by Seth Eden
I’d even had a few people say I should write my stories down and share them. It made me feel good, even if I considered such an idea completely ridiculous. While I liked the attention and hearing good things, my stories were more about letting stuff go so it wouldn’t fester, nothing more.
The image that caught my eye today was an older guy with a salt and pepper mustache looking serious and sullen as he shook hands with another dude in a law enforcement uniform. Since that sort of facial hair was mostly passé nowadays, I happily targeted Mustache Man to make fun of.
The caption under the picture said “Angelo Varasso, billionaire businessman, is seen with the Chief of Police.” I’d never heard of this businessman, billionaire or not. But anyone rolling in that much dough should be able to take some criticism.
I spent the next few minutes comparing him to everyone from Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I.—I used to watch reruns with Old Man Bertolli—to Dr. Phil.
I did an impersonation of the police chief as Dr. Phil, speaking to Mustache Man in the psychologists’ distinct accent, “That’s a really limp handshake you got there. Makes me wonder if other things about you are limp. How that’s working for you?”
Why would a man worth billions wear such a somber expression anyway? Making that kind of bank, he could pay people just to amuse him.
By the time I finished recording and uploaded my video, it was late. Drained from my rant and knowing I’d have to deal with my fresh case of unemployment tomorrow, I removed my mask, showered and got ready for bed. Too exhausted to worry about the clusterfuck my life tended to be, I laid my head on my pillow.
I pictured all the wonderful things that would happen if I ever became a billionaire and drifted off, a smile on my face.
2
Luca
Anna made adorable cooing sounds as she pulled her small body up into a standing position using my hideaway sofa for leverage. Twelve months old now, she’d begun to grow strong and I knew she would take her first steps soon. I regarded the perfection of her dark curls and tiny cherubic cheeks, feeling a beam of pride burn through the blackness of my heart.
My daughter was the only thing in my life that kept me even partway human.
I crouched beside her a few feet away, encouraging her to walk towards me. But when she looked at me with those giant baby blue eyes of hers—the exact same shade as Alana’s—my heart sent a stabbing pain through my chest. The woman I’d loved had died giving birth to my daughter, and since that moment, my life had become an obsidian chasm I couldn’t escape from.
The only sliver of light I could see from inside that chasm was Anna. My baby girl.
She wore a pink ruffled dress and matching tights, a present from her maternal grandmother. My daughter smiled brightly at me, and I attempted to smile back, but my face seemed to have trouble configuring itself that way. Instead, I dropped to my knees and spoke.
“Come here, sweetness. Come to Daddy.”
“Da… Da…” This was as close as she’d come so far to her first word.
She took one step, still clinging to the overstuffed sofa, then managed another shaking stride before dropping to her bottom. But this lack of success didn’t stop her. She merely grabbed onto the sofa arm and brought herself up again.
A few months ago, I’d moved back into my family’s gigantic forty-room mansion. Before renting the modest apartment I’d shared with Alana, I’d grown up here. The second floor was made up of multi-room living spaces like mine, places we could all live together in but still maintain some individual privacy.
When Alana had still been alive, I’d bucked at the tradition of residing here or on any part of the vast Varasso estate. But as time passed, I realized Anna needed more than the stony gaze of her father to enrich her life. I also needed someone to watch her as I went about the various errands necessary for the family business.
Moving back in with my father and brothers made too much sense to ignore.
One of my siblings would often take it upon himself to drop in on us. Since I’d disappeared for several weeks after losing the love of my life, it was their way of checking up on me. It probably also had to do with making sure I stayed amongst the living, something I’d contemplated not doing more than once. Anna’s existence was the only reason I continued to keep going, to keep breathing. This morning, the one to visit was Gabriel, my half-brother.
“She’s almost there,” he said from behind me. I didn’t look at him, choosing to keep my daughter in my sights instead. “Before you know it, she’ll be racing around the house full speed.”
“Yes.” I put my hands out and clapped softly, taking in Anna’s loving gaze as she thrust one of her chubby hands toward mine.
“Did you want this?” My half-brother asked me. “To become a parent?”
I considered his question before answering. “I never thought about it until…” I couldn’t finish my sentence. Although it’d now been a year—we’d celebrated Anna’s birthday two days ago—saying my girlfriend’s name still hurt. “When she became pregnant, we just went from there. We didn’t choose it, exactly.”
Alana had gotten pregnant by accident. We’d only forgotten birth control once, but it was enough.
“But this life. It’s… dangerous.”
As the son of my father’s mistress rather than our mother, Gabriel was the newest member of the Varasso clan. And though he’d been included in both the family and the business for over a decade, he still seemed to struggle with reconciling that life with the notion of someday having a marriage and children of his own.
“Yes,” I said, knowing what he was getting at. Like me, he was the type to prefer long term commitments and relationships with women rather than the constant bed-hopping that Marco and Alessandro tended to favor. “But it’s my life. Our life. She’ll grow accustomed to it.”
My half-brother nodded, going silent and introspective. I wondered when he settled down and brought a woman in to join our family, if he’d choose not to procreate at all. As the third son born outside of marriage and a product of adultery, his sons would never be directly in line to lead anyway. If he didn’t want to have kids, that was his choice.
“Youstill miss her?” Gabriel spoke again. “Alana?”
My breath caught in my chest, and I stared out the nearby window, taking in the misty September afternoon. This time of year, the weather in Philly could be hot and muggy or chilly with fog or rain. Just like the day of her death, this one had started as unseasonably warm and foggy. That similarity along with the sound of her name hit me like a physical blow.
No one had said the love of my life’s name out loud in my presence since then.
Until now.
I closed my eyes, my throat aching with emotion. But I couldn’t give in to it. I had never fully given in to it. I feared if I did, I’d be dragged under by those riptides forever, to drown endlessly in sorrow. It’d destroy me. I loved my daughter more than anything but seeing her served as a constant reminder to me of what I’d lost.
“Every day.” Despite my decision to rein in my grief, my voice still hitched, betraying me.
“I’m sorry,” my half-brother grasped my shoulder, his tone portentous and quiet. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories for you. I’ve never wanted to believe in that fucking curse, but…”
But the evidence was overwhelming. Although I’d resisted thinking it might be real before, now I knew the truth. All of us Varassos were cursed, and we always would be. There could be no other explanation.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed these thoughts back to a far corner of my brain and stood. Gabriel released me as I did. “I have business I need to attend to.”
“It was business I came here to discuss,” he said, and I glanced over at him. “There’s a problem. Some woman disguising her identity with a mask posted a video online. It casts our father in a less than favorable light.”
We crossed to the other side of the room, putting some distance between us and my daughte
r while keeping her in view. Gabriel pulled out his phone and showed me the clip. The woman’s video was a sophomoric attempt at humiliation, idiotic and insulting, yet it’d managed to go viral with over ten million views, nonetheless.
Had it not become such a widespread phenomenon, we might’ve blown it off, but now we had no other option but to address it. We couldn’t let the slight go unanswered. Any attack on the Varasso family, even a minor one, could snowball if we allowed it to. We had a reputation to defend, one we took very seriously.
“Alessandro track her down?” I asked him. Our youngest brother was the most tech minded of us, and his hacking skills had protected our business interests more than once. If he hadn’t been born into our family, he could’ve obtained a job with any security firm or law enforcement agency in the country.
“Already traced her IPO. She may have concealed her face, but he found her signal with no difficulty. We either need to collect her or kill her outright,” Gabriel said. “Make an example out of her.”
Reinforcing the stone wall I’d placed around my heart, I focused exclusively on dealing with the issue at hand. The busier I kept myself, the easier it was to not think about what I’d become. The emptiness of it. The darkness that grew within me each passing minute, making me more and more callous. More and more a monster.
In the past year I’d gone out of my way to find each person who’d ever worked for Jackson Randolph, the man responsible for shooting me a year ago, the man who’s greed had stolen from me those precious last hours I could’ve spent with the mother of my child. Alliances. Hired thugs. Dealers. Runners. Drivers.
I slaughtered them without even a modicum of remorse.
I’d hoped to feel better by doing this. Feel some sort of justice or retribution had taken place, but I didn’t. No matter how ruthlessly I cut them down, I felt nothing. It was like I no longer had a soul.
Now, dealing with this admittedly trivial threat, I still felt nothing but a need to handle it quickly. I glanced over at my brother, weighing my feelings for him. At one time, I’d had so much love for my family that I’d risked my life for them daily. I continued this modus operandi, but it was out of habit. As I peered into my half-brother’s face, it was like staring at a blank wall.
I felt nothing. No love. No duty. No real connection. The only person I felt any positive emotion for at all was Anna, and even my devotion to her remained tinged with loss. Now, concentrating only on Gabriel, I didn’t even feel that. When I spoke, my voice came out as a robotic monotone.
“Probably be easiest to kill her. Don’t need anyone nosing around where they shouldn’t.”
As though through the prism of an alternate reality, I remembered a time when my answer to someone being a nuisance wouldn’t have automatically been execution, but I flicked the memory of who I’d once been away. That person had died the same day Alana had.
“Want me to do it there or should I bring her back here?” he asked me, his features going as cold as mine.
There had once been a time when my father had held me responsible for Gabriel’s tutelage. Angelo had wanted the son not raised entirely by him to be well versed in our dealings and had yoked me with the task. But that had been long ago. I thought back to the night Gabriel had proven himself to be as formidable as any Varasso, the night of my daughter’s birth.
Had my half-brother not had my back, had he not been an accurate shot, Anna might well have been left an orphan. As it was, he’d saved my life. Sometimes, I wanted to resent him for that, but then logic would reassert itself. Anna needed me. And in truth, I wanted to raise her, to be her father.
“Return here,” I told him, bringing my mind back to the present. “No need to draw undue attention. Take Marco with you and have Alessandro drive. Keep things low key. I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”
3
Molly
Startled, I bolted up in my bed, not knowing why. The moment passed and I began to settle back into my mattress, but then, I heard it. A noise. The walls of this place had always been paper thin, and I almost dismissed the sound as a tree limb brushing up against the roof.
But then the hair on the back of my neck stood straight on end, telling me something felt wrong.
Through the darkness, I sought the red numerals of my alarm clock, seeing that it was nearly three in the morning. I heard the noise again, and this time, I was sure it came from inside. I reached for my phone, only to find it completely dead.
Dammit, I’d forgotten to plug it in before drifting off. Doing video sucked so much of the battery life from the stupid thing. Now, I couldn’t even call out.
I’d just decided to get the baseball bat out of my closet—I wasn’t sure if Tara was home or not and had to keep her safe—when my bedroom door slammed back on its hinges. I caught a glimpse of two dark figures entering my room but was only able to get out the briefest of shrieks before they wrapped a cloth over my nose and mouth.
And then, my vision became spotty before everything went black.
I woke with a headache in a cavernous room I didn’t recognize. A single naked light bulb hung overhead, placing me in the spotlight while leaving everything else in shadow. Someone had tied my body into an upright position on a wooden chair, the restraints on my wrists and ankles painfully tight.
Not good. So not good.
Still feeling kind of woozy, I attempted to lift my head, but it felt as if someone had stuffed my skull with wet sand, puffing it up to twice its normal size. I felt the sticky grip of tape over my mouth, something heavy and industrial. Though I couldn’t identify anyone, I could tell I wasn’t alone, which scared the shit out of me.
But one thing I’d learned from my upbringing was to never let ‘em see you sweat.
I waited, trying to ignore my racing heart and rising panic. A man came closer, planting himself in front of me in the small circle of light. I blinked so I could bring him into focus.
His frame was thin as a rail but formidable. Dressed in what I assumed must be an extremely expensive black suit, he struck me as someone who’d once been full of strength and vigor, but now seemed less imposing. At least physically. But in his beringed right hand, he held a gun, and that was imposing as hell.
At the moment, he pointed it at the floor. Not that that gave me much relief. The weapon could’ve been an extension of his body based on how naturally it fit into his palm. He looked as if he’d been wielding firearms his whole life.
I glanced fleetingly into his face and recognition dawned. Angelo Varasso. The mustached man I’d made fun of. The billionaire businessman. Sitting trapped in this dubious situation, I started to suspect that he might be more than a billionaire businessman. With an easy movement, he cocked the gun, but he kept his dark eyes on me.
“Alessandro,” he said, and though his voice was rough with advancing age, there was a steely quality to it.
Another younger man approached, he wore glasses and held out an iPad. At a low volume, it played the video I’d uploaded last night. Apparently, Mustache Man didn’t have much of a sense of humor.
“You have besmirched the Varasso name and my personal integrity,” Angelo spoke, his voice low and angry. “Why?” The man with the iPad suddenly tore the tape from my face. “Speak.”
Although I felt petrified, him ordering me around like a dog pissed me off. I was bound and defenseless and knew my only method of escape would be to talk my way out of this. Whatever this was. Stand tall. Stand strong. I summoned my most sarcastic, obnoxious tone. “It’s called an impersonation.”
Mustache Man’s eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe what I’d just said. Or maybe it was how I’d said it. He raised the barrel of his weapon, and I realized I’d gambled and lost. I’d grown up in some of the most deplorable conditions possible, clawing through nine levels of hell in order to survive, and now I was going to die because I’d dared to post some lame-ass video.
Pretty ironic if you asked me.
I clenched the fists
secured behind my back to keep myself from reacting to my terror. I refused to leave this earth as a pathetic, whimpering victim. I couldn’t let them break me. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. For the most fleeting of moments I thought of my sister. Thank God Tara hadn’t been home.
I prayed that she’d remain out of harm’s way.
Someone else spoke from off to the side, not Mustache Man and not the other one, Alessandro, either. This man had a richer voice, deep and resonant. If I hadn’t been on the brink of death, I might’ve appreciated how beautiful it sounded. Almost musical.
“You would do well to watch how you address my father. Angelo Varasso is an important man and is not to be disrespected.” His tone was as grave as mine had been flippant.
“It was a joke. Ever heard of those?” I knew it was moronic to talk back under these conditions, yet I couldn’t seem to help myself. Evidently, being an inch from getting my face shot off made me mouthier than usual.
As if he couldn’t bear such an insult, Angelo’s hand tensed and I knew it was all over for me. But someone reached out, pushing the older man’s hand upwards so that the bullet he fired missed. I’d cinched my eyes shut against the onslaught, but now I opened them, seeing this other man for the first time.
He was tall, an inch or two taller than his father, with thick black hair that curled slightly around his ears. Like the other men, he wore an impeccably pressed suit, but unlike Angelo with his many rings, this man wore only a single thin chain around his neck. I stared into the face of the man who’d saved me—at least for this particular minute—and felt awed by him.
He had elegant yet intensely masculine features. A long straight nose, a square jaw covered with stubble on the verge of becoming a beard, thick brows, and full lips. His eyes captured my attention the most, though. They were penetrating and charcoal black. It was like looking into the face of some dark fallen angel.
