by T Gephart
“Is it that important?” He shifted on his feet uncomfortably possibly trying to play the hero and save his flock from the likes of me.
“Trust me, she’ll want to see me; we go way back.”
“S-surely this can wait until later in the morning.” His hands shook as he wrung them nervously in front of him. “Perhaps there is something I can help you with.”
“No, it can’t and no you can’t. So get her.”
There was no room for debate. He was going to turn his happy collared ass around and get me the fucking nun I wanted to see or I was going to go through the nunnery myself. It would be easier for all involved if he did it.
And I guess he had half a brain and decided to see it my way, taking a few backward steps before heading out a side wooden brown door.
He could be calling the cops, in which case I was going to be SOL. But I hadn’t laid a finger on him or made a threat. So telling 9-1-1 there was a scary dude in a church late at night wouldn’t be a top priority for the Chicago PD. And hopefully that urge to save me might translate into getting what I needed. And what I needed was to talk to the person who apparently saved my life. I wasn’t here to thank her either. I hated her just a tiny bit less than the whore who had birthed me.
“You asked for me?” She didn’t bother with the child or son, walking slowly out the side door. If she was scared, she wasn’t showing it, her face impassive as she took even strides toward me.
This wasn’t the first time she had made my acquaintance. We’d met once before when I’d come looking for answers. She’d tried to pull that shit then and it didn’t go so well for her. Especially when I threatened to hang her from that charming crucifix I loved so much using the thin red curtain ropes.
“You remember me?” I tilted my head, knowing the question was more rhetorical. She was older now. Her face was filled with deep set lines that cut into skin that might have once been pretty, but the years hadn’t been kind.
The priest who’d gone to summon her was waiting quietly close by; he didn’t have the same intel as his habit-wearing buddy, which was probably just as well. But to his credit, he didn’t move, locking himself in place a few feet away.
“Yes, Michael. I remember you.” Her wrinkled hand waved in the air to the asshole who’d been watching with hawk eyes. “You can leave us, Father Patrick. No harm will come to me.”
“But, Sister, this is highly irregular.” He cleared his throat, his feet doing the shuffle from underneath him. “I would feel a lot better staying.”
“She’s right.” I nodded slowly, leveling him with a stare. “I won’t touch her.”
“You heard him. You can go.” Another wave of the hand, this time she kept her eyes on me.
He hesitated a few seconds, probably fighting his own internal battle on what the right thing to do was, but eventually his feet got moving and took him back through the side door. I didn’t doubt he’d be close by, but for now he was gone and that was all that mattered.
“He’s well trained.” I tipped my chin to the closed door. The two of us left alone. “Tell me do all priests lose their balls when they put on the collar, or just the ones who work in this church.”
“What is it you want, Michael?” She sighed, closing her eyes slowly before opening them as she sat beside me. And while she didn’t appear to be in the mood for my shit, she wasn’t about to tell me that either.
“I need you to do something for me.” I leaned back against the hard surface of the pew, the wood creaking in protest under my weight.
“I’m sorry, but this is one place you can’t bully people into doing what you want.” She shook her head slowly, her hands calmly folded on to her lap. “We won’t be party to your criminal activity.”
“You’re assuming a lot.” Rage crept up the back of my neck, needling me that this bitch thought she had me all worked out. “You’re forgetting you don’t know me.”
“Why else would you be in a church in the dead of night?” She gave me a sideways glance. “I may have given my heart to God, but I still have my own mind. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.” She lifted her ass off the seat, ready to leave.
“You owe me, and you owe my mother,” I snarled, grabbing her arm, not willing to accept no for an answer. “You will do this for her.”
Well that got her attention. She stopped dead in her tracks, her ass dropping back down as she turned around to face me. “We have no idea who your mother is, you were abandoned.” Her voice lowered as did her head, and I knew right then and there that everything the maintenance man had told me was true. My mother had been one of them.
“Bullshit.” I smirked knowing I had her on the hook. “Just because you’ve been saying the lie for thirty years doesn’t make it any more true.” I barked out a laugh. “You still saying Hail Mary’s, or did you give up pretending you were a good person?”
“Such hardness of heart.” Her eyes closed as her frail body trembled a little. It wasn’t from fear, I could tell she wasn’t afraid of me. No, that was the weight of the lie she’d been keeping. “I didn’t want this for you. None of us did.”
“Well tough shit, because when you dump a kid into the system it’s not going to end up like it does in a Disney movie. So take a good look, because you’re as much to blame as anyone else.”
My past was my past and I didn’t believe in looking back. It changed absolutely zero. And usually I was better at keeping a handle on my emotions. But as she sat there with that fucking look on her face, like she’d somehow had it worse than me, I wanted to snap her neck right off her spine.
“I’m sorry, we just wanted to protect you.” She bowed her head, her voice almost a whisper.
“Protect me from what?” It didn’t make sense. They had bundled me off to stop something bad from happening? Well bravo, bitches, because you’d put me straight from the frying pan into the fire. I couldn’t believe this indignant cunt.
She brought her knees closer together, her feet shifting uneasily as she clamped her mouth shut. Yeah, she was done talking.
“It doesn’t matter now does it?” I snapped, the stroll down memory fucking lane had been a real treat—not—but I was done jerking around. “Water under the bridge. But you still owe me and I’m here to collect.”
“I’m not sure there is anything I can do for you,” she whispered softly, her fingers locked so tightly in her lap her knuckles had turned white.
“It’s not for me, it’s for a . . . friend.” I coughed out the word, not sure it felt right given the situation. Not that I had a better substitute, so it would have to do. “And she is the one who is going to need protecting. Hopefully this time you won’t screw it up.”
They’d done such a stellar job with me I wasn’t sure they were up to the task. But they’d managed to keep their mouths shut for a long time about me and the piece of shit who birthed me, so at least they had that going for them. This would be the last place Jimmy would look. Sofia would be safe until I could figure out a way to get her out of the country.
“She needs sanctuary? Is she in trouble? Who is this girl?” The questions came out in a rush, more flustered than she’d previously been.
She couldn’t help herself, because as much as she probably hated me, she wouldn’t turn her back on someone in need.
“Jimmy Amaro’s daughter.” I didn’t bother elaborating, everyone in the city knew of him and his reputation.
There were even rumors that he had clergy on the payroll. He’d obviously bought into the lie, thinking he could cleanse his fucking soul by giving the church a new candelabra. “I need her out of sight and as far away from me as possible for the next few days. You can hide her in the back like you did my mother.”
“How do you—”
“Know?” I finished the sentence for her, my smile creeping at the edges. “I have my sources. But more importantly is that you are no longer denying it, which is good. It will save us a lot of time.”
The look on her face said it
all. Defeat. Worn down by thirty years that she and the rest of her sisters hadn’t been able to breathe a word about my existence, she was giving up.
“What has she done?” She spoke slowly, not knowing that Jimmy was capable of killing his own blood.
“She was born to the wrong man,” I answered drily, wondering how different her life would have been if she’d been born to someone—anyone—else. “Now he wants her dead, so her only hope is to leave.”
She winced, sitting up straighter in her seat. “You care for this girl?”
“Not your business.”
She closed her eyes slowly, taking a deep breath before reopening them and focusing on me. “Bring her here; she will be safe.” Another deep breath. “I promise you.”
“I don’t care for your promises.” I waved my hand dismissively. “But you will keep her safe, or I’ll come back and cut that lying tongue right out of your mouth.” Her eyes widened as she trembled in her skin. It wasn’t a threat, it was consequence and one I would have no problem carrying out if something happened to Sofia while she was with these assholes.
“We’ll be back in a few hours, and it goes without saying that the fewer people that know the better.” I rose off the pew, my legs coming to full height as I looked down at her. “I’d say keeping that number to single digits is in your best interest.”
There wasn’t anything left to say, and the sooner I left this place the better, so without bothering with a goodbye, I turned to leave.
“She loved you,” she called from behind me. “She gave her life for you.”
“Who?” I turned, wondering what the hell the old woman was going on about.
“Your mother.” She rose slowly, her small feet padding across the floor to stand in front of me. Her eyes started to pool at the edges. “She loved you even before you were born, and when the time came she sacrificed herself so you would have a chance.”
Lies.
All of it.
The only thing that bitch had cared about was protecting her own reputation. She’d spread her legs and let some asshole fill her with his seed and what a fucking surprise, she got knocked up. So she did what she needed to do to protect herself. Because if she’d given two shits about me, she would have given me a fucking last name so I wouldn’t have spent the first fifteen years of my life wondering who the hell I was.
“Sucks to be her, because it looks like she wasted her life on me.” My voice was more like a growl, not bothering to hide the fucking rage and agitation.
“She—” She tried to continue.
“Save it,” I snapped, having heard enough bedtime stories to last me a lifetime. “It doesn’t matter now.” And more importantly it wouldn’t change anything. “You will do this, and you will do it right this time. No one will know and then in a couple of days I will come get her and you will never see me again.”
“Okay. I can do that.” She nodded, wisely keeping all other details about my whore mother to herself.
“Glad you are so agreeable. I need to go.”
The sun was just about to come up and Michael still hadn’t returned. I had no idea where he’d gone or what he was doing, but his suggestion that I go to sleep wasn’t a good one. I couldn’t have even if I wanted to, my brain churned, processing information as I tried to put them into neat compartments inside my head.
It was one step forward, two steps back when it came to him. He had opened up to me and shown me kindness, but he refused to accept he was anything other than a monster. He’d been inside my body, it had eased us both, but more importantly, I’d let him inside my heart.
And yet, here I was, alone and confused and clueless if any of it had even made a difference.
The metal scraping of the roller door opening echoed through the warehouse. And it was strange at how surprised I was that he’d come back. Part of me had expected him to go, leave me and all of this behind and take what was left of my trust fund money. It would have been easier and something he might have even contemplated. It shouldn’t have thrilled me so much that he came back, but it did.
“Did you sleep?” he asked, walking through the doorway and closing it softly behind him.
“Not really.” I sat up in bed, clutching the covers around my chest. “Did you do what you had to do?”
He hated questions, but it never stopped me from asking.
“Yes, I did.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “You’re going to be staying at Saint Margaret’s while I go meet with Jimmy.” He raised his hand to stop me from opening my mouth, knowing I’d want to have a say in what happened to me. “This place is safe.” His hand waved around the room. “But I can’t risk you being here. Jimmy knows some of my aliases and he has people who can find out things. And I’m almost positive that while he hasn’t shown up on my doorstep yet, he would have been stupid not to track my phone when Franco left me in that hotel room. If he didn’t, then he was a fool and he won’t be making the same mistake twice. Any place that can be tied to me is not safe for you. No one will look for you at Saint Margaret’s.”
It had been one of the first times ever he’d divulged information without me pulling it out of him one word at a time. I blinked back in surprise, my mouth opening and closing a few times before I finally found the words I wanted to say.
“How long will I be there? And what will happen after?”
“I will come for you.” He moved to the edge of the bed and sat down. “As soon as I can, and I’ll get you across the border. Those new documents should be ready by then. Once you’re in Canada, you can jump on any plane you want and put as much distance as you can between here and you. You need to stay away for as long as you can, but if I were you, I’d stay gone.”
He didn’t need to tell me that I would probably never see him again. It was more than implied.
“And what will you do?” I stopped short of asking him to come with me again, knowing the answer was and always would be no.
“What I have always done.” He shrugged. “Take another job and move on.”
There was a beat of silence that passed between us, as if both of us had agreed that whatever those words were, they were better left unsaid. But deep down I knew I hadn’t been just a job. Both of us had been affected. Both of us probably a little afraid to admit it, even if it was just to ourselves.
“Do you have everything you need? For the investigation?” His hand rubbed the back of his neck, no doubt uncomfortable in what I had planned to do. No matter how much it was justified, he hated what I was doing.
“Yes, it’s enough.” I nodded. The last few days had been spent creating a solid case for prosecution. Even if only a third of it were ruled admissible, it would be enough to put my father and his friends away for a very long time. “And I’ve left a trail for them to find everything else.”
“Good, that’s good.” He nodded. “I’ll let you get packed up.” He stood, moving to the doorway and leaving the room.
My feet kicked the covers off my body, knowing that I wouldn’t have a lot of time. My bags were in the corner of the room still mostly packed, but I shoved whatever else was left inside before getting out some clean clothes and checking my gun.
I quickly showered, brushing my skin pink as I toweled off and dressed all without him returning. My eyes floated around the small room. Even in the middle of the day, it was still pitch black. The windowless walls starving any light before it had a chance to enter. But it was in here that I’d felt safe, and I knew that I was saying goodbye—never to return. Not to this room or to anything familiar again.
Michael was in the kitchen area when I found him. He was checking his guns and ammunition while sitting at the table, beside him a large coffee tin. “I need some DNA, some hair, saliva and some fibers from your clothes.” He tipped his chin in the direction of the can.
“Of course. I can do that.” I dropped one of the duffels from off my shoulder and pulled out a hairbrush. My fingers massaged the bristles pulling out as much hair
as I could. I made a neat pile on the tabletop before grabbing the nightshirt I’d been wearing for the last few nights. With the help of my army knife, I shredded the edges, taking pieces of the torn fabric and adding it to the pile.
“Here,” he passed me an enamel camping cup, “Spit in this.”
It was so clinical, but I did what he said, spitting into the cup as he took my hair and the shredded fibers and torching them lightly with a cigarette lighter before tossing them into the can.
I handed him the cup, and he added it to the mix. Giving everything a good shake after he reattached the lid.
“Do you think it will work?” I asked, taking a seat beside him.
“Who knows? It’s worth a shot either way though, right?”
There was no way of knowing if my father would believe it, but at the very least it would stall him. Give me a day or two buffer to get away. And if a miracle happened and he believed it was me, then maybe it would give me a small window of opportunity to live a normal life.
“I’m ready.” My back straightened, hefting the duffle on my shoulder, my overnight bag on the other.
“This is yours.” He handed me the thumb drive he’d retrieved from my house before he blew it up. It was hard to believe that it hadn’t been that long ago, it felt like more than a year had passed.
“Thank you.” I shoved it in my pocket. The rest of the information on another drive sitting beside the computer. “I’ll go get the rest of my things and meet you at the car.
I waited, hoping he would say something more, but he didn’t, so I walked out of the room and made a beeline for the computer. It was still humming, not having been turned off in days as I quickly downloaded the last bit of information and sent it to an email address one of the hackers had set up for me.
It had a fail-safe, an insurance policy. Designed to send out the draft email and all the attachments within ten days unless I stopped it. So if anything happened to me, I would still be able to make sure the work I had done wasn’t in vain.
My hand fumbled with the monitor, switching it off before carrying my bags to the Chevy that was parked on the inside of the roller door. It had been a far cry from the Camaro he had initially driven, but in the end, it had been more useful.
