Russo Saga Collection

by Nicolina Martin

  When the door opens a crack, I exhale. I didn’t even know I was holding my breath. My back prickles and I can barely get air, my chest tightening. I feel unprotected under the open sky.

  “Major Edwards. Can I come in, please?”

  He opens a little wider, staring at me. His eyes are a light blue with a white ring circling the edge of the iris. He looks completely blank.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s me, Kerry, your neighbor. We share a wall. Can I please, please come in?” I rasp.

  We’ve been neighbors for a year. We greet each other more or less every day. He hasn’t got all the horses in the stable anymore.

  “Miss Kerry! Of course.”

  With a sigh of relief, I sneak in, glancing behind me one last time before I close the door.

  “What can I do you for? I have coffee. Do you want a cup? Did you hurt yourself, miss?” He peers at me, taking in my bruises.

  “I can’t stay, Mr. Edwards. I have a very, very big favor to ask,” I chew on my lip, praying to God that he will agree to this, “I need to borrow a gun.”

  Safely back behind my own door, I lock and bolt it, make sure all my windows are closed and covered, then I sink down on the little nest I made last night in front of the patio door. It’s not possible to come through the garden. It ends in a steep slope, and on the sides are my neighbors’ gardens, divided by high walls. At least it would be really difficult.

  I put the loaded gun under a pillow, making sure the safety is on, and wrap the blanket tightly around me again. I curl up on my side, facing the front door, listening, waiting.

  Sooner or later I’ll have to rise, get up, and get out. I know that. But I also know I need time.

  A lot of time.

  I still feel his skin on mine.

  I don’t know if it’ll ever go away.

  I don’t want to think about him, but I can’t seem to think of anything else. If he lives, he’ll come for me. If he died, someone else will.

  I should run, or maybe I should try to trust the police, but I know the mob has cops on their payroll, and how can I ever know I’m talking to the right person?

  A low whining moves up my throat as the tears begin to fall again. I feel nothing but pain. Nothing. I don’t feel victorious that I survived. My life has been forever changed.

  I’m Kerry before Christian, and Kerry after Christian.

  I hate him. And I don’t.

  And I’m absolutely terrified. Did he survive? Is he out there somewhere?

  Who will come for me, and when?

  Christian

  “Didn’t go too well, did it?” Salvatore’s voice is filled with dark mirth, a taunt.

  “I’ll make it happen,” I grit out. “I’ll end her.”

  “Resourceful little lady. How did she best one of my most ruthless men?”

  I sigh, yet again reliving the moments in the harbor. I know perfectly well what happened. I thought I was the one seducing her, when in fact it was her the whole time, working her innocent female charm on me.

  “As soon as I’m healed up, I’ll be on it. She’s dead.”

  “I know she is, nephew, I know she is. When you have set your mind on something, there’s no stopping you.” He turns to leave, but then looks back at me. “And I know you’re well and properly motivated.”

  Salvatore smirks and disappears through the door.

  The mess I’m in is epic. I have no idea how I’ll solve this shit.

  I don’t hate Kerry.

  I fucking miss her.

  Chapter 12

  Kerry

  The night is silent. I sway from the lack of sleep. I can’t remember when I last ate. I’m not even sure it was today. My chest is a hole. My stomach is a hole. I haven’t showered in three days. That morning, after I got home, after I had showered, when my skin was red, hurting and raw, I put on two layers of soft pants, three layers of sweaters, thick socks, and I haven’t removed them since. I can barely even remember what has happened since.

  My scrapes are scabbed. I’m not bleeding anymore.

  Walking through my dark and quiet house, I snatch up my journal and sink to the floor in front of the sliding glass doors with the beautiful view of the bay outside. I cross my legs, adjust a sock, and open a blank page.

  ‘I should be dead. I don’t know when he’ll come. I don’t know how to take my next breath. I don’t know why I don’t leave.’

  I stare at the words. The letters jump around. I’m holding the pen wrong. I can’t seem to remember how to hold it right. Tears blur my sight and I can barely see what I’ve written. Three days haven’t made anything better. Three days with almost no sleep, no appetite and an aching vortex where my heart should be. I don’t want to die, but I have no idea how to live, how to move on.

  I know I should leave, but I can’t think. I have no idea where to start.

  The doorbell clangs and my heart leaps to my throat. I scramble to find the gun, then I run soundlessly to the front door.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Chloe, hon.”

  “I can’t open the door.” I clutch the gun in my sweaty palm.

  “You haven’t answered any of my calls. I’m worried to death. Let me in, or I’ll call your parents.”

  My knees nearly fold at the thought. That’s out of the question. “Please don’t. Call again. I’ll answer.”

  “Open the door, Kerry. What happened? Please.”

  “I can’t.” My voice breaks. “Chloe, you don’t understand.”

  “You’re not giving me a chance to understand. Did someone hurt you?”

  A raw sob rises from my throat and I sink to the floor.

  “My God! Kerry. I swear, I’m calling your mom now.”

  I throw myself at the door, reach up, unhook the safety chain and unlock the bolt, still on the floor, trembling.

  Chloe pushes open the door I lean against, making me slide over the polished wooden planks. She gasps as she shoves it closed, kneeling by my side. “My God! What happened?”

  “I can’t talk about it.” My voice is nothing but a hoarse rasp. I haven’t talked to anyone in five days except for two times that first morning, when I called in sick, and with my neighbor when I borrowed the gun.

  She carefully puts a finger under my chin and tilts my head, scanning my bruised, swollen face, her eyes darting to the gun that lies in my palm, my hand limp on the floor. Her lower lip trembles. “Who did this to you?”

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  “Why? You need to go to the hospital! Have you seen a doctor?”

  I grab her arm. “You can never talk to anyone about this, Chloe. They’ll kill you. They’ll kill me, and they’ll kill you.”

  Her eyes widen. “Kerry, you’re scaring me.” She gently grabs my arm and helps me up. “Come.”

  “Not the couch,” I choke out.

  She gives me a confused glance. “Okay. Where?”

  “Window.”

  In front of my large floor-to-ceiling windows, I’ve nested. I have pillows, blankets, several glasses of water, a pile of used napkins. I haven’t been to the upper floor since that night. The sheets are still unchanged, soiled with his seed, and with the sweat from the long hours of what I thought was lovemaking. I can’t see them. I haven’t sat anywhere I sat with him. I live in a carefully made out Kerry-sized bubble.

  She leads me there and sits with me on the floor.

  “You gotta talk with me, darling. I’m not leaving here until you do. And if you don’t give me a really good reason why I shouldn’t call the cops, I swear I’ll do that.”

  “No,” I whimper. “I’ll tell you. But you have to promise never to tell anyone else. Ever. You’ll understand.”

  She narrows her eyes. “I’m listening.”

  I swallow hard. How can I put all this on my friend? I’ve tried so hard to spare everyone. “Remember a couple of weeks back? What I told you David had said?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

&nb
sp; “And I asked his dad.”

  She nods.

  “That was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  Chloe doesn’t move or speak; the air is getting hard to breathe. My heart slams in my chest and I have to fight to not succumb to panic.

  “He sent someone after me.”

  She frowns.

  “To kill me.”

  “Oh my God,” she gasps. “What?”

  “That was the guy I met. Turned out I dated my own assassin.” Nausea rises in me as I say it.

  My friend looks aghast. “Kerry!”

  I look down on my battered hands. Bruises covering the knuckles. Palms scraped, little pebbles still in the wounds, some of them a little infected.

  “He fucked me. I let him. I thought we had something. I thought he was special.” I laugh bitterly. “Then he drugged me, kidnapped me and tried to shoot me. I fought back. I shot him.” I fight not to fall into the dark vortex that always opens beneath me as I relive these moments. “I don’t know if I killed him,” I add with a whisper, my voice not carrying the words.

  I jerk when her hand touches my shoulder.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” I whisper.

  “But you have to go to the police!”

  “Luciano Salvatore ordered my murder. I live on borrowed time. I’ll live on borrowed time for the rest of my life. If he figures out you know, you will too. There’s nothing that will come between him and what he wants, Chloe. The cops won’t be able to protect you. Your whole family will be in danger. You can not talk. Do you understand? You’ll sentence yourself to a certain death.”

  “Salvatore? David’s dad?” Chloe slumps, pinching the bridge of her nose. “How can you be so sure?”

  “I am. I’ve faced his hitman. I know.”

  “What do you want me to do? How can I help you?”

  I stare at her, then at my hands again. “I think I need food,” I say faintly.

  “Want me to cook something?” She jumps to her feet.

  “I think my kitchen’s empty.”

  I wobble to my feet and trail after my friend as she starts looking through the fridge and cupboards. My eyes fall on the near-dead herbs Christian gave me not so long ago, the time between then and now still feeling like an eternity. I cross the room in three long strides, rip open the window with jerky moves and toss the plant, pot, everything as far as I can. It hits a small concrete divider at the far end of my little garden and shatters.

  “Fuck you!” I scream and slam the window shut again.

  I turn and face a gaping Chloe.

  “I’m not gonna ask,” she says “I am gonna go to the store, though, and when I come back, I’ll cook. Promise you’ll let me back in.”

  I nod. “I promise. Thank you.”

  The next night, she helps me peel off my stinking clothes and get into a shower. I study the bruises and swellings, my mind detached, seeing myself as if from above, floating outside my own mind. It’s as if it isn’t my body, as if my skin isn’t my skin. Chloe clenches her jaw, but says nothing. There’s nothing to be said.

  A couple of nights after that, she cleans my whole upper floor and tries to convince me to reclaim my house.

  I choose the couch in the little office. He hasn’t tainted that room with his presence. I don’t have memories of him in there.

  “Move in with me.” Chloe has pleaded with me time and time again. “I have space. You can’t sleep on that. It’s too short.”

  I put the gun under a cushion. “I can, and I will. I refuse to drag this shit to your doorstep. I don’t think you should keep coming, because we’re pushing our luck. What if someone’s watching me? What if they see you and decide you’re a nuisance too?”

  Chloe glances over her shoulder, her eyes widening. “You’re scaring me.”

  “You should be scared.”

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  I look at her, deadpanned, and clutch a pillow to my chest. “I’ll be ready next time, I grit out.”

  “They can just send another one, and another one—”

  “I have nowhere to go,” I yell, making my poor friend flinch. My throat tightens and I pull up my legs, hugging them too, rocking back and forth. “I don’t know where to go,” I whisper. “Sometimes I just wish for it to end.”

  “That’s it. I’m taking you with me.” Chloe takes a step forward and grabs my arm. I pull it away and shake my head as tears begin to trickle down my cheeks.

  “No. Thank you for everything. I’ll think of something. I promise.”

  She shuffles her feet. “Are— are you coming back to work?”

  My eyes flicker toward the window, toward the dangerous world outside, my chest tightening from the thought of putting even a foot outside. “I hope so.”

  “I’ve told them you’re ill. It’s not that farfetched, is it?”

  I nod. I’m not well. That’s for fucking sure.

  At night I wait for the sound of someone entering my house. I wait for Christian, and my soul crumbles more and more with every passing day. Why hasn’t he come? Why hasn’t someone come? It’s been a week and a half, and I’m still alive.

  It’s as if I wish for death.

  Is that why I’m not leaving?

  ***

  Christian

  I’m back on my feet, and finally out of the freak show that is the Salvatore household. I’ve stuck to the far end of the west wing of the house, but the parties, the booze, and the women haven’t gone unnoticed. I used to take part in that. Now it sickens me.

  I’ve claimed Kerry’s life, told my uncle I’ll finish her.

  In reality, despite her nearly ending me, I won’t do it. I need to remove her from this city, hide her away. I’m thinking New York. Or New Orleans. Or maybe even Mexico. I won’t take my shit to Angela’s doorstep, but Nathan can definitely be of use, one of his many places. I have a feeling that maybe I’d have use for his woman too, someone to soothe Kerry that isn’t a mafioso.

  It stings somewhere deep inside that she isn’t leaving her house. She hasn’t set foot outside for a week. Before that, I wouldn’t know, but I haven’t seen even a flash of her fiery hair since I started staking her out.

  Her co-worker comes by every day, until she suddenly doesn’t. I perk up. A change in behavior. That is promising. Maybe she’s ready to face the world again?

  Kerry never spoke to the cops. It baffles me. She escaped from the hospital, and they never even knew who she was. Is she protecting me? Or does she simply recognize the fact that you don’t rat on the mob?

  A part of me wants to believe that she did it for me. A part of me hopes there is still something between us.

  Another, more rational part, realizes it’s ridiculous. She’s scared. Of me. Of Salvatore. Of the world.

  I did that.

  I snuffed out her spark, her trust and her light.

  Regret churns in my chest, aches more than the bullet wound ever did. I know she hesitated to give herself to me, but I know a part of her felt something, something that was good, and pure.

  I ripped that to pieces, and now she won’t even leave her fucking house.

  Salvatore thinks I’ll kill her. I’ll let him believe that.

  I won’t kill her. I’ll save her.

  When she’s ready, when she comes back out, I’ll set my plan in motion. I don’t think she’ll like it one bit. She’ll kick and scream and hate me. That’s the price I’ll pay for what I did to this little woman.

  Chapter 13

  Kerry

  The bruises are greenish-yellow, the worst of the swelling has abated, and finally I can cover them up. I’m due at work in forty minutes. I stare at my hollow eyes, trying to find Kerry in them, but she’s not there. All I see is black eyes full of hate, all I feel is rough fingers around my throat.

  Patting foundation on my skin, I force him out of my head. Time has not been my friend. Two weeks have made the bruises begin to fade. On my skin. Inside, I’m as raw as the moment I left that dark harbo
r. I’m there, on repeat, and still I find it so hard to remember. It’s as if our moments together fade every time I try to remember them. I grasp for them and they flee, farther and farther into the recesses of my mind. I should know these things. I’ve studied this for years. Suppression mechanisms. It’s not the same to read about them as have them happening to you.

  I grasp for my sanity. Sanity lies in memories because memories are what makes us who we are. They slip through my fingers like smoke, a mirage, dissipating into thin air, every morning bringing me further away from who I was, closer to the unknown.

  I try to hate him.

  Christian.

  But I can’t grasp him either.

  It’s an empty shell that sets her foot at the center that first morning. I play my role.

  Routine kicks in when I’m with the kids. I play my part. I fight for my life. I can’t out Christian Russo, because that would point Salvatore to me. It would kill me. Literally. Chloe looks at me with big, worried eyes. She’s come by every evening since that first night, except for the last few days, after I told her she needed to think of her own safety. She’s cooked for me, sat with me. She hasn’t poked, she’s just been there.

  I cover my bruises with long sleeves and lots of makeup. As the weeks pass, they fade and disappear. My frozen core doesn’t thaw. I’m locked in the moments when I knew I was going to die by his hands.

  My studies go to shit. I can’t pretend to learn when I can’t even read one sentence to its end. Instead of facing the inevitable meeting with the dean, I quit.

  In the end I don’t know why I fight to live. Alone in my house every night, I pace, my chest tight, my stomach in knots.

  Sometimes I wish for a knock on the door. I imagine Christian coming to finish what he started.

  But he doesn’t, and that’s where he has left me. His appearance in my life planted a dark vortex in me and it grows, and it festers. Oh, it will kill me. Just not now. I’ll be forced to live with it until I either end it myself, or I finally come to the end that has been planned for me since the dawn of time.