DONATELLA - 24 DAYS AGO
The handcrafted yew-wood table was centered between the double doors where I stood with the large bay windows at the back. The chandelier, forged from iron and glass, was long, stretching almost the length of the table, but due to all the natural sunlight coming through the large bay windows, wasn’t switched on. The chairs were like elegant wooden thrones and the china set in front them changed depending on the seasons. It was always, without exception, set for fifteen. With no else here but me, the dining room looked like it belonged on the cover of a luxury home and style magazine.
Everyone had their respective seats. Even myself…always on the left, one seat down from the head of the family, once my father, but now my brother, Ethan. Directly across from me sat my twin brother, Wyatt.
Order.
We all had our place and unless some died, there wasn’t any reason to deviate from it. I walked directly to Ethan’s seat.
“Good morning, Miss,” O’Phelan, who had been the head butler of our little Chicago castle for the last seventeen years, greeted me as he came from the side door to fill my glass of water. “I wasn’t aware you wished to eat in the dining room today. I had your breakfast sent to your room.”
“I’m eating here today,” I said, running my hands over the groves of the first chair, walking around it once before taking a seat comfortably on it.
“Would you like the same breakfast I sent up—”
“No. Fresh fruit, vanilla yogurt, a croissant, and a deviled egg with a glass of grape juice,” I told him, rolling my neck. He nodded, walking away for a minute only to return with a few documents, a tablet, and pen for me.
“Your publicist left a message saying they’ve pushed back the release of your next novel until Christmas.”
Before I could reply, the doors at the other end of the room open and in walked Toby, dressed head-to-toe in black and wearing an expression befitting of Severus Snape.
“Good morning…”
“What’s the matter today?” I asked, reaching for my water.
“Marco Forte…”
“How many times has he called that number already?” I couldn’t help but chuckle, shaking my head at thought of the little punk.
“He’s dead,” Toby replied.
I stared at him, though I wasn’t looking at him or anything else for that matter. It was only when O’Phelan rolled out my food on the trolley and began to set my plate that I snapped out of it, plucking the grapes from the vine and tossing them into my mouth as I leaned back.
“From the look on your face. I’m guessing he didn’t die of natural causes?” I finally replied.
“The police are saying he accidentally fell down the fire escape.”
“Thank you.” I nodded to O’Phelan when he moved to leave before I looked back to Toby. “I know what the police are saying…what are people saying?”
“Declan Eilis…or at least someone in the Eilis family.”
“Of course,” I rolled my eyes, lifting my spoon and yogurt.
Toby frowned, confused, “You don’t believe it’s him?”
I swallowed the spoonful in my mouth before replying “It’s a little stupid, don’t you think? I make the Eilis boy apologize to the Forte boy, and when I turn around the Eilis boy pushes the Forte boy down a fire-escape, killing him? Why? It’s too obvious and too soon. He knows I’d find out and he wouldn’t try it.”
“Dona, he’s a kid, not a trained assassin. I doubt in the moment he was thinking about the optics or with any rationality at all. Worse, if Marco might have taunted him…he could have snapped.”
“Or…someone is testing me.” Who, though? The Irish? The Italian? Ethan? “Someone wants to know what happens when I get involved.”
“Dona, I really think you’re overthinking this. Who would do that?”
“I don’t care what you think!” I snapped at him. “I’m not sure why you keep asking me questions that you should already have answers to. Isn’t this your job?”
He inhaled deeply through his nose, then exhaled. I kept eating my yogurt. Finally, he replied, “My job is to help you look at the optics… Irish kid kills an Italian kid—”
“Allegedly,” I cut in, licking my spoon.
“You know as well as I do that a rumor is as good as a signed confession for many of these people, Dona. Some people are going to be looking to your family…no, to you… to handle it the way such matters have always been handled.”
I dug into the bottom of the cup for the last bit of yogurt as I spoke, “So since you are also supposed to look at the optics, explain to me how would it look to have two dead kids?”
“One dead kid and a dead murderer.”
“A kid who murders is still a kid,” I said reaching for the eggs before looking up at him. “And if he’s gone, especially so soon, the blame will fall on me. People will say ‘oh, this is her fault, she made a big deal out of such a small issue, which should have been left to the boys to resolve. Now look what happened’…bad optics…for me.”
He didn’t reply, instead he moved closer and closer…until he was too close. He reached inside his jacket pocket, pulling out an origami dandelion. Holding it up between us, he twirled it in his fingers as he spoke, “I remember when you used to take your time picking dandelions one by one and everyone thought you were crazy, but I realized you did that to see which dandelions were the strongest. Which ones wouldn’t blow away because of the wind as you walked. You were testing each flower and when you collected the perfect ones you’d use them to make a crown, place it on your head, and with this enormous hallelujah grin on your face, you’d get up and run and spin and jump as hard as you could, until every last petal came off the stems and it was floating all around you. You’d close your eyes and make wish…and each time you did…I did too.”
“You wished to have me,” I stated, reaching to take the paper flower from his hand, but he moved it. His fingers barely touched my ear as he brushed my hair behind it and placed the paper flower there, too.
“No, Dona,” he said softly, “I wished that whatever you were wishing for would come true. Because in my mind, any wish from someone as sweet, kind, and innocent as you deserved to come true.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I stood up and he leaned back, allowing me to move around the chair. However, I didn’t leave. Instead, I kissed him, and like all our kisses it started off gently, tenderly. His hand fell to my waist, pulling me to him, both of our bodies pressed against each other…his hand sliding down to grab my ass when I stopped him, and pulled away.
“The cameras,” I whispered to him, wiping the corner of my lip. “Later.”
He just nodded and let me go. Walking around him, I headed back out the door. And just as I was about to make my escape he spoke.
“It is bad optics…for you, I know. However, it’s worse optics for you to look weak. The public only remembers you as that sweet, kind, innocent little girl who cried her heart out the day her mother died… They need to see and know that you are no different than Ethan,” he said. I turned around to tell him not to lecture me, however he spoke again before I could. “My job is also to tell you things you don’t want to hear. Yes, I know, annoying. Ethan hates it, too.”
The shit-faced grin on his lips as he ate my leftover strawberries killed the whole mood he had worked so hard to set with the damn dandelion.
“And you know what I said about later… I need to cancel.” His mouth dropped open. I smiled. “You should have stopped while you were ahead, Tobias. Ethan can simply hate you… I can blue ball you.”
I left and I didn’t look back, allowing the doors to close him in as I walked towards the large grand staircase, to the elevator which lead to our private rooms, taking the paper flower from behind my ear.
Someone as sweet, kind, and innocent as you…he had said. I couldn’t help but chuckle a little to myself as I twisted the paper flower between my fingers. Closing my eyes and blowing on it, even though I knew it wouldn’t fly away, and made my childhood wishes all over again.
“Dandelion. Dandelion. As you float up beautifully dying. Grant these wishes from my throat. Give me the King’s coat. Give me the Queen’s Ring. Chop the Princelings to their knees. Send a swarm of killer bees to those who try to hurt me. And oh yes! Let it always be spring.”
I couldn’t help but grin, looking up from the paper flower at the distorted mirror of the elevator doors opened on my floor. I stepped out, wondering what Tobias, or any of them would do, if they knew my wishes back then were only sweet to me and neither kind nor innocent to others.
Pushing the handle down and entering my room, I moved towards my soft pink and cream-colored circular bed, dropping the paper flower on top of it and picking up the remote control. After entering my passcode, my bed spun around to face wooden wall that split open from the middle, revealing my brother’s former master bedroom…now my closet.
Inside, I paused at the first mirror, fixing the strap of my silk emerald jumpsuit before moving to the second one near my bags, pressing my whole palm to the glass.
“Access granted,” it said before the glass slid down, inside each of my guns and knives were displayed like fine china. I lifted the gold-engraved pistol, pressing the wood panel underneath it, taking out the old flip-phone, dialing quickly before lifting it to my ear. It rang once before she answered. She didn’t speak, but I knew she was there.
“A boy named Marco Forte was killed today. Find out by who and why, Jackal, and find out fast. I need to know how deep this goes and how many people need to die.”
Her reply was to hang up immediately, and I knew that meant I'd have an answer within forty-eight hours.
Flipping the phone closed, I put it back in its place, the wood panel clicking closed. The glass of the mirror slid back up, showing my own reflection, my green eyes staring right back at me.
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. But remember… To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill…this is The Art of War,” I said to my own reflection, a small smirk appearing on my lips. I hadn’t put the gun away.
Walking from the mirror, I wondered if I should feel insulted or grateful that my enemy, whoever it was, thought I was so stupid…
What was the fastest way to take power from my family?
It wasn’t money… Anyone with half a brain knew my family had more than enough hidden all over the world to get by for generations, if not longer. My father had taught us all The Callahan Family Rules, and the moment I’d heard Marco say he wanted to work with me, I knew that he saw Ethan as Irish. I knew something wasn’t right in that, which is why I remembered Rule 28: “Remember that it is the clan that gives us our power.”
The fastest way to take power from my family…was to destroy the clan.
In the Art of War, the greatest test of skill was to subdue the enemy without fighting… What better way to do that than to pit the Irish and the Italians against each other… To restart the blood feuds between them.
“It’s exactly what I would do…” I whispered to myself as I took a seat in my leopard-print chair, placing my gun on the side table, before reaching for the bottle of Pink Moscato at the bottom it. I filled a glass and turned the television screen to the cameras Ethan had secretly placed in the home of the man he hated so much, he had fucked his daughter just to spite him.
“I’m sure you remember the old blood feuds, Savino Moretti,” I said, bringing the glass to my lips as I watched as Moretti screw yet another woman that was far too young for him in his office… Ethan and Ivy had killed his daughter, Klarrisa Moretti, only days ago and this was apparently how he mourned.
“To each their own,” I whispered, drinking. Wine made everything, even this gag-worthy performance, bearable.
Soon—the moment I knew for sure it was him—I’d leave holes in him for the worms to fuck.