7. Charlie
Icarry her into the house without rousing her. More guilt needles my chest as I realize she’ll likely wake up uncomfortable and afraid.
I take off her boots and coat, leaving them on the chair by the door, and put her phone on the spare charger that Bea left in the bathroom. I’m itching to soothe the alarm I already know she’ll feel in the morning, so I leave her some pain medication, a glass of water, and a few notes to orient her before I finally leave her to sleep.
I should rest, too. I’ve been on planes for the better part of two days, and I took a fair fucking beating before that, so my body needs to recuperate. But I can’t stop thinking about ends and beginnings, about choices and options.
When I left Trani last week, I was unnerved. Clara and I both were. Our mother taught us the skills she thought would serve us best in our future roles; Clara got her strategizing, long-term vision, and quiet, merciless calculation, while I got her penchant for swift and violent justice. Clara rarely gets her hands dirty, saving her particular brand of violence for personal ventures. But I have been steeped in blood for as long as I can remember. Dissecting the eyes of corpses with my mother in my preteen years to learn how to blind someone with a blade without puncturing the brain. Late nights with Uncle Mauricio as a teenager, exchanging blows and learning the finer art of how to hit to break bone. Viciousness has become almost second nature.
I’d be a fool to think any of us are invincible, especially in our line of work. But seeing her burned and scarred in that bed was a stark reminder of mortality, both hers and mine. She”s been the head of the Costa family for almost forty years. One wrong turn, one moment of misplaced trust, and we nearly lost her.
All our lives, our parents worked to ensure we had the time they didn’t to acclimate to our futures. We were given the opportunity to become confident in our inevitable roles, with Clara as our matriarch, and me as her right hand. We could find life partners that walked in the same circles, or could learn to, without pressure. No arranged marriages in our early twenties, like they had. But with our mother weakened and our enemies so strong, there are few options left on the table.
As far as I can tell, Clara doesn’t see it the way I do. She—focused on patterns and long-term consequences—thought only about shoring up our alliances, projecting strength, and ensuring that the vicious tide we keep at bay does not creep while our mother heals.
But I saw it in my father’s eyes. It was time for us to adhere to tradition, to do what was asked of us as Costas. Step into our own futures.
And as a family business, family is crucial. Not only to carry on the line of Costas to do this work, but also to maintain a meticulous image. An interconnected web of blood and legal relatives to uphold the justice we are committed to. A problem, of course, for a thirty-one-year-old who had purposefully avoided commitment, for more reasons than one.
And my solution had walked through the door of Catalina’s.
Gwen won’t add to the Costa network of connections throughout the world. As far as I know, her family doesn’t rub elbows with arms dealers, own surveillance companies, or take part in international politics. But really, that’s Clara’s role more than it’s mine, though I imagine she’ll disagree once she finds out my plan. It’s the gift of being the youngest, perhaps, that you have more choice. A monarchal spare, only tasked with being the sword to the queen.
I do feel slightly guilty, using Gwen’s situation to my advantage. People think that empathy runs thin in a world like mine, but the Costa family acts according to a strict set of moral boundaries. If we were religious, we’d likely say we were the hand of divine justice. Instead, the family acts as a council of judge, jury, and executioner for the evils of the world. I’m not sure how my mother would feel about leveraging the victimization of the United States healthcare industrial complex for my benefit, but I suppose those are decisions I need to make on my own now.
And it does seem that Gwen shares our idea of justice.
I realize I’ve been standing outside the spare room door for quite some time, and try to shake off this sensation of serendipity. The right person, who was the right level of desperate, at the right time. The solution isn’t perfect and will require much more digging, which isn’t my strong suit.
I walk to my office and sit in the heavy chair behind my desk, running my fingers over the keyboard to wake up my computer. I have no doubts that she will accept my proposition. It’s insurmountably better than the one Ana’s cretin of a father is offering. And her willingness to build her own moral compass, to seek vengeance when an opportunity is offered to her, is evidence enough for me to try.
Which, tragically, means I need to call Emily.
There are extended Costa family members all over the world, but there are few who are integral to our operations, who sit on the council. Emily is one of them. Despite being twins, Clara was the eldest, if only by a few hours. As a result, she was always separated from the rest of us. But Bea, Emily, and I trained together. And there is a trust that’s built when you learn to spy, torture, and kill together.
But trust doesn’t equate to affection, and Emily might be one of the most irritating people I’ve ever met. Part of it is that she’s smarter than all of us combined. I’ll never understand the way her brain maps out problems, sees solutions that only she can. She also challenges me the most, pushes me to justify my actions when most people, even those we’re related to, worry about turning my attention their way.
I also think that the three of us growing up in such close quarters, being pushed to our physical and psychological limits in each other’s presence, means we know more about each other than anyone in the world, including our own parents. And we’re all a little uncomfortable with that truth.
Unfortunately, Emily is a better researcher than me, and I need answers quickly. Usually, I’d employ one of the distant cousins who work in cybersecurity or surveillance to collect information on a target, but this feels different. I don’t want anyone outside of the council knowing too much about Gwen.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Emily. Last I checked, she was in Southeast Asia helping resettle victims of a typhoon, while simultaneously conducting research on box jellyfish stings. Genius fucking freak.
“You better be actually dying.” Her voice breaks through as a groan, and I check the time on my watch. Three-thirty in the morning here should be late afternoon for her.
“Is playing with fish so exhausting that you’re relying on mid-day naps now?” I ask, wedging my phone between my cheek and shoulder as I open our secure search engine.
“I got back from Laos like a week ago, you asshole. I’m in New York.” Fuck. I was in Trani, and then a horribly remote area of Russia for a bit, so I guess it’s been a while since I’ve checked in. “Also, sea jellies aren’t fish.”
The less groggy she becomes, the more likely it is that she’s going to release some sort of genetically modified venomous micro-bug into my shoes. I’ve sunk this ship already tonight, so might as well give her something to appease her.
“Welcome back to the States. My apologies to the sea jellies and for the early wake up call. As an olive branch, I’m about to hand you personal information about myself in the form of a research inquiry.” I start typing information that I know about Gwen into the search engine as I wait for Emily to answer. She’s quiet for a bit longer, and then I hear her shift in her bed.
“Fine, fair trade. Who’s the target?”
I bristle at the word, which is a strange reaction. Everyone is a target to us—friends, enemies, lovers. Gwen being my future wife doesn’t change that. Even if I inexplicably want to shoot Emily for saying it.
“Guinevere Byrne,” I say, recalling her last name from the card she left on her tab at Catalina’s. “Daughter of Isabelle Byrne, second parent unknown. Going to need a full background on her and her younger sister, Morgana Byrne.” I can’t imagine the fifteen-year-old cancer patient is up to anything particularly nefarious, but thoroughness is key.
Emily starts typing in the background, which likely means she’s tucked onto her couch with her laptop balanced on her knees.
“Good for mom, giving her daughters her last name,” Emily starts, the clicking ramping up to fake hacker movie levels. I’m about to correct her when she starts again. “Well, nevermind. Seems like that’s the last thing she gave those girls. How deep do you want me to dig on mom of the year?”
“Deep. Gwen and Ana need to be vetted at levels that will meet the family’s standards.”
That gets her attention. The clicking abruptly stops, and I can almost see the look she’d be giving me if she were sitting in front of me.
“Do my ears deceive me, or should I search for bridesmaid dresses?” Her voice is teasing but sharp, and I know the weight that comes with it. Bringing someone into the family isn’t a choice any of us make lightly, although I might be throwing caution to the wind a bit here.
“Don’t start choosing flowers yet, Emily.” But my scolding has no bite. I promised her personal leverage, and she’s getting it. “But I’d like to see if she can keep up with us. And I need you to be a helpful little bookworm and make sure the skeletons in her closet won’t fuck us over.”
There are few things that I truly couldn’t handle, but if she was blood-related to one of our enemies there would be complications. Better to be prepared.
“How’d you meet the new Mrs. Costa?” Emily asks, her typing ramping up again. Seems she’s gotten past the shock.
“Does it matter?” I shoot back, pulling up a photo of Gwen and Ana in a middle school newspaper.
Despite the obvious similarities—the red hair, the freckles—the two really couldn’t look more different. Ana is thin and gangly, not just in the awkward pre-teen way, but in the way where you know she’ll be tall and lithe forever. Her nose is long and her jaw is sharp, and I wonder if she looks more like Ben or Isabelle.
“You telling me that you’ve purchased yourself a wife isn’t enough information for me, dear cousin. Give me the story while I start building their files.”
I’m barely listening, scanning Gwen from head to toe in the photo in front of me. It’s from four years ago, so she’s about twenty-three, according to the birthday on her license. She’s obviously tired, but clearly thrilled for Ana, who seems to have won some sort of prize. She’s got her arms wrapped around her sister’s shoulders, their faces pressed together with massive grins. Her hair is wrapped into a tight bun on top of her head, and there’s a pencil stuck through it like she ran to this competition from work. Despite the exhaustion, she looks happier.
No shit. She’s not dealing with cancer and Ben, and murder, and whatever the fuck else in this picture.
“I didn’t buy her,” I finally say to Emily. She scoffs, but I keep pushing. “And I met her at Catalina’s.”
“Cristo, I’ve been out of the loop. You haven’t even been in D.C. for over six months, and you’re just now getting a background…” she trails off, and I think she’s finally figured it out. “You’re telling me that, instead of the delightful friends I’ve set you up with over the years, you’ve decided to marry some girl you met less than twenty-four hours ago?”
“How do you know how long I’ve been back?” I ask. She ignores me. This is predictable.
“What happened to Luan? His mother does great document work for us, and he’s gotta be at least six-four. Or Chantrea? They’re doing more expressionist art stuff now, and their half-sister is already on our payroll.”
I know Emily’s not trying to talk me out of Gwen, she’s trying to understand my logic. I’m one of the little puzzles she likes to do to keep her brain fresh, like she’s a retiree in a group home.
And while Luan was handsome and Chantrea was engaging, my instincts never pushed me to commit more than a few nights. Perhaps it’s because I was looking for connection, for compatibility, when that’s all but impossible for someone like me. I should have been aiming for coincidence and mutual goals. But we’re here now, and I can’t ignore this pull toward Gwen. Though, for some reason, I don’t want to share that with Emily.
“Timing’s everything, right?” It’s a bad lie and she likely knows it, but she seems to let it slide.
“Just make sure you tell Clara about this when I’m in the opposite hemisphere.”