Blurred Lines

by Jennifer K. Brand

  “Oh no you don’t mister. You owe me answers.”

  He sighed. Time for the heavy stuff. He looked at her chocolate colored eyes and gained some strength from the strength he saw there. “Promise me you’ll hear me out first, even though you’ll want to interrupt or throw me out, just, please hear me out.”

  “I promise.”

  He took in a deep breath and started the story he never thought he’d ever have to tell.

  “Raffaele took me in when I was ten. My father had been a good friend of his even though Raffaele lived here and my father in Naples. But my father oversaw all of Raffaele’s businesses in Naples. My mother had died of cancer two years before my dad was shot dead in a suspected gang war, so Raffaele took me back with him to New York.

  He had a two year old daughter when I arrived. Raffaele was only in his mid-twenties at the time, trying to organize the Naples Mafia, the Camorra, in New York, and succeeding. He was too busy to get married but he had many women. One of them had gotten pregnant. I still don’t know what happened to her, but Raffaele took in their daughter, Isabelle.

  I became Isabelle’s big brother automatically. Only when she was 16 did I realize she felt more for me and hard as I tried, I couldn’t resist it. I fell in love with her. God, did I love her. She was such a happy person, so full of joy. It was infectious. We’d agreed to tell Raffaele only after Isabelle turned 18. By that time, I’d already started working for Raffaele. Errands at first, then it became clear that he was grooming me to be his second in command. Isabelle didn’t like that at all. She wanted us to get married when she turned eighteen and move away from New York and her father’s reach.

  When I refused to leave Raffaele, she revolted by planning a graduation trip abroad with her classmates. I was against it from the beginning but I knew that the only way I could stop her was agreeing to leave Raffaele’s organization. So she left and that was the last time we saw her alive.”

  He paused to look Lori. Her eyes were wide but he couldn’t read her expression. God, he hoped this wasn’t a mistake. He went on.

  “Raffaele searched high and low for her and only sometime later did we learn what had happened to her. There was a cartel based in Barcelona that was kidnapping Latin American girls and selling them all over Europe. Isabelle had been one of the ones they’d kidnapped on a beach in Colombia. Barranquilla to be exact. Hector had a habit of picking the prettiest girls for himself, if only for some time, and that’s how he got Isabelle.

  Maybe it’s because she spoke American English, or maybe she insisted she was Italian or maybe she told Hector who her father was. Whatever it was, Hector panicked and ordered for her to be killed. We never recovered a body. One of Hector’s men told us that Hector had raped her repeatedly, then he’d had her killed. They dismembered her body and buried parts of her in different places to avoid Raffaele ever finding out. It was also at the height of guerilla kidnappings in Colombia so I suppose he hoped Raffaele would take it as that.

  I confessed to Raffaele about my love for Isabelle and he told me that he’d known for some time and that he’d planned to encourage it. Something about nothing being better for his daughter than his second in command.

  We came up with a plan to infiltrate Hector’s cartel. I was to travel to Barcelona and spend however long it took to get into his cartel and get close to him. It worked. Smoothly. And then you showed up.”

  He took a deep breath then looked at Lori again. She was as white as a ghost.

  “What exactly is the plan? With Hector I mean?” she asked.

  “It’s simple. Kill him. It would have been as easy as paying somebody to do it but we wanted to make him suffer. Infiltrating would have allowed me to get closer to people he cared about. But since getting to know him, I’ve realized that he doesn’t have any family. So the idea remained to intercept as many shipments of women as possible while trying to figure out his connections in Latin America. We want to kill Hector above all else, but if we can stop his trade then that will be an added bonus.”

  She was visibly shaking. He moved closer to hold her but she recoiled. Fuck.

  “And what exactly did you do for Raffaele, before you moved to Barcelona?”

  He sighed. This was the tough part. “I won’t get into details but I was something like his underboss. I did anything and everything I could to help the organization run smoothly.”

  “Have you killed people?”

  There was no easy way to say this. He looked her straight in the eye. “Yes.”

  She put her face in her hands and started shaking it back and forth, as if willing the information out of her head. He felt like an asshole. She looked up at him, eyes teary, looking so beautiful even with the tears and sorrow on her face. “Do you do it for Hector too?”

  “Yes. It goes with the territory.” He sighed. “You have to understand, that’s what I’ve been groomed to do. I loved Isabelle and he took her away from me. Yet he continues with life as is. He needs to pay.”

  “I’m a lawyer Davide, I believe in justice at the courts.”

  He scoffed. “Right. The courts are going to be very willing to help Raffaele D’Amato.”

  She looked at him for some time then looked away, “I need to think about this, you have to go.”

  “I haven’t said everything I came here to say.”

  “I think you’ve said enough.”

  “No, you promised to let me say everything I came here to say.”

  She looked at him clearly wanting to argue but she kept quiet. So he grabbed his opportunity.

  “I love you Lori. I haven’t loved any woman other than Isabelle. Never wanted to. I think you feel the same way. And I want us to be together. It’s insane, maybe impossible, but I want us to give it a try.”

  She didn’t say a word. Her eyes looked pained. There was love in there too, or maybe he only saw what he wanted to see.

  “Is that it?” she asked and his heart sunk.

  “Yes. But…”

  “If that’s it, then please go Davide. When… if… I’m ready I’ll let you know.”

  He stood up, she looked very determined to get him to leave. His feisty beautiful girl. Yes. His. She was his. And he would do what he could to convince her of that. But he’d promised himself to give her whatever it is she wanted. And she wanted him gone.

  “I’ll be back Lori. I’ll give you time to think but I’ll be back.” He located his clothes and dressed. She avoided his gaze the entire time. He wrote down his number on a piece paper. He gave it to her. “This is my number. It’s not easily traceable, no one but Raffaele has it.”

  She took the number then gestured to the door. He leaned in to kiss her lips. He couldn’t help himself. But just as he was about to, she turned her face and he kissed her cheek instead.

  God, he hoped she’d come around, because he wasn’t above taking her by force.

  He got into his rental and started towards Queens. He’d been recuperating in Raffaele’s New Jersey home but he wanted to be closer for when Lori came around. So he chose to drive to Raffaele’s home in Queens. A light rain had started to fall when he pulled out of Williamsburg but he wasn’t in a hurry to get home. He wanted some time to think about everything.

  She’d become his everything. As illogical as that was. For the longest time he only had his revenge. For the longest time he’d felt so lonely. So alone. But now he had her. It was as if he’d been asleep for years and finally woke up to see her dancing at The Q. He felt alive with her, and for that, he’d fight for her.

  Just as he was turning onto Rodney street, engrossed in his thoughts, he glimpsed a dark van from the rear view mirror. He was getting paranoid. No one knew where he was, not even Hector. So he dismissed it. The van stayed with him even as he continued onto Meeker Street. He became alert immediately. The driver wasn’t being particularly discreet which is what worried him. People who feared nothing were the most dangerous, and whoever was driving clearly wanted his presence known.

&n
bsp; He tried to remember if he’d seen the van in Williamsburg but he’d been too distracted to notice. He was losing his edge. This is why Raffaele had never married or kept a woman close. They tended to be the biggest of distractions. And the only woman they’d both loved had been brutally murdered because of them.

  He was interrupted from his brief moment of thought when he saw the van speed up. Time to lose the motherfucker. Instead of continuing down Cherry Street as planned, he swerved onto Union Avenue, narrowly missing oncoming traffic. He actually smiled. He’d missed being in the thick of things.

  He abruptly swerved left, his rental skidding full circle before turning and going down Conselyea. He again missed an oncoming car as he was driving the wrong way. The other car swerved to give him way and hit a pole almost taking a guy on a bicycle with it. Thank fuck there wasn’t much traffic but people were everywhere. Damn pedestrians with a death wish crossing the street as they wished. He swerved to avoid one such dumb fuck and hit the curb. Fuck.

  He veered off the curb and checked his rear view mirror. The van wasn’t keeping up though he hadn’t lost it yet. He narrowly missed another oncoming car grazing the side of a roadside lamp post. He ignored the crashing impact and sped up. He couldn’t return the rental, that was a given. Just then he heard a loud screech as if a car was braking. He checked his mirror in time to see the impact between the van and the oncoming car he’d narrowly avoided.

  He took a right onto Lorimar Street heaving a sigh of relief. Any other day, before Lori, he’d have been happy to stop and express his anger through his fists. But now he had her, he could no longer afford to be reckless.

  Taking a few calming breaths, he turned onto Metropolitan Avenue and wedged the BMW between two lorries. Time to make the call he’d been dreading. He had to assume that whoever was following him had seen him coming from Lori’s. He dialed her number and hoped like hell she’d pick up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY – EIGHT

  He killed people for a living and he wasn’t about to stop. If I allowed myself to think about it I’d admit that Hector deserved to die. For what he’d done to me, to Isabelle and God knows how many more women. But I couldn’t be with a man who treated life with such disregard.

  I decided to take a shower, my mind filled with thoughts of Davide. I played the usual song.

  And just as the many times before, I got teary, and by the end of the shower I’d resolved to talk to Davide. Fickle, was the only way to describe my mind when it came to Davide. But hadn’t I been the one to ask him for a reason for me not to give up on us? He’d told me everything I wanted to hear, and most importantly, that he loved me. It was time to live up to my promise. I wasn’t sure what I’d do with the fact that he was an underboss to not one, but two crime syndicates, but I wanted him so bad my mind tremored and my body downright shook with the thought.

  I wore my pajamas and took out my cellphone. We’d talk about this. We had to find a solution. Just as I was about to call, the doorbell rang. My heart soared even as it beat fast in my chest. He was back. I rushed through the living room to the door and just before I opened it, my phone rang. Davide. I smiled, he was so impatient.

  I swung the door open ready to issue my apologies, scream my love for him and beg him to abandon his vengeance against Hector.

  Instead of Davide, Pedro stood in his place. I screamed.

  Pedro moved fast, holding me by the throat, cutting off my air supply. He pushed me back to my living room, shutting the door.

  “I remember telling you that you looked like a repeat offender, and that the next time I had you I’d take my sweet time with you.”

  I attempted to scream again and he hit me squarely on the jaw. The pain rattled everything in my head.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he bellowed. He started feeling up my breasts and I whimpered. “No one can keep you safe now. Not even your boyfriend.”

  “My… my what?”

  “You heard me little girl. Now, I love feisty women but I have all the time to enjoy you. He dragged me to my bedroom and everything within me shook. He was about to rape me. This was it.

  He tore off a piece of my bed sheet and wrapped it around my hands. He repeated the procedure, only this time he placed the piece of cloth around my mouth, effectively shutting me up.

  “We have all the time in the world little girl. But now, I know Hector is dying to see you again.”

  He dragged me out of the front door and into a waiting van. He threw me in the back and we sped off. I wasn’t going to survive this a second time. And what did Pedro mean my boyfriend? OH MY GOD! Davide! They couldn’t have uncovered Davide! He was way too crafty. He’d fooled them for over two years.

  That’s when I realized that I would help Davide against these men. They had to pay.

  The door opened and Pedro pulled me out. I checked my surroundings, it was dark but I could make out a huge building – a warehouse maybe. I searched for anything identifiable, for if I made it out alive. Unfortunately, all I could make out were a few scattered cars in the parking lot but nothing else.

  Pedro pushed me through the doors, down a long hallway and into a small room. The irony of it all. I was where I had started. Another small room, a different country, same me, same Pedro.

  He removed my gag. “So tell me this little one, and it’s in your best interests not to lie to me. How do you really know Davide.”

  I laughed.

  “You think this is funny?” In a quick motion he slapped me so hard tears shot out of my eyes.

  Holding the side of my face, I looked at his angry reddish one. I could almost see the fumes coming out of his nostrils.

  “Don’t you find it ironic that I’m in another small room, with you asking me the same question you asked me months ago? It’s like someone interrupted the time-space continuum. Though what I ever did to that person I’ll never know.”

  “I’m glad you find this funny. Once Hector gets here you won’t have lips to smile with. He scares even me with his torture methods.”

  The smile didn’t leave my face. I was becoming maniacal. Suicidal even.

  “I’ll try this one more time Ms. Lori Brinkley of Georgetown, Kentucky. How do you know Davide? Who is he really working for?”

  I realized then that they either didn’t have Davide, or he hadn’t said a word. I decided to cling to the possibility that Davide was still safe. But the last time I’d spoken to him I’d asked him to give me space to think. How long would he wait before he came looking for me? Would it be too late?

  I was interrupted from my thoughts by a sharp kick to my side. I let out a scream ending in huge sobs.

  “I asked you a question bitch!”

  I couldn’t catch my breath I was sure the SOB had cracked some ribs.

  “Suit yourself then. Hector is almost here. And until he arrives, I’m going to enjoy your sweet body. There’s no Davide to save you now and believe me, Hector won’t care. He just needs you alive, even if you’re holding on by just thread.

  He lowered his pants and I was disgusted to see he was hard.

  “I know you’ve slept with Davide. That hijo de puta pays everyone he fucks, never goes for any woman who’s not a whore, let alone go for seconds. So the fact that you’ve held his interests tells me you’re very skilled in bed. You can’t blame me for wanting a taste. He pushed me backward from my kneeling position and climbed on top of me.

  I was shaking so hard I couldn’t form a coherent thought. Pedro pulled my pajama pants down, I wasn’t wearing any underwear.

  “Looks like you were ready for me.”

  A string on ‘No’s’ came out from my mouth one after another as I tried to close my legs against his intrusive hands. Just as he was leaning in, the door flew open.

  “I’m busy here Ignacio. Come back in five minutes. I’m so fired up I know I won’t last long.” He turned to face Ignacio, “but feel free to have her after.”

  “I’m sure I will hermano. But Hector’s already here. Just came
to warn you. The way he feels about Davide right now, I’m sure he’ll want first taste with his whore.”

  Pedro grunted in frustration and stood up, putting his dick back into his pants. My body sagged and I almost sighed in relief, but I knew this was only temporary. Pedro seemed determined to have his way.

  Seconds later, Hector came in.

  “We meet again.” He smiled. “I want to shake your hand Lori. Never have I been outsmarted and for that, I almost respect you.”

  I thought about Davide deceiving him for over two years and almost laughed out loud. Never outsmarted? Right.

  “I’ve brought you a gift. I know you won’t talk to me so I’ve brought you something that will convince you to.”

  My heart, which hadn’t stopped beating fast the entire time, moved up a notch in the speedometer. All sorts of scenarios went through my head, first and foremost being my mother and grandmother.

  “Bring it in!” Hector shouted and I sighed in relief. ‘It’, he’d said. But the relief was cut short when I saw what the ‘it’ was. It seemed like an ordinary chair, save for the straps. And I immediately knew what he would use it for. I started hyperventilating. I couldn’t breath.

  “This is sure to convince you to talk. Will it not?” He smiled again. I briefly entertained the thought of Davide coming in and killing all of them. But Davide was somewhere waiting for me to make up my mind about us. Nothing like impending death to realize you didn’t want to live without the love of your life.

  “Bring her here and strap her in!” Hector ordered and Ignacio and Pedro rushed to do as ordered. They quickly stripped me of all my clothing and I noticed Pedro’s leer. I was then placed on the chair and strapped in. Pedro enthusiastically wound wires on my fingers and toes, while Ignacio attached more electrodes to my breasts.

  “That’s enough for now. Let’s see how this works.”