by Seth Eden
Gabriel nodded. “Yeah, man, we’ll go get her.”
I looked at Molly. “Can you get the room ready?”
“Sure,” she replied, but she was still glaring at Willow.
“Fine. Go.”
Gabriel, Stacy, and Molly stood up from their seats and left the office, but Willow stayed sitting in her spot. I didn’t say anything for a long time, but when it was clear her plan was to sit there ruminating, I turned to look at her.
“Willow.”
She shook her head. She stood up and walked over to the door to walk out. She stopped just shy of the frame and looked back over her shoulder at me. “This is a mistake. I hope it’s worth it.”
She was gone without another word, leaving me sinking even further into the black hole that was eating me alive.
20
Willow
The whole energy in the house shifted when Gabriel and Stacy returned from the hospital with Denise in tow. I’d chosen to sit in the garden to try and calm my nerves, but it was a terrible idea because I had a clear shot of Gabriel and Stacy loading her in, followed by Molly fawning all over her, asking what she wanted to eat to help her recover. Denise was laying it on thick enough, telling everyone not to make such a fuss over her, but I could see the slyness in her smile.
She had the Varassos wrapped around her finger, all for taking a bullet to the side of her stomach, one I was convinced she planned. After getting enough dirty looks from Molly and the house staff she’d clearly already spoken to about me, I decided to go up to the suite instead. I noticed that the door to the bedroom was open, so Alessandro must not have opted to come back to the suite for his afternoon nap. That was fine with me. I didn’t want to see him anyway.
I walked into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. I kept playing over the conversation with Denise in my head. She’d all but confirmed that she was Denise Costa, or her heart monitor had done it for her. I knew she was lying, but the Varassos were all eating out of the palm of her hand and were never going to believe me at this point. The longer I sat there, the more the reality of the situation washed over me. Denise was more welcome in the house than I was, so why was I even there? I wanted to try and protect my family from her, but if they weren’t going to listen to me, there was only so much I could do. I’d lost Alessandro, both in the battle against Denise and in our relationship. Maybe it was best that I just left.
My fury subsided to let sadness in. It was best that I leave. Maybe Alessandro and I had been fooling ourselves with trying to make things work for so long. The thought of not waking up in the same house as him any more brought tears to my eyes, but if he was past the point of no return, the only thing that awaited me if I stuck around was a worse pain. I wanted to see my brother. I wanted to hold my baby girl. I wanted to talk to my best friend. Maine was the best place for me for now, at least until I could figure out where Alexis and I would go next.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and navigated to Ricky’s number. I pressed the button to Facetime him and settled my face against my knees. When the call picked up and his face appeared on the other side, my emotions flowed out more earnestly. Ricky wasn’t just my twin brother, he was my closest confidant, and seeing him always softened whatever hardened walls I tried to put up.
“Hey,” I whimpered. “I miss you.”
Ricky looked pained at seeing me cry. “I miss you. What’s going on?” I always struggled with telling Ricky what was going on between Alessandro and me. Alessandro was Ricky’s best friend, and no one wanted us to work out more than he did. “Willow. Just tell me. It’s okay.”
“It’s over now. Officially. We told everyone.” I sniffled in some tears. “And things are so fucked up here.”
Ricky looked as heartbroken as I felt. “I’m so sorry, Willow.”
I gnawed the inside of my cheek. “I miss him so much, but he’s gone.”
“Maybe—”
“No.” I shook my head. “Ricky, trust me. If you talked to him now, you probably wouldn’t even recognize him.” Ricky didn’t respond, so I continued. “You’re probably going to need some more hands around now that Kelly’s popped, huh?”
Ricky stared sadly back at me. “We’re managing.”
“Ricky.”
He sighed. “Alexis would love to see you. Besides, I know if you’re to the point that you want to leave after sticking around all this time, there’s not much else I can say.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry, but it’s over.”
He nodded. “Okay. Well, what’s your plan? Are you coming tonight?”
I hadn’t really thought it through much. It wasn’t a rush decision, per se. I always knew that Maine would be my refuge if I ever had to run from Philly, but I hadn’t planned the specifics. It was about an eight-hour drive, but the only car I had was the one Alessandro and I had been sharing. Ricky took the car I had in California with him to Maine. I could rent one, but flying honestly seemed like a better idea, even if I didn’t feel like dealing with how many people that would force me to interact with.
“If I fly in, can you pick me up?” I asked. The closest airport to Harpswell was in Portland, Maine, about forty-five minutes away.
“Yeah, me or Sasha. Will you send me all your flight info once you’ve booked?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, of course.” I looked at the sadness on his face, and it broke my heart. “Ricky. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head with a little chuckle. “No, you don’t have to apologize to me. I…” His voice was strained. “I was the one who pushed you back toward him in the first place. This is all—”
“Don’t do that,” I said. “Don’t blame yourself. At all. I don’t regret marrying him, Ricky. I love him—more than myself. I wouldn’t have Alexis. Just…sometimes things don’t work.” It was a premonition of the conversation I’d have to have with Alexis one day when she asked me why her dad and I weren’t together.
Ricky nodded. “Yeah, I just wish this would have.”
I swallowed back some emotions. “Me too.”
Ricky quickly flicked a tear out of his eye and puffed out his chest. “Anyway. Do you think you’ll fly out early in the evening, then?”
I thought about trying to explain to Alessandro that I was leaving. I thought about the pain I would see on his face, the pleading in his eyes for me not to go. If I had to try and face Alessandro outright to get out of Philly, I’d never escape. “I’m going to leave after Alessandro is asleep tonight. I don’t have much here that can’t be replaced. I’ll pack a small bag and slip out late tonight. I’ll probably get into Maine early tomorrow morning.”
“Willow, that’s not a good idea,” Ricky warned. “You need to tell him you’re leaving, at least.”
“I can’t!” I said, my tears forcing past the barricade I’d attempted to put up. “I can’t because if he looks at me and kisses me and begs me not to go, I won’t go.”
Ricky sighed but didn’t argue, only nodded. “Let me know the details when you know them.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Bye.”
The call ended, and I took a deep breath. I started trying to think of what I needed to pack. I needed a couple of outfits to tide me over until I could buy some more clothes. My computer and work files, of course. My phone and some basic toiletries. I had a laptop bag that looked like a big purse. It would be sufficient to stuff some things into and be nondescript. Even if I happened across a Varasso on my way out like I did with Gabe when I left to see Mira the night before, I could just say I was getting a drink again and continue on my way.
I opened my laptop and navigated to where I could sift through some plane tickets. I did okay at first, but by the time I was to the screen where it was time to pay for the ticket, my hands were shaking, and tears were streaming down my face. It was something so small, just a plane ticket, but the idea of leaving Alessandro behind for good was too big a pill to swallow. Plane ticket prices wouldn’t change in
a day, so I closed my computer and stood up to pack instead.
I grabbed my bag and pulled out a few easy to travel in outfits and started to lay them out on the bed. Again, I started out not doing too bad, but then I started pulling out clothes that made me think of Alessandro. I happened upon the shirt that he ripped when we slept together the day before, and it broke me. I tucked it into the bag and realized that it was another task that would have to wait until I had a better handle on myself.
Stacy.
I needed to talk to Stacy. When she first brought me to her yoga class, she told me about something she could do, cleansing someone’s aura. I thought her whole shtick was just hokum, but Stacy had proven more than once that there was credence to her connection to the universe, and even if it was just a placebo, I felt like having her clean my aura could make me feel better and see more clearly. Unlike Molly, she didn’t seem to have written me off, so I figured one last conversation with my sister-in-law before she wasn’t one anymore couldn’t hurt me.
I swung by the bathroom to touch my face up. My makeup had run from my crying, so I just opted to take it off. My cheeks and eyes were puffier than normal, but I didn’t think I could hide those features, as they were becoming a more prevalent part of my face as of late. I flicked my hands through my hair, went back to grab my phone, and left the suite.
I didn’t want to go anywhere near Denise or anyone waiting on her hand and foot, but I figured I’d probably find Stacy in that part of the house. I headed down the hallway toward the guest rooms. When I walked out onto the landing between the floors, where I could look over the railing into the foyer, I thought I heard Stacy’s voice coming from the first floor. I braced my hands on the balustrade and leaned over to see if I could see her, but she wasn’t immediately visible.
“Stace?” I called out.
“Coming!” she called back.
I stood there, waiting for Stacy to show up when a pair of hands settled on my back. I started to turn my head to see who it was, but before I could, the hands pushed, and I was falling.
21
Alessandro
“Nothing yet.”
“Fuck.” I cracked my neck to the side. Luca had been out looking for the guys who tried to get Marco for over six hours and was still coming up empty. Even with the tips that we’d gotten from Denise, finding anything that made sense was turning into a wild goose chase. “Maybe you need to just come back?”
“No, Sandro,” Luca replied. “I’m not coming back until I find these guys. Hell, I might go put a bullet in Dario’s back right now.”
“Don’t you dare,” I hissed. “It’s not about the head of the family bullshit, it’s about me not wanting you going rogue alone. That nearly got me killed, remember?”
“But Sandro, you and Willow—”
“Willow and I are done.” It hurt to say it so plainly, like it was a fact. “We told Gabe today. You, Mol, and Stace already know. We’ll tell Marco and Kelly after the baby is born. I just… I couldn’t save it.”
“It can’t be over,” Luca said, sadly. “She’s… I mean, she’s one of us.”
“She always will be, but not as my wife anymore.”
“It’s my fault,” Luca said.
“It’s not.” I scoffed. “I mean, you certainly didn’t fucking help, but this is on me. She needed me to step up to the plate, and I couldn’t. I have no one to blame but myself.”
“Maybe once all this is over, you can—”
“Let me know if you find anything else out,” I cut him off.
Luca was silent for a while before he finally said, “Okay.”
I hung up the phone without saying goodbye. I couldn’t have that conversation anymore. I was going to lose it.
I set my head in my hands and tried to imagine what my life was going to be like. I’d been miserable at my one attempt to cook, but now that Molly knew the truth, I could ask her to teach me. They were all going to tiptoe around me for a while, which was going to be painful, but it would be better than the coldness I’d received as of late. I wouldn’t see Willow when I woke up, and I wouldn’t see her before I went to bed. Those facts were real and true and were like knives in my chest. Coupled with the fact that I’d know my daughter mostly through video chats, I was about ready to jump out the window.
Where had I gone wrong? Why couldn’t I be the man she needed me to be? Why couldn’t I just do what had to be done? I was the only thing standing between me and my own happiness, and yet, I couldn’t seem to get out of my own way. I wanted to blame my dad. I wanted to blame him for the hardened people he turned us into and blame him for leading this life, to begin with, but Luca, Marco, and Gabriel seemed to be making it out of the muck okay. Why was I the only one stuck in it? Why was I the only one who couldn’t get my dad’s sausage fingers from around my throat?
I looked down at the rings encircling my fingers, the very ones he’d worn and left to me when he died. Maybe they were possessed? Maybe he knew if I put them on, he’d be able to live on a frightening legacy through me. I grabbed one, desperate to pull it from my fingers, but I couldn’t do it. All things considered, I loved my dad. These rings were what I had left of him. Maybe they were tethering me, but how could I just cast them aside?
“Willow!”
The scream took me so off guard that I jumped sky-high. It took a second for me to realize that it was my wife’s name being screamed, but when I did, I knocked shit off my desk while trying to get out of my chair and out the door. I raced down the hallway and down the stairs, and when I got to the landing, I froze. Gabriel was on the floor, cradling a shaking and fighting-for-breath Willow. Her eyes were wide, and her skin was pale as a ghost.
I dropped to my knees next to them. “Willow! What happened?”
Gabriel looked up at me, and I could see the regret seeded deeply behind his eyes. “Denise tried to push her over. If I hadn’t been here, she would have been successful.”
A blinding white noise came from nowhere. All sense of anything other than rage left my body. Denise tried to kill Willow? After I trusted her? After I brought her into my home?
“Where did she go?” My voice was alien in its tone. The monster I’d been trying to pretend didn’t reside inside of me was clawing at my bones to break free. “Where did she go!”
“She ran out back toward the garden! Molly went after her.” I looked up, and Stacy was standing guard at the front door with her gun out.
I took off running. I blasted down the stairs and through the foyer to the door that led to the back. It was already open after Molly, and as my feet started to pound through the grass, I could hear multiple sets behind me. Molly was stopped at the opening to the hedge maze. I got to her side, and she was out of breath.
“She ran in. If we split up, she won’t get out.” She pointed to the right. “Gabriel, that way, Stace, you go to the left.” Her eyes scanned over and went wide with shock. I turned around, and Willow was standing there.
“You should go back ins—” I started.
“Alessandro, that woman tried to kill me.” She reached into my waistband and pulled out one of the guns I kept there. “I want to take her head off myself.”
“I’ll go around back, you two go in the front. Go!” I ordered.
Molly took off, and Willow and I blasted into the hedge maze. I had no intention of leaving Willow’s side, but she was fast and ducked around a corner when Stacy yelled that she’d seen her. I followed after her, but when I turned the same corner, Willow was nowhere to be seen.
“Stacy! Do you see her?” Gabriel yelled.
“I just saw her!” Molly screamed.
“Willow?” I shouted out. “Willow!”
“Sandro? Alessandro?”
“Come on, boys! If you can’t get out, you’ll starve to death in there.”
“I can’t find it!” Marco yelped.
“Ugh. Gabriel’s crying again. Shut up, you mutt,” Luca spat.
I searched through the different c
orridors, desperately trying to find a way out, or at least to my brothers. “Marco? Luca?”
“Sandro? Where are you?” Gabriel yelled. “I’m scared.”
“Tick tock, Varassos. Time’s running out.”
“Dad!” I yelled. “Help me! Get me out of here!”
“Shut up, Alessandro. He’ll throw us back in here tomorrow. Figure it out,” Marco’s voice called out from somewhere deep in the hedges.
“I hate this stupid fucking hedge maze!”
My dad’s guttural laughter emanated from somewhere outside the maze. “Come on, Alessandro. It’s not so bad. All you have to do is get out.”
My throat started to tighten as the memories washed over me. I hated that hedge maze, always had, always would. Once we dragged Denise out of here, I was having the entire thing pulled down. I didn’t care if we were leaving in a few weeks, and I didn’t care if the house would sell for more with it. I didn’t want this black stain on my memories back here anymore.
“Willow?”
As my senses came back to me, I realized the hedge maze was eerily silent. The yelling had stopped, the running had stopped, everything was totally still. I stopped running and started to step quietly. I kept my gun pointed out in front of my face and turned the next corner ahead of me, and what I saw nearly made me puke.
Willow was on her knees, her hands in the air, and my gun was tossed off to her side. Denise was standing over her with the barrel of her gun pressed directly to Willow’s forehead.
“Perfect timing,” she hissed, before peeking over her shoulder at me. “Drop your gun.”
I didn’t hesitate. I tossed it off to the side and held my hands up, as well. “Denise.”
She maneuvered so that she could keep me in her sights while keeping her gun set against Willow’s head.
“You should have just left it well enough alone, Willow. I really do want my brother dead.” She grasped the gun tighter, setting her finger on the trigger, and my heart sank. “Any last words for your husband?”
