Salvation

by Land, Alexa

  I sat up and asked, “Who are you?”

  “Slater Heath. Everyone calls me Slayer, though. It’s a dumb nickname that kinda stuck in high school.”

  “Slayer?” Melody sat up in bed and blinked at him.

  “Mellie, baby!” Slayer ran up to her and grabbed her in his arms, and she started crying as she hugged him.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I came to get you and the baby, Mellie! I love you so much.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “How did you get here so fast?”

  “Right after you got off the phone, I called the airport and booked the next flight to San Francisco. I used my credit card, the one you told me never to use because you said it was really irresponsible to get into a ton of debt.”

  She grinned a little. “It was okay to use it, just this one time.”

  He hugged her again and said, “I’m so sorry we fought, but you shouldn’t have left like that, Mellie. You should have stayed so we could talk things out.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I was just so freaking emotional with those damn pregnancy hormones.”

  “I gave you reasons to be mad though, and I want to explain what was happening. I was gone every night because I took that security guard job at the cement factory, the one you didn’t want me to take because you thought it was too dangerous. And I didn’t tell you because I was trying to save up money to surprise you with this.” He pulled a little black velvet box from the pocket of his hoodie and got down on one knee beside her bed. “I love you, Mellie. You’re the only girl for me. Will you marry me?” He opened the little box to reveal a modest but pretty diamond ring.

  Melody burst into tears all over again and exclaimed, “I missed you so much, Slayer!”

  As she leaned over and grabbed him in another hug he asked, “Does this mean you’ll marry me?”

  “Of course I will!”

  “I really want us to be a family, Mellie. You, me, and the baby. I talked to my older brother Mark, he says we can stay with him in Tucson until we get on our feet. He’s got a really nice house with a guest room and a big back yard. You’ll like it there, I promise.”

  “But...Slayer, I decided to give the baby up for adoption,” she said, her voice breaking.

  Slayer climbed up beside her and grabbed her in a hug. “Is that what you want, Mellie? To give the baby up?”

  “No!” she wailed. “I thought I did, I thought it was the best thing for the baby, but I regretted it the moment he was born. I love my baby, Slayer! I don’t want to give him up!”

  “Oh no,” Vincent whispered.

  I took a deep breath, got up from my bedroll and picked up the sleeping baby carefully. Then, as my heart shattered into a million tiny pieces, I crossed the room to Melody and put Sam in his mother’s arms. “Trev, I’m so sorry,” my cousin said, tears streaming down her face.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” I said softly. “No way could you give up the world’s most perfect baby.”

  Melody looked at Sam for a long moment, and I could see a light coming on in her eyes. For the first time, she let herself bond with him. As soon as that happened, I knew there was no going back.

  “So, Vincent and I are going to spend the night in his apartment,” I said, “since you guys need your rest. There are plenty of diapers and formula and everything you need, right over there.” I gestured at the big pile of supplies against the wall. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”

  All my cousin could do was nod. There was heartbreak in her eyes, she knew what she’d just done to me. I didn’t have it in me to be angry with her. I bent down and kissed the baby’s forehead, and then I turned and walked out of the apartment with Vincent right behind me.

  When we reached the street, Vincent glanced at his watch and I glimpsed the time. Surprisingly, we actually were able to hail a cab in just a few minutes, despite the late hour. As we rode to his apartment I asked, mostly to distract myself, “What was Bo Millen doing at that factory?”

  “Do you really want to talk about that now?”

  “Not really, but I want to get through this cab ride without totally losing it, so I thought it’d be good to talk about something.”

  Vincent’s arm was already around my shoulder, and he pulled me a bit closer and kissed the top of my head. After a moment he said, “Millen approached me in front of my grandmother’s house a couple weeks ago and told me he was a friend of yours. He said he knew I was in the mafia and wanted in, or else he was going to turn me in to the police, as if that was a viable threat. What an idiot.” Vincent shook his head. “Anyway, I figured any man that would hit his girlfriend and get violent with the man I loved deserved to get caught in the net I was casting for those heroin importers. I simply brought him along and let him dig his own grave. When the importers brought out samples of their wares, Millen stuffed his pockets. He’s going away for a long time with all the drugs he had on him when the police arrested him.”

  I’d eventually want to know all about what had led up to the night’s events, but I just couldn’t muster the energy to ask any more questions just then. We soon arrived at his building, and Vincent paid the cab driver before leading me to his apartment. I went straight to the bedroom, pushed off my shoes and got under the covers, and Vincent climbed in bed with me and put his arms around me.

  Only then did I let myself mourn.

  I started sobbing, so hard that my entire body shook. Vincent held me firmly. He didn’t try to tell me it’d be okay, he didn’t say anything at all. He just let me cry.

  I’d gotten to be a parent for exactly seventy-three minutes. But in that time, I’d fallen in love. I’d made a promise. I’d planned a future. I’d been completely ready and willing to dedicate myself to that little baby. In only seventy-three minutes, he’d made a permanent place for himself in my heart.

  I never knew that anything could hurt so much.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I could see why I almost never let myself cry. Even after the tears stopped, all these raw emotions kept pushing to the surface. I mourned more than the loss of the baby. My brush with parenthood had stirred up all these things that I’d been keeping tamped down, things I tried not to feel. It brought my own parents to mind, and I kept replaying bits of my childhood I never revisited because it was just too painful.

  Considering how much I’d loved that baby, and in such a short time, I just couldn’t understand how my own parents had loved me so little. I knew my mother’s drug addiction played a big role in her inability to take care of me, but what about my father? I couldn’t comprehend what would make a man take off and leave his child like that.

  Vincent stayed with me all the next day as I tried to work through my grief. He tucked me in with a soft, white blanket on the couch, holding me and listening as I talked through my hurt and anger. I realized once I started talking how much holding all of that in had been damaging me.

  “Thank you,” I murmured after a while, burrowing deeper into his arms.

  “For what?” Vincent pulled the blanket up over my shoulder and kissed the top of my head.

  “For this. For caring about me, and listening, and taking care of me.”

  “You don’t need to thank me for that, Trevor. That just goes right along with loving you.”

  I was quiet for a while before saying softly, “A few months from now, I’m going to ask you to marry me. I know you asked last night because you’re such a good man and wanted to help the baby and me. I also know you wouldn’t have asked so soon under normal circumstances. But when the time is right, I want to commit myself to you. I want to be yours forever, and I want you to be mine.”

  “I didn’t just ask you for the baby’s sake,” he said. “I asked because I love you like I’ve never loved anyone or anything in my entire life. I agree that we shouldn’t make it official until the timing is right, since you’re dealing with so much right now. But this is my promise
to you, Trevor. I will always love you, and I’m going to marry you.” I threw my arms around him and held on tightly. Vincent pulled me onto his lap and kissed me, holding me just as securely as I was holding him.

  *****

  Later that afternoon, the intercom sounded from downstairs and Vincent buzzed up his brother Dante. “Dmitri told me some of what went down yesterday evening,” Dante said as he came into the apartment. “But I need to hear it from you, Vincent.” He spotted me on the couch, hugging my knees to my chest. I must have looked pretty bad, because his face instantly creased with concern as he asked, “Are you okay, Trevor?” I just nodded. I didn’t have the energy to explain all I’d been going through.

  Dante didn’t look convinced, but he chose not to push. He and his brother sat on two pearl grey leather club chairs across the coffee table from me and he asked, “What exactly went down last night?”

  “I’d been working with the D.E.A., not by choice,” Vincent said. He sat rigidly in the chair, his voice emotionless as he recited the facts to his brother. “They found out I had ties to the heroin trade, since my former addiction had brought me in contact with a lot of key players. They figured between that and my family’s history with organized crime, I’d be the perfect inside man. They wanted to stem the supply of heroin entering the city from Mexico. Thanks to turf wars and infighting among the cartels, that had been reduced to a single source, and that’s who we were meeting with last night.”

  “What were you supposed to do?”

  “I’d been working on gaining the cartel’s trust over the last two years, posing as a drug lord that was trying to run all of San Francisco’s heroin market. Finally, I was able to garner a meeting with the heads of the cartel. They normally just sent middlemen to the States, but I was able to get the leaders here. That’s who the D.E.A. was gunning for.”

  “Were those men arrested?” Dante asked.

  Vincent nodded. “A lot went wrong last night. Bobby Grenzell showed up with a couple men. Grenzell had been after me for several weeks because he wanted to eliminate his competition. Apparently, he even figured out where I live. Somehow, he must have caught wind of the meeting with the cartel and followed me there. I imagine he planned to kill me, then make an exclusive deal with the cartel himself. It all escalated quickly. A couple people got shot, but no one was killed. Just as that was going down, the S.F.P.D. showed up, which was totally unexpected. The two D.E.A. agents I was with were furious. But really, it was good the police showed up when they did, since the D.E.A. was on the verge of losing control of that entire situation.”

  “Tell me how the D.E.A. convinced you to do something so incredibly dangerous,” Dante said, his voice low.

  “They’d coordinated with the F.B.I., who had a file on our family as thick as my arm,” Vincent told him. “The family had always been careful to cover its tracks, but the F.B.I. had managed to piece together enough to arrest you. They wanted you to take the fall for three decades worth of illegal activities. You’d have gotten twenty years in prison.”

  “You mean you did that for me?”

  “You didn’t deserve to go to jail, especially not for the crimes of past generations. Now you won’t have to. I carried out my end of the deal and in exchange, the Dombruso family’s criminal history is being wiped clean.”

  Dante stared at his brother for a long moment, then exclaimed, “You could have been killed, Vincent! Why didn’t you come to me when the D.E.A. first approached you?”

  “You would have tried to talk me out of it.”

  “Of course I would have! I wouldn’t have wanted you risking your life for me!”

  “Well, it’s done now, and it all worked out,” Vincent said, breaking eye contact. “You and the rest of the family are safe.”

  Dante looked furious. When he got to his feet suddenly, Vincent did too, squaring his shoulders as he faced his brother. I was afraid they were going to start fighting. Dante yelled, “Don’t ever do anything like that again, Vincent! In a situation like that, you come to me! You don’t take all that shit on alone, you don’t endanger yourself! You fucking come to me so I can help you!”

  Abruptly, Dante grabbed his brother in a huge hug. Vincent’s body went rigid at first, his hands balling into fists. Dante just went right on hugging him though, and after a while Vincent relaxed slightly and put his arms around his brother as Dante said, “It’s not your job to take care of me, Vinnie. I’m the older one, it’s my job to take care of you.”

  “You’re wrong. It’s our job to take care of each other.”

  “It just pisses me off that you put yourself in danger. Thank God you’re okay.”

  “I was trying to do the right thing,” Vincent murmured.

  “I know, little brother.”

  Vincent pulled back and grinned at him. “I think the phrase ‘little brother’ became null and void when I hit 6’4.”

  “How about kid brother? Is that better?”

  Vincent shook his head. “That’s worse.”

  “Tough shit, you’re stuck with it,” Dante said with a smile. Then he asked, “Are there any loose ends that still need tying up? What about Grenzell? That son of a bitch might still come after you. Do we need to call a family meeting?”

  “Grenzell’s going to prison,” Vincent told him. “He shot one of the people I was with in front of two federal agents. And that was after they recorded him bragging about the size of his heroin operation and trying to make a deal with the cartel. I don’t really think he’s going to be a problem.”

  “Well, if he finds a way to make trouble for you from behind bars, you need to call me.”

  “He doesn’t know I was working with those D.E.A. agents. No one does. I was taken out of there in cuffs, my cover was never blown. For all he knows, I was just a drug dealer caught in their sting operation.”

  “It’ll get back to him that you’re not in jail, though.”

  “So he’ll just think I have a good lawyer,” Vincent said. “I’m telling you Dante, there’s no cause for concern.”

  His brother looked skeptical, but after a few moments he relented and said, “Maybe you’re right. But you need to come to me if anything changes.”

  “I will.”

  “Do you swear?”

  Vincent rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Good.” Dante turned and headed for the door, saying, “I’m leaving before we find something to fight about. I love you Vinnie, and I’ll talk to you soon. Take care, Trevor.”

  “That went well,” I said as the door closed behind Dante and Vincent dropped onto the couch beside me.

  He nodded before murmuring, “Typical Dante. He’s made it his job to look out for my brothers and me since he was seven years old. Never mind that he was just a kid too, and lost as much as the rest of us when our parents and sister were killed.”

  I climbed onto his lap and kissed him gently before wrapping my arms around him and resting my head on his shoulder. “You’re so alike. You both have an overwhelming need to take care of others. That’s probably why you have conflicts, you’re too similar.”

  “Maybe.” He grinned a little and added, “Or maybe he’s just a pain in the ass.” I smiled at that and let my eyes close as he put his arms around me.

  We stayed like that for a long time. I couldn’t imagine anything more comforting than being here in this tranquil apartment, in Vincent’s arms. His home had seemed austere at first, with its modern lines, grey and white color scheme and sparse decorations. But this place made sense to me now. When life was overwhelming and chaotic, it was nice to have a perfect, uncomplicated place to retreat.

  *****

  I stayed with Vincent over the next week, venturing back to my place just long enough to grab my clothes. I felt like I was intruding in my own apartment. Melody and Slater had really taken over, rearranging everything, buying a couple pieces of furniture at the thrift shop and even paying to turn on the electricity. It was Melody’s place as much as it was mine, so
I was glad she was making herself comfortable. It still made me feel a little adrift though, like I no longer had a home.

  It was heartbreaking to see the baby, but I was really trying to move past that. I held him for a while when I came by the apartment, and had to fight the urge to cry. “We kept the name Sam,” Melody told me as she sat beside me on her bed, fidgeting with the hem of her sundress. “It really feels like the right name for him.” I nodded at that.

  “So, Slayer and I were talking,” she said. “We both want you to be the baby’s godfather because we know you love him and will always look out for him. What do you think?”

  I glanced at the guy in the corner, and Slater smiled at me shyly before going back to sorting through a bulky diaper bag. When I turned to look at Melody, she had such a hopeful expression on her face. She really was trying to make things right in any way she could.

  “Thanks, I’d like that,” I said quietly, which made her smile. “Well, I’d better go. I need to get to work.” I’d intentionally timed the visit right before my shift, so I’d have an excuse to get out of there quickly. I handed Sam back to his mother, wondering if there’d ever be a time when that didn’t hurt so much.

  I rode the bus across town, glad that I had that time to get my emotions back under control before I started work. It happened to be the same bus I took frequently, and I was in my preferred seat toward the back. As I ran my finger over the little name carved in the window, I thought once again about that other Trevor and wondered if he felt lonely too right now.

  When I realized just how lonely I was, my first impulse was to talk myself out of it, telling myself I had no reason to feel that way. I reminded myself that I had a boyfriend who loved me and some terrific friends. But then, maybe loneliness didn’t have anything to do with how many people we had in our lives. Maybe it was really about how we felt on the inside.