaks apart, scattering.
Leo freezes as I pace around. It’s taking everything in me not to reach for my gun, to not put bullets through the table, to not blow holes in the fucking thing. Running my hands through my hair, gripping onto it, I kick at the puzzle on the floor, stomping on it as I pace, done... so fucking done.
“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”
I cut my eyes at Leo. “What?”
“Morgan,” he says. “You fell in love with her.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think I do,” he says. “You fell for her, and you’re freaking out, because she’s not here now.”
“Fuck you.”
“You do realize it’s not too late, right?”
I turn away. I can’t even look at him right now. I’m so damn angry that I’m liable to do something I’ll regret if he doesn’t stop running his mouth. “Get out.”
“I’m serious,” he says, not shutting up, not getting out. “You push people away. You push everyone away, and you’re a real dick about it most of the time, but she’s not gone, Lorenzo. She’s still out there.”
“I swear to fuck, if you don’t get out...”
“You’ll do what? Push me away, too? Sorry, bro, it might work with other people, but I know you. So lash out all you want... yell at me, curse me, threaten me... I’m not going anywhere, ever.”
“Strong words for someone busy packing boxes to move the fuck out.”
“It’s not like that and you know it.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever,” he says, mocking me.
I turn to him, stepping toward him, getting right in his face. He doesn’t back up, doesn’t balk. He doesn’t even look afraid. “I might’ve raised you, Pretty Boy, but you’re not a kid anymore, so don’t think I won’t knock you the fuck out.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Strong words for someone busy freaking out because I’m moving out.”
The little son of a bitch is mocking me again.
I shove against him, pushing him backward, forcing him out of my way. Without saying a word, I go around him, walking out.
“I’m serious,” he says, calling after me as I head for the stairs. “You should go to her, talk to her.”
“Fuck off.”
“Get some sleep first, though,” he continues, following me, stopping at the bottom of the stairs as I trudge up them. “And take a shower, too, because, bro... you’re looking a bit like something out of a horror flick.”
* * *
I know what you’re thinking: this guy, he’s finally going to get his shit together. He’s going to wake up from a deep sleep, having dreamed about a different kind of life, or it’s going to hit him like a ton of bricks when he’s in the shower, washing up, rubbing one out. He’s going to realize his brother was right. He’s going to see that he’s in love. And he’s going to go after the woman, like some goddamn hero, and they’ll live happily ever after, always and forever.
But this isn’t some chick flick rom-com. John Hughes isn’t directing. My brother’s not fucking his girlfriend on my couch while watching this on my television.
That’s not how this goes.
I sleep. I eat something. I finally shower. I mope for days, making everybody miserable. A week passes. My house is filled with boxes. My brother finally got the keys to his rinky-dink apartment.
Three pops in every day, keeping me updated.
The house Scarlet and her little Pearl went to turned out to be hers. Her home. The house she told me about... she still has it. You see, all along I thought men like ol’ Mello Yello were milking her out of every penny, that they were stealing everything she stole, because she had nothing that I saw, but it turns out she was just hemorrhaging money trying to keep up with two lives—the one she’d been drifting through when I met her and the one she always intended to go back to.
She already had her picket fence.
She just needed help getting back to it.
She’d been paying the rent, been paying the utilities, keeping the place going even though she couldn’t stay there, even though it wasn’t safe, because she planned to one day have that life back.
She never lost hope, despite everything.
You have to respect that.
Or well, I do.
It’s around dusk on Friday evening. The guys are out, doing what they do, making money and raising hell, everything right back to normal. My brother’s at work. His girlfriend is... well, who the hell knows, but she’s not here. It’s quiet, so very quiet... not a peep in the house.
It’s peaceful. It’s boring.
I’m back to being bored out of my fucking mind.
After peeling an orange, I stroll out of the kitchen and head down the dim hallway. Just as I make it to the foyer, a chime echoes through the house. Doorbell. I divert that way, yanking the door open, coming face-to-face with Seven.
I sigh. Loudly.
“For your sake, I hope you’ve got a good reason,” I say, leaning against the doorframe, “because it has been way too long since I shot somebody, and you’re still hanging out on the top of my list.”
He’s quiet for a moment before saying, “Because we’re family.”
I take a bite of my orange, regarding him. “Because we’re family.”
“Yes,” he says. “Family’s not perfect. We make mistakes. We don’t always like each other, don’t always get along. So maybe I’m the black sheep of this family, and I deserve whatever happens to me because of it, but we’re family, and when you’re family, you deserve a chance.”
I continue to eat my orange. “You know I killed my mother, right?”
“Yes.”
I nod. “Just making sure.”
“But that’s different,” he says. “Family’s more than blood. Family is who we choose. So I’m not asking you to forgive me, not asking you to forget... I’m just asking for a chance to earn back your respect.”
I stand in the doorway for a while, long enough to finish off my orange, neither of us saying anything until I’m done. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my car keys.
“Come on,” I say, stepping out onto the porch. “Let’s take a ride.”
If the guy was smart, he’d bail right now, run like hell at the suggestion, but he doesn’t. Instead, he nods, taking my keys and heading for my car without questioning where we’re going. Guts.
I give him the address.
He punches it into the GPS.
It takes us about an hour to get there, night falling by the time we arrive, darkness shrouding the neighborhood. He parks just down from the place, cutting the car off. I get out but don’t approach, perching myself on the hood of my car.
White house, red door, quaint little picket fence in quiet suburbia. A stone walkway leads from the gate to the front porch, a trail of outdoor landscape lights illuminating it. The place is lit up, shining bright in the night, a soft yellow glow coming from a few of the windows. I’m not close enough to hear anything, but I can sense shadows as they move around inside.
Seven climbs out of the car, coming over to stand beside me. I don’t know how long I sit here, just watching the house in silence, but it’s long enough for the lights to flick off, one-by-one, until all that’s lit up is the right top window. Scarlet’s room, I imagine. I faintly catch glimpses of her as she moves around, brief flashes of her through the break in the dark curtains.
“You going to go say hello?” Seven asks.
I shake my head.
He’s quiet, like he’s trying to make sense of why we’re here if it’s not to visit her. I hope he doesn’t ask, because I’m not in the mood to explain myself.
Just when I’m about to end this, to do what I came to do, so I can go back home and close this chapter, the phone in my pocket rings. I look away from the house, pulling the phone out to glance at it. Blocked number.
I’m not sure what compels me to press the button, to answer it, since I’ve never answered a blocked caller before, but I do.
Bringing it to my ear, I say, “Gambini.”
The line is silent.
Without a word even spoken, I know it’s her.
Call it my gut. It’s just the feeling I get. I can sense her on the line, I know she’s there, but she says nothing. Maybe there’s nothing left to say. Maybe this is all it is, all it was, all it could ever be. Maybe this is the end of the story. Yeah, my gut says it should be.
But the traitorous heart beating in my chest isn’t having that bullshit. It’s angrily banging, begging me to do something, something my brain definitely doesn’t agree with. My brain says fuck that.
“Tell me a story,” she says finally, her voice barely a whisper.
“A true story or a fairy tale?” I ask.
“Surprise me.”
“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Luke Skywalker—”
Laughter cuts me off.
I don’t finish, because I’m pretty sure she already knows how it goes. Silence falls over the line again before she says, “I have a confession to make, Lorenzo.”
“I’m listening.”
“Pretending to listen?”
“No, I’m actually listening.”
She sighs. “I don’t really know how to say this, but I need to get it off my chest, and I just... I feel like you should know, that I should tell you how I really feel...”
“Just spit it out, Scarlet.”
“I really love the prequels.”
I hesitate. “You love the prequels?”
“Yes,” she says. “The Star Wars prequels. I know a lot of people hate on them, but I really love them.”
“I, uh... I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“Anakin and Padme’s story was just so heartbreakingly beautiful, you know? The Phantom Menace is probably my favorite movie.”
“Of the prequels?”
“Of the entire series.”
I grimace. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Jesus, fuck, woman... and you call me crazy. You’re insane. I just... what the hell is wrong with you?”
She laughs again.
The genuine kind of laughter.
I don’t know that I’ve ever heard her laugh like that before, so lighthearted, like a heavy burden has been lifted off of her. I smile at the sound, even though she’s lost her fucking mind.
“I feel better,” she says, “now that I’ve confessed.”
“Yeah, well, I’m wishing I wasn’t listening,” I tell her. “You should’ve saved that confession for a priest, someone who could help you get over that shit, because I don’t even know where to begin.”
She laughs some more before it all goes quiet.
“Thank you,” she whispers after a bout of silence.
“You’re welcome.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
She says nothing else, although I can tell there’s more she wants to. Whether or not she should is another question. Maybe I’m not the only one with a heart and a mind at odds.
“Goodnight, Scarlet,” I say. “Take care of yourself.”
Her voice is barely a whisper as she says, “Goodnight.”
Hanging up, I shove the phone back into my pocket before pushing away from the hood and reaching into the backseat of the car, snatching out the filthy, old teddy bear I’d thrown there days ago after cleaning out the car. I walk away, finally approaching the house, my footsteps quiet as I go through the gate and navigate the walkway. Stepping up onto the porch, I prop the bear against the door where I know it’ll be found.
Darkness falls over the rest of the house as I walk away, the bedroom light turning off. I climb straight into the passenger seat of my car, waiting for Seven to get in behind the wheel. A minute or so passes as I stare blankly at the dashboard, waiting for Seven to start the car, when I hear his voice. “Uh, boss...”
I close my eyes as I lean my head back against the seat, covering my face with my hands. “Not now.”
“But—”
“Just drive the fucking car, Seven.”
“Somebody’s here.”
Somebody’s here.
I look at Seven, but he’s not looking at me. His gaze is across the neighborhood, just past Scarlet’s now darkened house, where her and her daughter are in bed, probably beckoning sleep. Somebody stands there, in the shadows, watching. I struggle to get a good look until they turn, a nearby streetlight illuminating them.
Markel. “Shit.”
I look from him to the house to him again. You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. Instinctively, I reach for the gun in my waistband, even though I can’t use it. I can’t go shooting all willy-nilly in front of her house. The last thing she needs is to wake up to a dead Russian in her front yard, his blood splattering her pretty little fence.
So I keep my grip on my gun, just in case I have to use it, in case he doesn’t give me any other choice, and I watch him in silence, letting him make the first move.
Ten minutes pass.
Fifteen. Twenty.
He just stands there before walking away. Leaving. I watch as he gets into a black SUV down the street, starting it up to leave.
“Follow him,” I say.
Markel drives straight to Limerence, parking out front and going inside. The place is dark, no lights on, no open sign lit. I’m not sure what Jameson did about the girl in the basement, if he did anything at all. I don’t know what happened with all of the other girls, either, the ones who worked here every night, now that the man who controlled them is gone. It’s possible Markel took over, but I don’t know...
Honestly, and maybe this makes me an asshole, but I don’t really care, either.
But I do care what happens to Scarlet.
I’m not going to let anyone hurt her.
“Wait here,” I tell Seven. “I’ll be right back.”
I get out, still clutching my gun, and head inside the club. Dark and quiet, so quiet that the sound of my footsteps echoes through the vast space.
It feels abandoned.
I’m not sure where he went, so I start with the office, figuring that’s my best bet, under the circumstances.
The door is wide open.
Markel sits inside, alone on the couch, holding a bottle of vodka. He takes a swig from it as he looks at me, not surprised by my presence. I know he saw me there, at the house. He would’ve figured I’d follow.
“I mean them no harm,” he says.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Ah, it doesn’t matter what you believe, but it’s true.”
He shrugs me off, drinking in silence, like that’s that.
“So, if you don’t mean them any harm, why go there?”
“Why did you go?”
“Pretty sure that’s none of your business.”
He laughs. “I could say the same.”
I stroll closer. Call it curiosity. Maybe it’s boredom. But I take a seat on the edge of the couch across from him, wondering what his end-game is.
It’s silent for a moment before he says, “Limerence. Do you know what the word means?”
“No.”
“It’s obsession, compulsion, when love is not love but something more... dangerous. It is an uncontrollable need, when you cannot live without someone. I always thought it was funny Kassian named this place Limerence, because that was how he felt about her. It was a sickness. I knew, eventually, he would grow so sick that he would kill them all... that is why I helped her.”
“You helped her.”
“I was supposed to keep an eye on her the night she escaped. I saw her. I knew what she was doing. And I knew it was her only chance. So I looked the other way, and I paid for that. He ordered me to find her, and I did, but I never told him. Every night, he sent me out looking. Every night, I would go to that house and I would see her.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “I was invested.”
“That’s why you went there tonight? Invested?”
He shrugs again.
“So, how’d he find her?” I ask. “If you never told him where she lived, how’d he catch up to her?”
Markel stares at me, frowning. I don’t need him to answer to riddle that one out. Kassian followed him.
“He used to offer her to me,” Markel says. “Whenever he left on business, he would have me watch her. As payment, I could take her, all night, do whatever I wanted. He just had one rule: always use a condom. That’s why he planned to kill you, you know. He didn’t care if people used her for pleasure as long as they didn’t leave any trace of themselves inside of her.”
“That’s a fucked up way to think.”
He laughs humorlessly. “The nights Kassian left on business were the only nights Morgan had peace. It was the only time she smiled. That was pleasure enough for me, so I didn’t touch her.”
He takes a drink... a long drink... like he’s a thirsty man guzzling water. He drains the rest of the bottle before sitting up, discarding it on the table between us.
“So many nights, he hurt her. Must have been hundreds of times. One night, he was worse than ever. He left afterward, and that night, instead of peace with me, she sought comfort. Maybe it was wrong, but I showed her love... and I broke my brother’s rule as I did so.” He shakes his head, looking away. “Nine months later, she gave birth.”
Son of a bitch. “You think the kid is yours.”
It suddenly makes sense why he’d look the other way, why he’d show up outside of her house night after night, why he’d do what he did to try to help them while still protecting his own ass.
“Well, this has certainly been enlightening,” I say, standing up, “but I think I’ve heard enough.”
“So you know I mean them no harm.”
“What I know is that it doesn’t matter what you mean, because you are as harmful as they come.”
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
I unload the gun, bullet after bullet, right into his fucking chest, not a second of hesitation from the first trigger pull to the very last, shot after shot lighting up the room, until the gun does nothing but click.
CLICK.
CLICK.
CLICK.
He slumps over, falling from the couch to the floor with a thud, no longer moving. No longer breathing.
I shove the gun away and walk out, keeping my head down. Seven still sits behind the wheel, driving away as soon as I’m beside him.
“Where to, boss?” he asks.
“Home,” I say quietly. “It’s over.”