Six Deadly Steps

by Sonya Jesus

  For me, that day is today.

  There’s nothing plastic about the smell of burning flesh, or the fear of losing someone, or the sadness of conditioned freedom. What those men did to me in the Tree House took the scream out of me, but it didn’t take the fight out of me.

  My plan might have started with the drug interception, but it will only free me from my external prison, not my personal one.

  That one, I have to do myself.

  I get up and call Tony to confirm Vinnie’s absence. My next step needed a little more time.

  He answers on the second ring. “Isabella?” The alarm clock on the nightstand shows one in the morning. “What is it?”

  “Hey,” I say softly as I make my way downstairs. “Is everything okay? I heard about what happened.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Beppe. I came down to make myself some tea, and he was sitting at the table.”

  “He’s there?”

  Before crossing through the foyer, I pop my head into the kitchen to make sure. “He’s not in the kitchen anymore, but I don’t know if he’s still in the house.”

  “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure,” I say, as I look for some matches in the kitchen.

  “Can you go outside and see if his car is there?”

  Outside is my destination. “Yeah.” After sliding the matches into my hoodie pocket, I head outside through the front door. “His car’s not in the rotunda, but I’ll check the garage.”

  “Okay,” he says as I walk across, noting the absence of men around the premises.

  “Where’s everybody?”

  “All hands are on deck. There’s a lot of stuff happening… What else did your father say?”

  “Not much.” Inside the garage, I note all the cars are accounted for and take one of the canisters of gasoline. “All the other cars are here.”

  “Did he mention the drug interception?”

  I lug the ten-gallon canister all the way to the Tree House. It’s heavy and awkward to speed walk with. “Yes, but he just said you were dealing with it.” I pause at the tree trunk and test the old rope staircase. There’re no remnants of burned patches on the grass. But those men died somewhere around here.

  “I think he has more to do with it then he’s letting on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing… what else did he say?”

  I switch to speakerphone and tuck the phone into my hoodie pocket along with the matches, to free my hands. With one hand, I lug myself up the staircase, holding onto the rope, and with the other, I carry the heavy canister. “Basically, that you’d kill me for being a slut.”

  “I wouldn’t kill you, Isabella.” There’s some noise in the background that sounds like lots of doors closing and then beeping and the sound of an engine. “Just the people you sleep with. I thought we established this yesterday.”

  When he took the life of an innocent guy from Oklahoma.

  I head upstairs and shut the images out. The ropes still hang on the wall, and dozens of torn condom wrappers litter the floor, reminding me the men had more than one go. He got rid of the discarded condoms, but the rest Beppe deliberately left here to remind me. Even the bottles of whiskey.

  Saving me, my ass. I gulp down and unscrew the cap of the red jug. The pungent smell of the mercaptans in the fuel fills my nostrils as I slosh the jug around, spreading the liquid over the floor panels. Over the gorgeous chairs, sprinkled on the walls and curtains. Several inches of accumulated dust mix with the large droplets of fuel and slide down the leather material of the chairs to the rug.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Where’s Vinnie?”

  “What?” I hear a commotion in the background. “Give me a second…” The sound of a door squeaking open comes through the call and then his voice at a distance asking, “Where are Vin and Trey?”

  Someone answers him, “On the way to the mansion, Boss. Everything is ready.”

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  “Bachelor party,” he rushes out, but I don’t remember him mentioning a bachelor party, and it’s really weird that my father is home, unprotected.

  “You’re lying,” I challenge as I drop the canister and use the bottles of whiskey, dropping a little bit on each wrapper and all over the ropes.

  He laughs. “Yes. I think you and I are going to do great things together.”

  No, we aren’t. I drop the empty bottles on the floor and chuck the canister out the window.

  At hearing the pop of the plastic, Tony asks. “Are you in your room?”

  “No,” I reply honestly, no longer feeling the need to lie. From here on out, truths will help set me free.

  “If you’re in the fucking woods again, Isabella—”

  “I’m not,” I say, as I take one final view of the wretched place where I had to harden in order to endure my life. In that corner, where the rope still has blood from my wrists, I turned off the woman, the daughter, the lover. With every tear I shed, every scream I stifled, and every prayer unanswered, I had no choice but to die a little. Every round forced the life out of me.

  It gave me tough skin. Plastic skin.

  And now I get to melt the hard layer off with the heat from this place.

  “Where are you?” For him to ask, it means his men aren’t watching me, which means they aren’t here.

  “I’m in the Tree House.” I descend the rope staircase, just as my phone buzzes with an incoming message that I check once I get on the ground.

  Steele Dominico: No.

  Well. That leaves Teagan… or maybe Tony?

  Before he can counter, I ask, “Why am I home alone with my father?”

  “You’re not alone. His men are on the premises.”

  His men. The war had already started, and I didn’t even know it. He bought Unita. Stole from my father. Doubted my father, and now had different men.

  My father had been watching him.

  Maybe, getting rid of Beppe had been Tony’s plan all along. But only after the wedding. After he had a legitimate claim to my father’s self-imposed throne.

  “Where are you, and what is that noise?” His suspicion has been triggered.

  What my father and Tony fail to realize is that I’m not fighting the same war as them, and I’m neither my fiancé’s nor my father’s ally. I’m my own ally.

  While using the rest of the fuel to douse the tree from the bottom of the Tree House to the roots, I ask, “Did you tell my father about Anthony Shard?”

  “Yes. I was taking someone out.”

  Yeah, I know how the chain of command goes. “Did he ever tell you about the Tree House?”

  “What about it?”

  With about twenty ounces of gasoline left, I place my palm to the tree and apologize for what’s about to happen. “You remember after the night at Unita? At the bar? The one where you fucking set me up?”

  “I like the feisty, Isabella,” he grunts. “But turning me on when I’m working isn’t going to help me—”

  “Beppe had one of his men tie me up in the Tree House.” I rub the material of my hoodie between my fingers before pulling out the box of matches.

  “WHAT? Why?” The anger in his voice shakes the phone.

  Striking the match on the brick red strip of phosphor and powdered glass, I answer, “Apparently, he wanted to turn me into ashes.”

  As I explain the events, I hold the lit match up and throw it at the tree, before running back and watching the flames mix with the oxygen.

  Tony’s growls are deafened by the whoosh of the blaze. I vaguely hear him scream out my name before the crackling sounds erupt around me. The rustling of the leaves desperately trying to escape and the sounds of dying branches crying out for mercy take over, filling my eyes with tears.

  Mesmerized by the light, I’m stuck in place, watching fire meet gasoline. The orange flames sear through the wooden planks of the Tree House. A cloud of thin, black smoke balloons upward at a fast r
ate, mixing with the dark sky and blocking out the stars.

  I crumple to my knees and let myself feel it all. I watch as the blaze engulfs the tree and plead for it to take it all.

  To burn up the pain.

  To eviscerate the memories.

  The day of the massacre, I heard the screams and the gunshots, and like a coward, hid up in the tree, pretending to be the characters in my books.

  The day my father held me underwater, I sought shelter up there, but he got me anyway.

  The events of the Tree House.

  The ten men who were burned alive to teach me a lesson.

  One by one, in forceful screams, I confess them to the fire, releasing them to the flames. Like oxygen to fire, they combust and add fuel.

  My skin reddens from the heat, and it hurts to stay this close, but it feels good to feel. To scream. To kill my past.

  No longer a doll, but Isabella Santini, I breathe new life, laced with the ashes of my past. I rise at the sound of my name being called.

  “Isabella!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Protect Her.

  Isabella Santini

  Vinnie’s hands wrap around my waist, pulling me away while men in black suits rush toward the fire with fire extinguishers. In the distance, I hear the sound of the fire engines and Tony shouting orders. I snap back from my trance and find Vinnie’s hand in my hoodie pocket, fishing out my phone.

  “Tony, I got her. She’s fine.”

  He lifts me up as I watch the firefighters set up a pump in the pool.

  “They’re draining it. The fire spread and caught some of the nearby trees and a bit of the house.”

  “They’re draining the pool?” I echo back with relief and willingly sit on the chair Vinnie has been trying to get me to sit in. It’s the same wicker seat Beppe had sat in the day he used my fear against me.

  Relief floods me as I sit back, watching the disaster that bored new life into me. At the risk of being deemed crazy, giggles erupt from my lips.

  “Is she fucking laughing?” Tony’s pissed-off tone comes through the speakerphone. “Do you find this funny, Isabella?”

  “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be laughing,” I snap back. “I think I’m ready to go to bed.”

  “Wait with her, Vinnie. I should be there in a couple hours. We were tracking down the drugs, but fuck it. Let Beppe have them.”

  Beppe? Tony thinks my father set up the heist?

  “I’ll confront him tomorrow. Plus, he’s got a few things he needs to answer for.”

  I breathe easily as Vinnie ends the call and holds out a hand for me to take. “Are you hurt?”

  I take it. Not because I have to, but because I want to. “No. I’ve never felt better.”

  “Really?”

  “How did you know where I was?”

  “The guy in the car with Tony called me. We were all on the speakerphone. I heard you in the background shouting out.”

  My eyes lift to his. “Screaming?”

  Vinnie nods and helps me up to a standing position. My legs buckle, and he steadies me. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  We both know it doesn’t change anything, but I accept his apology. “I have thick skin. Perk of being a doll.”

  His eyes flicker to the floor because he knows with Tony things won’t be much different, but he doesn’t know that I won’t be here much longer.

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost two.”

  “Were you at Tony’s bachelor party at Unita?” I test.

  “Nice try… But I was with him until I got a call from an old friend.” We get to my door, and he opens it, putting a finger to his com before he ushers me inside. “I’ll be right in. Do you need something from downstairs?”

  “No.” I glance down at my hair, full of ash, and smile. “I’m going to take a shower before he gets here.”

  “Tony will be a while.” He hands me back my phone. “Call him after and check-in. He was worried.”

  I didn’t mean him. “Yeah.” I take the phone and pop it into my hoodie.

  He closes the door behind me, and I head out to the window, defiantly glancing up at the cameras while I slide the door open and rest my hands on the stone railing. The fire’s gone, but the white smoke is lit up by the strobe lights.

  I grab my phone and head to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I run the bath, using the stopper this time, and drop the lavender-infused bubble bath under the streaming hot water, before shedding off my clothes, and calling Luca. The water drowns out the sound, and it’s far enough away from the door, that even if Vinnie came back in, he wouldn’t hear.

  “Hello?” he says in a fake accent, but I can tell the grogginess in his tone.

  “It’s just me.”

  “Well, hi, just you.” He yawns and hits the video button.

  I accept. “You’re always naked when you answer… a guy can get used to that.”

  After his eyes roam downward, I frame my face in the screen. “Almost you and me.” I grin happily.

  “Yeah, Bells. You’re almost in my arms.” He smirks and groggily sits up, taking the phone along with him.

  For a few minutes, I get a perfect picture of his abs, but the shadow of his lamplight makes them look weird.

  “I can’t wait.”

  He adjusts the phone, so it’s back at eye level. “You sound happy. Is that all because we get to be together soon? Or because you’re almost free?”

  “I’m already free.”

  He places the phone on the nightstand. I get a screen full of ceiling through the inside of the lamp cone. “You look like you’re in the same tub you were in the other night.” His voice sounds far away, and by the sound of liquid hitting porcelain, I surmise he’s taking a piss.

  I chuckle at the revelation and answer him. “I burnt the Tree House.”

  “You what?” That, I heard loud and clear, his voice booming all the way from the bathroom.

  I wait for the flush and the sound of water before answering, “I doused it in gasoline, threw a spark at it, and watched it burn.”

  He comes back and grabs the phone in his hand. With the other, he swipes at his cheeks, scratching the sexy stubble on his chin. “I’d say ‘that’s not something you hear every day’, but given my sister, I’m not sure whether to praise you or run down the mental checklist for a psychotic break.”

  “I’m not crazy,” I remind him. This was personal.

  “I don’t recall the plan having fire… Everything set for the death of the don?”

  “No, but I have a back-up plan for tomorrow.” I check the messages to find neither of my back-ups responded. “Just in case Steele fell through, or something else.”

  He grabs a couple pillows and tucks them between him and the headboard, then leans back. “I have one, too, if you need help.”

  “I think it’s okay.”

  He runs his hand through his hair, as if massaging the idea into it. “So, you lit Beppe on fire, huh?”

  “Not exactly. Just burned through his hold on me. And look…” I tilt the camera and point at the water level in the tub. “It’s already working. I didn’t have to fill and refill the tub. I just got in and sat down.”

  “That’s adrenaline, Bells. Be careful; don’t let that get in your head. Fears aren’t overcome that easily.” He rests his hand on his chest and smiles wickedly. “But I was kind of hoping you lit the fucker on fire.” He flips the screen around to show me his hotel room. It’s simple and modern. “You like it?”

  “I’d like it better if I were with you.”

  “Good, because I might have invested in a hotel, just like this one, in the Algarve.” He flips the phone back to his face.

  “Where is that?”

  “Europe?” He pumps his eyebrows. “We just have to get there. Charlotte will meet us.”

  “Anywhere is better than here, as long as it’s with you.” I dip my fingers into the water and create little wave
s with the motion.

  “Now who’s being the corny one?”

  I flick the excess water at my screen. “Whatever.”

  “Were you able to pick up the phone at the church?”

  “Yes, I stopped by when I went to the hair stylist.”

  “Bring your phone with you, though. Don’t leave it behind. When you can, slip it into Robert’s pocket or the car to throw them off.”

  “No, I don’t want to do that to him.” I place the phone on the little holder I had bought so I could watch videos while in the shower. “It’ll lead Tony to Veto or back to Seattle. I won’t put him in danger.”

  “Bells, fine… remove the battery from the phone, and I’ll meet up with you at the factory.”

  “No, you’ve been close enough, thanks. The other night, I almost lost my mind when I thought Tony killed you.”

  “You thought Tony killed me? I think I’m a little bit offended.”

  I smile at his feigned offense. “Shut up. I’m serious.”

  “Is that why you called me five times? You were worried about me?” The smile on his lips widens. “Aww, babe. I’m still here.”

  “Well, stay there. Stay away until things blow over.”

  Luca scowls and fluffs his pillow. “I can take care of myself, Bells.”

  “I don’t mean it that way.”

  “Why do you think the real Anthony Shard was in Chicago?” When I don’t guess, he answers, “I lured him here under the pretense of a job opportunity.”

  “You brought a man here so he could die?”

  “To be fair, I didn’t think Tony would kill him.”

  “But you knew it was a possibility.”

  He sits up and sighs loudly. “Death is always a possibility.”

  “Paulo too?”

  He smooths the wrinkles around his cheeks and rolls his neck before answering, “Don’t argue with me on this, Bells. They are going to look for you, and I’ll use the phone to lead them away.”

  “And put yourself in danger? Luca, I don’t like the idea.”

  “I wasn’t asking for your permission. Just like you didn’t ask me for mine when you did any of the things you did. Accept it and move on.”