by Sonya Jesus
I can’t believe it.
“My guys intercepted him and brought him here. I would have let him go if you had told me his name.”
No, he wouldn’t, but it doesn’t matter because it wasn’t Luca.
Chapter Eleven
Murder and Allegiance
Luca Cabrali
Minus a nap here and there, I’ve been without sleep since Saturday. After stupidly calling Isabella, I drove all the way to my friend’s hotel. Careless decisions lead to perilous consequences, and there’s only one way to avoid it: sleep.
Sleep is all I need, but it doesn’t always need me.
I sit on the bed with the bottle of prescription pills; after years of taking this stuff, it’s like candy. My dosing is much more effective than the doc’s recommendations, so I unscrew the cap, shake a few pills loose, and pop them in my mouth—swallow first—then chase them down with water.
I lie on my back, on top of the covers, and shut the lights off. My eyes burn from the lack of rest, so I rub them, making the itching worse. As soon as I close them, I see the mangled face of the man from Saturday.
To soothe the tightness in my chest, I rub over the spasming muscles. While I wait for the drugs to kick in, I think about the reason for all this.
Fucking Beppe Santini.
I don’t know how he hasn’t been taken out yet. He violates an unstated code of conduct in our world. Anyone in the business is a target, affiliates too, but the son of a bitch crossed the line when he put a hit on his family and used his men to carry it out. All of this to get rid of the two boys who weren’t his and his cheating wife, but instead, lost everyone but Isabella.
He lost a little power the day he killed his boys. In the criminal underworld, at least for Mafiosos, there’s a hierarchy, fully-equipped with kings and successors. Only being a father to a daughter weakened him, that’s why finding out Jackson wasn’t his, blew his world apart.
Then, like a coward, he put a hit on the kid and his mother.
Only the weak take out innocents. Hits on children are off-limits in our world, but I’m the first to admit, the lines blur when the children belong to Mafia kings. My sister got the short end of that stick.
Some people are heartless, like Santini.
I would put a bullet through his nose and watch him die slowly if it weren’t for my dad. When I asked him about the Santinis, he told me to keep my dick out of it. Technically, my dick hasn’t been in a Santini in about a year, so I haven’t been betraying him.
But I have gone behind his back a few times to ask for help.
I’m racking up favors like tickets at the arcade. My escape is burying me further into this world, and that’s a secret I’ve kept from Isabella. She thinks we’ll be able to get away from everything, but she’s a girl, and despite the shit she’s been through, she doesn’t understand how things happen behind the scenes.
Everyone knows everything, and they know how to turn their knowledge into profit. All these people she’s reaching out to—known Santini haters—can stab her in the back on a whim.
Even family.
One million is nothing if Santini offers ten. Greed, power, status, sometimes outweigh hate and vengeance, and I’m worried about Steele, Slade, and Donovan. These men don’t care about Isabella, not like Robert or even her cousin, Teagan.
Allies during war can easily become enemies after. Being indebted to the Beneventis is dangerous, especially with the no-questions-asked part, but it also makes me their ally.
The Saturday cleanup is going to cost me big time, and maybe even Isabella’s love if she finds out I’ve bargained my loyalty to the Beneventis, placing my and her life as collateral.
One day soon, they’ll be calling on it, especially after what happened with my sister. If I refuse, Santini’s dollhouse will shy in comparison to The Farm. He’ll have his men break Isabella in ways Beppe would never even think.
Breaker may be a new Mafia boss, but his instability makes him dangerous. More so than his predecessor. He and my dad had big plans for Breaker and me. Thankfully, much to my Dad’s disappointment, I wasn’t cut out for this world.
I’m not like Isabella, who hides behind plastic skin and removes emotion from her day-to-day life. For me, feelings rule. Love, hate, anger, desire—all of them—they’re evident all the time.
Guys in this world don’t have that particular luxury of hiding behind a pair of tits; my choices come down to kill or be killed.
Murder, technically. It’s not self-defense when you’re the first to pull the trigger. Because there are too many to keep track of, I count murders by bouts of sleepless nights, but this one is different.
The Saturday murder has my conscience on constant overdrive. I can’t escape the images, the conversations, the devastation. Before Saturday, any life I stole, took a toll on me—all affected me in one way or another.
To overcome it, I’d stay active for forty-eight hours until a bout of fatigue drained me, and my brain went into microsleep. For seconds at a time, I’d completely blackout without realizing it. Then, I’d push through these unconscious time gaps until I got real fucking cranky.
Then, I’d sleep.
My head would hit the pillow, names would ring in my ears, over and over until a double-dose of sleeping pills would knock me out. The next day, I’d wake up with the ability to go another round.
But not this time. This time, my heart hurts for the man I killed.
Hearts fit nowhere in this life.
Neither does remorse.
Both those things plague me right now. And I’ve made really stupid mistakes today. Carelessness ensues irritability, and tonight, I was careless.
I showed my face in Old Ridge, I held the limo driver at gunpoint, and forced him to answer that fucking phone. Despite liking him, I brought the old man into this shit storm, and now, he’s tied up in the basement of my buddy’s hotel because I can’t bring myself to shoot him in the head.
Luckily, the medicine is starting to kick in, and I drift off to sleep.
Last Saturday haunts me through the drug-induced sleep. The sound of twisted metal and shattered glass rings in my ears, acting better than any alarm clock out there. Within seconds, I’m out of bed and rubbing the kink in my neck, telling myself, It’s just a dream, Luca.
The crash happened so fast.
One minute, I had been driving to Chicago, listening to the radio, and the next, my rental car was turned over and my whole body ached from the impact.
My ribs still ache. They throb as I get up and walk to the bathroom. I lift the hem of the white T-shirt over my abs to check out the bruising on my chest. My skin’s so discolored, the purple is nearly black, and there’s green somewhere in between. Three days ago, right after the accident, the area was red and not this severely impacted. Now, it looks like shit and hurts like hell. There are bruises on my arms and on my shoulder, cuts on my knees and shins, but they are easily covered.
I got lucky.
The unmade, who hit me from the back, didn’t.
Or maybe he did.
His family, however, didn’t.
That night, I had a pair of leather gloves with me to avoid fingerprints. I retrieved them from the glove box and slipped them on, before slowly prying myself out of my car and crawling through the shattered glass. It was four in the morning; the road was empty, so I got to my feet and called for help—for a cleanup
Not my father, though. Another favor.
I thought for sure the person in the other car was dead. When I shined my light in the direction, the windshield was completely shattered, and the woman’s body hung on the roof of the car. She had been impaled on the cracked glass.
The kids in the back seat…
The recollection of their twisted bodies gnaws at my insides, knotting my gut until unease turns my stomach. Queasy and repulsed, I run the cold water on and use the cup to collect some before downing it and heading to the hotel phone beside my bed.
The last tim
e I ate was the food I took off Robert’s table on Monday morning. The smell of bacon reminded my famished mind I hadn’t eaten for over twenty hours.
My stomach grumbles in protest to my fasting, so I order myself some breakfast and sit on the edge of the bed, working through my nightmare.
I shut my eyes and think of the accident.
The woman’s phone had landed on the ground near the hood of her car, a picture of a family of four on her screensaver. Two adults. Two teens.
Fuck! Through the windshield, if I look between her oozing body and her husband’s unmoving one, I spot a smaller hand, and I don’t fucking think it’s attached to a body.
“I’m going to say three, maybe four,” I say to Breaker Beneventi. “A woman and a man. Woman’s halfway through the windshield. So much fucking blood… And kids.”
“You hit them?” he asks with an unwavering voice, as if bored by the situation.
Holding the phone to my ear, I glance up at the starry sky and try to remember, but I blacked out. The evidence on my car doesn’t lie, though. “No, I’m pretty sure I got hit from behind. Most of the damage is on the backend of my car.”
“You’re pretty sure?”
“I dozed off, for like a second.”
Breaker remains calm as he gets the facts, which worries me. How does this not get to him? “The damage on the other car is in the front?”
It’s definitely getting to me. “The damage is all over the fucking place!” I squeak out quietly, as I look around for living witnesses. The road is empty, but it won’t always be.
“Calm down,” Breaker tells me, as he orders someone in the background to get on the phone with the local police department. “What has the most damage?”
“Looks like the car hit the wooden telephone pole.”
I stop to assess how in the fuck things went down. My car had been hit, and he kept going for at least a quarter-mile, where it must have collided with the pole. “My rental’s on its roof, over the divider. It looks like the driver hit the brakes or something, and the car spun out of control.”
“The kids are dead?”
“I mean…there’s no screaming. The telephone pole fell on them.”
“Shit.” His voice dips low for the first time. “Check, but don’t touch them.”
I glance inside, making sure not to touch anything or leave footprints on the liquid on the ground. When I’m about to shine the light inside, the urge to vomit hits me like a pound of bricks, and I have to turn away. “Fuck… I can’t, man. They’re just kids. There’s blood on the floor and…”
“Get out of sight before the telephone company gets out there, or someone heads down that road. Give me five minutes, and I’ll have the local P.D. pick you up and get you out of the accident scene.”
“What about…”
“I’ll have a body to take your place. Report the car stolen in the morning.” I hang up and run my hands through my hair when I hear faint moaning.
“Please. Please. Please…” The words are said through labored breaths. “Help my boys.”
I should hightail it out of there, because if I get caught, Isabella’s plan will go to shit, but I can’t. I head to the driver’s side and look in through the cracked windshield, using my elbow to finish casting off the rest of the broken glass. The right end of the car is mangled up, and by the looks of it, his legs are crushed between the metal. The blood isn’t coming from him, though. I don’t see any gaping wounds.
“What happened, sir?” I ask, as I contemplate how to get him out. Then, I notice the tears on his face.
“My wife was yelling at the kids, and I … my boys…” he sobs hysterically, pulling at my heartstrings. There’s no hiding the pain in his heart or the one he feels in his bones. His legs are crushed, and by the sound of his voice, I think he took a hit to his chest. “I killed my boys.”
The wide circular pole had dropped on the back seat, horizontally.
Boys!” he shouts out, but it comes out weak. He knows as well as I do, they’re dead.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, unable to control the emotion in my voice. “Let me call an ambulance.”
“No!” he shouts. “They’re dead?”
“I can’t be sure, but the pole…”
“Let me suffer.”
“What?” His request catches me off guard. I had already been dialing the ambulance when my fingers stop.
“I killed my family, and I don’t want to live without them.”
“If I don’t call the ambulance—”
“I’m going to die anyway. My legs are squished, and there’s something in my back. It’s hard to breathe.”
I use my phone to shine over the hood, spotting the crushed bodies of one of the boys. He had tried to duck down—
No… I’ve seen a lot of horrible things, but nothing like this.
I pry my eyes away to find the metal rods of the pole. The blood. “I don’t know how I can help you.”
“Just…” he breathes heavily, “… let me die.”
“If the ambulance comes, they will try and save you.”
“No. I don’t want to live … without them. Not like this. Kill me, please.” His breaths were getting shorter and his skin lighter. I could leave him or I could risk it.
In the distance, the faint glow of lights can be seen, but I risk it and step on the blood, smash the rest of his window, and hover my hand over the man’s mouth and nose. “Are you sure?” I ask.
“Please.”
It doesn’t take long for him to stop breathing.
The knock on the door brings me out of my memory. “Room service.”
On my way to open it, I glance out the window. How long had I slept in? The sun was up and bright, hanging low in the sky.
“What time is it?” I ask the hotel attendant as he rolls the room service cart in.
“Three… we’re sorry for the wait. We don’t normally have breakfast foods ready in the afternoon.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I tip him a hundred, and he leaves. Underneath the metallic domes, which remind me of the church from yesterday, I find pancakes and scrambled eggs.
I check the phone to confirm the time and find five missed calls from Isabella. Five is a lot. I won’t risk calling her again.
So, I message Charlotte. Pix, morning! Have you talked to Isabella?
Immediately, her best friend replies: Something happened yesterday. She called me out of nowhere. Her robe was ripped.
I had talked to her last night through a middleman, who failed to convey that tidbit. Without a second of hesitation, I call Isabella. She doesn’t answer, but within a few minutes, she calls me back.
“I thought something happened to you.”
“Sorry. I fell asleep.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay.” She doesn’t elaborate, and I can hear someone in the background, speaking a different language.
“Where are you?”
“At Voight’s. Another fitting.”
“Where are your guards?”
“Outside, dealing with issues.” She coughs to hide her elation.
“You’re smiling, aren’t you?” I can’t help but smile with her.
“Very much so.”
“So, things went okay? Drugs successfully sequestered and things working out the way we planned? What about the escorts? Logan and Bo?”
“Minus three, so far, everything is good. Minor hiccup yesterday, but it will work out.”
“Yesterday when?”
“Nothing important,” she evades. “But all on track.”
I’ll make sure to keep it that way. Since she can’t bitch me out for last night, now is the best time to address my stupidity yesterday. “Did you get everything you needed at Unita?”
“Those paintings are more than enough. I didn’t forget about your call yesterday. It was unexpected. I didn’t know you had a partner.”
The limo driver. Who is still downstairs in the basement. Shit. “My buddy’s keep
ing an eye on the driver.”
“It’s fine.”
“Sorry, Bells, I wanted to make sure you were okay. I also dropped the burner phone in the church, under the kneeling pew on the candle altar—the one next to the Holy Mother.” I didn’t tell her about the other reason why I was there. I’ll get the Unita layout from her when I see her at the factory and explain it in person.
“Weren’t they coming in Wednesday?”
“Things moved up. Robert wants to do this early. So be ready at four in the morning. He says you know where he’ll come in from.”
“Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”
Portuguese mumbling from a woman flitters through the line. It sounds a lot like Italian, so I deduce it’s about her getting ready to take the dress off. “I got to go. I’ll check in later.”
“I got to go deal with the limo driver.”
She sighs softly but doesn’t comment on my statement.
Casualties. Innocents.
Those are the ones that take the longest to heal from.
Chapter Twelve
Ashes of Sin
Isabella Santini
“Hello, Isabella.”
“Beppe,” I acknowledge him and head over to the hot beverage maker, busying myself with choosing a tea, so he doesn’t ask me to sit down. He’s not in the company of a bottle, which eases my nerves a little bit. Instead of a tumbler, he’s holding a mug while intently studying something in a book.
“Do you remember them?” he asks out of nowhere.
Before responding, I assess his posture, the uncharacteristic softness in his voice, and the inward slant of his shoulders. “Remember who?” I question, feeling a bit bolder after a successful step one.
However, I’m still on edge and too happy about my plan to trust my emotions. Happy isn’t an emotion I’m used to. It’s much harder to hide a smile than it is a tear.
Beppe places the mug down beside him and holds up thescrap book. It’s turned to a page with a picture of my four brothers, standing near the pool.
