by Ivy Stone
Every day I’m here a part of me dies. But if she were to see the girl I’ve become, that would kill me in an instant. My fear of being a failure in her eyes isn’t something I can take. Especially not when I know Giuseppe, to an extent, fears her himself. And this, if she had any idea, she would see red. This would start a war we’re incapable of winning. I tell her, she’ll come back guns blazing, Oliver by her side. He’s one of the only other people I could possibly trust in this world. And they’ll both die, fighting for me. And when Giuseppe kills them, he’ll end me too. There’s no winning against a man who refuses to lose. There’s no winning against a killer with no soul. No conscience. No fucking remorse. Lindsey’s given up so much of her life to care for me, I won’t be the reason it’s cut short.
My eyes close but they can’t sleep. My body’s aching from going too long without a hit. Lifting myself up with what little energy’s left in me, I shuffle to my bed and fall on my back into the blankets. Sheets rustle across the room and I tilt my neck up, eyeing Adriana’s bed. A mop of black hair peeks above her blankets.
“Where have you been?” she mumbles.
“Just out. It’s all right, go back to sleep,” I whisper. My voice soft, tone loving.
I lay my head back down and stare at the ceiling as Adriana’s voice ricochets off the walls of our bedroom.
“Ali… are you okay?”
My insides twist at the concern in her tone. The voice in my head screams no, how could I possibly be okay? But I keep my lips shut tight because none of this is her fault. Adriana is sweet, kind and compliant. She does as she’s told, she never cusses. The girl is in church every given Sunday, and she hasn’t seen the half of what I’ve been through, what her family have done this past year. She isn’t stupid, but I’ve hidden a lot behind well-practiced smiles and excuses. Sometimes I can feel the anguish in her eyes when she looks at me. At other times, the pity in them is too much. But we both know the consequences of going against her family, and that isn’t something that will end with both our hearts still beating inside of our chests.
But after tonight—after meeting Roamyn—giving up no longer feels like my only option.
I roll onto my side with hope in my heart, and stars in my eyes as I imagine him. The deep tones of his laugh. The honesty in his eyes. His calloused thumbs rubbing over my hands, reassuring me. Soothing me. I let the haze take me over and sink into a slumber.
“I’m gonna be fine,” I lie.
I’ll never be fine. But I might just survive.
The metallic taste of blood slides down the back of my throat. I try to lift my head and I groan doing so. The pins and needles in my neck from my head hanging make it hard to move. I blink to clear my foggy mind. Dirty old walls covered in grime greet me, along with the musty smell of a cold, damp room. Reality sets in and my eyes bulge, my body twists and I belt out a scream. My arms protest the movement as they hang above me. Hair flings across my face as I yank hard on them again.
God, where the hell am I.
Flashbacks of yesterday return full force. Lucio catching me leave, bag in hand. Him calling his father. Them dragging me into a car, kicking and screaming.
“I wouldn’t bother screaming, Ali. You’ll be wasting your energy. No one will hear you.”
A sob full of dread escapes me as Lucio comes into view from a dark corner of the empty room. He rolls up the tight sleeves of his button up shirt and stops them around his forearms.
“Tell me, Ali. Were you leaving me yesterday to go to him?” Jealousy seeps through his tone and I’m pulled back by confusion.
I shake my head with what little energy I have left after hanging for who the hell knows how long by thick chains from the exposed beam roof. “What are you talking about, Lucio?”
He stomps forward. Fast. Angry. I pull on the chains again as he noses up to me. His breath hot on my cheek as I turn my face away.
“I saw you the other night, Ali. You were sitting on a bench on the Brooklyn Bridge with a man. I saw the way you looked at him. Did you want his cock, Ali? Did you let him fuck that pretty littlesweet cunt of yours?”
I squint to push away his accusations but it’s impossible. Lucio gets to me every single time.
He squeezes my chin and yanks my face back to him, pushing my cheeks together painfully and it’s then I realize where the blood I was tasting came from. My lip’s split.
“Answer me!” he yells.
I can’t answer through the clenching of my face between his hands. I shake my head instead.
He pulls away and runs a hand through the longer patch of thick dark hair on top of his head. Hair I used to find attractive. His black eyebrows crease together as he stares at me. He begins pacing, hands resting on his narrow hips.
Footsteps come from the right side of the room, where stepping through a steel door, is Giuseppe.
I freeze. A new kind of fear holding me in place. Lucio scares me. But Giuseppe brings on the type of horror that only comes from being in the same room as a sociopath.
With every agonizingly slow step my way, I tremble.
“You know, I’ve given you and your sister a lot over the years, Alison. And now you get to earn a living, live in my house, eat my food, and be a part of my family. Yet, you’ve taken it all for granted and tried to leave us. And that just won’t do. I’m going to teach you a lesson about what happens to ungrateful bitches, Alison. And after this, you won’t ever want to leave us again. You know how I know that?” he asks, smiling with amusement. “Go on. Ask me, sweet girl.”
I open my mouth to speak, unsure if anything will come out. “How do you know?”
He takes a serious tone. “Because there won’t be any of you left to save.”
My eyes widen and I gasp. “No.”
I barely make out the word before everything goes black.
Blonde hair catches my eye along the bridge and I stick my neck out from the bench seat to see if it’s her.
“Please be her.” I pray.
My breath bottles in my chest as her shadow becomes apparent. She’s the right height, around the same size. My heart rate speeds up as I stand from the seat, but hope deflates in seconds when she steps closer because it isn’t her. Those aren’t her eyes. I had them stamped in my brain for the past two weeks since I met her on the bridge. I’d remember them anywhere. They’d been the first thing I’d see when I close mine at night, and they’d been haunting me ever since. I run a hand through my hair and my knees bounce as I wait. I’d searched every government database and turned up nothing.
How did I ever think I’d find her with only a first name and a few features?
Half the population is blonde with blue eyes. I had to guess at her age and it didn’t help the search. I had nothing to go on because I’d been too caught up in the feelings that had rocked me when we talked about hers. It was a dumb move, and now that regret is hanging over my head like a big fucking cloud, brewing up a storm. Talking with her drenched up memories I try to keep hidden.
My mother, her murder, it all came back to me. Mixed in with the enjoyment I’d felt from actually talking to someone, which took me to a place where my training meant nothing. Because when it comes to my mom, all I see is red. The anger of having her taken from me. Her blood splattered over her lifeless body, all over my hands, my clothes. The blood I want to spill when I take all life from the man who killed her.
I push down the memories and sit back on the bench. Resting my head in my hands, I try to black out her distinct laugh, her smiling face, and the love in her eyes as she looked down at me over her huge swollen stomach that held my baby sister—a girl I never got to meet.
Mom’s smile was one no one could ignore. It was beautiful, just like her. It would fade the hurt when she’d been gone all day and night, working two jobs and not with me. It would dull the ache of missing her. And when she would curl me up in her arms and hold me tight it made everything seem better than it really was. I remember her hugs becoming longer and
tighter. I was only young, but I could feel her fear with every squeeze. With every smile that began to fade or didn’t quite reach her eyes. It felt as though she believed every hug would be the last. And one day it was.
I jumped as someone thumped on the front door. A deep scary voice had me gripping Momma’s shirt tighter.
“See Momma there’s monsters. I told you. I don’t wanna sleep by myself. I’m scared.”
Her frown grew wide and her hands closed over my wrists.
“Baby, I’m going to protect you. You’ll be okay. But I need you to do something for me. I need you to hide under the bed. Can you do that for me?”
Her voice sent a chill ran down my spine and I frowned because something was wrong. She sounded scared.
I nodded and jumped down off the bed to slide under it to the very back where I’d hidden before when we played hide and seek. No one could see me there, it was the best spot in the house. But this wasn’t how we usually played.
Mom’s hands touched the floor and her worried face hurt my heart and my belly. She bent under the bed. “No matter what Roamyn, you stay as quiet as you can and stay under here until the men are gone. Don’t come out, baby. You can’t make a noise. And remember…” she paused and stretched her hand out for mine. I placed my hand in hers and she squeezed tightly. A tear fell down her cheek. “…Momma loves you, Roamyn. It’s you and me, baby. We’ll always be okay. Remember that.”
I nodded my head and stayed quiet just like she’d told me to. My heart thumped so loudly I could hear it. Momma was crying and I didn’t like it when she cried. She let go of my hand and my chest got heavy. I started to cry, I couldn’t hold it in. I slapped my hand over my mouth to stay quiet as I heard heavy footsteps. Something was wrong. Really wrong. Everything happened so fast it was all a blur. Screaming. Shouting. It was hurting my ears. I covered my hands over them and my eyes went round at what I saw.
Momma fell to the floor with a loud thump. Something cracked and my chest hurt. It was hurting so bad. I didn’t know what was happening. My mouth opened. I wanted to scream, even though I knew she told me not to. My fingers itched to reach for her, help her, but fear held me back. My bones shook against each other. The rubbing a pain I couldn’t control. I couldn’t stop the shake and it only got worse when I saw Momma try to crawl away in between sobs. Big black boots stomped on her back. Again and again. They kicked her into the floor. Thump after thump. She screamed again and I jumped in fright.
“Come here, whore. I’m gonna enjoy this.”
Someone growled at my mom and a knot formed in my belly. A loud smack sliced the air and Momma hit the floor. Her eyes found mine and I gasped. Tears fell through my hands as I kept them tight over my mouth so I wouldn’t scream loud. Her hair covered her face and the bad men mustn’t have seen me because she shook her head just slightly, silently telling me not to move. A man with fancy brown shoes walked into the room over to my mom.
A loud shot sounded and I flinched. Warmth trickled over my legs and my pants became soaked. I cried in silence. Another shot hurt my ears and I squeezed my eyes closed to shut out the world. Maybe if I could make it all go away in my mind, it wouldn’t have really happened. Maybe it was just a bad dream, like the ones I’d been having. But as I reopened my eyes my mom’s lifeless ones stared back at me and her whole body was stiff. She was staring at me as if she couldn’t see me. As if I was not there looking at her from under the bed.
No, Momma.
I screamed in my head. My heart broke. She was dying, but the men were still there. I stayed frozen in my spot until a few minutes later when the last of the footsteps disappeared from the room. I thought they’d all gone but they hadn’t. When I poked my head forward, crawling out for Momma I stopped when I got a glimpse of a man’s face before he shut the door with a loud bang. I waited a few more seconds, my heart thundering in my ears but heard nothing but silence so I crawled out.
“Momma?” I whispered as every bone in my body shuddered together. My eyes bulged at the thick red blood pooling around her. I trembled forward and fell onto her.
No. Momma, wake up.
Sharp pain hurt my body. I shook her shoulders but she didn’t move or make a sound. Tears filled up my eyes and blurred everything in front of me until all I could see was red. On my hands. On my pants. All around the two of us.
It hurt too much. I doubled over and laid down beside her with one arm cradling her body and my face, resting on the cold hard floor. Maybe if I stayed here and held her, wished hard enough for her to hear my cries she’d curl her arms around mine and tell me what she always reminds me. ‘It’s you and me, baby. We’ll always be okay.’
My shoulders bobbed with every sob until I became so tired from crying, my eyes began to close. With every blink, they closed for longer until I fell asleep and didn’t wake until a familiar voice soothed my soul and my cheek.
My eyes flicked open to the sad face of my grandma, my momma’s mom. My limbs felt heavy as Grandma lifted me up from the floor and held me to her chest.
“Beth you gotta take him away. You need to get out of the city. They find him. They’ll do to him what they’ve done to Catherine. I’m not gonna let that happen.”
His voice echoes in my ears as the memory fades where it always does, despite how hard I try to remember who owned that voice or remember what came next.
Repressed fucking memories.
My doctor told me I’ve unconsciously blocked out memories from before, during, and after the event, because of the trauma I suffered when it all happened. I did it without knowing and for years I remembered nothing. Over time, little things had begun to trigger flashbacks. Sometimes it was a smell or something someone said just like my mother. Slowly, moments of my life I’d lost were returning. But they were all just pieces to a puzzle I can’t make sense of, or finish. The very first time I shot my gun in weapons training at the academy I remembered a few vital moments of that night. I remembered his face. The one who blew two slugs into the back of my mother’s head. I remembered his fancy fucking shoes and the smugness in his features as he walked out of my mother’s bedroom. From that day forward, my goals were set. I’d make Giuseppe Marino pay for his sins. For the hurt and treachery he’d brought upon me, my mom, and so many others.
Laughter overtakes my mind and I twist my head and see a couple holding hands, pass by. I rub my hands over my face and stand from the bench seat, ready to make the walk home. Ali hasn’t come back. My feet keep me in place while my mind tells me to wait. Just a few more minutes, she’ll turn up. After two weeks, I’m doubtful she’ll be back now. Every night I’ve come back here to the bridge, hoping she’ll come back so I could see how she was doing. At least, find out more about her so I could keep an eye out for her. But I’m as helpless now as I was when I was a kid, because I can’t help her, just like I couldn’t help my mother. I had no way to find her, and every day she doesn’t come back leaves me wondering what she returned home to the night she left me standing on the bridge. I shuffle on my feet, forcing myself to leave and hang my shoulders in defeat.
Four Years Later
I flatten the needle against my skin plunging it in deep. Oxycontin flushes through my veins and the rush pulls me under almost straight away. My eyes close for a second, relief settles over me. For a brief moment, I forget about the music pumping in the background. I forget about the girls surrounding me, getting prepped to go on stage or have just come off. Cheap perfume and alcohol no longer linger on my skin like a constant reminder of what makes up my life. But the moment doesn’t last long. One of the girls sits to my right, brushing her hair in the mirrors in front of us without batting an eyelash at me. Most of them don’t care around here, they all know I use and half of them do too. We’re all here for one reason or another. They’ve either been forced to be here, or they want to be here. I don’t know which riddles me with disgust more.
I lean over, my make-up scattered on the counter in front of me and check my face in the mirro
r. My bright pink lips stand out, but my eyes pop with the shit ton of black crap shadowed around them. No one would ever guess underneath the make-up is a nineteen-year-old girl doing what she has to survive in this screwed up world. I sit back down in my seat, biting my nails as I stare at the floor, concentrating on the seductive lyrics, the beat of sultry music while I wait for my cue. The fog in my head thickens. It’s my escape and my reality. My perfect world where nothing can hurt me. No one can touch me. Get past these walls because I’m lost. Lost in a place with only myself, and it’s fucking wonderful. No voices. No memories. Nothing but bliss.
I stagger to the main stage from the dressing rooms of Sweet Tarts tripping up the stairs, but I don’t fall. Something tightens around my arm, holding me up. I blink through the fog still clouding around me and I see a flicker of long red hair followed by a whisper.
“Ali, you need to pull your shit together before Giuseppe or Lucio sees you. They’re both here tonight. You might not care if you kill yourself but I do.”
Silver’s voice swirls in the air. Standing up straight, I squint my eyes closed in an effort to pull myself together, but when I reopen them Silver’s face blurs in my vision.
“Fuck.”
My head spins.
“Yeah, well, what do you expect,” she mutters pushing me toward the stage, hand at my lower back.
I turn back before stepping out into the lights and cheers coming from the audience as I’m announced. “Thanks, Silver.”
She gives me a warm smile filled with pity. That’s how pathetic I’ve become—a prostitute with no family, no future, and hardly any life in her feels sorry for me.
Fire burns all the way down my throat as I take another shot of bourbon. My eyes never waver from the half-naked ass shaking in front of me. Small, round—fucking delectable. Light flickers off the silver pole as she swings around it in perfect precision, her long dark hair flowing behind her. Her eyes lock onto mine as she grinds against the pole. My cock stiffens and I relax back in the seat to adjust the ache growing below my belt. She watches me as I reach down and give my cock a squeeze. Lust pulses through me and I grunt as her tongue darts out and she licks her lips. She’s teasing me with her ass, her dancing, the look in her blue eyes. It’s been three weeks of the best kind of torture. Every night at the same time, sitting in this dirty fucking club I really shouldn’t even be in. She dances and I watch. She just hasn’t realized I’m not only watching her. She’s a bonus I never expected the first night I walked into the strip club for recon.
