“I could forgive you when I only had to share you with Ariella. I don’t know if I can share you with Mae.”
“Nice of you to tell me you settled on Ariella. We have Amber and Cruz living with us,” he calmly says. “And you are blowing a gasket over Mae?”
“Because she is Oki’s!”
“Wait! Timeout!” he demands, using his hands to form a T. “How long have you known Oki was Mae’s mother?”
“Since I first went to Japan,” I honestly say. “Masa told me.”
Masa isn’t a rat, just a rumormonger.
There is no way Reo Sato is vermin, especially if Cruz considered hooking up with him.
“I have something in my possession that could change how this ends for you. But if I give it to you…” He breathes deeply, cooling down the flames. “There is no coming back from this. This is a one-way trip. This is an explosion you cannot come back from.”
Tossing my hair over my shoulder, I snicker, “Like you blowing up yours and Kaci’s house?”
“Yes,” he firmly agrees. “Let me guess, Serene told you.”
“She tells me many things.”
“I wish you had shared with me that she told you many things,” he harshly criticizes. “I’d have been one step closer to stopping any more shit from happening. Are you going to Japan? Are you running away?”
“No!” I hiss, gazing at my wedding ring until tears stream down my cheeks. “I don’t want to do this without you. I want the family and my family legacy. I am…shocked, stunned, appalled, humbled, honored, and in love with the most wonderful human being in the world, and I am nowhere near good enough for you. You have to give me a minute to digest that you are Mae-Mae’s Daddy because all of the sudden…that means, I could be her Mommy.”
“Do you know who the father is?”
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head as his phone buzzes in his pocket.
“Hold on.” He pulls the phone from his jacket, and his face turns white. “It’s Cruz. Nicky shot Tank and a couple of the guys. He’s on the loose.”
“Oh, my God!” I panic. “Go!”
“Are you going to be okay here?”
“Of course, I will be safe on the plane,” I assure, not believing Nicky would come after me. “Is Trudy okay?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Someone mentioned Serene left with Delarte, and Nicky went off.”
“Shit…” I rub my lips together. “Go!”
“I will send Berk.”
“No!” I demand raising my voice. “Keep Berk at my house!”
He briefly smirks from the corner of his mouth. “My house is you,” he whispers, putting an envelope in my hand and kissing my lips. “Use this if you want, but be fucking careful. I will be back soon.”
“I will be fine,” I vow, watching as he gets on the bike. “I love you.”
“More than words, baby.”
My husband speeds off, and I stare into the distance until I can no longer see him. I open the letter and cover my mouth as I read Baba’s words written by Murasaki.
“No…” I lower my head and bawl my eyes out. “What am I supposed to do with this, Sal?”
His Ride
“What the hell happened?” Sal asks, barreling into the house as I gather up enough bangs and ammo to kill a bandwagon of insurgents.
All of the weaponry is a gift from Morpheus—a measure of good faith in the Pharm deal. The warehouse is chock full, so I took a bunch of shit out to the Swamp Shack for safekeeping until we could run inventory. “Where the hell is Iris?”
“She was talking to The Chairman when I got your text message,” I inform as Amber appears in a bulletproof vest that is entirely too big.
Sal’s phone chimes with the familiar ring, which he ignores. With a haggard look, he asks, “Nicky shot Tank?”
“No, Nicky shot five of my guys.”
“Shit!” he shouts, helping me unload the boxes. “Fuck!”
“And you fucking left her…”
The tension increases in the room, threatening to erupt into a war between us.
I cannot believe he left his flower at the airport.
“Look, until we can get a child-sized vest, this much violence on the homestead isn’t going to work for me,” Amber boldly declares, grabbing the keys off the rack. “I am taking Mae and going to Scarlet House.”
“Fine,” I passively dismiss. She wants more, but I cannot give it to her right now.
“Be careful,” Sal says, kissing Mae and Amber, which pisses me off. “Call me when you get there.”
“I’m taking your truck because it is the only vehicle I can get to.”
“I need the truck,” I demand. “For all this shit.”
“Take the beamer,” Sal gently suggests, grabbing the keys from the counter. “But whatever you do, do not go back to the farmhouse.”
“I won’t,” she promises, opening the door. “I’ll call you…Sal.”
Cracking his knuckles, he asks, “What are you doing with all of this?”
“Berk is taking it to Lakeside for an all-out manhunt. RR and Tenn12 aren’t stopping until this motherfucker is eating dirt,” I inform, not wanting to talk because I may hit him. I stop long enough to glimpse at the shadowy concern, drifting in his eyes. “How could you have left her?”
“What was I supposed to do…abduct her?”
“That’s a fucking start!” I chide, shutting the cases and carrying them out to the truck. “I don’t care if she is nine months pregnant, throw her ass on the back of the fucking bike, and control the goddamned situation.”
“She is Iris!” he rants like I don’t know. Like I didn’t spend years tailing her high falutin holiness all over the damn globe. “We’re no longer mitigating the water flow with levees?”
“The levees fucking broke, asshole! Nicky shot Tank at close range in the chest, and I got Ma screaming at me on the phone. What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can’t very well say—I’m sorry your fuck buddy was hit, but I told you so. I told you this was a bad fucking idea!” I buckle over, tightening my jaw and holding back the remorse over my mother’s lack of better judgement. He rubs my back with an empathetic concern. I don’t know this side of Sal because for years I have held him up. “How many times do I have to tell her that Nicky Cristos is a dangerous fucking psychopath!”
“I don’t know,” he says as his phone chimes again.
“You need to answer that.”
“Fuck!” he yells again. “Nicky just passed Mierne on a motorcycle a little while ago.”
“… Where?”
“Heading out of Sugargrove. I am going,” he says. “He isn’t hurting another person. Where is Hannah?”
“I don’t fucking know,” I reply as he grabs extra clips. “Getting anything out of Ma is pointless. She is losing her shit. Be careful. Come back to me.”
“I will,” he assures. “When are you leaving?”
“As soon as Berk gets back from Tom & Dick's Hardware Store, we’re taking all of this to Ma’s house because Lakeside is a crime scene.”
Please don’t ask why I sent Berk to the hardware store, Sal.
My toolbox needs restocking.
“… Still Sugargrove PD jurisdiction?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “I’d imagine Kit Jolly is out there.”
With his hand on my cheek, he pulls my mouth to his. “I love you.”
“I love you,” I whisper, breathing against his lip. “I’m sorry for being an ass to you.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “Iris is fine. She is with her grandfather. He won’t hurt her.”
I brush one hand over the back of his, and his fingers lift to link with mine. I hook my other hand under his belt. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“If you can safely get the opportunity, I want the kill shot on Nicky.”
A dashing smirk flies across his lips as he swears, “You got it, hu
nter.”
XI
Monsters Like Me
105
Compromise the Barriers
His Butterfly
Glancing up with swollen eyes, I revel in the beauty of the seasonal change. The rolling gray clouds are thick and bountiful, ready to burst and soak the terrain, saturating the soil.
The dam cracks but a hairline fracture—just a paperclip’s worth—is enough to give way. Enough to cause irreparable damage. Enough to change the landscape of our existence.
The distant rumbling thunder warns with the signs of impending gloomy weather as moisture seizes the air, smelling of rain. I close my eyes, terrorized by the atrocity on the paper. Another bass boom pronounces its authoritarian decree—a storm is coming—and I open my eyes to the untidy flash of lightning snaking across the heavens.
The waters will flood.
Uncontained. Violent. Destructive.
A gentle breeze hits my cheeks and blows my hair, reminding me that I am not alone in my peril as the battering drumbeat snaps with a resounding fury. A thin bolt taunts with a higgledy-piggledy spark, firing atoms across the horizon.
I must seek shelter.
But I will not find it here.
I fold the letter and march up the steps to the plane. Once inside, I place the letter in my purse without regard as I clench my phone in my hand.
His hands are tough.
With a keen ability to rise in adverse conditions, Sal delivers me.
I am stoic, unwavering, meticulous, and grand—the reason I am known as a hardball bitch. I make no sudden movements, swaying the deterioration of what is to pass. It will happen soon enough without my advancements, no need to waste the energy.
My grandfather asks, “Could he not stay?”
I don’t bother to respond. His concern for my husband is gratuitous. He doesn’t care. He wants intel. He is playing me.
I sit down across from him because I need not stand above him; my rank is intrinsically primordial—a natural state earned at birth, a fundamental right bestowed by generations past. Honor, integrity, and valor spiral in the helix of my code.
“Tell me what happened almost six years ago in Las Vegas.”
He chuckles. “You’re asking an old man to remember the forgotten.”
“I am asking my elder not to forget the forbidden sins he committed!” I passionately yell. “Don’t lie to me, Sofu! Tell me the truth!”
“What happens in Vegas…”
“Do not pander to me!”
“What does this matter now?” he inquires with a shrug. “You were but a child yourself.”
“I was twenty-seven!”
He locks his fingers together and questions, “And where were you then, Iris? Do you remember?”
I may not be an elephant like my husband, but stupid, I am not.
“My husband died. I found a key in his safety deposit box. I packed my things and drove to Texas.”
He slowly rubs his thumb and forefinger together on the table as his eyes home in upon me—bearing down and demanding that I correctly answer his interrogation.
“And?”
“Why are you testing me?” My impassioned voice hikes up a notch, not wanting to play on anyone else’s game board. “You have no right!”
“Answer the question, Iris Amarie!”
“I went to Juliet. I lost my baby. I met a man, the same man who you paid to stalk me for years, the very man I was supposed to kill on his father’s order, and I fell in love with him.”
A snarl rises from the corner of his lips. “When?”
“I met him in the cabaret. He swiped a melon ball, and I followed him into the darkness—trusting a stranger—to a barn.”
“Not where, Iris,” he scolds, clenching his fingers into a tight ball. “Listen to the question. When?”
“It was the Juliet graduation...late spring…”
His eyebrows raise high upon his forehead as his globes widen with doubt. I panic, not knowing the answer—I cannot find it—it’s blocked deep in the pathway. I close my eyes, fearing the tears Sofu wants me to cry.
His fist pounds against the table as he demands, “When Iris?”
I still see the clothes upon his muscular frame, the lights in the background, and his arresting features—penetrating mossy emeralds, red wine-stained lips, and a beckoning come hither smile. He commanded attention with confidence and a subtle hint of daring intimidation that warned—Don’t mess with me, motherfucker.
I still smell the lavender drying in batches on the ceiling, the popcorn erupting in old-fashioned carts, and the whiskey and tobacco on his breath—God, that aroma sends me back.
I still feel the smooth touch of his hand, noting the multitude of beaded, leather, and string bands, dangling with charms, and the shimmering color of his skin, rich like caramelized honey baked in the sun—An invitation to try his swagger because I might buy him for a night or a lifetime.
I still hear his voice, the Boston accent smudged in Italian and finished off with a twang of the South, introducing himself—His dirty thrills elevated in the lungs of a troubadour.
I still taste his provisions of water, quenching my thirst, the best water I ever had, and the giant fluffy ball of pink cotton candy—His hustle seduced the time away like the sugar deliquescing on my tongue and left me craving more.
I have all of it but the date.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” Sofu demands. “Think.”
“Why is this important?”
“You want to point the finger. Then I get to do the same. Answer the question, Iris Amarie.”
“It was a Saturday, May 24, 2014,” I blurt out. “I was Sal Raniero’s from that moment forward.”
“You were Sal Raniero’s long before that,” he admonishes, diminishing my successful recount. “When is your first memory?”
“My first memory of his face is in 2006,” I reply. “I didn’t know he was Sal Raniero.”
“How old were you?”
This is a stupid question—an easy math problem. “I was eighteen, and he was sixteen.”
“And where were you?”
“Chance took me to a laboratory outside of Bethesda, Maryland, for my last treatment.”
“And you remember it?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Almost all of it. What does any of this have to do with your lascivious acts in Las Vegas?”
“What do you remember?”
“I was groggy, just coming to, and he opened his eyes—they were the most stunning green. I was captivated, mesmerized…” I flounder in emotions, snared by the harrowing ordeal of the past, as the tears spring from my eyes.
“Say it, Iris,” he commands, opening his hand and pointing his fingers at me. “Finish this!”
“I felt sorry for him!” I shout, grabbing my napkin and drying my tears. “Because I knew what they were about to do to him, and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop them from hurting him. I couldn’t stop the burn.”
“Your wretched mother and her lover caused all of this,” he chastises. “Your weak father and his inability to stand up to your mother and condemn the experimentation on his daughter.”
“And you punished him with unimaginable cruelty.”
“Murasaki was my concubine,” he admits, removing his hand from the table. “And her daughter was just as fine.”
“She was sixteen!” I yell with a ferocity like I have never known. The dam bursts, plunging to the sea floor as the water gushes to flood the fortress. I am stunned by my assertion, which blooms to maternal aggression, where I am not only Ariella’s mother but a mother for all children. I have exclusive rights to this club; the boy’s club cannot possibly understand. “And you were a disgusting old man taking advantage of a child!”
“She was available!”
“You pursued her! Do not deny it!” I vehemently roar. “You wanted her first blood, and you took it! You stole it!”
“I did no such thing, Iris,�
�� he angrily defends, scuttling towards the bedroom. He glances at me, almost in an afterthought, and excuses, “I paid her two hundred dollars and bought her dinner.”
I wiggle my way out of the seat, chasing after him before howling through the cylinder of the plane, “Two hundred dollars and dinner for your…”
“Time,” he mutters, turning slow. “I paid her for her time. No different from the thousands you earned by spreading your legs! Your grandmother was right—you are nothing but a whore!” The sudden slap to my cheek stings. “And you played into their ways the second you agreed to marry that man.”
“You hired him to protect me!”
“Because you are nothing but a half-bred nuisance!”
Tears flow from my eyes as I drown in his derogatory words. My head drops low to my chest, and I reach to wipe away a tear when I spot my wedding ring on my finger.
“May the Lord bless these rings, which you will give to each other as a sign of your love and fidelity and Iris’ collar for her continued subservience on her knees.”
I stand up—taller, braver, and bolder than I have ever been, knowing I am his.
And he is a Capo. A Nero. And a Master.
“You gave her two hundred dollars and a bag of greasy fast food—a burger and fries. No drink. You didn’t want her to spill it in the back of your precious limousine rental that no doubt reeked of booze, vomit, and cum. You were afraid the sixteen-year-old would spill her soda.”
With a frazzled expression, he asks, “What are you talking about?”
“You took her to a cheap, sleazy motel where no one would recognize you. You locked the door. You threw her on the bed. And you mounted on top of her while she cried through the horrific pain of your thievery.”
“Must we do this?” he asks, but his request is denied, just like her pleading cries.
“She thought she was dying. She thought you were killing her. But you didn’t stop. You kept on until you spilled your milk. And you never planned that the spilled milk would fertilize an egg, multiplying and growing inside of her body and that she would have a child, whose name is now Mae Raniero.”
A Dark Place (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 5) Page 85
