by Sadie Black
“Why, Mr. Belmonte,” she cooed back, “nights like these are exactly why I intend to make my life so long.”
“Spaz,” he laughed, pulling out from her so he could lie by her side. Ciara snuggled up against his chest, all smiles.
“Dork.”
“I’m going to make you the best goddamn dinner you’ve ever had,” Luka announced as she stroked his chest through his shirt. “Whatever you want is yours. And wine. I picked up your favorite pinot noir today. Things are looking up, Ciara. Vittore doesn’t stand a chance. The rest of our lives are set.”
The smile she wore grew, and she nestled against his side as she settled into the comfortable reality he spun.
“I love you, Luka Belmonte. Thank you for being so strong for us. It just proves that together, we can do anything.”
“I love you just a teeny bit more.” He teased, making her smile against his neck. “Welcome to the first day of the rest of our lives; I swear to you, things will only get better from here.”
And Luka believed it to be true with all of his heart.
* * *
Ciara
“Thank you for joining us today, Ms. Simmons.” Priscilla Leroux was a middle aged woman with skin a few shades deeper than Ciara’s own. Her hair was pulled back and twisted up tight in a sleek bun. Perfectly defined eyebrows and dark, luscious lips completed her polished look. Priscilla looked every bit the professional. Ciara expected nothing less from the head of an organization integrating at-risk black youth into successful school districts.
“It’s a pleasure,” Ciara replied. “As I mentioned on the phone, I’m interested in giving some time to your organization. I’d love to help create some media buzz and build up more support. Getting young people to recognize their own potential, and into schools where they can strive for better futures, is a passion of mine.”
A smile spread across Priscilla’s lips, and she sat back in her office chair and reflected before speaking again.
“Wonderful. According to my research, you graduated top of your class at Iowa State University. It looks like you pulled your high school grades together enough by senior year to qualify for scholarships. Do you have a personal interest in this organization, Ms. Simmons?”
Had it been anyone other than calm, sophisticated Priscilla Leroux, Ciara would’ve been insulted. Instead, the question felt casual and non-accusatory.
“It is,” Ciara admitted. “In my freshman year, I got caught up with some of the wrong kids,” she explained. “My mother and I had just moved again, and her alcoholism really kicked into high gear. Drinking started at breakfast and she was passed out on the floor by the time I got home. For a while, I lost sight of my future and started acting out. I got lost for a couple years, but I realized that without hard work, I wasn’t going to get anywhere. Or even worse, I’d end up like my mother did. I got back on track just in time, and here I am today. I hope I can be an adult influence to others that I wish I had as a young teen. If I had a role model to look up to, I wouldn’t have veered off course so badly.”
“Thank you for being so open with me. It sounds like it must have been difficult for you growing up, I’m happy to see you didn’t get sucked into that life.” Priscilla pulled one of her desk drawers open.
“There are several ways you can help our organization,” Priscilla explained. She drew out a thick stack of paper from the drawer of her desk. Taking a pen from a holder on her desk, Priscilla pointed to a section of text as she spoke. “Many are content to donate sums of money.” The pen moved down the page. “There is an option to volunteer with the clerical work; we’re always short on man power.” Once more the pen moved. “Or, we are always seeking motivational speakers and field workers. Typically, you need experience in social work to work alongside our at-risk youth. However, if you take some courses and work alongside a professional, I think with your public position and impressive academic background would do well to positively influence our youth.”
There was so much to be done, Ciara hadn’t felt so excited since she’d landed the job at TCD. “I’d like to be as hands on as I can. It’s my goal to really invest myself in this, so I’d be very interested in learning more about the courses.”
“It’s so wonderful to know such an influential woman of color is so passionate for charity. I promise that there are few things in the world as rewarding as helping youth. Why don’t we start looking at dates and times for your courses so we can get you on the field that much faster.”
Priscilla pushed a few of the papers on the top of the stack to the side to reveal a schedule beneath.
“These are the times we offer training courses. We do ask for small donations to cover the time spent, but otherwise there is no fee. Now—”
Discussion spanned the next hour, and by the time Ciara signed her name on the dotted line, she felt renewed. There were new goals to work toward, and most important, there were young lives to be shaped for the better. If she couldn’t change the world with her reporting, she’d change it from its roots.
“Again, thank you for your interest, Ms. Simmons,” Priscilla said. There was fondness in her tone, and Ciara looked forward to working with her. “I’ll see you in a week when lessons begin. Until then, take care.”
“See you soon,” Ciara said with a smile. She rose from her seat and turned to find Paul reclined against the closed door, arms crossed, eyes closed. The bodyguard had stood through the meeting and kept his silence, seeing that Ciara didn’t need his humor to dispel the mood.
“All set to go?” he asked.
“All set,” Ciara replied, the smile growing. There was a fragile kind of warmth inside of her that left her feeling fantastic. Paul opened the door and exited first to clear the way before Ciara followed. As they crossed the lobby and toward the front doors, he picked at her in good fun.
“I didn’t know you used to be a badass,” he teased. “Hard to imagine you with the wrong crowd.”
“It was only for a year and a bit,” Ciara answered. Her brief rebellion might be laughable now, but she knew the pain that set her on that path would never stop hurting. “I think it was just my last attempt to get my mother’s attention, to be honest. I mostly wasted my days smoking and drinking. I think the worst thing I ever did was steal a leather jacket from a thrift store so I could look tough. The rest of it was all just attitude. I was too much of a good girl at heart.”
“I hear ya. I was a bad boy back then, too. Figured out after high school that it wasn’t the attitude or the illegal shit I was drawn to, it was beating the crap out of dudes who deserved it. So when I found out people made a living as bodyguards, I jumped on that like a fly on shit. Now I beat jackasses up for a living, and I get to know all kinds of interesting, important people. Or follow diva pop princesses around. You know. Every job has its bad days.”
Ciara laughed. Crisp sheets of white covered the roofs and windshields of the parked cars along the sidewalk. Parking in New York was tough to come by, so there was still a bit of a hike to the car. The sting of the winter air paired with the accomplishment Ciara felt was invigorating, and she was glad she got to revel in it for just a little while.
“You know, you keep talking about the pop star. What’s the story? There has to be something to it if you keep bringing her up.”
“You wouldn’t believe the shit I went through for that girl,” Paul groaned. “I signed some confidentiality papers for her, like I did for you, so I can’t really tell you about it... I can’t get too specific, but I’ll tell you this. When you picture pop star, you picture a spoiled blonde, super skinny, super into herself, right?”
“Right,” Ciara confirmed, fighting back a grin. There was a kind of exaggerated way that Paul spoke that already had her cracking up.
“Okay. Good. Now picture what you have in mind, and amp up the cattiness by a hundred. ‘Like oh my god, whatever!’” The way he pitched his voice and rolled his eyes to mimic an air-headed popstar had Ciara laughing.
“Okay, now that you’ve got her in mind, imagine touring Europe. And you know what she does? First off, the little Princess only eats once a day. Usually it’s some leafy green crap, but she’s got this weakness for milkshakes like you wouldn’t believe. So come dinner time, I’m working security and making sure her ass doesn’t get kidnapped or some shit, and she tells me to eat her salad for her.”
“What?” It was hard to hold back her laughter. Ciara was sure the story was going somewhere hilarious from the way Paul put it, and she couldn’t wait for the big reveal.
“So of course, me being the little shit disturber I am, I go up to her and decide to stick my nose in things, see what’s up. Now usually this girl eats lettuce and celery and not much more, but in her salad there are little orange slices and slivers of almond, and she points to her salad again and tells me that I have to eat it.”
Paul walked at her side, hands dug into his pockets, eyes ever sweeping the streets as he talked. Although he humored her with funny stories and quips all day, the man took his job seriously. Ciara knew how lucky she was to have found such a hard worker and good friend.
“So I ask her why, and she said—”
All of it happened so fast. One moment Paul spoke, and the next he’d turned his head to look down the side street they were passing. A sharp pop left droplets of warm liquid splattered Ciara’s face and neck and soaked into her coat. Paul fell into a heap on the sidewalk without a word, and Ciara found herself eye-to-eye with a man in a black ski mask. Blood was splattered across the exposed skin of his mouth and it dripped off the tinted goggles he wore. A crimson bead of blood rolled onto his winter jacket, down the garment in the pursuit of the ground.
“You’re next if Luka doesn’t get his shit together,” his voice, hopped up on adrenaline, was shrill. And unmistakably marked with an Italian accent. Ciara’s eyes widened. The breath caught in her throat and choked her. A gun. Warm liquid on her skin. The smell of gunpowder and copper. Ciara considered herself an intelligent woman, but in that moment nothing made sense. One by one, as she took in the details, the pieces clicked into place.
Paul was dead.
From across the street a woman screamed, and the man in the ski mask took it as his cue to make a break for it. He darted from the sidewalk and into an idling car waiting at the curb. Before he’d even closed the door, the vehicle sped into the busy rush of New York traffic and faded into the crowd. The woman across the street stopped screaming abruptly, and despite the rush of traffic, the area was left so still that Ciara could hear the crunch of snow beneath her boots.
Paul.
A disconnect between her body and her spirit left her feeling as though she was standing on the edge of a cliff with her eyes closed. As Ciara turned her head to look down at her bodyguard, she fell over the edge. The air that had caught in her lungs burst free, and as it did, she screamed. Paul’s blood seeped into the snow around him like a bright red halo. He’d fallen face first onto the sidewalk, Ciara couldn’t see his face, but she did see the gaping exit wound torn through the back of his skull. Glistening hunks of brain clung to sharp edges of exposed bone, and scattered behind him like a macabre trail of breadcrumbs across the ground.
The shaking began in her hands and then traveled up her arms to plunge back down her spine. Be strong, she tried to tell herself, but inside she was in a bottomless free fall. She could hear her own screams, but they seemed as distant as the emergency sirens that approached. Just moments before Paul was making her laugh, and now there was nothing. The man who kept her safe, the man she’d come to consider a friend, was gone before she could say goodbye. The uncontrollable shaking reached Ciara’s knees, and she buckled onto the sidewalk. The warmth on her face — it was Paul’s blood. With a trembling hand, she reached up and brushed it away, leaving her dark skin streaked darker yet with carnage.
Why had no one come over? Where were the witnesses? The samaritans willing to help? The blood ate into the snow with greed, and as it fanned out and reached Ciara’s knee, she looked up and around for signs of life. Men and women peered out from the windows of nearby establishments. Some recorded the event on their cellphones, more concerned with capturing the moment than helping.
“Please!” Ciara shrieked and sobbed. “Help him! Somebody help him!”
But for as beautiful and limitless as New York was, she was just as impersonal and frightened. In desperation Ciara reached forward and griped Paul’s arm. The sirens grew closer, but they still weren’t close enough. Logic and intelligence failed her. How could a single second be all it took to end a vibrant life?
“Paul,” she sobbed. “Paul, I’m so sorry. You— you...”
Tears came in full force and choked the words from her throat. Alone, scared, and stranded, there was only one thing Ciara could think to do. A trembling hand dug into her back pocket and gripped her cellphone, and with strength that she never knew she possessed, she dialed Luka.
Each ring as the call waited to connect was punctuated with the wail of the approaching ambulance. By the time Luka answered, the vehicle had arrived and a man was directing her into the back of the unit.
“Hello?” Luka answered.
The sound of his voice only made things worse. Ciara dissolved into tears as she tried to tell him what had happened. They’d both grown too cocky, and Paul had paid the ultimate price. Vittore didn’t play games. As the ambulance rushed in, men in scrubs clustered around Paul’s body. Ciara pushed through her emotions as best she could to deliver the message. Now more than ever she needed Luka by her side, and now more than ever she knew he’d need her, too.
* * *
Luka
“Hello?”
Ciara was sobbing. Great, wracking bellows that distorted her words and stole the breath from her lungs. If it hadn’t been for his caller ID, Luka wasn’t sure he would have recognized her. The sound was ugly, and he’d never heard her so upset before.
A fraction of a second was all it took for his blood to run cold. Was she hurt? Had Vittore gotten to her?
“Ciara?” he asked. “Ciara, tell me what happened.”
The wails were terrified, but Luka couldn’t tell if pain factored into them at all. Ciara attempted to string together syllables, but all that emerged were garbled sounds.
“Are you hurt?” Luka asked, tone steady and serious. Although she couldn’t hold herself together long enough to string together a sentence, he thought she could manage at least a word.
“No,” she wailed. “L-Luka! Luka!”
Luka’s mind raced; if there was a problem, he was going to fix it. On stiff limbs he rose from his desk, smoothing down the front of his shirt.
“Tell me where you are,” he said, “and I will come and get you. It doesn’t matter what happened, I’ll—”
“He’s dead,” Ciara choked out. “Luka, he’s dead! Oh my god...”
And just as soon as she’d pulled herself together, she dissolved into tears again.
“Mr. Mayor,” Blaire said with urgency from the doorway. Luka shot his gaze up to his secretary and waved her away.
“Not now,” he hissed, drawing the phone away from his ear.
Ciara was still sobbing, but he could tell she was trying to tell him what had happened. Luka pressed the phone back to his ear and continued to try to decipher her message.
“Mr. Mayor, I’m serious,” Blaire said. “It’s about your fiancé.”
Luka lifted his gaze and fixed it on the woman in the doorway. The uncomfortable frown that pulled at her lips said more than he would have liked; something bad happened, and she wasn’t sure how to break the news.
“Stay on the phone with me, Ciara,” Luka ordered as he stepped out from behind his desk and toward the door to the reception area. Staff members were gathered near the welcome desk, listening to a radio broadcast with solemn expressions. “I’m here with you. Stay with me. I promise you, I’m doing everything I can to figure out where you are, and what I can do to help you.”
<
br /> It was like dealing with his mother’s grief over his father all over again. With Ciara’s howls in one ear, Luka moved toward the desk to listen in on the broadcast. As he approached, employees parted in silence to give him clear passage. The broadcast was live, and it had interrupted regular programming with its news.
“—still uncertain, but speculation says that mayor Belmonte’s fiancé, Ciara Simmons, was caught up in an act of violence on the streets of New York just minutes ago. Eye witness reports claim Ms. Simmons was escorted into an ambulance covered in blood. Another individual was carried out on a stretcher, presumed dead. The alleged attack comes weeks after mayor Belmonte’s crackdown on gang related activity, New York’s long history of corruptions has… “
“What hospital?” Luka demanded those who clustered around the desk. When he was met with silence, he asked the question louder. “What hospital?!”
Ciara, still on the phone, found the strength to answer. The room full of idiots he’d hired continued to gawk, speechless.
“Weill Cornell,” she sobbed. There was no time to bother with a coat, or bother to tell Blaire to cancel his afternoon appointment. Without a word to any of them, Luka turned away from the desk and ran for the door.
“Stay on the phone with me, Ciara,” he begged her. “I’m on my way. I swear I will protect you, and I swear I will fix this.”
Luka took the stairs two at a time and jogged across the snow and ice to where he’d parked his Corvette. What he wouldn’t give to have a bike. Weaving between traffic would get him to Ciara’s side faster than any luxury car could.
“Mr. Mayor?” a man called out as Luka took off across the lawn. Let him wonder. Let them all wonder. When the news broke for real, when the papers ran tomorrow, every man and woman in the city would understand why Luka had left the office early today. Professional relationships could be patched up; Ciara was all he cared about.
