by Jamie Zakian
Tears rolled down Sasha’s cheek, warming her frosty skin. “Daddy,” she muttered as a wall of waterworks blurred Dante from sight.
“Don’t worry, dear. It’ll all be over soon.”
The man above Sasha tugged and pulled at her gut. She could feel pressure but no pain, not where he was cutting. All her pain circled inside her heart. Dante was dead. She’d never see Tyler’s smile, never feel Vinny’s rough hands on her skin, never hear her mother’s voice ever again.
A loud crash filled the room, and the man digging into Sasha’s stomach jumped back. His hands rose, higher the farther he backed from the table. A series of pops rang out. The man staggered, and the scalpel tumbled from his hand as bullets pelted his chest and face.
Sasha tried to roll her head to the other side, take a peek at who was shooting up the room, but only got halfway before her cheek flopped back to the cold table.
“Sasha!” A shadow fell over Sasha. She peered up, squinting to make out the figure hovering at her side. “Sasha, can you hear me?”
“Mama,” Sasha slurred at the first glimpse of red nails.
“No, amor. It’s me, Angelina. But—”
“What the fuck?” a woman shouted from the corner. “We’re too late.”
Sasha knew that voice, sharp, silky, but she couldn’t place it.
“Sasha’s still alive,” Angelina said, moving from Sasha’s view. “All her parts are here, somewhere.”
“You killed the fucking doctor.”
“Shit. I can…”
The jumble of voices faded, so low Sasha could no longer hear them. She felt so light, so empty. Warmth waited for her. It was just within reach. Something told her if she closed her eyes right now, it’d all be over. The ache of her shattered heart, the girl with all her missing pieces would be over in the span of a blink. So she closed her eyes and slipped into the black.
***
In a field of sunflowers, on a gentle hillside, Sasha lay on her back. It was warm here, but she knew it would be. Anyplace was better than where she’d just come from.
“You still owe me,” a squeaky voice whispered. Soft lips brushed Sasha’s cheek, and a lock of scarlet hair fell over her face. She inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of lavender.
“Candy.” Sasha rolled onto her side, staring into the greenest eyes she’d ever had the pleasure to glimpse. “Fucking shit, girl. I’ve missed you.”
Candy propped onto her elbow in the tall grass, gazing at Sasha. Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned close. “You still owe me,” she repeated, nodding as she backed away.
“I know.” Sasha couldn’t help but smile. She still remembered that conversation clearly, as though it didn’t happen six years, a coma, and two stone cells ago. “But I can’t keep my—”
An electric jolt ran through Sasha. She sat up straight, looking at Candy. The girl had the cutest crooked grin as she nodded slowly.
Candy wrapped her arms around Sasha, kissed her hard. Their lips glided, skated, caressed one another. Then, as quick as she drifted in, Candy drew back.
“Don’t forget your skin.” Candy winked, hopped to her feet, and hurried up the hill.
Sasha watched Candy run into bright beams of sunshine. Her wavy hair flowed behind her, the ends of her sundress fluttering to flaunt long legs as she ran away.
Once the sun’s rays swallowed Candy up, Sasha rose to her feet. She stared down the hill, at a steep descent into darkness.
“I can’t keep my mother waiting,” she said, stepping into the shadows.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fingertips slid down Sasha’s arm. Someone clutched onto her hand and squeezed. She could actually feel the gentle touch, along with a red-hot prickle in her own fingers and a searing burn in her gut. A cry scraped past her throat, erupting as a whimper.
“That’s it, sweet girl,” said a soft voice. This time, Sasha knew exactly who that voice belonged to. How she could’ve ever forgotten that wonderful sound, she’d never understand.
“Come back to me, Sasha.”
“Mama.” Sasha blinked back a haze, and there she was. Ellen Ashby, the unstoppable, and apparently unkillable, president of Ashby Trucking. She’d found her mother, and it stung. Dante was supposed to be at her side for this moment. He was supposed to see this.
A flood of grief rushed over Sasha, mixing with the joy that already filled her chest. She was so angry, happy, full of pain.
The surge of emotions warped into strength, and Sasha used it to draw back her fist. With all her weight, she lunged forward and clocked her mother square in the eye.
“What the fuck?” Ellen yelled, stumbling back as she cradled her face.
Sasha’s swing took her down, off the edge of a couch. Her hands flew out, stopping her just in time to keep her face from kissing a tile floor.
“Bitch,” Ellen said. She grabbed Sasha beneath the arms and shoved her back onto the couch.
Splinters of sharp prickles spread out from Sasha’s stomach, rippled beneath her flesh, but she ignored that shit. The fire in her chest, whirlwind inside her mind had to be dealt with immediately.
“You left me,” Sasha yelled, cringing at the childish tone that infected her words. “You faked your death and left me, forever.”
Ellen knelt down beside the couch, took Sasha’s hand. “The doctors said you’d never wake up. You left me.”
“No.” Sasha yanked her hand away. “I caught you faking your death. You were gonna leave me anyway.”
“Do you even remember the last conversation we had?”
Sasha sat up, despite the grate of her insides. “Of course I do. It haunts me. I thought you died thinking I didn’t love you. That I didn’t care.”
“So did I.” Ellen squeezed onto the couch, held Sasha in her arms. “So did I.”
Sasha fought to keep from bursting into an insane-like happy chuckle. Her imagination couldn’t hold a candle to the true sensation of being wrapped in her mother’s arms. Every piece of herself she’d lost, soul and flesh, was worth just one minute of this woman’s embrace.
“What happened to you?” Ellen asked, pulling back to stare Sasha over. “There’s scars all over your body, they look old. Except for the track marks on your feet and arms.” Ellen lifted her hand to whack Sasha upside the head. Her jaw clenched, and she lowered her arm to her side.
“What the fuck, Sasha?”
“I met your mother,” Sasha said, and Ellen rose to her feet. “She put me in your old room.”
“No.” Ellen staggered back a few steps. A glaze coated her eyes, her bottom lip trembling. “I’ll skin that bitch.”
“You’ll have to go to Hell to do that. That’s where I sent her, and all your brothers.” Sasha lowered her stare. She’d murdered her mother’s entire family. A bit of the asshole vibe wormed its way in to pluck at her conscience. It didn’t bother her one bit the Mancinis were dead. Those fuckers deserved it. The absence of guilt is what got her. She should feel bad. Her mother had to have been close to those freaks at one point.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sasha muttered into her chest.
“They’re not who I’m grieving for.”
“Dante.” Sasha sank into the couch cushions, holding herself tight. That one word had brought an ocean’s worth of tears to her eyes, but she couldn’t let them out. If she broke down here, so far from Vinny, there’d be nobody to put her back together.
“He was coming to win you back,” she said, keeping her gaze low. “Snuck into the attic at the big house to get your old ring. Even turned down two fine Mexican whores.”
A low, sorrow-filled laugh pulled Sasha’s stare to the center of the room. Her mother stood hunched over, head buried in her hands, shoulders trembling. That’s when Sasha realized her mother wasn’t snickering. The woman was sobbing.
Sasha pushed her weak body off the couch, forced her wobbly legs to stand. She limped toward her mother, ignoring the ripping sensation in her side. The strongest woman in the world
just lost her source of power. Sasha was all too familiar with that feeling. Except her reason to fight had just returned from the dead. Dante wouldn’t be coming back.
The pain in Sasha’s body dwindled under her mother’s agony. She held her mother tight, caressed the woman’s shuddering back, kissed the top of her head. It would work. It was the same exact way Dante had comforted her only hours ago when they were locked in a cell, so she knew it was a surefire method. “I hated Dante but I really, really liked him.”
“Tell me about it.” Ellen pulled back from Sasha’s embrace, wiping away smears of black eyeliner. “What are you doing up? Back to the sickbed with you.”
Gently, Ellen wrapped her arm around Sasha and guided her back toward the couch.
“No.” Sasha squirmed out of her mother’s clutch, teetering from the world’s sudden sway. “I’m good.” She lifted the end of her t-shirt. A long line of black stitches cut across her stomach, which had been the only unscarred part of her body. “What’d they take from me?”
“A kidney,” Ellen said, hovering at Sasha’s side like a gnat. In seconds flat, the woman applied a thick glob of ointment and wrapped a layer of gauze around Sasha’s waist, all with a cigarette dangling from her lips.
“That’s it?” Sasha shrugged, waved her mother off. “Nah, I’m fine.” She glanced around. The dark paintings on the wall, marble floor, and tall posts surrounding a big bed of satin sheets brought a smile to her lips. “We’re back at Angelina’s villa.”
“Yeah. I ran to her for help when I saw Tito’s men hauling you away.”
Sasha headed for the jean backpack on the corner of the bed, slow, since the ache in her side decided to flare-up into a fiery scorch. She tore through the bag, pulling out her spare cargo pants.
“What are you doing?” Ellen asked, picking the rejected clothes that Sasha tossed off the floor.
“I gotta find a postcard, for Vinny, and maybe a phone. He’s probably freaking out right now.”
Ellen pulled a picture from her pocket, staring down at it with a hint of sorrow in her eyes. “Whose child is this?” She held up the polaroid that Sasha had mailed to Vinny days ago, pointed at Tyler.
“Where did you get that?” Sasha snatched the picture from her mother’s hand. Instead of answers, she received a hard glare. It was true Ellen form, which brought a smile to Sasha’s lips.
“This is my son, Tyler.”
“When did you wake up?” Ellen asked, staring at the picture in Sasha’s hand.
“A year ago, maybe two.”
“But—”
“Dante lied to you.” Sasha slumped onto the bed, holding the picture close to her chest. She’d always resented Tyler for having the stare of a man she loathed. But now, after everything, she was glad the kid had inherited Dante’s haunting eyes. “I didn’t lose my baby. I just missed his childhood.”
Ellen stood, stunned, her eyes wide. “The baby lived?”
“He’s Vinny’s,” Sasha muttered, running her finger over the picture. The picture that shouldn’t be in Mexico. She turned to face her mother, resisting the urge to latch onto the woman and shake. “Where did you get this?”
“Sasha, I—”
A loud crash erupted from outside the bedroom door. Sasha pulled on her pants, tucked the picture into her backpack, and grabbed a handgun. “What the fuck is going on out there?”
“Yeah,” Ellen said, scratching her head. “Don’t get mad.”
Sasha rolled her eyes. Of all the openers, that was probably the worst. She could sit around, try to decipher her mother’s bullshit in search of explanations, or she could just walk her ass into the hallway and find out what was up.
Gun in hand, Sasha limped across the room. She opened her door, just as a roar flowed from the end of the hall.
“Fuck,” she said, cringing at the series of bangs coming from the padlocked door at the far end of the hallway.
Ellen stepped beside Sasha, holding out a key. Sasha stared at the door, which rattled on its hinges under a barrage of pounds. The grunts, yells, and bangs grew louder. It sounded like a pack of wild baboons had gotten loose inside that room, and they were properly wrecking shit.
Sasha took the key from her mother’s grasp and headed down the hall. “Are you torturing somebody in there?” She leaned close to the door, jumping back when a thud cracked it up the center.
“Sort of,” Ellen said, flashing a wicked grin that could give the Devil a run for his pitchfork.
“Listen,” Sasha yelled through the door. “I’m coming in.” The ruckus stopped, and she popped open the lock. “If you don’t want to eat a bullet, you better simmer down.” She lifted her gun then shoved open the splintered door.
What Sasha found amid the room of broken furniture, shattered glass, and ripped linens was the last thing on Earth she expected to see. The gun slipped from her hand, and a giggle burst from her mouth.
“Vinny,” she said through a giant smile.
A long exhale sunk Vinny’s chest, his tight shoulders sagging. “Jesus fucking shit, girl.” He rushed toward Sasha, wrapped his arms around her and squeezed tight.
The cry that belted out of Sasha’s mouth couldn’t be stopped. Sharp barbs of pain shot from her gut, ricocheted throughout her body. The scrape of red-hot razorblades on her insides, and the tingles spawning from Vinny’s touch on the outside were too much to handle. Her knees gave out. She dropped to the floor, taking Vinny with her.
“Have you been shot?” Vinny practically yelled in her face, since he was still cradling her in his arms. He pulled up Sasha’s shirt, gasping at the wide stitches peeking out from beneath a blood-soaked bandage.
“I’m okay.” She didn’t give a shit about her ripped-up flesh, stolen organs. Her fingertips were gliding on the stubble of Vinny’s chin, the frosty gleam of Vinny’s eyes were shining down on her, and those lips…if only she had the strength to lift herself up and kiss them.
“Did you get my postcards?”
Time seemed to stop as Vinny smiled. He leaned down. Prickles of electricity nipped Sasha’s lips, right before his kiss rushed in to silence them. His embrace was hard, forceful, yet it was the most passionate hold she’d ever experienced. She’d always felt this undying hunger from his touch. The sensation had been so strong she’d mistaken it for lust, but she was wrong. She didn’t know what true love was, not until this very moment.
“Careful with my girl,” Ellen said from the doorway. “She got carved up like a Thanksgiving Day turkey.”
“No fucking way,” Vinny whispered. He shifted his gaze from Sasha to the doorway, and a laugh flew from his mouth. “Ellen, you’re a goddamn asshole. I should’ve know it was you who grabbed me.” He helped Sasha off the floor. Once she was steady on her feet, he let go to better hurl a glare Ellen’s way. “I hope you’re happy. I trashed all your fancy shit.”
“It wasn’t my shit, kid.”
Vinny scooped Ellen into a bearhug, lifting her feet off the ground. “Otis is pissed at you.”
“I bet.” Ellen boosted a pack of cigarettes from Vinny’s pocket, then took his lighter. “It ain’t easy running the club, is it?”
“Ha!” Vinny snatched the freshly lit cigarette from Ellen’s mouth. He took a drag before passing it to Sasha. “She doesn’t know, huh?” he said to Sasha, even though his taunting grin stayed on Ellen.
“Know what?” Ellen asked, knocking another cigarette loose from Vinny’s pack.
“We need to have a talk,” Sasha said, holding her side to combat its ache. “Where’s Angelina? She has all the weed.”
Sasha pushed past her mother and staggered toward the stairs at the other end of the hallway.
***
A cool breeze rode on the waves of the gulf, adding a chill to the humid air. Sasha never found Angelina. She did find a pile of joints in an ashtray, which she immediately took onto the veranda to enjoy while watching gentle waves crash onto white sands.
Her mother and Vinny had found her befo
re she finished the first joint. By the third, she had thoroughly blown her mother’s mind. It wasn’t the info about Dez’s new woman shacked up at the big house, playing mommy to Sasha’s kid that stunned the woman silent. The little tidbit about Otis playing Don to the Lazzari family was what did the trick. Too bad Sasha didn’t know CPR, because the next thing she was about to tell her mother might give the bitch a heart attack.
“Tyler’s in trouble,” Sasha said. Vinny tensed up, shifting the wicker loveseat they were cuddled on, but Sasha kept her stare on her mother. “Only you can help him.”
Concern washed over Ellen’s face, shining bright in the remnants of day. “Who do I have to kill?”
Sasha almost burst into tears. It was goddamn amazing to have her mother back, and downright terrifying. If she said the wrong thing, hurled the wrong glower, the woman could run off. She didn’t know if she’d survive losing her mother again, but she was one-hundred-percent certain she’d never live through the loss of her son.
“Right now, Tyler is the heir to the Lazzari empire. He can’t live that kind of life. The boy sings, writes poetry, plays guitar. He has a future, bigger than blood and guns.”
“I don’t understand how I can help,” Ellen said, grabbing another joint from the ashtray.
Sasha waited until the doobie was placed in her hand. She needed a hit of smoky courage to bark this order out.
“The plan,” she said through a billow of smoke, “was for you and Dante to take over my position. But now…” Sasha took two more hits then passed the doobie back to her mother. The woman was going to need that joint in a second. “You have to marry Otis, give him a son. So they don’t take mine.”
“Excuse me!” Ellen hopped to her feet, walking to the edge of the stone patio. The way her mother rocked in place, staring out at the long stretch of sand meant trouble. The bitch was about to split, and this time Sasha was too sore to give chase.
“I just saw the man I loved split open.” Ellen charged toward Sasha, hands on hips, glaring down. “I literally held his heart in my hands. And now you want me to marry Dante’s cousin, spit out babies. Girl, do you know how old I am?”
