Bella
Getting home is easy: a phone call, a slip into old crumpled clothes, a fling of my things into my purse. It’s being home that’s hard. As soon as I walk in the door, the last person I want to see strides down the steps to greet me.
“Another mystery overnight,” Emilio says, sitting down on the bottom step.
Muffin trots up to engulf my hand in licks. I pat her and ignore him.
“Are you planning on telling me where you keep going?” he asks.
I slip out of one shoe, then the other. “No.”
He strides in front of me, getting up in my face. “You’ve got to be careful, you know. We’ve been intercepting some of the Renegade Devils’ merchandise, and they’re pissed. They’re a ticking time bomb.”
I turn away. Yup, that’s what those women are to Emilio. That’s all they are: “merchandise.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I say, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Is Papa up?”
His brows ripple with suspicion. “Why?”
“I have to talk to him about something.”
Emilio’s hand goes to my shoulder. I flinch, but don’t move. I won’t let him intimidate me.
Yet his words are soft, soothing: “Hey, everyone knows you didn’t want this. I know you’re trying your best.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I examine his hand. The fingers are long and smooth, not clenched. Maybe, just maybe, Emilio is telling the truth. Maybe he actually cares.
I close my eyes. I see the boy I built sandcastles beside, the one who rolled around in the snow with me, creating twisted snow arch-angels. I see my brother.
I open my eyes, glance back at his hand and, on his middle finger, see it. The ring his mother gave him, the gold one with the green stone.
No, I can’t trust him.
“There’s something you might want to know,” he says, still in that soft tone.
“I have to see father now. Tell me after,” I say, breaking free, and stride away and up the stairs. I ascend at an even pace, not looking back. If I let it, that soft tone will slide me to my grave.
Emilio’s angry tone follows me up the stairs. “I really think you’d be interested in what I have to say!”
But I’m already on the next flight of stairs, entering the stifling silence of the third floor. My father’s floor and now, what feels like death’s. Everything is sculpted mahogany and lush navy velvet. All glints well-cleaned and well-cared for. This is a floor of elegance, luxuriousness and, yet, unmistakably, death.
The air is stuffy, stuffy with my father’s covetous old hands. We were never let up here. Not me, not Emilio, not even my mother – just Paula to clean and my father to do whatever it was he did here. Now, to die.
I shake my head to shake free the thoughts. No, Papa is going to be fine. He has to be.
I inhale slowly, then exhale. I need a clear head for talking to Papa.
I knock on the door. Then again.
Nothing.
I knock a few more times, then finally grasp the snarling lion door handle and twist it around. One step into the room I stop, shocked at the sight before me.
The waxy ghost of my father is slumped amidst satin sheets covered with rosy apples. Its eyes are closed, its mouth agape. Its rising and falling with soundless snores. It’s only been three days since my last visit, and already, my father is nearly unrecognizable.
“Papa?” I say softly, then louder, “Papa?”
The ghost shifts and opens one eye. “Ah, what’s that?” Its other eye flutters open, and the whole ghost jerks upright. “Who are ya?”
I shrink back, into the enclaves of the closed door behind me. “Papa it’s me – Bella.”
He sinks back down, nods, and gestures me over. “Of course it’s you. Get over here.”
I oblige and go over to him.
He shoots me a sidelong look. “It’s been a while, eh?”
“I’m sorry, Papa, I….” Unlikely excuses swirl up and down my throat. I look down at the broken old man before me, and I go silent. I can’t bear to lie to him like this. And yet, I can’t tell him the truth either. That this whole place unnerves me, him most of all. That I didn’t come because I feared what I would find.
My gaze sweeps around the room, from the snarling tiger rug I’m standing on, to the bull’s head mounted on the wall over his bed, to the coil of a cobra on his bedside table.
“You don’t like my decision,” he says and, with a chuckle, adds, “No one likes my decision.” He sits up straighter, waving his bony hand around. “Emilio, your brother, he wasn’t ready. Now, after my decision, he’s smartened up, cut down on all the drinking and partying, but before… ah no, he wasn’t ready.” He turns his head to look at me. “Now, however…”
I avoid his gaze, keeping mine on the cobra, on its erect head and showcasing fangs that are ready to strike. Looks like it will strike if I shift my gaze even for a second.
“But you’re getting better, Papa,” I say, my tone so unconvincing it sends him into a painful-sounding bout of raspy laughter.
He waves his hand again, then lets it flop to his lap. “If this is getting better, I hate to see what getting worse is,” he says, jiggling his hairy caterpillar eyebrows at me.
We laugh together, mine ending in something of a sob.
He pats me. “There, there. Don’t be sad for a dying old sinner.”
“But Papa,” I say, his kindly face illuminated by my tears, “We don’t have to be. The Russos – our family business, our success doesn’t have to be based on… crime or… sex trafficking at least.”
His hand falls, his face darkening. “Didn’t take you long to find out.”
Now I take his hand. “Yes, Papa, I found out. I found out, and I think we should end it.”
He pulls his hand away. “You don’t understand business. Politics. Money-making. What success really takes. The dirty truth, Bella, is: our entire empire was built on sex trafficking.”
“I understand more than you think. And I know about other families, other groups who found other ways. Online gambling, real estate, wind power – there are other options, Papa. Our empire may have been built on sex trafficking, but it doesn’t have to be sustained by it.”
He shakes his hand, his bald patch glinting in the light, his mustache drooping. “You make it sound so easy, but if you knew, if you’d had to rough it out there yourself, then you wouldn’t think it was so easy.” He shoots me another glance, then shrugs. “And the men will never agree.”
I shake my head, try to make my voice sound more confident than I feel. “Don’t be so sure. They said they’ll look into it.”
He doesn’t even bother to respond to that, only shrugs, scratching at a patch of beard that wasn’t there before.
“Papa,” I say softly.
“I don’t think you’re cut out for this, Bella my dear,” he says slowly, his gaze on something behind me.
“Papa,” I say, louder this time. I turn, following his gaze to the door.
“But you’re not going to listen to me, are you?” he says, his gaze not shifting, almost as if he’s talking to the door instead.
“No,” I murmur. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he shrugs me off. “Papa, I’ve been thinking about Mama. About what happened to her. About her death.”
He jerks as if I’ve struck him. “I think you should go.” His voice is hard and cold.
I stare at him. It doesn’t seem possible that words so crisp with hate could have come from the disheveled old crumple of a man before me.
“What happened?” I ask, my own voice growing cold. “Do you know what happened?”
Next thing I know his icy grip is around my hand and his cracked lips are twisted in a snarl, “Why don’t you wait until I’m dead before you hate me, Bella darling?” I wrench my hand free, and he sneers. “You won’t have to wait long.”
I stand there for a minute, staring at him, at the man I’ve known all my life, at the stranger I still hardly know now. He glares on back at me, as if I’m the enemy.
“Don’t say that,” I say.
He shrugs, directing his glare back over my shoulder to the door, addressing it: “You should go now.”
I stand there, uncertain: not wanting to go, yet not wanting to stay. A hundred questions rise to my lips, yet all fall in the open air of his stare.
“You’re going to try to change things, aren’t you?” he asks finally.
“I’m sorry, Papa, but I have to. It isn’t right.”
He stares ahead at the door as if he hadn’t heard me.
“It isn’t right, Papa, and you know it.”
He doesn’t answer for another minute, just keeps staring at the door. When he finally does speak, his words are a condemnation, “I think you should go now.”
I leave.
Outside the room, Emilio is waiting for me. I stare at him for a second. It’s strange seeing him here, on the forbidden floor like this. After what just happened with Papa, seeing him feels like an extension of the nightmare.
“How much did you hear?” I ask him.
His eyes are glittering like the cobra inside. “You know it’s not going to work,” he snarls out.
“What’s not going to work?”
“Changing things. The business. It’s nice and noble for you to go all Superwoman and try to save everyone and ‘do the right thing’, but it’s not realistic.”
“Other people have done it.”
Emilio shakes his head, his mouth still twisted into a snarl. “It’s not going to work. You’re not going to be able to pull it off. All you’re going to do is let the Renegade Devils topple us, not to mention alienate most of our lieutenants.” He steps in front of me and repeats, “You’re not going to be able to pull it off.”
I stride around him, towards the stairs. At the top step, I turn, and our glares bore into each other.
“Just watch me, Emilio. Just watch me.”
###
I head straight to the basement, to the little den that’s always been my own. As I approach my usual armchair, Muffin jumps down eagerly, grinning at me. Yes, she would approve of what I’m trying to do. I sigh as I pat her.
That still doesn’t mean it’s going to work for sure. Though whether it’s a sure thing or not, I still have to try. My laptop’s already on the side table; I pick it up and get to work. All I need is Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Vol 3. playing and Google and I’m good to go.
I search “wind power mafia” and scan through pages about using wind farms for laundering money, threatening landowners into wind farms that destroy the land, wind farms that aren’t even real. I lean over to pet Muffin, who’s settled at my feet. She looks up at me with grateful, happy eyes.
As I pet her, I try to get her enthusiasm for myself. But it’s no use. Muffin is good, and my family is bad. Even my friends are bad; that’s why I haven’t contacted any of them since Papa got sick and I had to take over and hide out here.
I think of them: Jenna, Mila, Kristen – all family friends. Have they known all this time too? And this whole wind power thing looks like it’s no good either, at least not for my kind of people.
Mid-pet, my hand freezes on Muffin’s soft gray head. That’s exactly it – the problem. Not what we do, but how we do it. We can do wind power right, the proper, legal way. Other people are doing it, so why not us?
I search “how to make money wind power Canada,” and I hit gold. I read about how farmers in Ontario earn more per wind turbine than those in Quebec. I read about how you can earn $5,000-$10,000 per turbine. I read about how we could do it, how we have a chance.
My phone beeps with a message from Jax, but I get up without looking at it. I throw on my coat and glasses, then race out to my car. Jax can wait. But this? I have to do this now.
I drive straight to the office, letting the boy take my car, and stride into the building without breaking pace, without even glancing at Nelson Mandela. I don’t take Muffin. I’m being driven on by an urge, a need, and I can’t stop. I can’t even slow down. Not until I’ve done what I have to.
Lisa isn’t at the front desk, but it doesn’t matter. I knock on Gerrard’s door. It responds with giggles.
I barge in.
Lisa’s sitting on Gerrard’s desk, her fuchsia lips smirking as he pokes her rouged cheeks with his pen. Both turn to me, irritation flaring in their faces.
“Meeting time,” I tell Gerrard. “Now.” And then I stride out of the room before either of them can reply.
The boardroom door is already open as if it was expecting this. In there, seated on the chair at the end, I wait for longer than seems necessary. They’re all probably taking their sweet ass time on purpose. Too bad. The more time passes, the more my determination grows.
By the time the three of them saunter in, looking none-too-pleased to see me, my resolve has reached a roar.
“What have you found?” I ask Gerrard.
He stares at me as if I just asked him in German.
“I did ask you to look into other sources of revenue,” I add.
“That was less than a week ago,” he shoots back.
“That’s fine. I did some of my own research.”
I address the Award of Excellence over his head, so I don’t have to see the reactions of Gerrard or the others. This time, I’m not going to let anything throw me.
“I found out that you can make $5,000 to even $10,000 per year per turbine. So, if we set up an army of say, a hundred or even 1000, well, you do the math.”
I resist the urge to check their reactions and forge on ahead. “Wind power really is viable, at least to start out with. I’m sure we can branch out into other things, like real estate or other businesses, but for now, there’s no real downside. I mean, we’ve got that whole swath of land the Factory’s on, and we just made a killing on our latest shipment. We can start small, with a few turbines, thirty or so, then go from there.”
Again, there’s no response, and when I dare check, no reaction on the three men’s faces before me. Anger surges through me.
“This isn’t a choice,” I say, “We’ll use a bit of the money from our latest shipment to buy them, and we’ll have a plan and deals in place by the end of the week.”
And then I walk out of there, the door slamming behind me the period to my sentence.
###
In the shopping complex’s lot, a few minutes down the road from our office, sitting in my car, I text him back: Yes.
I wait and wait, my anger at myself growing with each passing minute. Why am I even sitting here waiting? This is Jax Forester, for God’s sake, not just some nobody with nothing to do. He’s probably busy and won’t respond for hours. I’m wasting my time.
But I’m rewarded a few minutes later when my phone beeps and his message appears: Meet in front of CN Tower 9 pm.
I smile at the text dopily for a minute, before a vague apprehension sets in. Why the CN Tower of all places? Could Jax have found out already? How? I haven’t been going anywhere without my thick coat, sunglasses, and scarf. And why not kill me in the motel room? Why take the trouble to bring me all the way to the CN Tower anyway?
I text him back: Yes.
I slide over to the next seat, checking to see that my gun’s still in the glove compartment. Sure enough, my Colt is there, shiny and tiny as ever. I take it out and slip it in the inner pocket of my coat, the one I had custom-added; where I’ll keep the gun for tonight.
Whatever happens tonight may not be good, but I’m not going to be defenseless when I find out.