CHAPTER 79
TWO YEARS LATER.
ALESSANDRA VITELLO VOLKOV.
His eyes skitter to me and the bastard spits the blood on the floor.
He could spit his intestines too and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid let alone flinch.
I turn to the other man, yeah, this one has that fear of death in his eyes. The fear of not knowing what will happen next and to what lengths I’m willing to go to milk information from him.
I could tell him that not a spine in my body pities him.
Frankly, not a bone in my body feels anything as Yan hands me the knife and I slit the throat of the first man, watching his body go limp against the chains.
“Franco! Franco, no! No.” His friend shouts.
He could shout day and night like he’s been doing since Yan nabbed him but no one’s going to hear him. No one’s going to come to his rescue.
There’s no Robin Hood outside this warehouse that’s going to match in and save him from me.
There is no such thing as fairy tales. Learned that the hard way though.
“This is the part where I threaten you with severing one of your limbs and you play the tough guy act that you are not going to tell me anything. Then we go round and round in circles and honestly I’m going to sleep in my million dollar mission and you are going to rot in here dangling from that ceiling like a dead fish in an overcrowded market. Tell me what I need to know.”
His lips quiver, his eyes glisten with tears.
He peed himself as soon as Yan gave him the first punch.
Add in the blood and this reeking place of shit and the only thing I want to do is end this man too and call it a night.
“Have m-mercy”, he begs.
Have mercy?
Have mercy?
Who had mercy on me as I watched the man I loved being lowered in a casket on a frightful rainy day, not being able to jump along with him, not being able to end it because I needed to be strong for my babies?
Who had mercy on me then?
Who had mercy on me when they took him from me?
I grab his hair, not caring whether I’ll be left with a few strands of it in my arms.
I’m not above killing this one too.
Two years hunting these people has led me to dead ends but I won’t rest. HE wouldn’t have wanted me to rest.
I look him the dead in the eyes and say, “Mercy is for the weak. Two years ago, you and your dead buddy here were around Saint Anne’s cathedral. Carefully tucked outside the church with a rusty getaway car no one would think to look at. You aided the man who sniper who shot in the church… who shot my husband like he was a dog… in escaping. All I need is a name. The man you aided in escaping from that church.”
“I didn’t know…his name. We were paid to show up by Elio!”
“Well, your boss is dead and he didn’t know jack shit. Elio is dead, Elio was not the sniper. Your time’s running out here.”
“He had an accent. American. Not Italian. We dropped him off at the airport. Yes, yes and he… the plane he took was to New York. Yes, I remember he spoke to the phone and reported he had completed the mission.”
My ears ring.
The mission?
Because shooting and killing the man I loved was a mission.
I let go of his hair, I step back and turn around throwing the knife somewhere on the ground.
I hear the chains dangle behind me.
I know what comes next.
“Now you release me.”
They think they’ll leave here alive.
“I gave you information.”
They think they are entitled to leave after they took what was mine.
When I started this, I knew there was no going back.
I knew I would leave a few bodies in my wake but this is the…this is the only way I get to heal; I get to feel, I get to not be idle and be returned to that crushing pain that feels like I’m drowning.
I look at Yan and he nods in understanding.
The last thing I hear as I walk out of my warehouse is the man’s screams as he fights death.
The night swallows me whole, taking me in like I’m one of its children and maybe I am. I mean darkness recognizes darkness. A sinner recognizes a sinner.
Going by the same drill, I hop into my car, drive to one of my shitty apartments downtown and once I’m there I hop into the shower.
Cold water bites my skin.
Then in…
One.
Two.
Three.
The tears start, a sob escapes my throat, a wail chokes me and then my mind replays back to the word I have obsessed over for two years.
‘Tesoro’.
Tesoro.
I recall him on top of me. Blood. Blood. His blood.
I watch the blood running down with the water in the shower then I hold onto the tiled wall sobbing till the ache stops.
It never really stops.
I step out of the shower, I dry myself of the tears and the water, I comb my hair down, I wear makeup and I wear one of my dresses that make me look alive. Okay.
Because I need to be okay.
For them.
***
“Mama”, Liam stirs in his sleep, holding my hand.
I run the other hand on his forehead, swiping his hair away and giving him a kiss.
“Hey, baby.”
He smiles in his sleep.
I smile too because his happiness tugs at my heart.
I turn to his brother, Ethan who’s snoring the night away with his favorite Shrek toy.
I kiss him too, covering him up when I well know he’ll kick the covers away while he’s sleeping.
One last kiss, one last look at them sleeping and I walk out of the room.
“And cookies?”
The small voice asks excitedly. I don’t even have to know it’s Millie because that’s her high pitched ‘I’m happy’ voice.
“Yes”, my sister chuckles.
I walk into my kitchen where Millie is seated on one of the kitchen stools swinging her legs as she watches Athena put flour in a coffee mug.
“Mug brownies? Again?”
I ask.
Millie turns around. The smile she gives me as she hops from her stool is enough to wash away the pain a bit.
“Mommy!”
“You are not supposed to be up, peaches. It’s almost nine.”
“Aunty Thena said brownies.”
In my arms and growing bigger by the day, she points at Athena who holds her hands up with a smile.
“Hey, I’m not the only one who goes cuckoo for these brownies. I know you want them too, Ale.”
“You are spoiling my kids a little too much.”
“Am I? Considering Brenda was here with new toys for Liam and Ethan, I think I’m not the one doing the most spoiling.”
“Brenda was here?”
I ask. They visit, I know.
But when they visit when I’m not here, that raises questions and the nagging and the calls from Cat about checking in.
“With Jett yeah, said something about having a vacation in Sicily.”
Yeah right, a vacation all the way from Chicago to Sicily when places like Maldives exist.
They are here to check up on me. As if I’m not okay.
“Uncle Jett! Uncle Jett!” Millie claps, “He said I’m growing big mommy.”
“You are growing big, peaches.”
“Bigger than Lee and Ethan?”
“Bigger than Liam and Ethan, baby. One brownie then it’s off to bed. Deal?”
“Two.”
“When did you learn to count? Fine, two. Deal?”
“Deal.”
She giggles and the next minutes tumble between tickling her, making Oreo mug brownies and tolerating my sister’s worried look.
When Millie is off to sleep after bedtime stories about the prince who saved the princess, I plop onto my couch, wine in hand.
“Okay out with it. You’ve been giving me worried looks since I got here.”
“I’m not one to judge…”
She starts.
“You shouldn’t be.”
She really isn’t considering everything she did in the past with Rhett and the whole Junior fiasco but my sister redeemed herself.
Of all the people to help me get back on my feet it was her and shoot me because I love her and her fancy accent and her fancy ass clothes.
I’m wearing a sundress right now; she’s wearing something casual Versace.
“I love you, I love these kids and that is the reason I am telling you to stop.”
“If you loved me you wouldn’t be asking me of that.”
“Every night for the last few months, you have been out with Yan doing God knows what and every night you come back here, I see that pain on your face and worry. You have to let go.”
Because that’s easy.
Letting go?
“He wouldn’t have wanted me to let go.”
“Ale I’m not telling you to forget him. No that is not the case, I’m telling you to focus on the kids, to focus on moving on-.”
“You think I don’t love my kids?”
“I never said that. I never said that. I know you do, you show up for them, you wake up for them, that I know. I am just saying…”
“Demetri and Maximo are out playing husband to Kat. Everyone has moved on, no one cares anymore. If I don’t avenge him, who will? If I don’t find Chri… my husband’s killer who knows whether my kids will be safe?”
I know we have guards. I know we have the best security has to offer but even in that church, in that moment, we had guards, we had security and they got to him.
They. Got. To. Him.
“Alessandra.”
“I got a lead today. New York. I might need to go there to finally find the answers I’m looking for. This will be it, okay? This will be the last time.”
I sip my wine.
I see her trying to accept my bluff. I feel her hand caress my shoulders and I want to cry but I won’t cry.
I seized crying in public for my kids.
Nah, this time I do it the cowardly way. Alone, hidden and in the shower.
“This is you telling me I have to babysit the kids and not tell mom about this, isn’t it?” she asks sarcastically.
“Yes, and don’t pretend you don’t like my kids. You show up here every time without me inviting you, sis.”
“I’m their favorite aunt. Alessandra?”
“Hmm?”
“This better be the last time. You say he would have wanted you not to let go? I say he would have wanted you to be
happy. Because you deserve happiness.”
I swallow the emotions balling in my throat.
Deep down she might be right.
Deep down I don’t want to listen.
***
“Security cameras at the airport couldn’t catch a glimpse of his face because he was wearing a cap but I got the private plane he boarded”, Yan explains as I glance out at the clouds.
I haven’t moved out of Sicily since HE died.
I didn’t want to move out of the place that had the last reminders of him.
Now, I’m going to New York all in a bid to catch some weasels relating to his death.
“The cabin crew?”
“Dead.”
“Of course they are. But you’ve got eyes on the pilot, right?”
“Yes. He’s still holed up in New York. Contacted him and he’s open to talk to me.”
“You know what we do if he refuses to talk, Yan.”
“That’s the thing, the place he wants to talk to me at, is a public place. Tons of people, tons of cameras, I can’t kidnap him or drug him without raising attention.”
“He’s slick but he’s no match for me.”
We arrived in New York later than I expected but that didn’t cause delays in meeting the pilot.
I would have been especially happy if I got a one-on-one with the pilot but Yan insisted he’d go.
Me talking to the pilot might spook said pilot into running away and I can’t have that.
There’s a reason this pilot isn’t dead.
Either he’s good at hiding or he doesn’t know anything about the sniper I’m looking for. My money’s on the former.
Yan and the pilot picked a café.
A café that shows both of them by the window. I sit on the park bench from the opposite side of the road pretending the newest issue of Vogue magazine is interesting enough to read.
To the men it might be.
I mean the magazine has a snazzy picture of Poppy Woodcock, daughter to business tycoon, Benedict Woodcock and as I gaze at the brunette’s figure accentuated well by the bikini, I fucking realize that is a terrible last name to give anyone.
Pulling my eyes away from the magazine and across the road, the pilot slides something wrapped in a brown bag across the table to Yan.
I’m about to try to lip-read whatever they are saying when the black Range Rover Evoque pulls right in front of the café.
I can’t see Yan or the pilot. Shit.
The Range doesn’t move as its driver pops out.
Draped in a bespoke Willian Westmancott suit, a suit that costs a whooping fifty million dollars, it takes a minute for him to adjust his dark shades, it takes another second for him to go around the car and open the passenger side of the door for a woman.
The brunette in leopard print heels and bedazzled in luxury kisses him on the lips appreciatively.
It’s the woman from the magazine.
I should be moving.
Cross the road.
Make sure nothing happens to Yan or the pilot.
Yet paparazzi storm out of nowhere taking pictures of the couple that look like they hopped out of a ‘couple of the year’ magazine.
Poppy Woodcock flaunts her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend grabs her ass possessively.
That’s not the only thing plastering me in place.
That’s not the thing that has my heart beating, crushing, begging to be let out.
That’s not the thing that has my eyes stinging with tears and pain and guilt and bewilderment.
I stand up, the magazine falls from my hand.
I look at Poppy Woodcock’s boyfriend or man or fiancé and my throat goes dry.
“Christian?”
Something heavy presses down on my chest as I cover my mouth then hot fat tears cascade down my cheeks willing my body to move.
“Christian!” I shout like a maniac.
I’m about to run across the road not caring whether I’m seeing an illusion of him again when a large hand covers my mouth pulling me back.
Normal me would have already been free from whoever was holding me in place.
This isn’t normal me.
This new me is weak as I watch Poppy and her boyfriend get into the same café I was watching minutes ago.
“Christian!” my voice is muffled against the man who has his hand covering my mouth.
No. No. Don’t take him away. Don’t take him away from me.
“Calm down and come with me, Alexia. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Christian!”
“I can’t let you talk to him. I can explain things but not here.”
You are seeing him too?
You can see him?
You can see him?
“He is Christian but he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know you neither does he remember anyone. Any attempt of trying to contact him messes up his mind. I’m an ally, Alexia. We have met at the funeral but allow me to re-introduce myself. My name is Kai Davenport, a friend of your um husband.”