Protected by the Monster

by Hamel, B. B.

  “This is Luca,” Don Leone said like she never started speaking at all. “Luca’s going to stay with you for a while, make sure you’re safe.”

  She threw up her hands. “You’re not listening to me.”

  He smiled at her, the pained expression of a man that had to deal with an unruly, frustrating child.

  “I’m listening, Clair,” he said. “But you’re not comprehending your situation.”

  “So, what, I’m a captive?”

  “Consider yourself a part of the witness protection program,” Don Leone said with a delighted little smile.

  Roberto snorted a laugh and leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

  She glared at Roberto then looked back at her uncle.

  “Please,” she said. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I know your business is dangerous. But I haven’t been involved in any of this in my entire life, and I barely even knew Uncle Fazio, and—”

  “Luca,” Don Leone said, interrupting her. “Come introduce yourself to my niece. Luca is an important lieutenant, one of our best, you’ll be in good hands.”

  I grimaced a smile and stepped forward. “Good to meet you,” I said.

  Her eyes flashed to mine for the first time. She made a face, looked back at her uncle, then looked at me a second time. Her gaze lingered longer, her mouth parting ever so slightly, the pink tip of her pretty tongue licking along her plump bottom lip.

  “Nice, uh, to meet you, too,” she said, then looked back at Don Leone. “Like I said, I appreciate this, but I’m not staying.”

  “You’re staying,” Don Leone said with an air of finality, his words sharp and solid.

  Clair took a step back, a look of surprise in her eyes.

  “You’re staying,” Don Leone said again, though softer that time. “This is a temporary measure, just until we’re sure that you’re safe. But believe me when I say, right now, you are most definitely not safe, not in this city, not in this country. You don’t truly understand the blessing and the curse you’ve been given, but right now, you’re one of the biggest targets in the whole city.” He stepped toward her, rapping his cane on the floor three times. “So do not misbehave and do not make Luca’s job more difficult.”

  “And what’s his job?” she asked, her voice still somehow dripping with venom, despite the fear in her eyes.

  “He’s your bodyguard,” Don Leone said.

  “Babysitter,” she said.

  “I prefer bodyguard,” I said.

  She shot me a look then turned back to her uncle. “Please—”

  “Luca will get you anything you need,” Don Leone said, already turning away. “He’ll stay here with you, sleep in this house, make sure you’re safe at all times until we can figure out what to do with you.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, dread already filling the pit of my stomach.

  This was going to be a very, very boring job.

  And a very frustrating job, if her attitude was anything to judge it by.

  “Good,” Don Leone said, limping out, leaning on his cane with Roberto by his side. “Spend what you need to spend, get her whatever she wants. Make sure she’s safe and comfortable. You have your sidearm?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, and glanced back at Clair.

  She stared at me, her mouth hanging open.

  I looked back at Don Leone and forced myself not to smile.

  “Very good,” Don Leone said. “She’s under your protection for now. She is the most important thing in this city at the moment, and I suspect the Jalisco know about her. They have men in Chicago, and they’ll have heard about what Fazio did.”

  “You think the Jalisco are coming here?” I asked, tensing a bit as I walked with them to the door.

  He paused on the threshold and shook his head. “No,” he said. “This is the best safe house in the city, my personal safe house. Nobody knows about this, nobody but us. Not even her mother knows the location of this place. But the Jalisco will look for her, and I need you to be prepared. Can you do this for me, Luca?”

  “I’ll take care of her, sir,” I said.

  “Good.” Don Leone nodded once. “Poor girl doesn’t understand what that asshole just threw her into. And I’m not entirely sure she really knows how much money he left her.”

  “How much was it, sir?” I asked, unable to help myself, and regretted it right away. Roberto gave me a look that could melt steel, but Don Leone only laughed softly.

  “Millions,” he said, then turned and left the house.

  Roberto gave me a lingering, withering look, then shut the door behind them, leaving me alone in the living room.

  I stared after them and ran a hand through my hair.

  I had none of my stuff, no clothes or toiletries. I was going to have to buy everything I needed, and on top of that, buy everything this girl wanted. I was a glorified fucking babysitter, and all that talk about me being a killer was just a bunch of bullshit.

  He didn’t care how many Jalisco I killed for him, he only cared that I was loyal and I would watch over his rich little niece.

  I turned back from the door and Clair stood near the kitchen, watching me with narrowed eyes.

  I stared back at her, head tilted. I let my eyes roam her body, not trying to hide it as I looked at her breasts, at her hips, then back up to her lips. She looked disgusted, her mouth hanging open, her nose wrinkled like it smelled.

  “I’m not taking orders from you,” she said.

  “You’d have more fun if you did.”

  “I’m not joking. I don’t care if you’re some big, bad mafia guy. Deep down, you’re all just a bunch of bullies and assholes.”

  “You’re not wrong,” I said. “But you’d still have more fun if you obeyed my every command.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not interested in talking,” she said. “I’m not interested in staying, either. I’m getting out of here as soon as I can.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But I can’t let you leave until the Don says it’s okay. You know that, right?”

  “Whatever you say.” She crossed her arms again.

  “Good. You do what you want, I’ll do what I want, and we stay out of each other’s way. We’ll get through this shitty assignment together.”

  “Fine. Works for me.”

  “Just don’t try to run. Seriously, I’m not going to let you go, no matter what. I’ll drag you back, kicking and screaming, and tie you up in the bathtub if I have to.”

  “In the bathtub?” she asked. “That’s creepy and specific.”

  I shrugged and tilted my head. “Personal experience.”

  She opened her mouth and shut it again. She let out a little snort, shook her head, and stomped to the staircase. She brushed past me, and for a moment I caught her smell, grass and honey.

  I watched her stomp upstairs and disappear into one of the bedrooms.

  I let out a little sigh and walked over to the couch. I dropped down, kicked my feet up, found the remote shoved in between the cushions, and unmuted golf.

  It was going to be a boring, frustrating few days, and that girl was going to make my life miserable. But at least there was a decent cable package.

  And, hell, at least she wasn’t bad to look at.

  2

  Clair

  I slammed the unfamiliar door and turned the lock on the knob.

  For a long time, I just stood there, staring at the floor. It was hardwood, gnarled with small knots, polished to a shine. It looked new, just like the rest of the house, like it had been gutted and refinished at some point in the last few years.

  That was hard to believe, since it was apparently some super-secret mafia safe house.

  I let myself look up, scanned the room. An old queen bed was pressed against the far wall with a simple nightstand on either side. There was a clock on the right, glowing a red LED, and a lamp on the left. The bedspread was floral, looked musty, and two pillows in off-white cases sat against the black metal frame. There was a bathr
oom through the door to the right, a small closet, and a bureau with a vase of fake flowers and a few small matryoshka dolls carved in shiny wood and painted a bright red.

  A heavy cross hung between the windows.

  I walked into the bathroom, my hands shaking. There was a tub and a shower on the left, small toilet on the right, a cheap-looking plywood cabinet and a sink straight ahead. I stared into the unadorned mirror that hung above it, stared at my face, and tried to understand what was staring back at me.

  I hadn’t been involved with the mafia since my father died when I was a little girl. I barely remembered the mafia at all, if I was being honest. They were just a blur in my memory, just a bunch of older guys that were always hanging around with my dad, making jokes and laughing.

  I remembered liking them. I remembered Uncle Luciano was nice to me, gave me candy when my parents weren’t looking.

  But it’d been so long.

  The idea that I was still mafia made my blood run cold. My mother didn’t talk much about my father and she stayed away from her family back in Chicago. What stories she did tell were never good: violence, darkness, danger, depression, death. She talked about uncles drinking themselves to an early grave, about brothers hitting their wives, about cousins killing political figures.

  Every time a mafia movie came on TV, every time I expressed any interest in watching The Sopranos, she always made sure to tell me exactly what she thought of the familia.

  I turned on the cold tap, splashed freezing water in my face, dried it off with a scratchy thin towel. I turned away from the bathroom, years of my mother telling me how dangerous the mob is, how much I should hate them, how I’m not a part of their world flitting through my head.

  And now, even though I never asked for it, even though I hate the idea of it, I’m very much a part of it all.

  I walked to the bed and sat at the edge. I took out my phone, stared at the screen.

  For a brief second, I thought about calling the cops.

  But that would be stupid. Uncle Luciano owned Philadelphia. I could get the cops to come here, even though I didn’t know where I was exactly, but they could probably locate my phone. And when that happened, what next?

  Uncle Luciano would hunt me down, drag me back here, and punish me.

  Instead, I found my mother’s number and called her.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she answered after a couple rings.

  I could hear the radio playing WXPN in the background.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said. “What are you up to?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Trying to work on this new piece, you know, and it’s so dreadful. Then I have housework to do and all manner of tidying up. What about you, sweetie?”

  “Not too much,” I said, kicking my legs, staring at my feet. “What’s the new piece?”

  “Oil on canvas,” she said. “Trying to make a passage still life, but instead of painting an orange and flowers, they look more like monsters from outer space trying to eat each other.”

  I smiled a little bit, my heart beating fast, my stomach a mess. Ever since I was younger and we moved out on our own, my mother has been into art. She did paintings, sculptures, even had an intense pottery phase and sold a few expensive pieces. But lately she was back into traditional paintings, and even though she acted like she was terrible, she had an incredible talent.

  I didn’t know why I called her or what I wanted out of this. I knew she would be upset as soon as I told her what was going on, but I needed her to know, needed to hear her voice. We talked on the phone almost every day, but I haven’t spoken to her since I heard from Uncle Fazio’s lawyers.

  About the inheritance. About the money and the property.

  “I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” I said. “And even if you’re not, I bet you could title it ‘Aliens Kissing in the Moonlight’ and sell it for ten grand.”

  She laughed at that, light and breezy. That was my mother these days, light and breezy. Not like back when I was a little girl, back then she was always looking over her shoulder, always sure something bad was around the next corner.

  But after years of the world not ending, I think she’d settled into a bit of a routine.

  “I’m not so sure about that, but it’s nice of you to say so,” she said. “You know, I haven’t heard from you in a few days. I was starting to think you found a new boyfriend.”

  “No boyfriend,” I said. “Just busy.”

  “Work’s treating you okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, and it occurred to me that I likely wouldn’t have a job after this. I’d been doing PR for a conglomerate of local art galleries, a job my mother managed to wrangle for me, actually. I loved it, and was good at it, but I was going to get fired once they realized I was taking a forced vacation for some undetermined amount of time.

  “No boyfriend, work’s okay,” she said, “so why the radio silence, sweetie?”

  I chewed my lip for a moment, couldn’t put it off.

  “Look, Mom,” I said. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Did you get a tattoo? It’s okay if you did. I mean, I don’t love them, but you’re old enough to make your own bad choices.”

  “I didn’t get a tattoo,” I said. “And I wouldn’t avoid you for days if I did.”

  “Noted,” she said. “And I didn’t realize you’ve been avoiding me.”

  “Mom, Uncle Fazio died,” I said.

  Silence from her end. I heard the host of WXPN say something muffled, and a new song came on, something pop-punkish with a jazzy guitar riff.

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Mom,” I said. “Your brother Fazio. Don’t act like you don’t know who I mean.”

  “I don’t have a brother, dear,” she said, her voice sounding strained and higher pitched. “You know that. I left that all behind.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I’ve never asked about them or pushed to get to know them. But just because you left them, doesn’t mean that they’ve left us.”

  “You’re upsetting me,” she said.

  “Mom, just listen, okay?”

  “What happened? Are you in trouble?”

  “Uncle Fazio left me money,” I said. “He left me a lot… a lot of money.”

  She sucked in a breath and I thought she might have hung up, but the music kept playing, going from up-tempo verse into an expansive and screeching chorus.

  “Mom?” I asked.

  “He left you money,” she said. “I don’t understand.”

  “He died, Mom, and a bunch of lawyers appeared at my apartment a few days ago. They showed me all these papers, talked about wills and all that, and apparently Fazio left me money. A lot of money.”

  “No,” she said. “He wouldn’t do that. He barely knew you.”

  “I don’t know why he would, but he did,” I said. “I never asked for it. Never got in touch with him. Did he have children?”

  “No,” she said. “No children. No wife, either. Fazio… was never the type to settle down. Or to have children.”

  “That would explain the amount of money he left me.”

  “Don’t joke, Clair,” she said, her voice sharp. “Don’t you joke right now. This isn’t the time.”

  “Okay, Mom,” I said, keeping my voice soft and level. “I know you’re freaked out. Imagine how I felt when the lawyers were in my apartment, making me sign things, and how I felt when they showed me the accounts I was inheriting.”

  “How much did he leave you?” she asked.

  “A few million,” I said.

  Silence again. The song ended with a wail from the singer. A little indulgent, I thought. Kind of stupid, actually.

  “A few million,” she said.

  “More than a few,” I said. “More like twelve.”

  “Twelve million dollars.” She let out a sharp, crazed laugh. “My estranged brother, my bastard mafia brother, left you twelve million dollars.”

  “
And some property,” I said. “A bunch of property, actually, out in Chicago. I think that’s worth a lot too, but I don’t know. I don’t really understand any of this. The lawyers just came, and said it was all mine, and I signed documents, and—”

  “Where are you right now?” she asked.

  “That’s the other thing,” I said.

  “Clair, you’re scaring me. Where are you right now?”

  “I’m in one of Uncle Luciano’s safe houses,” I said.

  She took a sharp breath and I waited for her to scream, but the scream never came.

  “You’re joking,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “I’m really sorry. I don’t understand it either. The lawyers left, and I didn’t hear anything for a day, I was just trying to process it all, and then Uncle Luciano showed up this morning, saying how I was in danger now because of Fazio, and he hauled me off to this… this house.”

  “Are you safe?” she asked. “Are they hurting you?”

  “What? No, they’re not hurting me,” I said.

  “You have to get away from them,” Mom said. “Stay where you are. I’ll… I’ll call the police. I’ll come get you myself. Just tell me where you are.”

  “Mom,” I said. “I can’t do that and you can’t call the cops.”

  “What? Are you insane? Do you have any idea what kind of people you’re dealing with?” Her voice rose higher and higher in pitch until she sounded like she might scream for real, might lose herself completely.

  “I know,” I said. “But he owns the cops, right? He owns half the city. If he wants to hurt me, he’s going to hurt me. But I don’t think that’s what he wants.”

  “You didn’t think so?” She barked a laugh. “You talked to him, didn’t you? You listened to him.”

  “It was hard not to,” I said.

  “You can’t listen to Luciano,” she said. “He’s dangerous, Clair. He’ll hurt you if it’s in his best interests. You have to understand that.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know what he is. But I can’t do anything else.”

  “You can run. You can tell me where you are.”

  “Mom, I’m sorry.”