by Kris Calvert
The bathroom was filled with candles, the amber glow bouncing off all the mirrors in the room. A glass of red wine sat on the edge of the tub. I turned on the hot water lever with my foot, warming it up, then moved to the cold to balance it out. Sinking lower, I rubbed the soreness out of my muscles and ran my tongue along my split lip, taking inventory of my injuries.
Lost in what could’ve happened today, I pulled my knees close to my chest, hugging myself. A soft knock rapped at the door. Leo entered, fresh from a shower and wrapped in his white robe. “How are you feeling?” His voice was soft. Hoarse. Guilty. But I was the one who felt guilty. Guilty for trying to break out on my own.
Bringing my chin from my knees, I looked up at him with only my eyes. “I’m okay. How are you feeling?”
Leaning over me, he brushed the bubbles from my face and kissed me. “Don’t worry about me, cher.”
“I’ll always worry about you,” I whispered. “You’re my husband. My everything.”
He sighed and looked away, a penitent smile gracing his lips. “Colt called.”
I stirred the bubbles in the warm water, the hiss of the dissipating bubbles filled the silent air.
“Well?”
“Well what?” I asked not looking Leo in the face. I didn’t want to go back into hiding. I didn’t want to leave Jackson House and I knew that would be Colt Daniels’ plan.
“What do you think?”
I bit my lip. “If leaving Jackson House is what it takes to be right? Going into hiding again? Then I’d rather be dead wrong. I want to stay here at Jackson House and be us, not go back into hiding.”
I spoke from the heart and put it all out there not knowing how he’d react. I finally looked him in the eye and waited for his reply.
Leo pressed his lips to my temple and whispered. “Samesies.”
I dropped the tension in my shoulders and let out the breath I’d been holding for eighteen months. I didn’t want to hide anymore—not from the mob or from ourselves.
“Polly,” Leo stuck his hand in the warm water and fished around for mine. Bringing them both to the surface, he propped them on the edge of the tub, squeezing my hand and watching the bubbles foam out of our threaded fingers. “About today. I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am.”
“What? I’m the one who should be apologizing. I took the keys and tried to go out on my own. I wanted to go to the cemetery alone—without a security team—without—I don’t know. I just wanted to be alone—for once.”
He nodded, then leaned his forehead against our entwined hands. “If it weren’t for my family and its past, you wouldn’t need a security team in the first place.”
I lifted his face with my hand. “That’s not true and you know it. I’ve lived two lives, Leo. I was Margaret Hyde until the Marcello family took my family. And then I was Polly Benson. I know what it’s like to be both of those people and I have to tell you, I’ve always been happy as Polly. I’ve had Mitch and Ron in my life. I’ve had Samantha and then Mac. And because of them I found you. So please don’t ever apologize for being Leo Xanthus.” I rubbed his warm face with my wet fingers. “Without you, I wouldn’t be me. We wouldn’t be us. Toi et moi.”
Leo took both of my hands into his, kissing the wetness of my skin. Patting the tips of his fingers across my left ring finger, he sighed. “I lost your ring today. I lost The Soul’s Eye.”
I nodded. “I don’t need a diamond to know your heart, Leo.”
Leaning over the tub, he kissed me, his lips covering mine. I shivered when he moaned into my mouth and slid in the tub to my knees, gaining a better angle on him. Pushing the robe from his shoulders, I clenched my fingers around his arms, pulling him into the bath with me. His moaning turned to laughter as I pinned him to the side of the tub.
Unhooking his robe, he allowed it to fall to the ground, showing off his hard body and desire for me. I scooted back in the oversized tub, giving him room and giving me a better view of his Adonis body as it slipped into the bath water.
I splashed him and watched him smile for the first time all day. He stood abruptly, foam covering every inch of his body. Stepping out of the tub, he got back in, this time behind me.
“I want to be near you,” he whispered as he kissed my shoulders, his dark wet hair tickling my skin.
“I know what you want,” I teased, leaning into his warm body.
“I want you, cher. For the rest of our lives. Here at Jackson House and living a normal life.”
“Leo, I need to tell you something.”
“What’s that?” He ran his soapy hands down my breasts.
“I want to start a family.”
He didn’t flinch. His heart didn’t race. I could feel the steady tick of it behind me. But at the same time, he didn’t say anything. “Or,” I sighed. “After everything that’s happened with Oscar and the Balivinos, maybe it’s not such a good idea to bring another human into the world.”
“Don’t say that.” His voice deepened. His tone softer. “I don’t know if there could be anything better than a handsome, strapping lad with dark curls like his father and with his mother’s brilliant mind.”
I nuzzled into his body, feeling his engorged sex resting against my bottom. I tilted my head to look him in the face. Leo was full of nothing but love for me—pure love.
I nodded into his hard chest.
He lifted my chin, a sly smile creeping over his mouth. “We’ll try and if we get pregnant, then that’s the way it should be. We’ll take what the universe has in store for us. That’s what we do.”
“What do you think the universe has in store for us now?”
“Well.” He pushed me away, then turned me to face him in the tub, sloshing water everywhere. I straddled his lap and kissed his nose. “First, I’m going to make love to my wife for the first time ever—knowing I could become a father.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, Leo. I need to see a doctor and get off my pills and even then it could take a while”
He leaned his head into mine. “Yeah, but it’s still different.”
“What’s second?”
“Second?” he asked, kissing his way down my wet neck.
“You said, First. I’m wondering what is second.”
“Then we’re going to get dressed and the two of us are going to break into St. Louis Cemetery.”
I pulled away from him, my heart immediately racing at the thought. “Are you serious?”
“I talked with Oscar earlier today,” he said, cupping my breast to kiss it.
“What did he say?”
Leo stopped kissing me for a split second and looked me in the eye. “He said you were brilliant. And I agreed.”
“They key? The gold key with the rubies?”
Leo nodded into my breast. “Make love to me, cher. I want you. I need you. I love you,” he growled, licking at my ear.
I pushed the dark wet hair from his eyes. “You’re my hero, Leo. You saved my life today.”
I stroked his face and saw tears glisten in his eyes. “You’re mine, cher. We saved each other.”
I leaned in and kissed him—swept away in his ability to love me completely.
“Come closer, cher,” he whispered into my open mouth. Climbing on top of him, I gave into the need. He was mine and I was his. Two perfect souls caged inside imperfect people.
33
LEO
St. Louis Cemetery Number Three was not an inviting place in the middle of the night. The entire area was said to be haunted, not to mention well-guarded. Polly and I laughed as we dressed all in black and gathered the tools we might need. It was like an old fashioned heist, except we were off to reclaim what was ours—or, rather, what was Kostas’. In the black bag I carried, we’d packed crowbars, shovels, duct tape and kits to pick locks. And if that didn’t work, bolt cutters. Not to mention headlamps and flashlights. I’d parked down the street on Esplanade Avenue and we’d quickly and quietly jumped the wrought iron fence
near the entrance in the pitch of night.
“Exactly how much trouble are we going to get into if we’re caught out here at midnight?” Polly asked.
I didn’t know how to answer her question. I didn’t really know. We could be charged with a myriad of things, none of which bothered me in the least. I was laser-focused on the task at hand. “Not much.”
Gripping Polly’s hand, I counted the rows. Stopping at number four, I took a left and began our quiet trek to the final resting place of Kostas and Corinna, Demetri and Sophia.
It was hard to miss the Xanthus family mausoleum. The angels were a dead giveaway, but it was so cloudy tonight, we had zero moonlight to guide us and I didn’t want to use too many flashlights. Light was a signal to security that something was up. Plenty of kids had been caught messing around in the cemetery over the years—literally messing around. I had lots of friends who’d done the deed inside the cemetery walls.
Polly hissed out my name. “Leo. This is it.”
“Hot damn, cher. Good job.”
A strong breeze blew through the graveyard right on cue and the clouds above began to part giving us just enough moonlight to see the concrete and stone monstrosity. The many angels carved into the mausoleum cast an eerie shadow over the path in front of it. Over the entrance was the Xanthus name. To the left, the now infamous seven angels. To the right, the Bible verse.
“Here we go.” The iron gates were locked with a padlock, as were the inside stone doors on copper hinges. To save time, I grabbed the bolt cutters. We needed to get inside the mausoleum where we could use the real flashlights we’d brought with us. Two hard pumps and the lock split with a crack. Pulling back the gates, the wrought iron hinges cried out in rusted pain. It was loud and I knew I needed to work quickly to get inside. The second bolt didn’t give up quite as easily. My guess was the first had been subjected to the elements more than this one, making it weaker.
Polly tapped my shoulder. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered. “Hurry up or we’re gonna have to hide. And quick.”
I twisted the lock and bit down on it one more time with the bolt cutters, finally snapping it in two. Polly picked up all the pieces, tucking them inside our black bag. Using my shoulder, I pushed in the mausoleum doors like I was blocking a tackle. Polly joined me under the stone alcove. When I’d cracked the door enough to slip inside, I closed the wrought iron gates, then the mausoleum doors before switching on my head lamp.
Polly stood right in front of me, her face pale with fear. “I can’t believe we just did that,” she whispered.
“We broke into my family’s mausoleum. This is so weird,” I replied, whispering even softer than she did.
Taking her hand, we turned around to face the four stone crypts, two on each side of the concrete room. “Turn on your light.”
Polly flipped the switch on her head and the cold square concrete room illuminated. Immediately, I took the roll of duct tape from the bag and sealed the crack in the doors. I needed to light the place up. The front doors weren’t meant to have a perfect seal and they didn’t. Any light emanating from the inside would give us away in no time.
“I feel like you’re a serial killer and you’ve taped me in here to kill me,” Polly said with a smile.
“We’re seriously standing in an enclosed concrete tomb with my dead family and you’re cracking jokes?”
Polly shrugged. “I’m nervous,” she said, pulling the gold chain from inside her black shirt. The ruby encrusted key hung from the bottom. I took the heavy light from my black bag, setting it in the middle of the room to give us more light.
With a switch, the high powered battery kicked into gear and the white light poured out like a search light at a movie premier. Suddenly everything was more visible.
Polly walked to the two empty spaces in the center of the room. “What’s this for?” she asked.
“What do you think?
“Us? This is where we’ll go when we die?”
I bit my lip and nodded. “You’re a Xanthus. You’ll be buried next to me.”
“This is a bit sobering, Leo. I don’t know how long I can be in here now.”
“Then we’d better get to work finding what we came for.”
We both walked to Kostas’ crypt. Polly ran her hands over the words embossed on the top. You have taken more than my soul—you are the one thought of my life.
“There it is again,” she said. “I swear if you don’t know what you’re looking for, none of it would make sense. But once you get all of his clues, he makes it easy as X marks the spot. You know?”
I nodded, staring at the stone crypt. The last thing I wanted to do was open it and find nothing but Kostas’ bones. “Look around, Polly. There’s got to be something here. Something we can open that doesn’t have a dead body inside. I really don’t want to disturb my grandfather’s remains. He’ll come back and haunt me for sure.”
Polly smiled and nodded. “I’ll look around. See if you can find something with an angel. If I found the key with the angels, then maybe the treasure lies with one in here.”
Around the room we went, looking from corner to corner. Tired from the long day. I sat at the end of my father’s crypt and stared across the way at the stone box. “What are you trying to say to me, Kostas?”
And then I saw it. Clear as day. It was Jackson House. Carved into the foot of his crypt was a replica of our home. Leaning in closer, I pointed the bright headlamp directly on the spot. It was dusty, dirty. I blew on it hard. Debris flew in the air and I caught a whiff and sneezed. It echoed throughout the mausoleum.
Polly shushed me.
“It’s not like I can hold that in, cher.”
Leaning down, she joined me at the foot of the crypt. “That’s Jackson House.”
I nodded. “It’s got to mean something, right?”
Polly stood and began to pace. “I think better on my feet,” she said.
I watched her walk in between my grandparents, back and forth until she stopped suddenly. “Leo.”
“Yeah?”
“Was Kostas a big man?”
“Not particularly, why?”
She walked the length of the mausoleum on my grandparent’s side, the switched to the opposite side, studying my parents’ crypts intently. “Your grandfather’s crypt is three feet longer than the other three. At least three feet.”
I stood, checking her observation. “I’ll be a sonofabitch.”
“Your grandfather’s crypt is more than just a crypt. Leo,” Polly gasped. “Liz told me that Oscar and Kostas were incredibly close. That Kostas’ will stated that Oscar was the one to make the arrangements for him when he died. Liz said he worked nonstop with the people who would inter him. What did Oscar tell you about Kostas’ crypt? Anything?”
I shook my head. “He just wanted to rest. He was impressed with what we’d found, but he didn’t offer any extra clues. Maybe I have to find it on my own in order for it to be ours.”
Polly popped her brow. “Without me, babe, you would’ve been waiting a long time to find it.”
Squatting to the floor once more, I stared at the house. “Polly, when you found the key under the stone mantel, how did you know it was the right place?”
“There was an X, like X marks the spot.”
“Like this?” I asked, pointing to the tiny X right in front of Jackson House.
We both aimed our headlamps at the spot. “Leo,” she whispered. “Remember when you gave me my anniversary present and I promised you—”
“You promised me that you’d find a way to top it.”
She nodded taking my face in her hands and shining her light in my eyes. “Sweetheart, this is it.”
Turning her attention back to the crypt, Polly cleaned out the dirt with her fingernail, pushing on it hard. “I don’t understand,” she said. “The other one popped right out.”
I pushed my finger against the X as hard as I could. When I pulled away, it popped up like a turkey timer. “What t
he hell?”
“Turn it,” Polly instructed.
I did. A gust of air broke free from inside the crypt and the bottom part suddenly opened like a filing cabinet door. Together, Polly and I pulled it out as far as it would go.
“You sneaky, smart sonofabitch.” It was all I could say.
Polly gasped, her sharp intake causing me to flinch. “Is that real?” she asked faintly.
Inside the stone crypt were gold doubloons and pieces of eight. There were bars of silver and felt bags. All of it shone against our lights. “You sneaky, smart sonofabitch.”
Polly picked up one of the felt drawstring bags and opened it, pouring the contents into her hand. Emeralds spilled into her palm, sparkling in the light. “Sweet Jesus.”
“It’s real, cher. It’s really…real.”
Polly knitted her brow. “I don’t understand. Why would he keep all of this hidden for so long? I mean, I know he had a lot of money already, but this is…this is…”
I fingered a gold coin and shook my head. “I don’t have a good answer for that, cher.”
Polly sat back on her heels, tugging at the key around her neck. “But we didn’t need this key—at all.”
“Maybe it was more of a symbolic key, cher. Hey, at least now,” I said, pouring a bag of diamonds into my hand, “You can pick a new diamond. I mean, since we lost yours today.”
She dropped her head and nodded. I could tell the mere mention of it hurt her heart.
I moved some of gold doubloons around and found a small wooden box. “What do we have here?” I asked, separating it from the rest of the treasure. The box had a lock on it and I couldn’t keep the wicked curve of a smile from my lips. “Maybe this is what you’re looking for, cher.”
Without a word, she took it from my hands and set it on the ground. Then taking the key from her neck, she inserted it into the lock. It was a fit.
“So far so good,” she chimed.
Turning the key, the box popped but didn’t open completely. Peeling back the lid, I watched the massive diamond inside catch the light from above, and Polly’s eye.
