KINGDOM FALL

by A. Zavarelli

  Robotically, I wash the blood from my hands before I run back to the house. I stop on the second level for my bag and then head straight for the closet in Alessio’s room. I tap on the door four times, and Nino opens it. He can see something isn’t right, and guilt washes over me when he shines the phone light at my shirt. There’s still blood there, but there isn’t time to think about it. I grab one of Alessio’s coats from the closet and take Nino’s hand.

  “Is everything okay?” he asks. “Did you find Manuel?”

  I force a nod and sign that it’s okay.

  Downstairs, I secure him into the backseat of Gwen’s car. The entire time, my heart is beating out of my chest, and I’m paranoid Alessio will show up any second, but I have to manage one problem at a time.

  I smooth my hands over Nino’s arms in reassurance before I take the phone from him and toss it onto the lawn.

  We’re going on a car ride. Don’t worry, okay. You’re safe now.

  He nods, and I climb into the driver’s seat. My fingers fumble with the keys before I realize there’s not a place for them. It’s a start button ignition. It takes me three attempts to figure out I have to apply the brake to get it to work. I’m on the verge of a panic attack when the engine finally fires up. When it does, a silent sob of relief bursts from my lips.

  We make it to the gate, and I’m paranoid it won’t open. As if somehow, in the span of what has probably only been fifteen minutes, Manuel has disabled my access. But it does open, and I drive right out. I drive down the street, and then another and another until I finally hit the freeway. Then I keep driving. I drive for hours until there’s no choice but to stop.

  Nino is asleep in the backseat when I pull into the gas station. I glance back at him nervously, considering how to handle this situation. There’s no way I can use the debit card tied to my account, because Alessio has that information. I don’t doubt he’s probably already accessed it by now, searching for clues. I’ll have to pay cash inside, and I can’t leave Nino out here, even with the doors locked.

  I feel horrible for waking him up, but I have to do it. He stirs slowly, looking around in confusion when he notices where we are.

  Are you thirsty? I ask.

  He shakes his head, and I comb his hair away from his face with my fingers.

  I have to go inside. Do you need to use the bathroom?

  This time, he nods. I’m relieved when he starts to move on his own, unbuckling and climbing out of the car. He takes my hand, and I walk him inside where he uses the bathroom, and then we grab a bottle of water just in case. I don’t know where I’ll stop again. We need to find somewhere to stay for the night. I have some cash on me, but at some point, I’ll have to access more. That’s a problem for another time. Right now, I just need to get back on the road.

  We pay the cashier and walk back to the car. I help Nino inside and buckle him in, giving him the water. I’m a nervous wreck as I try to figure out how to open the gas tank, which turns out to be another button inside. The car smells like Gwen’s perfume, and it makes me nauseous as images of her dead body flicker in and out of my mind.

  I wasn’t sorry when I killed her, but the numbness I enveloped myself in is beginning to dissipate. All I’ve been able to think about for the last hour is Alessio’s reaction when he realizes what I’ve done. I know they had their problems, but he thought of Gwen as his family. I can’t regret killing her when she would have done the same to me, but it sickens me that I have inevitably hurt Alessio by doing so.

  He’ll never forgive me for this. I know it in my heart. It takes everything I have to hold it together as I fill the gas tank, fingers trembling, stomach churning. I close my eyes for a second. A mere second. In that second, everything changes.

  The sound of brakes engaging next to the car makes my spine rigid. A car door shuts. There’s movement as I’m turning just in time to see Manuel slipping into the driver’s seat. My heart jumps into my throat as the locks engage, and Alessio gets out of his car, fury in his gaze as he stalks toward me.

  My eyes move to Nino in the backseat. He’s fallen asleep again. All I can think is I’m not going to get to say goodbye. This is it. This is the last image I’ll have of him.

  Alessio corners me, returning the fuel nozzle and shutting the gas cap. His voice is low and terrifying as he pries the keys from my fingers.

  “Get in the car.”

  He doesn’t mean Gwen’s car. I can’t make myself move. I can’t stop staring at Nino, thinking of all the ways I’ve failed him. What will become of him when I’m not here? Alessio grabs me by the arm and drags me away forcefully. Fighting back is useless. I know that now.

  He hands the keys off to Manuel through the window and leads me to the passenger seat of his car, slamming the door once I’m inside. When Manuel drives away, it feels like a part of me has died already. I press my fingers to the glass, sobbing silently as I mourn a loss so deep it cuts me to the bone.

  Alessio takes his place in the driver’s seat, staring at me with a hatred so pure, it only makes it that much more painful. He doesn’t speak as he pulls away. There isn’t a word uttered from his lips for the entirety of the long drive back to Seattle. I don’t even know where we were. I wasn’t following a map. I was just trying to get as much distance as I could. In hindsight of my failure, I realize my fatal mistake. Gwen’s car likely had some sort of GPS tracker on it. Of course, Alessio would know that. The question is, why didn’t I think of it before?

  Anger, frustration, and sadness mix into a toxic cocktail inside of me. Briefly, I consider throwing myself out of the car and onto the freeway. Surely, it would be less painful to die that way, because I can’t even bear the thought of the alternative. I can’t look into his eyes as he kills me.

  I cry some more, grieving for the life I never got to have. The one I swore I would claw back if it was the last thing I did. Now, I realize how foolish it was. Death was inevitable, and all I did was delay it.

  I’m numb by the time we reach the house. Reluctantly, my eyes move to the dock as the car comes to a stop, but Gwen’s body is no longer there. I don’t know if that’s better or worse.

  Alessio turns off the ignition and steps out, coming around to drag me out too. He doesn’t speak as he hauls me toward the boat house. Agony makes me weak as he opens the door and forces me onto the deck, guiding me to a passenger seat in the cockpit. He shoves me onto the cushion and retrieves a tie-down rope. There’s no resistance on my part as he secures my wrists painfully, looping the restraint through the metal bar beneath the seat cushion.

  This is how he’s going to kill me. I understand that as he moves away and begins his preparations. The external door to the boathouse slides open, and he takes his seat without a word, guiding us out onto the lake. He drives for what feels like hours, but everything is warped right now, including my sense of time. I’m still wondering how he’s going to do it as I watch the side of his face, studying the man I’ve come to know during my time with him.

  Even now, my pitiful heart skips a beat when I look at him. There’s still a sense of hope that reality hasn’t diminished, as if there could be another alternative to what I know to be true. Gwen told me he was only using me. She told me it would have always come to this. I don’t want to believe it, but the longer I watch him, the more I wonder.

  Did he ever feel anything at all?

  More tears stream down my face, and I’m still crying when he adjusts the speed and starts to slow. When he stops the boat completely, I try to shut down too. Locking my emotions away, putting on a brave face, I remember who I am. I remember why I’m here. I’m a survivor. I came here to fight, and I’m not giving up. Not until there’s no hope left.

  Alessio stares out over the water, unmoving, and I think he’s trying to remember who he is too. When he finally turns, approaching me with empty eyes, terror chokes the air from my lungs. He’s reverting to what he knows, his ability to dissociate more powerful than my own. I can see it in the mech
anical way he unties my wrists and tosses me a notepad and pen from his bag, staring down at me with disgust.

  “Why?” he demands.

  My throat burns with emotion, but I know it doesn’t matter what I tell him. He’s not here to listen or accept my explanation. He thinks he wants it, but there’s nothing I can say to make him feel better about what happened.

  She tried to kill me.

  “Bullshit,” he snarls. “You destroyed my security system. You cut the power to the house and used a signal jammer. There was something you didn’t want me to see. Tell me what it was.”

  I shake my head in denial, but he’s already made up his mind.

  “Where did you get the poison, Natalia?” He leans down into my face, his biceps rippling with rage. “Who the fuck are you working for?”

  I release a stuttered breath. There’s no deceiving him now. He accepted my half-truths before, but he’s done playing this game, and I’m tired of lying too.

  I’m not working for anyone, and the poison wasn’t mine. If it were, I’d have nothing to lose by admitting it now. I’m not a spy, Alessio. I have no idea how your security system works, but Gwen did.

  “Lie to me one more time.” He stares at me with hollow eyes, slowly removing a pistol from the holster at his side.

  I’m not proclaiming my innocence. I’ll admit freely that I came here to destroy you and your kingdom. I intended to take back my life and I didn’t care who I had to kill to do it. That included you. Especially you. Because you were always my biggest threat. Except, when it came down to it, I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know who you were when I made those plans, but I know now. Having feelings for you wasn’t in the cards, but it happened regardless. So many times, I thought about telling you the truth, but Gwen figured out who I was. And then, I had no choice.

  “Who, Natalia?” he demands. “Tell me who the fuck you’re supposed to be.”

  I dip my head, choking on my thoughts as I try to avoid his gaze. But he grabs me by the throat, wrenching my head back as he shoves the pistol into my mouth, gnashing it against my teeth.

  “I can’t believe a goddamned word you say.” His fingers dig into my flesh. “You don’t talk to me about your fucking feelings because it’s all bullshit. There is one thing I’d like to know, though. Do you like sucking on this as much as you liked my cock in your mouth? You filthy fucking liar.”

  I sob silently, torn apart by the grief radiating from him. He isn’t just angry. His hand is shaking as he tries to hold onto me, and his voice is raw. I thought he was empty, but I was wrong. I was so wrong. Alessio is full of emotions, and they are spilling all over me.

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.” He cocks the pistol and stares deep into my eyes. “One fucking reason, Natalia.”

  I swallow, carefully moving my hand up to his. He allows me to retreat slightly, and I push past the pain in my broken vocal cords as I force them to cooperate.

  “Because I’m Nino’s mother.”

  20

  Alessio

  Her choked voice startles me, and it’s so faint, I thought I misheard her. But after several moments of replaying it in my mind, I realize I couldn’t have.

  I’m Nino’s mother.

  I dissect her words, staring deep into the eyes that have betrayed me for months. I think she could have told me anything else, but the conviction in her gaze is more painful than I thought it could be. I realize now she’s not just a liar, she’s insane. She’s literally fucking insane.

  “You aren’t Nino’s mother.” My fingers fall away from her as I remove the pistol from between her lips.

  I feel like I’ve been shot in the chest all over again. Everything aches. It aches so much, the only logical thing to do is put her down like a rabid animal. Insane or not, I can’t forgive her for what she’s done, but I can see that she believes it. She believes in her twisted mind that this is her reality.

  I try to make sense of it, but I can’t. I can’t accept this as the reason. I need more from her. I need to understand the path she took to arrive at this conclusion. I need to know what drove her to destroy me this way.

  I retreat to my bag, disarming the pistol and replacing it with the vial I carry with me to all my jobs. This is always a last resort. It’s effective, but it takes patience and time I don’t like to waste. I don’t usually know a subject well enough to wade through all the deepest caverns of their consciousness, trying to discern truth from fear, but I need to know Natalia’s every truth. I need to mindfuck her until every lie she’s ever spun unravels.

  I remove the dropper and grab her by the face. She squirms in my grasp, fear swallowing the light from her eyes as I force her mouth open.

  “It’s a psychedelic,” I tell her as the tincture splashes against her tongue. “You should know this about me, Natalia. I always get the answers I want, even if I have to cut them out.”

  Her eyes well with tears as I force her lips closed and make her swallow. Inevitably, she does. I’m impatient, strung too tight to sit here and wait, but I have no choice. It takes time.

  I take the seat opposite of her, watching her as she watches me. Minutes pass. It’s dark and silent in this part of the water. At the bottom of the lake, nobody would ever know she was here. My mind is a warzone of those images. I’m torn between killing her and kissing her one last time.

  It goes on forever, an endless sea of stillness. I need a reaction from her. She’s resistant, fighting it off as she tries to hold it together. Slowly, it starts to happen. She’s sweating. Her leg starts to bounce up and down. She moves her hand in front of her face, sucking in a sharp breath.

  I rise from my seat and lean over her, doing what I’ve wanted to do since she arrived. I reach for her neck scarf, and she stares up at my face as I release the knot. As the silk unravels, falling into her lap, I’m not surprised to see the scar I always suspected was there. I am surprised, however, by the anguish I feel when my fingers move over the jagged flesh.

  Somebody cut her throat.

  Her hands come up to mine, and when my eyes meet hers, there is a wall of raw grief behind them.

  “I’m scared,” she croaks.

  The tincture is bringing her fears to life, and she’s seeking reassurance from me. I swallow the discomfort in my own throat as I pull away, tapping the notepad in her lap.

  “Tell me who you are.”

  She takes the pen in hand, writing in jerky letters.

  Natalia Cabrera is my real name. I didn’t have the resources to change it credibly. I had to bank on the fact that you wouldn’t know who I was. My son’s name was Camilo, before he changed it. I am Nino’s mother.

  “No.” I glare at her. “You aren’t.”

  She taps the pen against the paper in frustration, and I don’t know how this is going to work. It will take forever to get the answers I need. I’m starting to doubt this plan, wondering if I can force her to talk, even though it’s obviously painful for her. As I’m considering it, she starts to write again. I wait for her to stop, but she doesn’t. She keeps going as if she’s in a trance. Filling up pages in big block letters as she gazes into the paper like she’s reliving a memory. I don’t speak. I don’t even want to breathe. I think this could be important, but when she finally shows it to me, I don’t know if I can even stomach reading it.

  I stare at her for a long moment, and she shoves the notepad at me, forcing me to acknowledge it. Slowly, my gaze dips to the words, and I find myself entrapped.

  I went to college in New York City, taking classes during the day, cleaning office buildings at night. One of my regular clients was on Pearl Street. I didn’t know what kind of business it was. It was just an old building with a bunch of empty offices and only one that ever got used. The guy’s name was Nathaniel. I always suspected something wasn’t entirely right about his operation, but he paid me cash and never bothered me, even though he stayed in the office when I cleaned. Occasionally, Nathaniel would have visitors come through, and one o
f them was always watching me when he stopped by. He creeped me out, but I didn’t see him often enough to think it was a real concern. Then one night, Nathaniel stepped out, and the guy showed up when I was there alone. He cornered me in one of the empty offices and asked me if I was afraid of him. I told him no, but I knew he could sense I was lying. I think he enjoyed it.

  He told me I was pretty. I thanked him and tried to finish my work. I was young, and I didn’t know how to handle the situation. I’d never even had a boyfriend before. I thought if I told him no, he would respect that. He said he wanted to take me out that night. I declined, and he got angry. He asked me if I thought I was too good for him. I tried to leave the office, but he grabbed me by the arm. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to think about it. One minute, I was trying to escape, and the next, he had me pinned against the desk. I think I screamed. He punched me in the face. After that, it was a blur. Mostly, I remember the senses around me. The sound of his zipper coming undone. Nausea as he pulled down my pants. His fingertips digging into my skin. He smelled like strong laundry soap. There was pain between my legs. It hurt because I wasn’t prepared for it. It was my first time. And I kept thinking I should have been fighting back, but I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move. All I could do was cling to the desk as he took what he wanted. I don’t know how long it lasted. It felt like hours, but I think it was only minutes. When he was done, he tucked himself away and said he thought I’d have more fight in me. He said I was disappointing. Before he left, he paused and then turned and asked me if I knew who he was. I shook my head, and he said you don’t want to find out. Keep your fucking mouth shut, and you get to live. I knew he meant it, so I didn’t say anything. Not right away. But after that, nothing was the same. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I lived in constant fear, looking over my shoulder.