Luca
She looks so broken lying on that gurney, bandaged, busted, bloodied. And still, she’s beautiful. She’s the kind of woman that makes me question everything, that’ll have me doing things that seem beyond stupid, all just to make her happy.
Today just proved that. I’ve made mistake after mistake, and it took me too long to wake up and realize the truth: I can’t lose her.
Whatever it takes, I need her in my life.
“We need to talk.”
It takes a second for my words to sink in — probably due to the bit of painkillers the paramedic gave her once he saw the scope of her injuries.
Stephanie blinks, collects herself, and looks up at me with glassy eyes. She’s ready to talk.
“What do you want to talk about?”
There’s so much weight behind her words that I know that, even though I’ve saved her life and her family, if she doesn’t get the truth from me right now, she’ll know it and this will be the end of us.
I clear my throat.
I really don’t know how to start.
This talk-about-your-feelings shit is hard.
“Neither of us has been totally straight with the other. I think we need to clear the air a bit,” I say.
A sliver of doubt passes across her expression. “Now? Here? In the back of an ambulance right after I was abducted by the Russian mob and nearly shipped off to be forced to work in some brothel in who-knows-where?”
When she says it like that, it sounds ridiculous.
But then, to me, the idea that I’d one day be talking about emotions with a woman is ridiculous, too, so I decide to just keep going.
“It’s not ideal, yeah, but I don’t think there’s ever going to be an ideal time for what I need to tell you. Besides, life is going to be complicated for a while. For both of us.”
I hold up my still-handcuffed hands for emphasis.
There’s a period where she hesitates, where this look of doubt crosses her face and I start to think that she’ll tell me to go to hell. Which she’d have every right to do, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that happen. So before she can even open her mouth to protest, I keep going.
“I love you. I still love you. You’re the most incredible, beautiful, maddening fucking woman to ever come into my life and you’ve flipped everything about me on it’s fucking head. You deserve to know the truth, so fucking relax and let the painkillers get to work and just listen, alright?”
She nods.
“When you came to me earlier, angry as hell, you brought up the woman and the kid that died. They’re why I’m here. We — Nico and I — killed them.”
A dark look flickers across her face. Even though she doesn’t say anything, it feels like she’s on the verge of telling me to get out.
“It was over a year ago. We were staking out the home of the head of a rival family. Some piece of shit named Aleksandr Petrossian. He was the boss of an Armenian group that was trying to move in on our territory and we had to send them a message. They shipped people — women, kids — out to Eastern Europe as slaves to do god knows what and they brought in smack from Afghanistan. Real, filthy pieces of shit.”
I shut my eyes. I remember everything about that part of my life no matter how hard I try and forget. It’s like I’m not even here in the ambulance anymore.
“We learned everything about him; where he liked to eat, where he shopped, what kind of gun he kept on him, when his wife would head out each morning to go to visit friends and run errands, fuck, we even dug through his trash and learned who his goddamned cable provider was. We dug into his life, we learned his routine, and so we figured out our plan: we were going to bomb his car.”
I can still recall Nico as he was explaining the plan to me. It was his job, his operation, because he was my older brother and he was the more responsible between us. If it’d been up to me, we would’ve raided the place, shot them all, and been done with it.
But Nico wanted to be sure and precise and he didn’t want anyone to get hurt who didn’t have to be hurt.
He always cared about that stuff more than me.
“What happened?” Stephanie says.
It’s then I realize I’ve been quiet for a while. The only sound until she spoke was the whirr of the ambulance’s engine as we speed down the road.
“We broke into his garage — he had this big detached structure where he kept his cars — and it took an hour just getting in there without tipping off his security. Nico set the bomb, we got out, and we waited.”
I can still remember the way the air smelled that morning, still remember how the coffee that we’d picked up from the corner convenience store tasted — like over-roasted dirt — and still remember the feeling of satisfaction we both felt in anticipation of pulling off the job.
We’d wait, watch, and then, once we heard the bomb go off and knew the job was done, we’d go celebrate.
“That morning, for God knows what reason, his wife decided she needed to use his car,” I say. “We could smell it blocks away. Burning rubber and charred skin. Nico took it hard. He just sunk into this dark hole. The last Sunday that I saw him, we’d had a few beers and he told me to get out of this life, to find something good to live for before I end up getting pulled down too. Then, he killed himself.”
I choke up a second. Finding my brother in that condition, laying face-down with a bullet-shaped hole in the back of his head, is something I’ll never get over.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” she says. Her words are a little slurred from the drugs, and she’s beat to all hell, but she still reaches out to give my hand a squeeze and damn it, if that doesn’t ease the pain a little. “Thank you for telling me.”
“The truth is, I liked what I did. Part of me still does and always will. I can’t change that. When I came out here to start over, I thought this was all a load of horseshit and that I’d be back to my old line of work after a year or so. But then, you came along,” I can’t hold back the smile, even though smiling hurts like hell. “You really fucked up my plans, bella.”
She laughs. Then winces sharply and I grip her hand tighter until the pained expression passes off her face.
“This whole thing is a mess,” she says, then stops again as the ambulance slows to an abrupt stop. “I mean, I can’t really thank you. ‘Thanks for killing all those people’ just sounds too messed up. But… I am grateful to have you in my life.”
The back doors to the ambulance open and there’s a pair of unfamiliar cops and the two paramedics waiting for us right outside.
The paramedics hop in and gingerly haul Stephanie out of the back of the ambulance, while the cops try to yank me around by my handcuffs like I’m some kind of dog on a leash.
I struggle against them, literally dragging them along while I try and keep pace with Stephanie’s gurney.
I know what’s coming after this, I know where they’re taking me, and there’s no way in hell I’m going without hearing what I need from Stephanie.
I shake off the cops and catch up to her and take hold of her hand again.
“Promise me you won’t skip town without saying goodbye.”
She smiles at me, the kind of bright smile that’s enough to light up my whole fucking world. “I’m not really in the condition to be going anywhere, am I?”
“No, you’re kind of a mess, bella.”
That smile somehow gets wider and more beautiful. “Then, you promise to stay out of trouble, and I’ll promise to stick around a while, ok?”
“Deal.”
I bend over and give her a quick kiss on the on the small part of her face that isn’t bruised or injured.
The cops catch back up to me and start to yank me back towards the direction of the parking lot, but I manage to hold my ground and watch while the paramedics wheel her into the hospital. Those last few seconds make what I know is coming after this easier to face.
Another set of hands settles on my shoulders and a familiar voice makes me turn around.
“Come on, Luca, it’s time to go,” Officer Dillingham says, pulling me towards the direction of his waiting squad car.
I turn around. A second cop car’s pulled up beside the first and I spot Officer Fletcher sitting in the front seat. The asshole is grinning like a Cheshire cat and I bet he’s loving the hell out of this.
I nod and let him lead me to the waiting squad car and push me into the back. There’s an orange jumpsuit on the seat next to me and a set of keys for the handcuffs. I let myself loose and put on the jumpsuit, before putting the cuffs back on. The car starts up and Officer Dillingham pulls out of the parking lot and starts down the road with what I feel is a little more speed than usual.
Officer Fletcher turns around in his seat to look at me through the dividing glass and he’s still got that stupid grin on his face.
“You sure you ready for this? Not that I’m objecting to seeing you in that prison jumpsuit — hell, I think you’ll be the prettiest boy in your cell block — but we could give you a little more time. Fuck, for the amount you paid us, I’d happily walk into that ER and grab you a few bottles of Oxy, if you want.”
I shake my head. “I can’t have word of today getting out to the Family back east. I’m finishing this. So you put me in a cell with him, and I’ll take care of the rest.”