Alessandro
He wasn’t there. He wasn’t fucking there. It’s been days since I found the place empty, trashed, and I’ve taken action but I’m still reeling. Seething.
Getting dropped in, in the thick of a jungle, ready, so fucking ready to end this, and then finding the little house empty, finding my mother’s locket with my picture inside lying in a bed that had bloody sheets?
I lost it and trashed the fucking place. Dario Ferrano served as co-pilot to a local bush pilot he’d found, who flew the plane out of there after dropping me and Zack in. Wes and two other guys met us there, with a car. It took the four who’d been dropped with me to get ahold of me and keep me held down until I calmed. I went that fuckin’ apeshit.
“We’ll get him, Lex. We’ll get him. He was here. This is the closest we’ve ever gotten.”
Fuck. Zack said all that in a low and sure voice, trying to calm me the fuck down.
Wes knew better than to get in my space. He backed up after I stopped fighting them and watched from a safe distance, a look on his face that told me he felt my pain. He didn’t. No way he had a clue.
“Off!” I ordered. They all gave me space and I walked out. I walked the seventeen miles to the closest town.
Zack and Wes tried to pick me up, following alongside in the car for a bit, until I pointed my loaded weapon at Zack, snarling with warning for him to fuck right off.
He drove off, but he and Wes waited for me in town. I got into his rental car without a word. Wes passed me a big bottle of water and a meal replacement bar, which I immediately tore into, as Zack drove to the airport. I walked away from them when we parked and didn’t look back. Flew here. Spent a night in a hotel room in San Jose getting drunk out of my brain and then waking up in my own puke on the bathroom floor. It didn’t shave the tiniest layer off my rage.
And now I’m in bed beside my Holly, who’s lying on her belly and quietly crying into her pillow, because when I got back and after she so sweetly opened her legs, giving me a breathy, ‘Alessandro’ and then touched me like she was happy to see me, I showed her how fucking dead and rotted out my heart is.
I got a text on the road here. The Ferrano boys are on their way here. They’ll be here tomorrow. And then we’ll talk. Figure out what’s next.
These boys have become more than allies. They’ve started treating me like family. I don’t deserve Dario’s respect with the way I treat his wife’s sister.
I don’t deserve to stay in this house that Tommy bought as a getaway safehouse and retreat for his family.
Whatever Zack has done to plead my case or whatever these guys have felt because of growing up with the father they grew up with? It’s made them become friends. And other than Wes, I haven’t had friends. Unless you count Joaquin Delgado and his friendship was toxic.
Dario, a pilot with only a little bit of experience, went out on a limb finding the best pilot in Africa that he could find, who got me into the thick dangerous Congo to drop me in. Tommy’s lent trusted Ferrano resources to my cause so that I don’t tip off people who might be in touch with my father.
I don’t deserve the friendship Zack has given me. He sat with me before the Congo, telling me that he finessed things so my deal still stands. They’re giving me more time.
He got Barry Dresden to sign an extension of the deal they offered me, even though Dresden’s human trafficking task force got dismantled during the takedown of the Thailand sex resort.
Zack should only care about catching him, not worry about whether or not I’ll have to answer for all my many sins. And yet he went out of his way to do that for me. He even got that immunity extended to Rocco, who’s now completely in the know about everything.
Bringing in one of the top wanted public enemies in Mexico and elsewhere would be a feather in Dresden’s cap, so he’s still willing, but he’s planning on retiring in a year or two and wants this shit done before he ends his reign, so he’s impatient but willing to play ball. I’m still untouchable to most legal authorities because of this deal. It should help me sleep at night, but it is no consolation. There’s only one thing that helps me sleep at night and I keep hurting her.
I don’t care about immunity deals. I don’t give a flying fuck about what happens after all this is over. I just need it over. I need to do whatever the fuck needs to be done so that it’s over. So my mother gets the fuck away from that monster. I need to deliver him to the Feds and get the fuck on with life.
After I burn what’s left of his legacy to the ground. The shit storm I’ve now dumped gasoline on and lit a match to? It’s gonna garner a reaction from Pablo Alejandro Romero. For certain. I look forward to pissing on it to put that fire out later on. And then smoking a big fat cigar.
Holly
I wake up to sounds of movement in the hallway with shushing. I sit up straight and listen. Alessandro’s still in bed. He sits up, too. Rubbing his eyes.
“Ferranos are here,” he rumbles.
I gasp, jump up, and look out the window, which gives us an amazing view of the water, and I see Tommy and Tia. And Tommy has a little baby in his arms with a pink hat on. Tia is holding onto Tommy’s arm, dipping her toe into the water.
I squeal and throw my robe on and run out of the room and down the hall toward the stairs, seeing all sorts of luggage and a pack ‘n play inside the ajar master bedroom doorway. On my way through the house toward the door, I catch sight of a head of curly red hair. My sister!
She was about to go out the front door, Dare behind her.
We both scream and jump up and down. She throws her arms around me.
I start to bawl.
“Oh my God! I’ve missed you so much!” She’s blubbering, I’m blubbering, too. I think I’m blubbering harder.
We hug each other for a long time and then Tia is with us, putting her arms around me.
“Oh my God, you look amazing!” I tell her. She doesn’t look like she’s had a baby.
“Where’s that baby? I need to hold her!”
Tommy comes in and he has the most beautiful baby I’ve ever set eyes on in his arms. Pink sun suit with little ruffles, a floppy pink sunhat. A chunky little baby girl with loads of light brown curls and her daddy’s light brown eyes.
“Oh my God!”
“This is Princess Carina,” Ang informs.
“The new overlord of the Ferrano family,” Dare adds. “She’s pretty damn cute but don’t let that fool ya. This girl has a set of lungs and her Dad’s temper. She’s gonna be bossin’ us all around as soon as she figures out how to talk.”
The baby blows a raspberry with her lips as if on cue. She’s a perfect combination of Tommy and Tia.
Tommy snickers and passes her to me. She looks pouty for a second at her daddy, like she’s gonna cry at him giving her up, but I squeal in delight and kiss her forehead, “Oh, hi! I’m your Auntie Holly! Can I be her Auntie Holly?” I ask.
Tia says, “Of course!”
The baby smiles at me and reaches for a handful of my hair instead of wailing. She is perfect. I’m melting.
“Mornin’,” Alessandro greets. He’s at the bottom of the stairs, dressed. He’s wearing a short sleeved button-down plaid shirt and khaki cargo shorts. Leather flip flops on.
The baby reaches for him. Tries to lunge out of my arms. Alessandro takes a step back, like she’s some unknown creature. There’s no way he’s gonna hold her. I’ve got a firm hold of her. I blow a raspberry on her neck and she giggles and takes two handfuls of my hair and yanks.
Tommy, Dare, and Alessandro in the same room? The hotness quotient is off the charts. I’d imagine there’s also enough testosterone in the room to cause an ovaries explosion on a global scale. If they could bottle it and sell the combination from these three men, it’d outsell Viagra, Cialis, and Spanish Fly put together.
Tia and Ang say their hellos to Alessandro and Angie doesn’t even seem awkward about it. I’m awkward, though, so I awkwardly move toward the kitchen muttering that I need coffee, and see that there’s a pile of vacation house provisions and the family’s kooky but awesome Spanish housekeeper Sarah is putting them away.
“Holly! Hola!” Sarah says with a wave and puts her arm around me and squeezes.
“How are you? Coffee? I’m gonna make some breakfast?” she says, pouring a cup and putting it on the counter beside me.
“Want some help?” I offer.
“No, sweetheart, go spend time with your sister. Go!” She shoos me away, “Put Carina in her saucer, she can hang with me while I make food for everyone.”
There’s an Exersaucer on the floor by the table with all sorts of infant toys sitting on top of it.
“Holly,” Alessandro says. Carina is looking up at him and blowing more raspberries and cooing happily from my arms. He glances at her and then looks to me, “A minute. Alone.”
I pass the baby to Ang, who’d followed, and he tags my hand and pulls me toward the stairs.
The girls have smiles as we move away so I’m playing along. Ang doesn’t seem pissed with him. Strangely.
I follow him upstairs.
He gets us into the bedroom that’d been mine and closes the door. I look up at him and I think he reads the pain on my face that I can’t quite hide, that I’m not trying to hide now that it’s just us two.
“I don’t know how long we’re staying. Gotta talk to these guys and then I’ll go from there. Meantime, I think you know by now that you need to keep your mouth shut. About everything.”
I blow out a breath and nod.
“Words, Holly.”
“Okay. Of course, okay. I know the score. But, what---”
“No questions. Mouth shut,” he says coldly and opens the door and goes out to the hall.
I deflate.
I see Dare and Tommy coming up the stairs as he goes out. They all file into the room at the top of the stairs that houses all my art supplies. It was an office slash craft room when I’d gotten there and I’ve kind of taken over. I hope my stuff won’t be in Tommy’s way.
I close the door, then I get dressed in a sundress and sandals and go downstairs and get that forgotten cup of coffee. I see that Tia and Angie are outside sitting on lounge chairs. Sarah and the baby are in the kitchen and the kitchen is filled with breakfast smells. The baby is bouncing in her Exersaucer and cooing and drooling on a baby rattle.
I get outside.
Ang is smiling at me, “You look amazing!”
I think I have my first ever suntan. I’ve spent so much time on the rooftop deck swimming, reading, drawing, that my skin is darker than it’s ever been.
“So do you,” I say. “You’re like…” I search for a word.
“Glowing?” Tia asks, with humor in her voice.
It dawns that she is glowing. She looks so happy and beautiful sitting there.
“Yeah. Glowing. Ang?” I feel my face breaking out into a smile.
She gives me a big smile, “That happens sometimes when you’re pregnant.”
I scream. She screams and we hug, both of us crying.
There are suddenly men everywhere. Tommy, Alessandro, and Dare are on the second-floor balcony and Tino and Rocco are coming from opposite sides of the house. I didn’t realize Tino was here.
Ang waves, “Sorry! I just shared our news.”
Dare smiles at her and they move back inside.
“Female screams equal tweaked men with guns, girls,” Tino admonishes. He has a gun in his hand. Yikes.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Oops,” Angie says, sheepishly.
“Good to see ya, Holly.” He gives me a smile.
“You, too, Tino,” I say.
Tino nods and moves out of sight. So does Rocco.
“It was a long road,” Angie says, still blushing and looking a bit embarrassed. “I didn’t think I could get pregnant. But a little bit of help from a fertility specialist and it worked our second time. We go for our first doctor’s appointment next week. I was nervous about flying here but I phoned and the doc said it’d be fine. I’m not even two months yet but I’m already showing. My clothes are so tight!” She puts her hand to her belly and I see that it’s already rounding. She’s wearing a billowy loose maxi dress so it wasn’t apparent before now.
“I’m so happy for you!” I wipe my leaky eyes and then touch her tiny belly.
“Well? How’ve you been?” she asks.
“Well…” I don’t know how to finish.
“I’m sure it’s been hard being apart while he’s taking care of things. But, it’ll all be worth it in the end.” She squeezes my hand.
I look at her, confused. I can’t hide my confusion and her face changes. She knows stuff. What on earth does she know that I don’t?
“What’s wrong?” Ang asks, “I mean… besides the obvious.”
I shake my head, “What’s obvious? What do you know?”
She tilts her head and looks at me with suspicion.
“Just tell me quick, please? Before he comes out? We might be leaving today. I don’t know what’s going on and if you know something, tell me!”
My heart is racing, thundering in my chest.
Ang doesn’t hesitate, “Zack and Wes are helping him find his father so that he can be prosecuted for all he’s done. So that they can get Alessandro’s mother free.” She says this with her eyebrows all furrowed, like it’s something I should know.
And wow. It is. My jaw drops and my stomach pitches.
“You okay?” Tia puts her hand on my shoulder.
I shake my head. No. My hand goes over my mouth.
I’m not okay. So not okay.
“Holly?” Ang looks horrified, “What---?” she shakes her head in confusion.
I shrug and start to cry. “He just doesn’t tell me shit. Nothing, Ang. I just… I knew I was being protected.”
I’m not about to let her know just how in the dark I’ve been, but I can’t hide this. I put my fingertips to my temples and deep breathe.
“I just didn’t know why. Or from who. He has demons, Ang. He’s in so much pain. But I know fucking nothing. I knew there was a bad guy, but it’s his father?”
She hugs me, “I’m so sorry.”
I bawl into her shoulder. It all comes flowing out of my eyes.
I feel so broken. For him.
She starts to talk softly into my ear. “You wanna know what I know?”
I nod.
“You sure? It’s ugly.”
“Tell me,” I urge.
“This is all I know. His mother was kidnapped and enslaved and raped by him until he got her pregnant with Lex. Then he married her. Lex’s father is a lunatic. Horrible man. Known in the trade as Sandro the Butcher. I’d even heard of him from overhearing Kruna conversations among a couple girls who were acquired by him originally and sold to Kruna, though I only recently found out that this was Lex’s father. And he is whacked. Lex’s mother escaped with him when he was a little boy, but his Dad hunted her down and found them years later in Lex’s teens and dragged them back. Now, he’s been hiding the last few years and making Lex carry out his orders, by blackmail and he uses the safety of Lex’s mother as his currency. But she’s not safe because she’s with that animal. He’s got a rep for being among the most notorious, most cruel criminals on the wanted list. And Dare told me that his father found out about you and was pissed or something about something Lex did with the business so he’s been trying to get to you to punish him for it. That’s why he’s had to keep you safe and hidden, until he can catch the sonofabitch. You know, we found out after Dare took down Kruna that your husband was a huge part of that. He downplayed it but if it weren’t for him, I don’t think it would’ve gone nearly so smoothly. I know I’ve been critical of him, but Holly, a lot makes sense now.”
I can’t stop crying. I’m shaking all over, the reality, all of it sweeping through me. Ang still has her arms around me and I’m shaking so hard.
El Diablo is Alessandro’s father. He drunkenly muttered ‘Mama’ in pain the night before our wedding. And Alessandro’s father’s name is Sandro. So, he’s named after him. Almost everyone calls him Lex but me. I call him the name of the man he’s named after. The man who raped his mother. My God.
“Breakfast!” Sarah calls out from the house.
“Try to hold it together, Holly,” Tia urges and I start wiping my eyes, “We’ll talk more later. Tommy and Dario are helping him. So’s Zack. This will get dealt with. Don’t doubt it for a second.” Tia squeezes my hand.
I nod, but I’m staring off into space.
Tia jiggles my hand so that I look at her. “I know what demons are like when you’ve got a father who you don’t… who disappoints you. So does Tommy. Lex will come out the other side. It’s not gonna be easy but…trust me. It can be done. You ever need to talk, ever, I can be a good ear. Tommy and I have been through some very dark times. I know what it’s like to love a man who’s always fighting with demons.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
Angie looks so concerned. Tia puts an arm around me and Ang and walks us both inside.
Sarah is pulling the Exersaucer closer to the table while carrying a big plate of pancakes to the table, which is set for all of us and already has several platters of breakfast foods on it.
Alessandro
“Let’s head down man, talk more later. I smell bacon. Fuckin’ starved,” Tommy mutters.
They’ve filled me in, got the lowdown from Zack already via phone call. Zack is on his way here, too. He has people doing their thing, tracking. I’ve got Jonas, my hacker, following some digital trails, too. There may have been financial activity in Kinshasa at the same time as we arrived at that little house he was supposed to be in. From there, he might’ve gone anywhere. I’d lay bets he’s on his way home. I flushed out some informants and know that there’s a good chance he’s had word of some of the actions I’ve taken. Actions that will piss him enough to wanna confront me in person.
The Ferrano boys have offered their resources and they’ve come with their wives for Holly. I hadn’t known that was happening, the girls coming, but Holly getting to see Angel after what she’s been through is the least I can do. I wanted to leave today, but they’ve talked me into staying another day. Zack is on his way so they suggest I wait, get another update from Zack. Get my head together, spend time with my wife.
I reluctantly agree.
I’d expressed concern about their women and Tommy’s daughter being here with my shit, but they waved it off. They had Tino assemble a crew of a dozen men who were camped around the property watching. They had a couple camper vans, even, so they could watch out for everyone in shifts.
I’d given Zack the green light to tell the Ferrano boys everything a week after Dario and Angel picked Holly up from my house, on the condition that Dario not tell Holly any of it.
Since then, I’ve met with the Ferranos and Zack on more than one occasion not only about keeping Holly safe but about the plan to take my father down. For some reason, the Ferrano boys wanted to help, which I don’t totally get, but I drank beers and then we migrated to Bourbon one night with Zack and the two of them a few weeks after my and Holly’s wedding, and we traded some war stories about our fathers, who knew one another and had done a bit of business together in the 80’s.
By the end of the night, I had won bragging rights for the biggest prick of a father. The late Tom Ferrano was a bad motherfucker but Sandro Romero made him look like a fuckin’ saint in comparison.
Zack wants my father taken to task for his actions - what he says is only slightly less than I do.
He’s wrong. His desire to bring my father to justice does not touch my emotions on the matter. But that doesn’t matter. He’s motivated. And he’d brought me an immunity deal that meant I could get away with just about any crime and have it overlooked provided I brought Sandro Romero to them. If they got him first, I had to testify to keep my deal and go into Witness Protection. If I brought him to them, I didn’t have to say squat. Just agree to end my illegal activities and move on with my life, but as a law-abiding citizen.
I’m thinking with my heart and my head because my heart wants him to fucking suffer.
It's not out of the question that my father knows about this place but it’s highly unlikely he’ll expect me to be here with the Ferranos. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t figured out who my wife is and what her connection to the Ferranos is.
I follow them down and we all sit to have a meal together. The Ferrano girls talk happily among themselves and Holly’s sister is being nice to me. Again.
I’d seen her two or three times while Holly was in Tasmania and she has warmed up to me. I didn’t know what Dario said to get her to cool her anger with me until now, but when I catch the look on Holly’s face my gut fills with acid.
Angel and Holly exchange looks. Fuck. Angel Ferrano knows more shit about me than I’d like. It’s very apparent. And right this second, I’m pretty fucking certain she’s said shit to Holly.
Holly catches my eyes and looks away, which is something she almost never fucking does. When I’m pissed at her, she looks right at me, stars still shining, dimples often showing. Not now, though. She won’t look at me and her eyes are bright and shiny but not with stars, with the fighting back of more tears. Her eyes are rimmed pink. She’s already been crying. And this isn’t just about how rough I was when I got into bed with her last night.
The Spanish housekeeper starts talking to me while filling my plate with food and I wanna explode. I deep breathe to hold my shit together. She’s talking to me in Spanish, asking me if I want more of this or if I’d like some of that. I’m glaring at my wife, wanting her to see that I’m pissed that she’d been discussing me with her sister. But I can tell by the way her sister is versus the way that she is, that Holly hasn’t said a bad thing about me. And her sister has said shit that has Holly looking like someone told her that Santa Claus got beheaded live in front of a kindergarten class.
“No. Just coffee. Black. Not hungry. Thanks,” I tell the housekeeper and see that all eyes in the place are on me.
Tommy’s little baby girl is making a repetitive, “Da da da da” sound while banging a rattle off the baby chair she’s sitting in. Other than that, the room is silent. My mood is obviously having an affect so I should just fucking go and let these people eat their breakfast.
I take the coffee the woman brings me and get up from the table and go upstairs with it.
Holly
I need to hold myself together. I’m feeling so broken.
My sister kisses my temple when she gets up from the table, taking both of our plates. My plate is mostly untouched and I’ve barely paid any attention to the people all talking at the table while eating. The girls were trying to be casual but there’s a heavy tone in the air and I think their men clued in quickly to the awkwardness and the fact that Alessandro is pissed at me.
I’ve got my eyes on the dock, where Alessandro has just moved to. He’s sitting on a chair, drinking his coffee and staring at something in his hand.
When his eyes met mine at the table, he gave me a look like he wanted my head to explode, and then stalked away and upstairs with his coffee. He came back down a while ago and went outside.
I excuse myself, finally, and walk out to see him. When I get close, I realize he’s got two sketchbooks. My work. My in-progress graphic novels. I wince.
“Don’t,” I say and reach for them.
He looks up at me and glares.
I’ve got my hand out for them but he flips a page. It’s a page where I’m jumping out of the window when the building is on fire. He’s standing there, ready to catch me.
“I’ll catch you,” reads the caption in black. In pink I’ve written, “And he does. He doesn’t let me fall. He didn’t let me burn.”
He’s reading the book of my life, the unfinished one.
Underneath it is the fantasy. That should give him a good laugh. Not.
“Is this smart?” he demands.
I wince. He’s right. Anyone could pick them up. Dare or Ang could’ve done it and there’s some really personal stuff in there.
“Sit on my lap.” He opens his arms.
I frown.
“Now. Put on a show for your sister, for fuck sakes.”
“She doesn’t need a show.”
“Sit the fuck down and put your arms around me.”
I climb onto his lap and he buries his nose in my hair for a minute and I realize that this isn’t a show. He needs me right now. I run my fingers through his hair and cup the back of his head. I kiss his mouth softly. He’s breathing hard. He doesn’t kiss me back but his grip on me tightens.
After a few minutes of staying just like that, he shifts me a little and I put my head on his shoulder, my arms around him, and he goes back to reading the book.
I stay there in his lap, chewing my lip while he keeps reading. I read over his shoulder and try to think about what he must be thinking.
Of course the book isn’t as graphic as our real story but it portrays a girl who didn’t have a great life before she got locked up. But she knows, despite the fact that he’s standoffish and aloof, that he has feelings for her. That he wants to protect her.
Her thought bubbles are very telling about how she feels. How I feel. About him.
He gets to the last completed page, which is the morning after our wedding when he says what he said about me keeping his soul safe, which I did put in, verbatim, and then I’m tied and my mouth has tape over it. He’s in the foreground, looking angry. There’s a thought bubble over his head and there’s El Diablo, the devil, with me in his grasp. So, it’s pretty obvious that I’m being protected.
Alessandro flips the page and sees that I haven’t gotten any farther.
He puts the book under his thigh on the chair and flips open the other sketchbook. The Rapunzel fantasy.
I close my eyes, not wanting to look as he sifts through it.
I snuggle in, though, giving him what I can give him, my snuggles, hopefully some comfort. He’s pretended that this is for show but I can tell he wants me in his arms, he wants to draw comfort from me.
I know he read me like an open book when he came to the table for breakfast. And I just want to do something, anything to help.
Alessandro doesn’t say anything as I hear him flipping, hear the waves splashing, and then I hear baby Carina crying off in the distance.
He chuckles and I open my eyes and see he’s on the page where he’s killed the dragon. He’s beheaded the dragon with the devil horns.
The laugh is the kind of laugh you know is painful. He flips the page to the happily ever after part but doesn’t take enough time to read it. He snaps it closed and shoves the book under his thigh in the chair with the other one, then runs his fingers through his hair.
“He got away?” I finally ask.
“He got away,” he confirms.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He rolls his eyes skyward and blows out a breath.
“Angie told me some things,” I mutter.
“No shit?” he snaps sarcastically.
“I’m sorry. It’s not her fault. It’s mine. I could tell by one little thing that she thought I knew stuff and that she did know stuff, so I got her to spill just quick. She just spewed a bunch of stuff just before you came downstairs for breakfast, and … and I’m sorry.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever?” I’m taken aback, “What. Ever?” I’m not just taken aback. I’m angry. I lean back and glare at him.
He looks at me and raises his eyebrows.
“Maybe it would’ve been good to tell me what was going on, you think?”
He looks at me like I’m out of my mind.
“Why?”
“Why? Why?” I’m in shock.
“Lower your fuckin’ voice,” he grounds out warningly.
My faces reddens, but I lower my voice, “If I’d known… I would’ve understood what you were going through.”
“What is it you think you know, anyway?”
I wince. I don’t wanna say these things out loud. Not out here in the open.
“We should be alone for this,” I say, glancing over my shoulder. Everyone is inside so maybe they don’t hear us but I know there are bodyguards, security guards, around.
“Tell me what you think you know. Quietly.”
“You do what you do because your father forces you. He’s a bad guy, a crazy guy and he’s got your mom hostage so you have to do what you do. You have to be this bad guy to keep your mom safe.”
He laughs, “Close, but no cigar.”
I tilt my head, waiting for him to explain.
“I’m not pretending to be a bad guy, Holly. I am the guy I am. Yes, my father is pulling some shit. Yes, he has her and he’s using her as my weak spot. Yes, he figures you’re another weak spot so he’s tryin’ to get to you because I’ve fought back and he can’t have that, but no. I’m not just being a bad guy because of him. I am who I am.”
“And who is that?”
“The man who bought you and kept you locked up. The man who runs the family business, acquiring and moving guns and acquiring, and then selling sex slaves. A man who has murdered many times. Probably will many more times. The man who, until you started your games, fucked those slaves, got rough with them… left marks…”
I cover my ears with my hands. He pulls my hands away and gets so close our eyelashes are a hair’s breadth away from touching.
“The man who will continue to hurt you until you fucking hate me. When the fuck are you gonna wake the fuck up and see what I really am?”
My chin is trembling.
“You keep me safe, you love me, because I do see what you really are.”
He rolls his eyes and gets up, setting me on my feet. He takes the novels and starts ripping them up into tiny pieces in front of my eyes and drops the tiny pieces of paper into the ocean with a flourish and then glares at me.
Those were hand drawn, hand written. My only copies. Weeks of work.
I wrap my arms around my middle and start to sob.
“Stop it. Stop with the fuckin’ fantasy and grow the fuck up. Wipe your eyes and get to the bedroom quietly until you pull your shit together. I’m goin’. Stay with your sister for now. Be good. Keep your mouth shut about us and our shit. I’ll be in touch.”
“Our shit?” I snap.
He says nothing.
“Yeah. Our marriage is shit to you? Lovely.”
I can’t read his expression but he’s breathing hard, glaring at me.
“What does that mean? In touch? When? A week? A year?”
“Don’t be a brat. Get inside,” he swats my ass and points toward the house.
He’s trying to be as cool as a cucumber right now but his eyes tell a different story. There’s a whole lot of pain in them.
“Alessandro,” I whimper and cover my eyes with my hands.
He doesn’t reach for me. I just want him to fucking reach for me and hold me. So I can hold him back.
He just stands there.
I shake my head, pain piercing my heart.
“Go,” he says and jerks his chin toward the house.
I take a deep breath and blow it out slow. “You’re gonna get him. You’ll get to the other side of this. And I’ll be there for you every step of the way. If you let me. Let me.”
He takes a big breath but doesn’t exhale.
“Alessandro. Let. Me.”
He shakes his head.
“I love you,” I tell him and he flinches. I put my head down and walk to the house like I’m told.
Alessandro
I go in, upstairs, ignoring Holly lying in the bed on her side, curled into a ball, knees pulled to her chest, tears in her eyes.
I grab my phone, wallet, passport, and the keys to the rental car. I text Dario. I don’t wanna talk to anyone right now. I’m gonna slip out of here.
“Need time. How long you staying? Keep her here with you or take her home. Just let me know what you’re doing. That ok? Rocco too.”
He answers quickly,
“Ya man. We’re staying here 3-4 days. You need us, call & we’re wherever you need us to be. I’ll text before we go. Let me know if you want us to bring her to you. Call or text if you need anything. Anything at all, bro.”
He’s a good fuckin’ guy.
I text Rocco.
“Stay here and help look after Holly. Dario’s in charge. Be watchful. If they go back to the U.S, go with them. I’ll text soon. Heading out for a couple days.”
I get his acknowledgement, get my basics, and she’s curled up in a ball in the bed. I leave without giving her a glance.
I get in my rental and head toward San Jose. I check into a room, buy a laptop and sit down to get some more shit organized. Late that night, I get a text from Dario.
“Zack just got here. Pretty sure SR flew to Dallas, TX under alias Pablo Cabrone. He had a female travel companion, surveillance makes it look like Christina Cabrone is your ma. Call when you can. Got further surveillance footage of them in San Antonio. We’re brainstorming.”
I text back to tell him I’ll be in touch in a few hours to get their ideas. I put my phone back in my pocket and think about how I got where I am.
Five years ago, I first saw Zack Jacobs.
I was in a swanky restaurant in Miami for business with my father, and I ran into Wesley Traynor in the men’s room. Coulda knocked me over with a feather. Hadn’t seen him since I was fifteen years old, playing fuckin’ hackey sack behind our shitty low-rent apartment building.
There we were, face to face. Last he saw me was the day before I disappeared in the middle of the night back to my father’s compound, and suddenly there he was.
I wanted to pretend I didn’t know him. But that meeting was no coincidence.
He was a good buddy growing up in Spokane. We got into shit together but he had a good head on his shoulders. He wasn’t involved in the shit with the gang bangers. He refused. He tried to talk me out of the bullshit and I didn’t listen. Had I listened, maybe my life would’ve gone differently. He was my best friend but he knew so little about me back then.
“I know your life now, bro. Chill, man.” My face must’ve been tipping my hand about how thrown and how tweaked I was to see him.
“Listen, we gotta talk. I know your life now, brother, and I know it’s not what you want. I can help you. Take my card. Call me as soon as you possibly fucking can. It’s very important.”
He slipped me the card and slipped out.
I threw the card in the trash bin after a cursory glance.
Wesley Traynor, Private Investigator - Jacobs Security & Investigations
I saw him with Zack at the bar. Neither looked at me, though they both knew I was looking at them. I didn’t meet Zack until later.
I went home after that trip and tried to put Wes out of my mind. My life was what it was, of my own doing, but the meeting nagged at me.
He looked good. He looked happy. He gave off an aura of being successful and I knew, despite where we’d grown up that Wes would be successful. He just had that drive in him. What he wanted with me, I didn’t know, didn’t wanna know. I could not afford the headspace it’d take to consider it.
Five or six months later, my father sent me to New York City for business and it was the first business trip where he didn’t come. It was a test, one I couldn’t fail.
I ran into Wes and Zack in a bar there. I knew it was no accident. Wes was determined to talk to me, despite my ignoring him after his last approach.
Wes made this approach with Zack and they convinced me to have a drink with them. Zack told me his story. A jacked-up story that he was out of his mind to share, not knowing where I stood. He full-out admitted that he was on a mission to bring justice to my father’s doorstep. Zack had been a member of a task force that was trying to expose my father’s sex trafficking ring and the girl Zack was fucking, who he’d just started a relationship with, was a girl on that task force. She was a tough bitch, apparently, but didn’t look it, so she had been put forth as bait.
My father’s men took the bait, kidnapped her, and brought her to a secondary compound twenty miles from our main compound. That was part of the problem. It was the wrong compound.
Zack and his crew tried to swoop in but they swooped into the wrong place and didn’t get to her in time. Her cover got blown and she was killed. Zack got shot in the back, another colleague got dead, and Zack was lucky to walk after that. The task force didn’t get what they wanted in order to go after him again, so they disbanded with plans to regroup later on.
I’d heard that story, knew it just vaguely from the other side. It was not infrequent that someone tried to infiltrate my father’s organization. Likely why he always had more than one guard on hand at any given time, even when he was alone with his son. And why he had four places that he used for slave drops, five places for gun drops. We never decided on the drop location until the eleventh hour and we tried not to follow a pattern.
Zack Jacobs was hell-bent on making him pay. On making the life of any human trafficker he could get near miserable.
Not only had my father killed his woman but he’d tortured her and she got passed around among his men before she died and my father got pictures sent anonymously to the guy Zack reported to on the assignment. He’s a sick fuck like that. Not only does he want people who cross him to pay, but he also wants them to know exactly what that payment consists of, right down to the penny.
I wasn’t involved in the payback that time. But I could easily have been. I could easily have been part of a crew that abused that girl. She wouldn’t have been the first one I abused. I made sure Zack knew that about me. He told me it wasn’t news that I had been guilty of more than just being Sandro the Butcher’s son. But he also said that I could turn my life around. He’s far too optimistic and I told him so. I’ve told him so more than once.
Zack dug around in my father’s business, which led him to the poster with me and my mother on it. He tracked down my old neighborhood on his quest to avenge his dead girlfriend and determined I might be a weak link in my father’s organization.
“No offence at the terminology,” he’d said.
The word ‘weak’ was a bit of a sore point for me, but I shrugged it off.
He found out Wes and I were tight as kids and fortuitously, Wes was in the police academy at the time. He recruited Wes into his company instead and then with what Zack could determine from my story, they approached me with the offer to help me escape my life and take my father down.
I turned it down. I did not share what I thought of my father’s business. I was as cold as ice and they could not read me.
Yet, they kept reaching out. Wes meant a lot to me as a kid otherwise I’d have offed him and Zack both. They kept their distance and were cautious so I didn’t have to kill my childhood buddy.
I looked into Zack Jacobs and found out he was making a name for himself in the private investigations world. He had lots of contacts, could pull lots of strings, and he was good at what he did. He was also a crazy fearless fucker who was good at staying under radar.
My father didn’t have him on radar but he’d connect the dots if Zack nosed too close. I turned them down and told them to stay out of my way so that I didn’t have to consider them enemies. I told them I wouldn’t tell my father that Zack was out for revenge. I told Zack to feel free to seek it on his own, I’d applaud him if he achieved his goal. But he’d better leave me the fuck alone.
He approached again, at a time without Wes, when I was on another trip without my father and this time his approach meant more than a chance meeting in a bar. This time I was jumped by six guys and hooded. Not cool. I was pulled into a room where I met Barrington Dresden. Dresden and Zack offered an immunity deal if I helped them catch my father.
I didn’t commit to anything, but I also didn’t turn him away. They cut me loose and Dresden warned that I was with them or against them. He told me he’d give me time to think, but they’d better not get any inkling I was feeding information to my father about their offer. Zack got him outta there and talked to me again, alone.
“I know this isn’t your choice. A man should have a choice about the way he wants to live his life. This is your chance to take control back. Think on it.”
I left and thankfully my father did not find out I’d been hooded and taken in. That sort of perceived weakness would not go over well.
Eventually, the idea of their offer was sweet enough and my hate for my father had fermented enough that the next approach, it was me who approached Zack and Wes. I reached out to Wes after my father took off with my mother.
He told me he and Zack could and would help me end his reign. Free my mother. Zack should’ve given up trying to get me to flip by that point but he hadn’t. Swore he was a good judge of character and that he knew it would just be a matter of time before I saw an opening and took it. Wes believed that who I was when we were kids was deep down was who I still was.
I wasn’t. But I let him think that when I realized they might be able to help me get my mother free.
Many thought Sandro Romero was dead, there was even a Wikipedia page about him and it listed him as dead with four separate theories about how he got dead, including a story I had circulated about a freak accident on a fishing trip. I wasn’t on that page as his offspring. Jesse was. Probably by design. He wanted notoriety and woulda wanted to be known.
Jesse thought Papa actually was dead and aligned himself with Uncle Juan Carlos, who also thought my father was dead. And Jesse’s loyalty to that sick old fucker after Tommy Ferrano killed our uncle? It got Jesse dead, too, by the talented bomb-making hands of Dario Ferrano.
Zack and the people Zack answered to in Dresden’s org structure suspected he wasn’t dead. Pablo Alejandro Romero, aka Sandro Romero, was alive and hiding somewhere. And he was pulling his firstborn son’s strings in order that the son’s mother remained alive.
But that son wasn’t innocent. He wasn’t like some confidential informant or some undercover agent trying to take down his father.
He was a fucked up broken man who kept moving women, who kept moving guns while wanting his father taken out, in a way that meant he’d answer for his crimes and rot in jail, maybe even face lethal injection in front of an audience of victims after a long time on Death Row.
And that would mean that the names of his victims might come to light and Allegra Christina Catelli’s family, among others, might finally find out what happened to her when she went on a school trip to study the Aztecs.
Maybe Allegra Christina Catelli-Romero could drop the Romero part of her identity and go home to Italy to be with her sisters, her brothers, her parents, who were all still alive.
I already knew I wouldn’t go to Italy. I won’t continue to taint my mother’s life, be a reminder of what she’s endured. I certainly won’t make her keep looking into the eyes of the madman her husband is by looking into those same eyes on her son.
I’ll set her free and disappear with my little flower. Like the selfish man I am. I’ll keep Holly until I can’t use her to soothe the pain anymore because the light finally died out of her eyes.
Holly Noelle Mooney-Romero. Stolen, like Allegra. But she hadn’t broken. I couldn’t bring myself to break her because she was a fucking miracle.
Ten times I’d thought about putting her in full-on slave training, so that I could break her. Break her to protect her from ongoing disappointment. Show her for once and for all how it really is. And it would break her. But I’ve been too selfish to do it. If I was in my right mind where she was concerned, I’d have done it rather than saving her for myself, keeping her hopeful.
And she was right. My little Holly. Even after taking her virginity, she was a perennial flower who continued to bloom. Just like hollyhocks. But it wouldn’t last forever. It couldn’t. Eventually she’d see that I took her youth, her light, her freedom just like my father did to my mama. And then the light would die in her eyes and she’d be used all up. Withered petals on the floor.
But I’d never find a new flower like her. She’s one of a kind.
***
I took a few days driving back toward Mexico, staying in hotels or motels, to not only try to get my head together but put some wheels in motion. It was time to nudge my father into action. And the things I did, they should do the trick. Hopefully soon.
Landing in Mexico City and getting my dead phone plugged in after two days of it being dead proved that my efforts were bearing fruit. Three missed calls from Rocco, two missed calls from Jimena, four voicemails, and several texts.
The first text visible was from my father. It was the newest.
“Home sweet home. Come home. And bring your wife home with you so she can meet your parents. By the way, had a nice chat with Paulo.”
Fucking fuck. Paulo worked for Delgado before Delgado went up in flames.
I wasn’t surprised my father showed up at home. The shit I’d pulled in the past few days would mean a reaction if he had eyes of any sort on the place. But Paulo. Fuck.
Paulo oversaw transportation for Delgado and might’ve even been part of the crew that picked Holly up from Alaska. He could’ve quite easily known about the gift, about Holly being picked up and about Delgado sending me a message to buy her at auction.
Delgado was a friend in my teens, one of my father’s soldiers. A bit older than me. But we got along. We partied. He liked to get wasted and I was drinking and fucking my anger away not very successfully. We fucked our way through the basement regularly, sometimes doing a slave at the same time, one on either end, him fucking her from behind while she sucked me off, passing a bottle of top-shelf Scotch between ourselves.
He was ambitious. He was the son of a soldier who my father had given free rein to start his own side business working for us in the slave trade dealing with transportation.
Joaquin Delgado’s mother was also a slave, but he looked at it differently than I did. He had no qualms about the slave trade at all. He was a cold as fuck snake. He took over for his father, who retired a few years back, and while doing that bought his way into Kruna, the Thai sex resort. He offered me a stake after word started traveling that my father might be dead. I turned it down.
He wasn’t happy about the refusal. He wanted to be in business together. I didn’t like the idea of putting my fate in the hands of a bunch of partners. In fact, I didn’t want my fate in anyone’s hands. I had enough problems with my father’s expectations. I didn’t need to add anybody else into that mix.
Delgado undercut us on a deal for some guns and then things went south with that shipment and he accused me of trying to get revenge for undercutting me.
It was stupidity and it was something he’d never have gotten away with if I didn’t settle my father down. My father was staying in the know from an unknown place. Surveillance. That was why I had my own house built on the property and moved there, keeping my activities out of his reach.
I settled him down, met with Joaquin in Miami and talked things out. He was doing a lot of blow. He pulled a gun on me when I confronted him for his bullshit and I wrestled it away but I didn’t put him down. I should’ve. I really fucking should’ve. But he cried about the drugs and the pressure and the addiction and blathered on about all these memories of us together. I was a friend and let it all go.
A week later, he sent the tip-off about the little blonde virgin that he said he’d gotten for me. She was going up for auction, would be number nineteen, and he’d even kick in to pay for her. It was a gift from him, to make peace.
I had Rocco bid first and bid high in a way that the other bidders would know that if they bid against him, they’d be putting their lives at risk. This was how it was in the trade. There was an understanding among everyone and they knew by the figure for the starting bid not to bid. I almost didn’t bother, but Delgado would’ve seen it as an insult.
I didn’t allow Delgado to kick in for Holly after I laid eyes on her. I didn’t know why at the time but I refused to allow anyone to have any claim on her.
But after that, he was frequently going to associates and planting seeds of doubt about me. Shit was getting back to me, including him saying I might be even crazier than my father. He didn’t know my father was still alive. He was getting bold, way bolder than he’d be if he knew Sandro the Butcher was still holding power.
Joaquin wasn’t getting the monkey of addiction off his back. He was getting worse. He was an egotistical power-hungry junkie and any seeds planted in the wrong place could put me in a precarious position with my father and I would not take that chance. He had to be taken down.
But Paulo? Fucking Paulo telling my father about the little blonde gift that Delgado gave me? My father could take a bit of info and dig back and find shit out and he wasn’t the type to bluff. The fact that he was home, out of hiding? He’d probably talked to many people by now. And he’d have seen, in person, what I’d done to the main compound and that would get a reaction. The reaction I wanted. But demanding I bring home my wife? Fuck my life.
I checked my voicemails.
Rocco’s role for me was head of security and his message told me he’d heard from his assistant, who was in charge of manning things in Mexico.
My father was home and had taken no time getting back into the throne. But he was in my house, not his, since I’d had his house leveled and sent all the remaining inhabitants somewhere safe for now, until all this shit was done, which had pissed him off in a big way.
Rocco’s assistant was taking off and Rocco was flying back immediately. The only resource my father would have there would be one maid, until I got home and let her leave.
Jimena’s voicemail said she was in Paris, but she’d called the house and said my mama answered the phone. She asked if I also knew that Casa de Romero was leveled.
She wanted me to call and said it was urgent. Her call surprised me. She hates my guts and has made that known since I wrecked her Little Mermaid tape when I was four, her seven. I finally released her from her duties to the family as the physician on site and was surprised to hear the end of her voicemail when she said, “Congrats on your marriage. I hope you and Holly find happiness with one another.”
Word was traveling about my marriage, too, evidently.
I texted her.
Me: “got your msg, Mena. thx. you tell him anything?”
Mena: “Who?”
Me: “You know who. Did you tell him anything about my wife?”
Mena: “Honest to God, no. And I haven’t talked to him. Pray I don’t have to. I called the house because I got a text from him and it freaked me out.”
Me: “What did he want?”
Mena: “He asked me to come have a look at Allegra. She’s not feeling well. She’s got some scary symptoms. I told him I’m in Paris but I’ll hurry back. Sorry about your mama. I want to help her but do you think he’ll make me stay?”
Me: “I’m workin’ on that. If I have my way, he won’t give anyone any orders again. I won’t make you stay. It’s all but over, Mena. Between us.”
Mena: “You need any help with that, lmk.”
Me: “Yeah?”
Mena: “There’s meds in the house. Lock box under the laundry machines with stuff that’ll either put someone out for two hours or will put him out permanently. Blue-2 hours. Orange – dead. Combination: 77803. I told Allegra about it, too. Hopefully she decides to prick that prick. lol”
I was thrown. A joke from her?
Me: “Thanks Mena. I’ll get a doc for my mother. He say what was wrong with her?”
Mena: “I should call to fill you in. Or come. Want me to come?”
Me: “Stay where you are. Not safe to come here now.”
Good to know she had the means to catch any of us by surprise to take us out with lethal injections. I’d been a real prick to her on more than one occasion and yet she hadn’t used those meds on me.
Mena: “You need anything, lmk. I can fly there to help.”
Me: “Thanks. I’ll be in touch if needed. Don’t come right now though. It’s all about to go down.”
Mena: “OK”
I was a bit surprised at that. But not really. If I hated him, any woman in my family would feel the same. Jimena was his niece, daughter to his eldest sister who was a widow thanks to my father. My aunt lived at my father’s house and helped to run the main house, but she was a shell of a woman.
I didn’t know if he’d ever touched her or Mena. I never asked. He sent Jimena to medical school but told her she’d come back and use that training to take care of her family. She did it and she stayed until just before I sent Holly away. She deserved her freedom after all she’d had to endure in her life so far.
I pondered things a minute and then I sent a text to Zack.
“El Diablo’s at the compound. Showdown time. Can you meet me in Mexico City tomorrow? Bring Holly to me?”
It took all of two minutes for him to answer.
“Gotcha. Be there tomorrow. I’ll text when we land.”
A slick oily sick feeling bubbled up in my throat at the idea of my father’s filthy eyes on her.
Holly
Me and Tia and Angel decide we’ll be spending the afternoon trying to improve our Texas Hold ‘Em game for tonight’s rematch. We’d played the night before and Dare had handed us our behinds so we decided to play until we got better.
He’s got a pretty darn good poker face but I like to think I’m good at reading people so tonight, I’m determined to win.
Carina’s asleep in a motorized baby swing under a beach umbrella and we’re at the patio table. Tommy, Dare, and Zack are inside, in a pow wow of some sort. Zack had called them in and it’d been a long while since then.
I was in a funk, for sure. I didn’t know where Alessandro had gone. I was told by Dare that if he didn’t get back in time, I’d go home with them. My room was still my room at their house.
I was blue, too, because I was a fifth wheel. I’d been watching Tommy and Tia together and I was jealous. So frigging jealous. They had this love that was so vivid. He was so protective and possessive, and you could see he was on top of the world having his little family.
Dare and my sister were always making out and he didn’t pass by without them touching in some way. Whenever they were close he had his hand on her belly and he called her “My Baby” and “Angelbaby” and he was so doting. So doting and sweet. I heard him in the kitchen the night before, whispering “My baby is having my baby,” and I almost cried at the joy on her face.
The night before, despite the big house, I’m pretty sure I heard one or maybe even both couples doing the nasty.
But God, Tommy is so bloody hot with that little baby in his arms. Anne Geddes and Michael Stokes should get together and do a photo shoot with those two. Cutest baby ever with one the second hottest guy ever.
I can’t imagine Alessandro holding a baby in his strong arms. But I want to. I really really want to. Hottest guy ever becomes hot Dad and doting husband… movie at eleven. I wish.
We play cards until late and then I go to bed and have terrible dreams about the monster from my graphic novel killing Alessandro and chasing me.
***.
I wake at the crack of dawn, unable to get to sleep after that nightmare, so I head downstairs to get the coffee on and see Tommy’s asleep on the couch in the family room, Carina asleep on his bare chest, an empty baby bottle in the crook of his arm. A fluffy pink blanket over her legs, her sleeping up on her knees, her rump up in the air. After I’d heard all the ‘business’ going on, I’d heard her fussing throughout my mostly sleepless night and my guess was that he brought her downstairs so Tia could get some sleep. She’s been very drooly and Tia thinks she’s getting ready to cut a tooth.
I sneak by them to go to the kitchen to put the coffee on as quietly as possible and then get my cup and go outside as quietly as I can.
It’s barely sunrise and Zack is already outside when I get out there. He’s butting out a cigarette in an ashtray.
“Hi,” I greet. I don’t know him real well. In my few months staying with Ang and Dare, he’d been over a few times and we’d had a couple small-talk conversations but nothing too heavy. I knew from Ang and Tia the day before that he and Tessa were now an item.
I liked that for her and I liked it for her boys. Zack is tall and muscled with full sleeves of tattoos and he’s handsome with kind of a hot dad vibe, in my opinion. And he seems protective, too. Ang and Tia told me a bit about what’d been a secret Tessa and Zack romance that had come to light and it made me jealous, too.
She’d gotten herself into a pretty bad bind out of trying to deal with the pain she was in over losing her husband and over what’d happened to her that brought her to the auction block in Mexico.
He’d rescued her from her foray with some dangerous people in a less than above-board sex club. And then it sounded like he’d helped put the broken pieces of her heart back together.
All these people around me had found love with someone who reciprocated. Or, who at least showed that they reciprocated.
I wanted it, too. And I was told I’d never have it. And I couldn’t share that with anyone. I couldn’t talk about us.
Ang had tried to pry. So did Tia in a gentler way. But, I told them I didn’t wanna talk about it. Truthfully, it wasn’t theirs to have. I was so protective of what me and Alessandro had that I couldn’t share it. I knew they wouldn’t understand it. I had trouble making sense of it myself.
How do you explain that you love someone who has been trying to push you away while holding onto you at the same time? How do you explain that you’re married to someone who swears they’ll never give you happiness, and not only that, but also that they’ll destroy you --- without the people you explain it to telling you that you need to GTFO of that situation pronto?
How do you articulate that you know in the depths of your soul that despite the fact that your relationship has been filled with pain, with heartache, that you shouldn’t and will not give up? I’m too stubborn to give up.
They’d think I was crazy. They’d go away and talk about it and then come back and try to do an intervention. Or worse, they’d tell their husbands and those guys would turn on my guy and try to shield me from more hurt. Which could get everyone hurt.
I couldn’t share, too, because it wasn’t anyone’s but ours. And I wasn’t throwing in the towel. I was braced for whatever would come next.
Despite that, I couldn’t help but watch them with envy, wanting what all of them had.
They were building families. And they had bonds with one another. The Ferrano men were demonstrative, protective, and engaged with their wives. Those girls knew what they had.
Me? I was here, not knowing where my husband was. I’ve spent very little time since married actually with him. And the time we spent before that? It was all me trying to convince him I love him and him hurting me to push me away while simultaneously trying to control my environment to keep me safe.
Am I crazy? Should I give up?
“Want some coffee?” I ask Zack. “Just brewed a pot.”
“Yes, please. Then we have to hit the road, you and me,” Zack informs me.
“Hm?” I sip my coffee.
“I heard from Lex. He needs us in Mexico. Can you get me that coffee while I book our flight? He told me you know where your passport is? Three creams, four sugars. Don’t tell Sarah.” He had his cell phone and was dialing. He flashed me a very nice smile.
Sarah was affectionately known as the Sugar Nazi.
“Uh. Ok.”
I hurry back in, get Zack’s coffee and drop it off while he’s on the phone. He mouths “Go pack” to me and I nod and go back inside, tiptoeing by the sleeping but stirring Carina and the still sleeping Tommy.
Tommy’s eyes open. I keep tiptoeing and put my index finger to my lips in a “Shh” motion. He glances down at the sleeping baby on his chest. She’s rolled to her back. She’s wearing a onesie with an ice cream cone on it. He shifts like he’s stiff. She nuzzles in and puts her thumb in her mouth. I watch him freeze, looking down at her. I’m melting more than a little bit because he was obviously uncomfortable but doesn’t want to disturb her so he’s foregoing his own comfort for his daughter’s sleep. So adorable.
I pass him a toss pillow from the nearby chair and he carefully puts it under his head and gives me a thumbs up.
I head upstairs and shower then pack up the big hockey bag that had been left for me when Alessandro brought me here and parceled out our things and left with his stuff in a rucksack that had been in the hockey bag. I reach under the mattress and into the pocket under the mattress label, finding my passport and the credit card he’d given me.
I hear others up and moving around by the time I bring my bag down.
Zack is in a huddle with my sister, Dare, and Tommy in the kitchen. Both Ferrano men are shirtless, in vacation mode. Sarah’s making waffles. Tia is already showered and dressed in a sundress but her hair is up in a towel turban and she is changing the baby and making faces and blowing raspberries on Carina’s belly, making her make the cutest little baby giggles I’ve ever heard.
I plop the hockey bag on the floor and approach the group.
Ang throws her arms around me, teary-eyed, “Call me as soon as you can. We can’t go another ten months, okay?”
I nod, feeling my chin tremble, “I will. As soon as possible.” As soon as he lets me would be a more accurate promise.
“Grow me a healthy baby niece or nephew.” I rub her belly.
She smiles at me.
Sarah passes me an insulated reusable grocery bag with some bottles of water and food in it for the ride to the airport. And off we go.
***
“Do I get to know what’s happening?” I ask Zack, in the passenger seat of his rental car.
“Sandro surfaced at the compound.”
I stare blankly, wondering what that will mean.
He glances at me and then back at the road.
“Alessandro hasn’t told me a thing, Zack. I know little to nothing. It’s up to you what you wanna share with me but he doesn’t seem to want me to know anything so if you tell me stuff, you might have to answer to him.” I roll my window down and add, “But Ang has told me a little bit. Whatever she knows, anyway.”
He taps his fingers thoughtfully on the steering wheel for a minute and then starts talking.
And when he stops, he’s filled me in on some facts that tell me how truly horrible my father-in-law is.
He ran a large criminal empire of guns and women. His relatives ran drugs and had ties to child pornography. He’d been on the Most Wanted list for sex trafficking and gun running and wasn’t being actively sought out because he’d made Alessandro fake his death.
He was suspected of murder at least thirty times over, likely more, not counting however many sex slaves had been killed. Zack said there was reportedly a graveyard on the property that the authorities really wanted to check out.
“Graveyard? They’ve also got a crematorium. I don’t think it’ll be possible to know how many people died in that place,” I shared.
Zack said that despite that there wasn’t an active investigation due to Sandro’s disappearance and evidence that pointed to dying in a freak accident on an ocean fishing trip.
Zack had personal reasons for wanting Sandro Romero taken down and he had been working with Alessandro for nearly four years to try to bring his father down. At his own expense, something that would be recouped if he ever brought Sandro Romero in.
He also told me he’d lost a girl he’d been dating, how Alessandro’s father was responsible. He then went on to tell me some of what he knew of Alessandro’s upbringing.
“Lex had to live in that place with a lunatic as the king. And Sandro was the king in a way he ensured people treated him as such. Lex’s mom took him and they got away a couple days after his sixth birthday but he was back there at fifteen years old, after living looking over their shoulders, praying that he’d never find them. He found them. And your husband blames himself. It had to be crazy. He had to try to keep his head while appeasing the lunatic otherwise risk his mother facing punishment. Whenever Lex displeased his father after they were brought back from the states, his mother was punished. Whenever he screwed up, his mother was punished. Your man holds a lot of pain bottled up. It can’t have not affected him. We don’t even know what he’s set eyes on in his lifetime so far. I’ve met some fucked up men as a result of their circumstances, but he’s cool as a cucumber. Yet, from a very tender age, he had a front row seat to the results of that lunatic’s shit. The way Lex holds it together? He’s either the most well-adjusted guy ever or he’s hangin’ on by a thread. My guess? The latter.”
“I’d bet money you’d guess right,” I informed, cracking open my water bottle and passing him one.
“Bagel?” I ask.
He looks at me for a beat, “Yeah. Please.”
I pass him one from the bag and as he unwraps it, he says, “So, how about you? Where’s your head? You’re married to the guy. You’ve been through a lot in your young life so far. How’s that all going?”
“I’m probably hanging on by a half a thread,” I admit.
He puts his bagel on his thigh, reaches over and gives my shoulder a squeeze and then grabs his bagel after turning a corner.
“What are we doing, then?” I ask.
He regards me thoughtfully for a second and then says, “Don’t know till we get to Mexico City. He’s waiting for us in a hotel there. He’ll brief me then. We’ll figure out a plan. He’s already working on it.”
I can tell he’s a bit perplexed by me, by my situation.
“All I know is what you’ve told me, really. He tells me nothing.”
“Will you tell me about your relationship with him? Whatever you feel comfortable telling me?” he encourages.
I take a breath. “He tries to push me away while holding onto me at the same time. Our relationship wouldn’t make sense to anyone.”
“Do you want out?” he asks.
I give a firm shake of my head, “Strangely, no. I see something in him. I see something I don’t think he sees. He protected me. He kept me sheltered from whatever horrors happened in that compound. I mean, I saw some terrible stuff my first twenty-four hours but after that, I was kept safe, apart. I hardly even saw him until a few months before my eighteenth birthday. Someone tried to burn the building I was in to the ground and that’s when things changed. He got more protective, he wanted me closer I guess, so he put me in the house and I saw him more often. It’s like he’s been my guardian angel but yet he won’t admit to being anything but a devil. He wants me to hate him. But, I don’t. Despite some of the things I’ve seen him do and despite some of the things he’s done to me.”
“Like?”
I shake my head and sip my water.
He gives me a minute and then probably because it’s obvious I am not about to share, he continues,
“You might not ever have a normal relationship with him, Holly. Even after all this is over? Lotta people live and function despite bad starts in life or despite having to do bad things to get by. But you gotta be prepared; he might be too damaged to give you much more than what you’re getting.”
“That’s okay,” I say, “It might not make sense but it’s okay. I’ll take him however I can have him.”
“You’re one of a kind, then. Most girls would run a mile, so they could find something normal.”
“I’ve had an unusual life. I’m not looking for normal. I don’t know what that even is.”
“Promise me something,” he requests.
I wait patiently while he looks like he’s measuring his words.
“If you come to a point where you decide that you’ve been wrong and that you really do need help getting away from him, you’ll come to me. I’ll help you. That way you don’t have to put your family, Angel, Dario, in danger. Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind, and Dario’s, that you wouldn’t go to them for help thinkin’ Lex would hurt them for trying to help you. We’ve discussed it. I can help you in a way where no one gets hurt but the person who deserves it.”
“Thanks, Zack. That’s sweet.”
He nods, “Lex is a friend. But I have a sister your age. No way would I let you be stuck in that situation if that’s not what you truly want. I have ways of helping.”
“Thanks. I’m good.”
“The offer stands, should you change your mind about that.”
I give him a tight smile and then I change the subject.
I believe in loyalty. My Daddy told me when I was a little girl that it was important to be loyal to the people you’d made a commitment to. Even if they weren’t perfect. I suspect if Mom had fallen off the wagon with him alive, he’d be loyal to her, fight tooth and nail to bring her back from the edge. I want, with all my heart, to bring Alessandro out of the darkness, into the light.