by Sophia Reed
He looked over, and we both gasped simultaneously. He was no doubt gasping at the cast on my arm and sight of my eye-socket, and I was gasping at the swelled gash at the corner of his head and the bruise shining up his left eye.
“What happened?” I asked, touching the spot lightly.
“Me? You said you had no broken bones.”
“I lied.” I hurried to move us on from that. “What happened to your face?”
Gabriel closed his eyes and leaned up to meet the soft brush of my fingertips. “I got into a fight with Alessandro.” His eyes opened again, weary and sunken. “I don’t know what happened, Stace. I just…I lost it. I saw you in that hospital bed, and I don’t even remember what happened between that and me pointing a gun at his face.”
My jaw dropped. “You pulled a gun on Alessandro?”
“Things just got nastier and nastier. I turned it on Marco, too. Then Alessandro and I were fighting, then Marco had to pull guns on us both to break it up, then Luca and I were fighting, and then Luca was nasty to Molly.” He shook his head. “We were so fucking concerned with worrying about one of us turning into my dad that we all went and fucking did it.”
He put a hand on my cheek. “Look what happened to you because of it. I’m so sorry.”
Now it was me searching for more of his touch. I wanted to lean in. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted his arms around me to erase the feeling of those that held me down. I wanted to celebrate the love we’d uttered the last time we sat in this spot. There was so much I wanted that I couldn’t have. It created a lump in my throat that was growing exponentially by the second.
“I have a few things for you.” Gabriel pulled his hand away, and I didn’t complain, even though I wanted to. He reached behind him and brought over my laptop and purse. “Molly did it to protect me. She wanted to make it look like a break-in.”
“It worked,” I reported. “The police are looking for a smash and grab robber with a penchant for beating up innocent women.”
He went to his side again and returned with a basket. It was full of orchids and had a few roses mixed in, and at the heart, there were a couple of boxes of chocolates and a card. He pointed at the card.
“Yeah, don’t read this here. I don’t know that I could…” He shook his head, and I could see tears poking at his eyes. “There’s a check in there, too. To cover your pain and suffering.”
“I can’t accept that.”
“Please, Stacy. I can’t just not…this is my fault.”
“It isn’t.”
“It is!” Tears started to roll down his face. “I’m so sorry for hurting you, baby. I wasn’t there to protect you. I’ll never forgive myself for this.”
He reached out for me but pulled his hand back. “I know that this has to be it.” The words were barely audible.
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek as my own emotions started to spill over.
“It has to be,” I whispered.
It looked like my saying that socked him in the face. It was as if he was expecting me to say otherwise. I wished more than anything that I could.
“I don’t… I can’t…” I sniffled in and let my words die. I couldn’t muster up anything that would make either of us feel better, so I just stopped.
“I love you,” Gabriel said, and it cut deep. “I always will. No matter what happens, never forget that.”
Tears dripped onto my chest and stained my dress there. “I lo—”
Gabriel held up a hand. “Don’t. Please don’t. I can’t. If I hear it…” He shook his head. “Tell me you hate me. Tell me you’ll never forgive me.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell him that. It wasn’t true. But I could respect him and not make it worse by saying I loved him, as well. It wouldn’t make a difference, anyway. Love wasn’t strong enough for us. As long as Gabriel was a Varasso, it wouldn’t be.
We sat in silence for so long that it felt like we may both start to grow weeds. We were stalling. The minute we left that hill, we were walking away from each other forever. Neither of us could make the first move. It was a good thing that Mira eventually climbed out of the car and poked her head around. Otherwise, we might have died up there. I imagined she’d been listening to the conversation and knew that it went dead some time ago.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a whisper that carried miles in the quiet, serene night. “We should go.”
“Can you help me?” I asked.
Mira walked over. She saw the collection of items sitting in front of me and lifted them. She brought them over to the car and then returned, holding out a hand. I opened my mouth, but fear of what would come out closed it again. I took Mira’s hand, got to my feet, and walked over and climbed into the car. We backed out of our parking spot enough to pivot the car until it was facing the right direction. I watched Gabriel through the side-view mirror as his head dropped to his knees. His back started to rise and fall heavily. I cried to match his anguish, wishing that I’d told him I loved him.
“Are you okay?” Mira asked.
I shook my head. “No. I feel like I may be making a huge mistake.”
24
Gabriel
I couldn’t begin to know how long I sat up on that hill. I didn’t know if I was hoping that if I sat there long enough, Stacy would come back, or maybe my dad, or maybe the world would just stop turning all together and end the skin-snatching, gut-wrenching torment that was thundering its way through me.
There would never be another Stacy. I could search until I reached the end of our round earth, and there would never be another. I wouldn’t kid myself and think that there would be. I wouldn’t look. I would commit to memory as much as I could that silken blonde hair and those endless green eyes and her brighter-than-the-sun smile. I would pray for the nights I would find her in my dreams. I wouldn’t try to replace the piece of me that she took with her. That hole was too deep, too dark, too vast. It couldn’t be her, so I wanted nothing at all.
In the end, it was a good thing. I could throw myself into the Varasso business because nothing scared me now. In the past month, my biggest fear had become watching her walk away. Now that I’d faced that and lived, Death himself could hold his scythe at my throat, and I wouldn’t flinch.
When I brought myself to my feet, I didn’t bother with the blanket or retucking the chest away; I wouldn’t be back. If someone found my blanket and felt it was worth pilfering, good for them. Hopefully, they could bear the weight of daddy issues and heartbreak if they were going to cover themselves with it.
The forty-five-minute drive back to our family estate felt like hours. I couldn’t drag my mind away from Stacy, and every time I thought about her, it brought me close to breaking again. I just wanted her in my arms again. We never did get to celebrate our confessed love for one another. Maybe that was for the best. If we’d gotten to cement things that way, I doubt I could have managed letting her leave. I would have grabbed her and held on until the world was crumbling around us. The fact that I made it back with her clawing at my brain was, was an absolute miracle.
When I was turning into our driveway, it almost felt like a foreign, unfamiliar place. I’d left my brothers in the wreckage of the mess that I had made. I didn’t get to hear how they recovered, or if they ever did.
I drove around the cul-de-sac and noticed that Molly’s car was still missing. I should have called her. On the way to the hill or the way back, I had plenty of time. I owed her the biggest apology for forcing Luca over the edge. I needed to tell her that I didn’t know the man wearing my skin in Luca’s office and beg her to come back so that she and Luca could make up. Maybe it was because Luca was the oldest and the head of the family, or maybe it was because I’d had to break up with Stacy, but Luca and Molly felt like the last stand. If they broke, everything else would break, and the pieces would be way too small to glue together again.
I put my car in park and made a plan to call Molly first thing in the morning if she didn’t call tonigh
t. I started to get out of the car and felt the weight of my gun press into the side of my hip. The butt of the gun felt heavier against me than I knew it to be. Being a Varasso meant trusting that my family wouldn’t hurt me. It meant earning their trust back, as well. I lifted it out of my waistband and leaned over to put it in the glove box when I noticed something that shook me to my core.
All the lights in the estate were off.
I scanned all the windows carefully, checking for any stretch of light or illumination that would suggest maybe we were just suddenly trying to save on our electricity bill, but not one single light was on. My father’s entire operation ran out of our estate. He couldn’t afford for our electricity to go down. He had backup generators in case the power went out, and he had backup generators for those backup generators.
None of us slept on the same schedule. Luca often stayed up into the early hours of the morning, went to bed, and slept until noon. I usually had a religious eight-thirty bedtime and was up by five the next morning. When Alessandro and Marco were still around, their schedules changed by the day. Even if all of us were asleep, or none of us, we had round-the-clock staff. The foyer lights were almost always on, as were the ones in the kitchen. Total darkness meant something was wrong.
I folded the glove box lid back into its place and kept my gun in my hand. I was pulling back to step out of my car when my car phone started to blare. In a panic, I slapped my hand down on the console, not intending to do anything specific besides stop the loud ringing. To my shock, the line picked up.
“Gabriel?”
I looked at my center console as if I’d see the face looking back at me. “Stace?”
She sniffled. “Hi.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked, wheeling down the volume button and cursing my truck for having a feature that kept the radio functioning after the car had been totally shut off. I was happy to hear her voice, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.
“It’s fine. I want you to come over.”
My heart leaped up into my throat. “What?”
“I want to be with you. I love you.”
“Stacy, are you sure you’re okay?”
She chuckled. “I’m fine. I’m the best that I’ve ever been because I met you.”
The images of her bruises skipped across my mind. “That’s not true.”
“It is.” She sniffled again. “I know that something bad happened, but I’ll just be more prepared. You can teach me how to protect myself. We’ll figure it out. You said Luca’s wife joined the business. Maybe I—”
“No,” I cut her off. “I won’t drag you into this.”
“It’s too late for that,” she replied.
I was still staring at my darkened house for any signs of movement while trying to listen to Stacy. I got a nasty flashback of talking to Stacy instead of meeting with Anthony Carducci. If I’d been on time, Stacy wouldn’t be broken right now. I couldn’t make the same mistake twice.
“Stace, I have to go.”
“No, Gabriel. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I shot back quickly. “I want to be with you. If that’s what you want, we can figure it out, but right now, I have to go. I think my family may be in trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“The house is dark. The house is never dark.”
“You should call the police.”
I snickered at her ignorance. “You don’t call the police in my business, beautiful.” I looked at the console again. “Hey, listen, if I never see you again, know that I love you so much.”
“Gabriel. Do not hang up this phone. Do not go in that house.”
“I have to. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“Gabriel—”
I hit the button to end the call, and the car fell silent.
I climbed out, shut the door quietly, and started my slow ascent up the front steps. I opened the front door, knowing it’d be unlocked. We usually had air-tight security hanging around every corner, so there was no reason to lock it, but there were no guards present. In fact, there was no one at all. There was almost always sound in our estate. The sounds of cleaning staff fluttering around, Luca conducting meetings, some of the lower-ranks talking about some matter or another. Just like the Varasso estate was never dark, it was also never silent.
I cocked my gun and made my way up the first flight of stairs. All of the doors I could see were open, and the lights were off. I was considering journeying down the row when I noticed the spill of lights at the top of the next flight of stairs. It was faint, not something I would have been able to see from outside, and was likely coming from Luca’s office. He only had back-facing windows. I crawled up the second flight of stairs and followed the thin stream of light down the hallway, down to Luca’s door.
Something told me not to knock. The last time I entered, I’d barged in and pointed a gun at Alessandro, but this time, I got a sinking feeling that I’d be alerting my presence when I shouldn’t. As quietly as I could, I wrapped my free hand around the door’s handle. My stealth wasn’t entirely necessary. It was a massive office, but it wasn’t so big that if I opened the door, I wouldn’t be seen.
All at once, I was transported back in time to the moment I found out exactly what kind of business the Varasso family was really in. Most people in our line of work had fronts for their shady dealings. My dad did a little bit of everything, but one of his sweetest ventures was a southern border drug hive, the one Molly now ran. Runners would travel from one end to the other of an endlessly twisted cavern of underground hallways, transporting drugs back and forth. He’d called this leg of his business many things, but he most often referred to it as the beehive. Young Gabriel heard his father talking about bees and believed that our family was in the honey business. I didn’t understand what was so lucrative about something I could go out and find in any hive, but I didn’t question it. My father told me not to.
I was already older than my brothers were when they first started learning the business at ten. I was coming up on my twelfth birthday and still didn’t understand what qualified Luca, Marco, and Alessandro to work with the honey when I still couldn’t. My dad would never admit it, but I believed he was considering not dragging me in. Maybe my life changed that day I crawled out of bed, looking for him one quiet, wintry morning. It was still before sunrise, and though my pre-teen self could still sleep until someone was throwing lunch at my head, on occasion, I would wake up before the birds. My dad had brought me to the hill for the first time the day before, so we’d done a bit of bonding, and I wanted to see him.
I didn’t know when my dad slept because he was always in his office. Even in the wee hours of the morning, when everyone else was snoozing away, apart from the overnight crew, I knew I would find my dad in his office or not find him at all. I snuck up the stairs quietly, so as not to wake up my brothers’ mom. She already hated me enough, and she wasn’t a morning person. I tiptoed down this same, mostly dark hallway, towards the same thin veil of light seeping out from under the door. I was going to knock and announce myself when I heard my dad’s thundering voice roar out.
“What do you mean they found the hive?” he barked. “Where are the bees?”
He was silent, but then he growled again. “How many did we lose?”
His hand slammed on his desk a few seconds later and scared me half-to-death. “I promised the Binachis twenty kilos of that cocaine. If I don’t have it within seventy-two hours, I’m holding you personally responsible. Do you understand?” He let out a muddy chuckle. “I knew you would.”
I was so stricken with shock that I didn’t hear my dad’s heavy footsteps make their way to the door. When he pulled the door open, I crawled on my hands backward until I was bumping into the wall. I expected him to be mad at me for eavesdropping, but instead, he just perched himself against the doorframe and crossed his arms.
He looked down at me with a devilish grin. “Are you ready to learn what it really means to be a V
arasso?”
I nodded because I’d only ever been an outsider. I hoped that learning the business would make my brothers respect me, but it only made them resent me more, at least the older two. I could even see Alessandro looking at me with envy out of the corner of his eye. I never knew if it was because they thought I shouldn’t be entitled to the business as a half-breed or because they knew my relationship with our dad was vastly different from theirs, but I spent my entire life chasing their approval. Approval I would never truly get.
Still, as I perched my gun against the wood of my dad’s office door, I knew what had to be done if there was a threat inside the office. I had spent a long time keeping my hands clean of the destruction Varassos left everywhere they went, but if I needed to shoot to protect my family, I would do so without hesitation.
I opened the door and, to my surprise, just Luca was sitting inside. I could barely see the top of his head poking out over the top of the imposing chair because he had his back to the door and he was looking out the window. I brought my gun down. “Jeez, total darkness is a little brooding for a fight with your wife, don’t you think?”
The chair slowly turned, and chills peppered over my skin. It wasn’t Luca, at all.
Dario Binachi flashed me a toothy grin, rivaled only by the glint across the pistol he was aiming right at me. He and both of his sons were supposed to be in prison. Why was he sitting in Luca’s office chair?
“Dario.”
“Gabriel Varasso.” The voice crashed into me like an eighteen-wheeler. It was one of the voices I’d heard across Stacy’s door the night she was attacked. “How nice of you to join us.”
