Chapter 10
Blood calls for blood
Andrea
We were on our honeymoon the day I heard Alejandro order someone’s death for the first time.
I recall standing still for what felt like hours- my eyes glassy, my mouth open in despair but no sound coming out of it.
A monster, I had just married a monster.
Have you ever heard someone order the death of another person?
You sit there, powerless, only fear runs in your veins, while you try to think of a thousand ways to make it stop, to make it go away. A person will die and there is nothing you can do about it.
It breaks something inside of you. I know it broke me.
The second day of our honeymoon, my husband Alejandro De la Crux spoke on the phone with one of his soldiers, ordering the death of his best man and personal guard.
I knew him. I knew Marcello very well, he was introduced to me as his business partner, his left hand.
It was just insane. Alejandro was ordering the death of one of the few men he trusted. And I was the reason behind it.
It broke me.
Who takes the life of a man? The person who pulls the trigger? The man that orders his death? Or the reason, the woman between them?
Marcello had looked at me too much. He had touched me one time too many. He had embraced me and bragged about me with other people. He needed to be put in his place.
Those were the exact words I heard Alejandro say over the phone, while I stood at the doorway.
“Marcello needs to be put in his place. I am done with him. Deal with it.”
That was how much it took, that was how fragile the balance of things was with Alejandro.
And in a way, I had pulled the trigger.
You don’t need to see a corpse to witness death. I felt it. I mourned it, without ever seeing Marcello’s corpse anywhere. He just disappeared and he was replaced with Alejandro’s second man.
No explanation, no conversation. I wasn’t there to ask or to understand.
“You are my wife. You don’t question me,” that was the first thing out of Alejandro’s mouth, when I tried to find out more about Marcello.
God, Alejandro played god and the rest of us were nothing to him but helpless mortals, our fates in his hands.
You know what the worst thing about someone that believes he is god is? He doesn’t know how to stop. He knows he can get away with anything. He has his hands everywhere, in the police, in politics. He was unstoppable and he did it again, a few months later, just before I went away, taking baby Eddy with me.
He took my friend’s Sarah’s life.
I never heard him say it, never heard anyone say it. I knew it was him the moment she had gone missing. Alejandro had always hated her, always eyed her suspiciously.
“Sarah is always planting stupid ideas in your head,” he told me one time.
“She better watch that fucking mouth of hers,” Alejandro had spat out another time.
Sarah was the only person I could trust, the only person that knew me well in Italy.
I never saw her corpse, but I knew she died because of him.
“Monster,” I yelled at him but he just stared at me, expressionless. Never once he tried to deny it.
I saw no corpse, no blood and yet I could see it all over his hands, the stains, the smell of it.
I could never let someone else die because of me.
All I could do was bury any memory and thought of Sebastian, where Alejandro couldn’t find it. I prayed he would never find out about him.
I stayed away for good.
I wanted to take my own life, I couldn’t stand the blood on my hands. But I had Eddy. I had to stay alive for him.
So I never looked back on Sebastian and for a while, I almost convinced myself it had all just been a dream.
Sebastian
Nothing happened during the first week with Andrea and Eddy.
I had made sure the soldiers kept their eyes open day and night, the area around the house as clear as possible at all times.
Taking Eddy to school every day had been the hardest task, as there were no alternative routes to the building.
I had learned this living on the streets. To stay out of trouble and make sure nobody was following- police included- you had to have no habits. Always do something different everyday- different area, different route, different time frame.
I felt nervous every time I had to walk to the school, but kept my face straight so not to worry Andrea or Eddy. Not that Eddy noticed anything, he was always happy. It was all a game to him.
One day he had looked up at me from the dinner table – I hadn’t been eating then, I’d been standing near the window, looking out as always- and he had asked me where I had gotten my arms all dirty.
The tattoos, I had looked down at my arms and smiled. I had told Eddy I liked to draw, always had and still did. He loved to draw too, he had said to me, and ran to get his little notebook. He had showed me all his drawings and how he struggled to colour inside the lines.
“There is a trick,” I’d said to him and immediately he had handed me his red marker, so eager to learn my secret. “First do the contour, then colour slowly inside the drawing. The contour line you made before, will help you stay inside.”
We had spent a good half an hour colouring, under Andrea’s attentive and silent stare.
Since that day, Eddy had started running towards me, asking me to hold his hand when we walked to school, asked me to play with him.
I tried my best to keep at a distance when the guards were around, but I didn’t want to let him down.
“Life will let him down when he grows up. He will find out what a disappointment life is. Children should never find out too soon about what really awaits them. They deserve to be treated like royalty,” I’d told Andrea, as we’d watched Eddy skip around the house, holding up his little airplane.
I knew Andrea agreed with me, but she hardly said anything. She hardly spoke to me after we had kissed and almost fucked against the kitchen wall.
The only thing she had told me was to forget what had happened, to focus on keeping Eddy safe. I told her it was fine with me. The hell it was. I wanted her.
But I let her be and made sure to keep away as much as possible. She felt trapped already, I didn’t want her to feel worse.
All week, Andrea lived her double life- piano lessons during the day, stripping at night- and I accompanied her every time to the club, taking two extra guards with us.
I had asked Alejandro to send more with a text, using the phone he had given me. He had never replied, but I had gotten the two men within a couple of hours.
One night, Andrea came out of the strip club telling me she didn’t want to ride in the car.
“Can we walk? Please?” she asked, shaking a little.
It was a very cold night but I doubted the shivers were because of that.
I simply nodded and told the guards to ride home, we would take a safe route, the busiest street.
While walking, I glanced her way and noticed she hadn’t removed her makeup at all that night. She kept shaking, her arms wrapped around her shoulders, breathing into sobs, but I didn’t dare ask anything.
I knew the kind of woman Andrea was. If she wanted to talk about something, she would have. She needed the walk, to let off the steam, to get over whatever had happened before she saw Eddy, before she had to pretend everything was alright.
As she entered the house, I doubled checked with the guards that everything was okay. Nothing had happened. Eddy was sleeping and the coast was clear.
I walked in just as the nanny was leaving and by the time I had removed my jacket and made it to the kitchen at the back of the house, I heard a sound in the bathroom.
Fast but with soft silent steps I dashed up the stairs, hand on the knife around my waist.
The door was slightly open and I could see Andrea’s naked back, half soaked into the bathtub. She was hugging her knees and sobbing violently, trying to muffle her suffering by pressing her mouth against one leg.
“What happened?” my voice made her jump.
She turned and I saw her eyes were red, black thick mascara lines rolling down her cheeks.
“Tell me what happened, Andrea,” I said and this time my voice almost scared me for how hard it was.
She didn’t have to tell me what happened. I knew what happened. I could tell something had gone wrong in the club.
“I was attacked…” she sobbed “…by one of the customers. He was kicked out from the back,” her hand went to her face, as she tried to wipe the makeup off. “I’ll be fine.”
I walked around the tub and sat on the edge, grabbing a small towel near the window ledge.
I reached for her face and gently started to remove her black, glittery eyeshadow, my face expressionless, while a million things were crossing my mind.
The first thing I wanted to do was hunt down the dead man that had touched her, but Andrea kept looking at me with the most innocent, broken eyes I had ever seen, her hand holding on tight to mine- the one I had on her cheek.
“Thank you,” she smiled a little, when I was done cleaning her face and I stared at her a second, how beautiful she looked now, now that she was back to being herself.
“You don’t need that shit,” I told her and held her face up, towards me. “What did he do to you?” my breathing picked up.
“I’ll be fine,” she kept repeating and shook her head. “It just never happened to me before. I was shocked, but security dealt with him. I am fine. I just needed to let it out.”
“Tell me what he did to you,” I asked again slowly.
I wanted to know. I wanted her to say it out loud.
“He…grabbed my face when he was giving me money,” Andrea hesitated a little and I thought ‘when the fucker was slipping money in your panties’ “And the man tore my underwear. He grabbed my face and asked me to suck him….” Her chest moved up and down violently then and I leaned forward, my forehead against hers, my hands balled into fists.
“Don’t go there again,” I simply said.
“I have to,” Andrea looked up to me. “I need to work and it has never happened before. It won’t happen again. Could you please pass me the towel?” she tried to clear her voice.
I turned to grab a large towel and held it up for her, while she stood up from the tub.
Drops of water rolled down her smooth skin, down her breasts. I tried to keep my eyes on her face, but I couldn’t refrain myself from admiring how amazing she looked naked.
I hadn’t seen that body in years, yet I remembered every single detail, every single curve, angle. The taste of her skin.
As I wrapped the towel around her shoulders, Andrea glanced to the side to look at me.
“Thank you,” she murmured and the sound of her raspy voice dug into my chest.
I reached for her hair and wrapped an arm around her back, moving in to kiss her, slowly, pulling back a little to look at her again, how breath-taking she was.
We let the towel slide to the floor, our skins screaming for each other’s touch.
I completely lost it when I heard her muffle a moan, as my hand slid down her back to cup her behind.
One swift move and I was holding Andrea against me, her legs around my waist, my shirt soaked against her wet body.
I crossed the corridor in a haste, nearly crashing into my bedroom door.
Gently, I let Andrea down on the bed, while she worked on my shirt. It was off and on the floor, just as my hand snaked up to her small breasts.
I breathed her in.
She smelled like a woman, she panted and moaned like a woman who needed to be touched, who hadn’t made love to anyone in a long time.
A work of art, pure beauty and perfection she was.
Her legs opened, welcoming my body over hers as I moved on top, my mouth hard on hers.
I wanted you for so long, I realized, as my lips moved down her body, greedy on her nipple and Andrea moaned again.
“I want to taste you,” I said, my mouth halfway down her body already.
“Sebastian,” she cried out my name.
Her voice, I got harder just hearing her call out like that.
I tasted her, all of her, my tongue moving up and down her sweetness, her entire body throbbed with life.
I couldn’t get enough.
“He’s going to kill us if he finds out” she mumbled softly, closing her eyes as I slowly traced my tongue up her body again.
“I am going to hell anyway” I said.
“I am coming with you” Andrea whispered against my ear before pulling me down for a kiss.
I circled my tongue around hers, one hand on her cheek. Then, I looked into her ice-blue eyes, before speaking again.
“I am not letting you go,” I groaned, feeling her hands slid inside my jeans. “Not this time”
Andrea
Panting, I was panting.
His hands travelled up and down my body, his mouth demanded more.
Sebastian pulled me down to him again and played with my lips.
“I want to fuck you all night,” he whispered against my mouth, tugging my hair a little and I whimpered. I didn’t want him to stop. I didn’t want the night to end.
I moved on top of him and felt my insides heat as I rolled back and forth, his strong arms tight around my back.
He pulled himself up so that we were touching and I couldn’t help but take in the beauty that were our bodies wrapped in one.
My skin was so pale against his olive complexion. I felt the sudden need to kiss him, like I couldn’t believe we were together.
Never had I imagined it could happen again, us, after so long.
I had hidden Sebastian, hidden our one and only night together, where I had hidden all my memories and hopes.
Somewhere safe. Somewhere Alejandro wouldn’t find them and try to take them away from me.
“Go down, I want to look at you,” he said and I moaned, letting him know I was close.
I arched my back and gently lay on the bed, while he sat on his knees and held my hips tight, tighter against him.
One hand snaked over my stomach, my breast, all the way to my neck, while he pushed himself inside of me, firmly and faster now as my breathing picked up.
“You have no idea how many times I pictured this,” he panted. “How many times I thought of your face, you down on my bed like this.”
You have no idea how many times I thought of you – I wanted him to know, but I just looked at him, my lips parted, eyes half closed.
I was scared of saying anything. I was scared I was just imagining it.
Have you ever wished for something to happen so badly, it almost drove you crazy?
My head had played tricks with me now and again, I had almost lost it. One word and I could have ruined the moment, broken the spell.
If it’s just a dream- I pleaded- I never wanted to wake up.
My fingers dug into his skin, as the warmth of his body spread across mine.
Perfect, it was absolutely perfect.
Our hands knew what to do, our lips knew what to search for. Skin against skin. Our movements were harmonious, steady. We had lost the will to speak. We didn’t need words, we just wanted to feel.
In that moment, I thought I had been blessed, blessed I could feel like that once more. Whole, complete, desired.
No man had ever made love to me like that, like I wasn’t just a sex toy.
Sebastian kept staring at me, as he pounded harder, aching to see me come.
I rocked my hips a little faster and then let out a cry. Warmth spread between my legs, I felt the heat circle him.
Sebastian watched me bite my lip, my nails sunk deeper in his arms, and he groaned.
His heavy breathing was like music for my ears. I pulled him deeper into me, wanting to hold on to him a moment longer. I wanted to feel us a little longer.
“Where have you been all this time?” he kissed my hair, my neck, my lips and then gently rolled to the side, pushing his dark hair back.
“Here,” my finger touched his chest, right where his tattoo began. Over his heart.
He looked deep into me, the face of someone asserting a great truth, and my hand cupped his cheek.
So many things I wanted to tell him, I didn’t know where to start.
I wanted him to know I let Alejandro touch me only once, after I had been with him three years ago, before running away. I had cried that night, as Alejandro had fucked me on our bed. I had felt deprived of my body, dead.
I had silently wished to die.
I had wanted nothing more than run to Sebastian and search for my soul.
I had left it with him, I had given him my everything, hoping he would keep it safe, hidden from Alejandro.
Instead, I closed my eyes and tangled my legs around his. I wanted our skins to never be apart again.