Double Edged Hearts

by Gray, Khardine

  “Stuff I can’t get my head around,” I confess.

  “You…haven’t seemed yourself since before we left LA. Your mood seemed to change when we were asked to come here. What’s going on?”

  I bring my hands together. “Have you ever done something you know was for the best, but then you feel terrible after?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “It’s that.”

  She blinks a few times and presses her lips together. “Is this guy related?” she asks.

  The question doesn’t surprise me because this is Lyndsey. She’s a quick study and nothing gets past her. That means I shouldn’t lie.

  “Yeah,” I confess and her eyes snap wide.

  “Oh my God I knew it. I did. Cora, why on earth wouldn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s complicated.” That’s the best way I can describe the situation between me and Alex.

  “Okay, I really loathe that word. It’s an asshole word people use as a get out of jail card. I know there’s a lot you don’t tell me.” She shakes her head. “Everything we end up talking about is very basic.”

  Because she doesn’t know my past and my secrets.

  “I um…” I try to hold back the tears that threaten to fall but it doesn’t work. I can’t be strong today. When I think of Alex’s face and the disappointment in his eyes as I told him I didn’t want a future with him a tear tracks down my cheek.

  Lyndsey gets up and comes around to me.

  “Oh my God Cora, what is happening? I’m your friend for God sake. You can talk to me.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t talk about it. I can’t… not now. I don’t want to fall apart at work.”

  “I guess we’re not talking about Zack, are we?” she asks, holding out a box of tissues for me to take.

  “No.”

  “Was this guy someone who hurt you?”

  I wish he had. It would have been easier. “No, I hurt him. I had to… end things.”

  She stares at me. “I’m sorry. What do you need me to do? Let me know how I can help.”

  “I’ll be okay.” I attempt a smile and dab at the corners of my eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

  That’s what I have to tell myself from now on.

  That I’ll be fine even if deep down I don’t believe it.

  Chapter Seven

  Alex

  It always rains on this day so I’m not surprised to see the angry gray clouds rolling across the sky, getting ready to unleash a storm.

  It fits. All of it. The weather fits my mood and it fits the day.

  I look down at Jude’s headstone and rivet my gaze to the date I killed him.

  April 16, 2012.

  That’s a day that will always be embedded in my mind.

  Today is the sixth anniversary of his death.

  A single white rose lays on his grave. That’s not from me. It’s always here before I arrive and I have no idea who leaves it.

  My mind tells me it’s a woman. Someone he loved. Someone I stole his life away from. I could be wrong, it’s just something my imagination conjured up. But, it’s a feeling I get.

  I know for damn sure it’s not one of the guys.

  We might have this brotherhood and bond of friendship but Jude did too much evil. There was no forgiveness when it came to him. Only hurt. Sadness caused by his betrayal that stemmed back for years.

  I’ve always felt bad because deep down I suspected he was playing sides. Jude was always greedy, always wanted things he couldn’t have. It made him the monster who killed people close and dear to us.

  What happened to Claudius was really bad. Jude kidnapped his first wife and handed her over to the enemy who attached a bomb to her and killed her. That was unforgivable. But there was a guy who used to travel with us called Henry. He was a friend to us all. A guy who helped me many times. Jude set him up too and the enemy killed Henry and his family. Henry’s kids were babies, barely five years old. They were poisoned.

  That was the extent of Jude’s wickedness.

  Everything that happened to us in the past that felt odd, or unexplained in some way when an enemy had an upper hand was him. All Jude’s doing.

  Evil.

  Everything my brother did was evil and that’s why no one is here with me today.

  I don’t blame anybody. I can’t. My situation is different. The guys usually show their support for me in one way or another. But they never come to the cemetery to grieve with me. Never came that day either when I buried him.

  I had a private funeral that just included me and a priest, making it easy for everyone so they wouldn’t have to feel awkward.

  I’m not sure why I come here myself. It’s inappropriate, but I’m here to remember him as the guy who took care of me when I needed someone. That’s the Jude I choose to remember.

  Today is the first I’ve come here with so much shit on my mind. Usually I just come with the guilt in my heart and the loss that always weighs me down.

  Today the loss includes Cora because I know deep down I have to forget her.

  It’s been four days since I last saw her. I haven’t been able to get my head around all that she said, nor shake the news of her parents from my mind.

  As she spoke I could see the agony in her eyes. Through her eyes I saw the pain in her soul and I knew that she must have gone through hell when she heard the truth of what happened.

  Nights ago I dropped the comment that she used to run to me. She wouldn’t have run to me then in her state of pain because she saw me as the enemy. The same as her father.

  A gangster. No good. Wicked and evil.

  Back when we were together, she barely spoke about her parents and when she did there was always a sadness that prevented me from asking more than what she was willing to share. She never even told me how they died. Cora just said it was an accident. I know that hearing the truth must have done a number on her big time and I understand now why she left. I wish I could have been there for her.

  I’d be some kind of prick if I didn’t understand that and understand everything else in terms of why she became a fed. And I’d be a prick if I didn’t acknowledge that I understand why she doesn’t want to be with me, or be part of my world.

  It all makes sense and after hearing her pour her heart out I should leave her alone. I should allow her to have a normal life and be with a guy who can give her everything she wants.

  The way she explained what happened made me think she was instinctively leaving out parts of the story. Like why Richard suddenly decided to tell her the truth when he did. I’m not stupid. I figured his confession must have been geared at something. My gut tells me he must have figured out that we were seeing each other. Prick. I can’t blame him though, or her.

  She just wants a normal life and he wants her to be with someone who can give that to her. That’s not me.

  That’s it in a nutshell, and if I love her the way I say I do, I should want better for her.

  I’m just being a selfish bastard because I don’t want her to do better with some other guy. I still want it to be me. What I’m doing though is respecting her wishes and her decision.

  I respect that she thinks she’d be happier without me in her life, so I should stay out of her way and allow her to be happy.

  As the trickle of rain drips on to my arm the hum of a motorcycle engine makes me look over my shoulder.

  There’s a lone biker dressed in full black riding down the path leading from the gates. It’s Donny. I recognize his bike. The black Kawasaki Ninja H2R we ordered from Japan last month.

  He gets closer, stops by the tree nearby and takes off his helmet. He scans over my full black attire and gives me a look of sympathy before he gets off the bike and joins me.

  I just look at him, surprised, shocked even because this is the first that anybody’s come.

  “Donny…” I say and he gives me a curt nod.

  “Thought with all the shit happening you could do with having someone here today,” he answers an
d for the first time I see how much he values our friendship.

  I raise my fist and bump it with his. He then gives me a reassuring pat on my shoulder.

  “Thank you. I…thank you,” I answer.

  “Don’t mention it.” He looks to the grave and sees the rose. When he returns his gaze to me he sighs. “That there again?”

  I narrow my eyes. I wasn’t aware that he’d ever come here before. Certainly not enough to take note of the rose.

  “Yeah. How many times have you been here to remember it?” I ask.

  “Three and today makes four. Somehow I knew it wasn’t you. Am I right?”

  “It’s not me,” I answer.

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “No. I don’t suppose I will either. I’m not sure I want to. Some things are best left in the dark.”

  “Yeah. You’re probably right. I came in the past. Much as I want to hate him I remember how he saved me from death in a bar fight,” Donny says. That’s the first time he’s mentioned that to me.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I was drunk. I found out a doll I was really into cheated on me with JoJo De Lucca, so I thought I’d be the big man and kick his ass.” He smirks.

  That guy is dead now. Someone hired a hit on him. It was a real messy one and the fuckers cut him up and buried his body parts all over Chicago. We all suspected it was an inside job because when he was alive nobody would mess with him. I don’t know why Donny went after him by himself. Drunk or not.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Jude played a game of Russian Roulette and won my life back for me. Said you’d be mad at him if he allowed one of your friends to die.” Gratitude fills his eyes and he glances down at the grave while I continue to stare at him.

  Damn…sometimes I don’t know how to feel. There’s always a war raging inside me.

  “He had his good points Alex, but fuck…the bad wiped it out.” Donny looks back to me. “I think it’s okay to remember the good things.”

  “I’m not sure I should remember anything. Maybe it’s best if I just forget. And I mean forget him completely. Like he never existed. Stop coming here, maybe. It doesn’t do me any good,” I reply.

  Donny sighs. “I think you would feel worse. That’s why you come. You already know you don’t need to. You already know you don’t have to. But you come because you were brothers.”

  He’s right. “I blame myself Donny. I pulled the trigger but fuck… I blame myself for more than that because I should have said something before it got to that stage. Maybe he wouldn’t have gotten in so much trouble.”

  “Maybe… maybe not. It’s not something you can blame yourself for. Jude was his own person and a strong character. There’s not a damn thing anybody could have said to change his mind when he decided he was going to do something. So don’t even go there. He was your brother. You knew what he was like.”

  I nod. The rain comes now. It starts with a light drizzle that quickly gets heavier. I look up at the sky and run a hand over my head.

  “Come on, I think that means it’s time to go,” Donny adds.

  “Yeah,” I agree.

  I take one last look at the grave as the rain beats down on the flower, drenching it. Some of the petals fall off.

  I wish Jude wasn’t six feet under and I wish things had worked out differently.

  I’ll always, always feel bad for what I did, but I feel even worse that he betrayed me too with his actions.

  He would have known that it was only a matter of time that someone would end him.

  That person was me.

  Chapter Eight

  Alex

  “This will sell for ten G’s easily,” Dante beams, looking over the work he and Gio did on their latest modification.

  They changed the wheels on a Kawasaki Ninja 650, turning it into a speed demon. They have a buyer who always spends a pretty penny on anything they work on.

  “Ten g’s it is,” I agree and he nods vigorously.

  We’ve been working in the garage at the arena for a little over an hour. The guys came by not long after I got back from the cemetery.

  They know I can handle a sale just fine, but I know they’re here to check up on me. Hanging out with the motorcycles, the bond that glues us together, is our unspoken way of supporting each other in times of grief.

  They’re doing the standard check for Jude’s anniversary and with my mood being evidently shit over the last few days, I know they’re anxious for me to talk about Cora.

  Having them here has helped take my mind off things a little. I don’t expect Claudius to come, but he’ll do some little thing later and I’ll know it was his way of showing his support.

  “Alex, kid, Manuel will be here soon, and he’s gonna try and talk the price down,” Gio points out, hopping off the counter.

  “Yeah make sure that asshole doesn’t give you any less,” Dante chimes in

  “Manuel better not cross me, or it’s his funeral,” I answer.

  “Good, that’s the spirit. I’m just a humble man with a wife and kids to feed,” Dante says.

  I feel like shit, but this is a guy who knows how to crack through my mood. I smirk and shake my head at him as I wipe the grease off my hands and set the cloth down on the work top.

  “Dante, you, my friend, are far from a humble man,” I point out, and Gio laughs.

  Dante and Gio make the most money out of the three of us. Dante owns a club, and Gio is his business partner. They bring in six figures a month. Add that to the fortune we make from adrenaline junkies who love the arena, and he is far from humble.

  “The point about humility is not flaunting your shit around,” Dante preaches like he’s delivering the Sunday sermon.

  “Or maybe not selling a priceless item for ten g’s. I’m tempted to keep this for myself.” Gio smirks.

  “No, you will not.” Dante punches him hard in his arm. “You fucking keep doing that. Don’t think I don’t know about that damn bet you have with the Giordano boys.”

  I roll my eyes. We’re all a long way from being boys but that’s what we all call each other. It stuck from back in the day when we all met. We were boys then. I was a few months shy of my seventeenth birthday when Jude and I moved here. One of my father’s friends who knew him from Italy made the arrangements for us to work with Raphael Rossi. Outside these guys, the Giordano boys were my first friends and to this day we all travel as a pack watching each other’s backs. Fuck knows what kind of bet Gio’s made with them. They’re as crazy as us, from one to the next.

  “Dante, would I do such a thing?” Gio asks feigning innocence.

  “You mean have me work my ass off on a bike so you can take it and use it to race Salvatore Giordano? Yeah you would, just like last time. And you didn’t invite me,” Dante throws back.

  “Your wife said if I get you killed she’ll cut my head off, and my wife agreed she’d join her,” Gio answers with a chuckle and I just shake my head at the two of them.

  “You guys and your dolls,” I scoff. I make it sound like it must be such a drag but I don’t really think that. I’m the only one who isn’t attached or in a relationship like they are and I don’t have kids. They all have families. I wanted that with Cora. If I hadn’t met the perfect girl and seen myself having a future with her it would be easier. “What’s the bet?” I ask, changing the subject.

  Gio gives me one of his crazy smiles. “Remember when you tried to jump over the trailers? I want to do it.”

  Again I shake my head, but Dante just laughs.

  “You fucker, you’re gonna die.” Dante punches him in his shoulder.

  “We’ll see about that. I’m gonna ask Alex to train me.”

  I narrow my eyes at him.

  Dante and Gio exchange curious glances then look back to me. I’m guessing I’m about to hear the talk they’ve been gearing up to give me.

  “What?” I ask. I can’t stand the pussyfooting.

  “Just want to know if yo
u’re okay, kid. That’s all,” Dante says

  “What do you want me to say?” I raise my shoulders into a shrug.

  “So, that’s a no.”

  “It’s a no,” I answer.

  “For the day, or the girl?” Gio asks.

  I sigh. “It’s best I don’t talk about either. There’s nothing to say.” I lost them both.

  “Alex, this day is always going to be hard for you.”

  “It’s always going to be painful,” Dante adds.

  The lighthearted mood is gone now. I know they know pain. That’s why we have the crosses tattooed on our necks. We wear it to remember our fallen.

  There’s a big difference between me and them though.

  Dante’s sister was murdered, he wears his for her. Gio’s best friend was murdered, he wears his for him. Phillipe was murdered, the cross on my neck is for him.

  What no one can see is the cross I bear for killing Jude. Nobody will ever understand that. I know I had to kill him, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

  “Yeah. It will always be painful and hard,” I agree.

  “We’re here for you, and since we’re here maybe we can talk about the other thing that’s on your mind,” Gio offers, looking me over with concern.

  He’s talking about Cora. The only person I’ve truly spoken to about her is Donny and even he doesn’t have the full details.

  “We’re done, that’s the short version of the story,” I reply. “It’s over.”

  “Alex, maybe it wasn’t meant to be,” Gio surmises and I just nod.

  That’s the very thing I’m telling myself. Cora and I weren’t meant to be together.

  “You know what Gio, I think so. I think you’re right,” I answer and they both exchange glances.

  The only direction our relationship could have ever gone is south. That was always the worry. From the minute I knew she had some links to the feds through Richard, I knew we’d have problems. As time went on I hoped maybe we’d be okay.

  But we weren’t. So, I’m inclined to believe we weren’t meant to be.

  “I know it’s difficult and there’s no right thing to say, but I’m gonna tell you to take the time to let it sink in and move past it,” Dante says.