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“Lucky me,” I sarcastically say. Lorenzo is watching my every step in his peripheral but says nothing as I pull back my shoulder and raise my chin. I find it ironic he’s double my size but looks at me like I’m the threat.
My palms have become clammy and I can’t steady my breathing. I try my hardest to act like my usual calm and cold self. I never thought the closer I’d get to the end I’d feel waves of emotions and trepidation. If not for the phantom of my mother, I would’ve had nothing to strive toward either. Nothing to live for. Who would I be without all this bottled hate and cold calculation to ruin others.
Most likely, my mother would hate the woman I’ve become. I made my peace with that considering we definitely wouldn’t meet in the same place in the afterlife. If there was such a thing. Yet I find myself holding onto the small delicate cross she always wore. I didn’t believe in the faith, but I believed in her.
“Is he going to kill me, Lorenzo?” I ask as we walk down the main hall of the mansion. It’s so quiet tonight I swear a pin drop could be heard. I felt no reluctancy in casually asking Lorenzo because I was already in the belly of the den. Despite his brutal appearance I’d never quiet been scared of him.
Lorenzo doesn’t reply, and I suppose that’s as good as a yes. A pang of guilt runs through me. Perhaps I should’ve said goodbye to the girls in some way. I am just about to go missing off the face of the earth after all. Guilt rides me hard. If they knew this side of me, would they really accept me?
I told myself for so long it was a lie and I was being disingenuous toward them. The truth is all parts were me. I’d just never had a friend group like that to share those thoughts or experiences with. I thought I was simply using them but realized too late they’ve given me a gift I’ll forever be grateful for. Inclusion. That in the past six months, for the first time in my life, I haven’t felt entirely alone.
When we walk past the office a dark shadow crosses the room. Dario is sitting on one of the leather couches with a glass of whisky pressed to his forehead. He seems confused when I walk by. He recognizes me, but I doubt from our first encounter. Most likely from photos, tabloids, and articles about my association with his brother. I wasn’t hiding behind a mask or an alias.
This is me.
I pause when Lorenzo descends wooden stairs. Last time I was escorted downstairs I was forced to watch a brutal fight. It is now my belief nothing ever good happens from walking downstairs and yet… I follow.
The moment I look up, a sick nauseous swirl runs through me. Five white masks stare into my direction. The hounds. I take in each and every shape and height. Different sets of eyes stare from the dimly lit bar room. They lean against things lazily as if they are cats awaiting their owner’s arrival. I note two of them have blood on their masks and another chill runs through me.
None of them have the same build as the one who broke into my home that night. I’ll always remember it. The way he smells. The sound of his voice. The color of his almost black eyes. The demeanor of his very existence. I’d already faced him since unmasked. But only once before Luca intervened.
“Through this way, Miss Barone.” Lorenzo gestures to the wooden door. He takes a position beside it and rests his hand on the handle. “Mr. Armani is waiting for you inside.”
“Because that’s not eerie as shit,” I say under my breath. One of the masked men chuckle from behind me. It gives me some type of satisfaction but does nothing to ease my tension. I’ve succumbed to this ending. It is just a shame it is dealt by the hand of the man that inexcusably and irrevocably has been the first to make me feel anything in years. Lorenzo opens the door.
He is not a good man nor am I a good woman. It’s only fitting the same monster carves out my heart first with his stupid unsaid promises. He said he wants me forever. But I am only ever intended to be discarded.
Mine, he’d called me. I don’t even think either of us know how or are capable of love. And that is a fairytale anyway.
We used each other and I had to remind myself of that every waking hour. That whatever I think this raw emotion and feelings are. They’re not for me to acknowledge or for Luca to own.
I step through the door.
The room is dimly lit. The first thing I notice is Luca sitting in the corner casually on a brown leather sofa with whisky in hand. The resemblance between the brothers is fitting. My heart falters and my feet come to a stop when I see the other man in the room. Only a table with two chairs coming between us.
The door shuts behind me and suddenly the space is too small. Ivan is tied to a chair across the room only a few feet away. My fingers itch, aware of Luca watching me.
“This is who you’ve been watching this whole time, isn’t it?” Luca’s voice sings to me like a lullaby.
I can’t yet look in his direction, fixated on the man who’d taken everything from me. The man that it took me over half my life to find.
“It was never me you’d been stalking, was it?”
Luca had always been two steps ahead of me.
But I only need this moment now.
With lightning speed I pull out the gun I concealed within my jacket and point it at Ivan. I expect Luca to move or grapple me to the floor, but he doesn’t so much as sigh.
With a calm voice he says. “Let’s have a quick chat, sweetheart. Don’t worry, Ivan’s not going anywhere.” Ivan’s gagged, beaten bloody, and bruised. He’s barely alive but he is conscious.
I lick my lips. He is finally in front of me.
Luca stands up and out of instinct I point the gun in his direction. He chuckles as he puts his hands in the air. “Have you ever even fired a gun, sweetheart?”
I pull the trigger and the whisky glass he’d been drinking from only moments ago explodes on the side table.
Lorenzo bursts into the room but Lucas’s quick to shout. “Stand down. I’ve got this handled.”
