by Rachel Renee
My pace quickens to Santi and my thoughts don’t slow down. I made the move that furthered my career, that may catapult my investigation and I won’t look back. I can’t. This is what I was trained to do. Complete a mission by any means necessary.
Kneeling down slightly, I nudge Santi, hoping he will wake. He comes to, barely. I help him up, dragging him to the vault and continuing my attempt to break us back in to it so that we can be released into the bank and out into the world above. I have to act quickly but my hands are struggling to cooperate with the signals my brain is sending. It takes longer to get in than it did to get out, but the final click unlocking the door almost puts a smile on my face. It’s short-lived; no time for any sort of celebration.
After getting the door open, I prop Santi up against the wall, using his foot to keep the door ajar. I have to get rid of those bodies before I can call up to the manager to get us out of here.
I stoop down, removing the older man’s blue suit jacket, wrapping his head with it. If I can keep more blood from being tracked across this floor, it will be a miracle. My hands are placed under the man’s armpits and I begin dragging him in the opposite direction of the elevators. He’s quite heavy, close to two hundred pounds, so the movement is slow, but it’s constant. Moments later, I have him around the corner and out of sight. I jog to the second man, the one who thought he was going to take advantage of me. I put his jacket over his unrecognizable face and start pulling. Thankfully, he’s a little lighter and I arrive at my destination quickly.
As I place the second man on top of the first, I give myself one more second to look at the lives lost at my hands. Could I have subdued the men in another way had I been at the top of my game? The way I reacted came from my gut. I didn’t have enough experience, enough forethought, to come up with another plan at that split second.
Racing back to the site of impact, my eyes scan the perimeter, to the blood splatter covering the wall and puddling on the floor where the men’s heads landed. What can I do to hide this mess? I unbutton my shirt, throwing it toward Santi, before removing the t-shirt that was underneath. It won’t sop up much, but if I can clean the floor, even just a little, it will be a huge improvement. My shirt soaks up the first puddle, but it won’t be able to do a thing for the second. I take the blood-sodden shirt, my hand underneath to keep it from dripping, and carry it within the vault, depositing it in the gun crate that was never removed.
Santi is moving slightly, but he’s yet to gain full consciousness. I’m going to need his shirt to sop up puddle number two. He’s mumbling as I unbutton his white shirt, then slaps at me as I remove it from his person. His eyes part when I pull his t-shirt over his head. I put my finger up to my lips to silence the words that looked like they were about to spring from his mouth.
Santi’s t-shirt gets the same treatment as mine did. After the second man’s blood is sopped up the best I could get, his shirt ends up in the crate as well. I secure the lid and the contents within. Entering the hall one more time, my head turns from side to side. There’s nothing I’m going to be able to do about the blood splatter. There’s not enough time to clean it up. Our only hope is that in the dimly lit hallway, the bank manager will miss it. I like to think that I wouldn’t notice it if I didn’t know it was there.
Pulling Santi further into the vault causes the door to close automatically. I pull my shirt on and button it as fast as I can so that I can do the same for Santi. His back is leaned haphazardly against the wall, his legs and arms spread out as he slumps forward, making a gurgling sound. I step to him, bending over and grasping his head with both hands. “We’ve got to get out of here,” I whisper. I pull his shirt around his back, struggling to get his right arm in its sleeve. Santi’s eyes pop open as he realizes what I’m doing. He’s able to help me get his arms in place, but I do the buttoning of the top.
“Fuck,” he utters. The first coherent word I’ve heard from him since the hit. I chuckle uncomfortably. Fuck indeed, my friend. Especially if we get caught on the way out. I check that the door is locked and call up to the bank manager.
“Do you want to try and get the money?” I mouth.
“We have to.”
“I killed those men, Santi. If the bank manager sees them before we get out of—”
“He’s not going to. We can’t think like that.” His words are a whisper, but I hear him loud and clear.
Our dilemma seems overwhelming and I sigh, but I don’t stop because when I look into Santi’s face, I know we have to complete this task. “Come on, we need to get you up. What are we going to do about the blood coming from the back of your head? Do you have anything in here to cover it?”
He points to the table in the center of the room. “Top drawer.”
I don’t know what I’m going to find in the metal cabinet, but a drawer full of hats was not at the top of the list. I mean, how convenient? I rummage through and find something dark in color. It should also cover his wound for the small amount of time we will need to finish up what we came here to do.
“This is going to hurt,” I whisper as I fashion the hat atop Santi’s head, making sure his injury is hidden.
“Nothing worse than what will happen if I don’t get that money to my father.” He smirks.
The door opens just then. We both turn to see the manager standing within the frame, staring wide-eyed back at the two of us. We’re screwed. He noticed the brain matter, a splatter of blood, or worse, he came across the bodies. Instead, he points down at his watch.
“Time is nearly up. Cutting it close, aren’t we?” He taps his fingers on the glass. He was only worried about the fact that we were almost out of time. A scowl forms on his face as we walk to him. He’s ushering us into the hallway and locking up when I happen to glance behind him at the mess that is definitely not hidden as well as I previously thought. The pause in Santi’s steps alerts me to the fact that he notices it as well. I stand directly behind the bank manager so that he has to turn toward Santi and not in the direction of the incriminating evidence.
He rotates directly into Santi, who is plastering on a smile and telling the bank manager about needing to go to the deposit box. We don’t even know that the money is actually in there, but Santi seems determined to finish all the tasks his father appointed to us.
My palms are sweating upon entering the elevator. I wipe them on my pant leg before looking over at Santi. His hand is shaking slightly, but he keeps the smile broadcasted. I wait as the two exit the elevator, holding the doors with my arm while they unlock the deposit box right outside the second-floor entrance. Santi nods as he re-enters, and the case that is now in his possession tells me that he got what he wanted.
As the elevator opens up on the main floor of the bank, my feet carry me quickly off. I don’t wait around for the niceties. I nudge Santi along as well, my hand grasping his elbow. The quicker we get out of here, the better off we will be. Even if they do find those bodies, we can be gone, over the country line. But not if we don’t get a move on.
Santi unlocks the car the moment we are in range. He throws the key fob in my direction and tells me I’m to drive. Until that moment, I didn’t realize I hadn’t taken a breath since I stepped off that elevator. I’m practically gasping for air as we reach the car. Santi slides into the passenger seat, removing the hat as he slams the door with his free hand.
Closing the driver’s side door, my hands then reach up and grasp the leather steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white. My foot finds the pedal as my thumb pushes the ignition button simultaneously. I’m standing outside of my body. Every move I make feels surreal, like I’m a spectator watching. I didn’t want today to happen the way it did, but the relief I feel as we back out of the spot and speed toward our exit tells me everything I need to know. Things will be different after today. Niccolo pulled the trigger, but Liam is feeling the effects.
23
Present Day
I killed on my very first mission. It was the most dev
astating thing I’d ever endured up until that point. It has never gotten easier. Physically, yes, mentally…I try to block it out. I never want that hanging over me, but sometimes the darkness looms and there’s nothing that I can do about it. Except for when Eliza’s near. She’s never made me feel like what I do is abhorrent. Although, I wasn’t always forthcoming with her. I was so afraid of what she would think of me if she knew the truth. She’s a police detective, homicide, and things that I’ve done are similar to things that she’s put men and women behind bars for.
I will say, she doesn’t love it, but she understands. It’s a job. The people that I’ve had to use full force on, the men whose lives have ended at my hand, only happened because there was no other choice. I have never set out to do bodily harm to anyone, it’s just part of what some aspects call for. Killing is something that happens when you’ve given your life over to the CIA. Not all the time, but more frequently than one might think.
Case in point. Sitting here on this airplane, flying to Italy to handle something that I thought was long over, has me thinking about what I underwent the first time I found myself in the country. Santi Rubio, one of the men I’d been assigned to build a case against, got me into a situation. One that I shouldn’t have been in, but was pertinent to the case I was working. Everything seemed to be going as planned. Better, actually. That should have been my first indicator. Seeing as how it was my very first case, I had nothing to go off of but book training and computer simulation. The CIA tries to give you as much experience as possible before inserting you into a mission, but there is nothing that can take the place of real-life lessons.
Santi and I were held at gunpoint, by two men who had something to prove against the Rubio family. Santi was a boy. Hell, I wasn’t much older, but we were thrust into the middle of money and guns changing hands and someone felt like they had been getting the raw end of the deal. The moment the cold metal pressed against my scalp, I knew what was going to happen. Someone would not be coming out of that situation alive. I was not about to die. I had too much of my life ahead of me. That left only one choice.
It’s funny how you can still picture the way someone looked at you. How you felt relieved when the reason for the look was completely different than what you imagined. I still can’t figure out how that bank manager missed what took place in his vaults that day. If he ever found out what happened, it would be news to me. Those bodies had to turn up at some point. Or, maybe not. Once I told Moretti what had happened, the whole thing seemed to have been swept under the rug. Maybe the CIA took care of it. Or maybe Paolo found a way to cover it all up. Whatever happened, whoever took care of the mess Santi and I made, I was never informed or implicated in it.
After recovering the money without incident, we were out of the bank in under ten minutes of us alerting the manager we were through in the vault. I listened in as Santi spoke to his father about the incident during the drive home. I drove, of course. Santi was still bleeding, although it had slowed some after he wrapped a shirt from his backseat tightly around his wounded head. The conversation was heated and I could feel the tension even through the mumbled phone conversation. Paolo was worried more for his son than he was for the guns or the money, which actually surprised me. I gathered that Paolo Rubio was furious and those two men we left stacked in the depths of the bank were just pawns in a much bigger scheme to take the Rubio dynasty down a peg or two.
I listened to the conversation, but my mind drifted to those two men. As I think of them now, I still wonder who they were in their former lives. I’ve done plenty of things I regret, completed assignments that went against every moral fiber of my being, and yet, I still consider myself someone who is capable of good. Capable of love. Did those men feel the same way?
I’m beating myself up over something that happened more than ten years ago. Events that I had blocked from my mind. Why now? Why am I traveling across the ocean to dig up the past?
Charlie, that’s why. He seems to have dragged up a few items that involve me and the case that was buried in Italy years ago. Now, I have to go back and entomb those loose ends once and for all.
24
2008
After what happened in the bank vaults, Santi and his father decided that he should take a backseat to some of the family dealings. Paolo and I came to an understanding that I was to tell no one what had taken place and he would make sure that I stayed out of trouble. Since then, he’s propositioned me a few times to help him out. Says a professor can’t make enough money to live very nicely in a city such as Florence or even Rome, so he wanted to offer me a little side cash in exchange for help with the family business. After all, he was thankful for the fact that I saved his son’s life and that I acted so quickly in getting us out of there undetected and unharmed. Well, besides the knock to the head Santi received.
I was taken aback that now I was trusted enough to be in Paolo Rubio’s inner dealings. Although, he had something to hang over my head so maybe I wasn’t really as trusted as I would like to think. Unbeknownst to him, I didn’t actually have to worry about being blackmailed. What he offered me was setting me on the right course to getting my mission accomplished. After the bank incident, my team and I already had quite a bit of intel and a direction to turn in to make this case. There are just a few loose ends to tie up to get Rubio right where we need him to be.
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in Italy for nearly a year now. My first year of teaching was a success and I think if I had to choose another profession, being a college professor would be it. I’m certain I would not appeal to the young children, but teaching those just a few years younger than me has earned me high marks in the university record. The dean recommended me to teach more classes next year and despite my constant rejection, he tried to get me to stay on throughout the summer months. The CIA would not allow it. Ordered me back to Rome to be closer to my target and my team.
It was a long school year, in the fact that I didn’t spend much time in the company of Charlie, Moretti, or Sophia, although she did visit me a couple of times. For Santi to be someone who is against relationships, he sure does push for Sophia and me. When she would visit, we would pretend our relationship was growing because it made Santi happy. She would always spend the night in my room and despite what Santi believed we were doing, nothing physically happened between the two of us. If Sophia was staying with me, I was sleeping on the floor, while she would rest peacefully, yet alone, in my bed.
I do admire Sophia, though. She’s good at her part, sometimes so good that I worry her feelings are truly growing for me. I have feelings for her too, but not in the romantic way. At least, I try really hard not to. This mission will end eventually, pulling us apart anyway. Besides, having a relationship with another operative is definitely frowned upon within the CIA. Sophia is part of my job and I’m not to jeopardize that by becoming romantically involved.
So we pretend. We kiss, but don’t linger. We hold hands but don’t stare into each other’s eyes. We talk on the phone but try not to get too personal. There is such a fine line. I have found myself trying to distance from her. I don’t want to get too involved, develop feelings that I shouldn’t, so I’ll call Charlie more often, or if I’m really desperate, I’ll talk to Moretti. Sophia feels me pulling away, and I can tell by our last conversation.
“I’m excited you are coming back to Rome.”
“Me too. Charlie says he’s planning a special dinner for my arrival.”
“He is. He asked me to help. Is…is that okay?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“It’s just that… Oh…it’s nothing.”
“Doesn’t sound like nothing. What is it?”
“I didn’t know if you’d want me to be involved. Maybe you don’t plan to see me much when you get back.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. I just feel like things are weird between us.”
“Nothing’s weird.”
The conversation changed after that. She knew I was lying and so did I. We ignore that fact and move on to other topics. We talked about how things would be different because Santi and I had become so close. Close enough in fact that Santi asked me to stay with him in his apartment over the holiday. His father pushed for the idea. He wanted me close so that he could use me at his leisure.
I fought back, saying it was time I needed to spend with Charlie. I lied and said he was going to be moving back to the States next term. I’ll have to come up with some other lie if we don’t close the case before then. I’m willing to deal with that when the time comes. I just want to take a small step back and witness things from the outside once more. Not to mention, Charlie insisted that I need to stay with the team this summer, saying we have things to work on and it’ll be easier if I’m home more than if I’m not.
Plus, Santi is clouding my judgment. He’s become like a little brother, but also a bad influence. One night after we had tired of partying, he thought it would be a good idea for us to get tattoos. I laughed so hard I almost peed myself. What grown man does that? He wasn’t joking, though. As we wandered the streets surrounding our home away from home, Santi stopped abruptly in front of a place I had noticed a hundred times but never thought, not even in my wildest dreams, would I go inside.
