24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
FIAMETTA
“ C an I ask you something?”
We’ve been sprawled out on the double bed for hours. We've exchanged a few idle comments that I wouldn’t really consider chatting, but it doesn’t bother me. I haven’t felt this whole and content, sitting in silence, for a very long time, and it has been kind of nice.
“Depends on whether you expect me to answer or not.” It’s so hard to tell if he’s serious or if this is an attempted joke.
I ask, anyway. “Why did you want to do it?” It hasn’t eaten away at me lately. My priorities have shifted to something more important than the past. But Crue’s shown an unwavering desire to take on this fight, and I guess I’d like to know why, in case something bad does happen.
“Why did you try to kill me?”
“You were a contract. I am an elite assassin,” he says, nonchalantly.
“Is that really all there is to it?”
Should I be hurt? I’m not. Somehow hearing that there wasn’t anything personal behind his motives makes it easier to push that night out of my head.
“For you and me, yes. For Matteo Baronne? Not so much.”
“What did he want?”
Crue tells me everything. From their first meeting months ago, to the original list of names he was given by Matteo, and finally, he describes my introduction to their terrible business. I feel so stupid. It’s so obvious that Matteo was behind this. But that’s hindsight for you. You forget how dark the world can be when you live in bliss and ignorance.
“You said that Matteo used you...” I don’t know how long I’ve got of Crue’s being open and honest, and I’m going to get as much information out of him as I can. I’ve learned more about him in the last few minutes, than in the months he’s been hunting me.
“Does he have something on you?”
Crue smiles. It’s barely visible. It’s not the kind of smile that comes from happiness, and I get a bad feeling that leaves my tummy in a knot.
“No, he doesn’t have anything on me. Either he or I would’ve been dead a long time ago, if it had been blackmail.”
My follow-up question is primed and ready, but Crue speaks before I get the chance. “You’re not going to like the truth, Fiametta. You need to decide if you want honesty, or if you’d prefer I didn’t speak ill of the dead.”
Another swell of embarrassed heat flushes my cheeks. This is Father’s doing. It’s harder for me to accept how naive I was about him than my ignorance about Matteo. Father made it a hard point to remind me of how cruel life is and yet, I never suspected his involvement until now.
“Please. I’d like to know.” I am humbled by his sudden response, and my voice is shaky and soft.
“My mom was a nice woman, with particular views on the world. She lived by walking a line of black and white, instead of gray.” Crue starts. He stares at the ceiling, speaking in a deadpan tone, as if he was having a passing conversation with a stranger about the weather, rather than a trip down memory lane.
“After my father passed, she found work in the lowest of places. Servicing men to pay the bills and to see me through the hard times. Before you ask, no, her whoring has no bearing on why I am what I am.”
As if he could read my mind.
“After a bad fight and a stint in the military, I returned home, to find mom still doing the same work. But now, she was older, and her clientele were a certain kind of disgusting. But she had to get by. I started running jobs. Made a name for myself. After all. I had been a trained killer with the US government’s seal of approval. After I was employed, it didn’t take long for window smashing and knee-cap shattering to turn into hunting .” He emphasizes the word and pauses, giving me a moment to process what he’s saying.
I roll onto my side and stare at him while he speaks. There’s so much I want to ask, so many things that could teach me more about Crue, but I won’t interrupt him. Not now. Those questions are for the future, when we’re older and life has rubbed off some of our edges. For when Crue softens and wants to open up and tell his story.
“My new title of killer brought more money than I knew what to do with, so I gave it to my mother. She shunned me, though. No blood money for me, I’d rather work . So, I let her. Not because I wanted her to be hurt, mind you.” He stops again and a flash of something dances across his eyes. It’s too fast to make out if it was happiness, sadness or whether his eye had simply spotted a tiny woodland creature flying by. “It was the opposite. Taking my money would have hurt her. Living on someone else’s heartache, more so.”
“I’m sorry, Crue.” His eyes move until he’s looking at me. The rest of him remains motionless.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because...” No one ever asks why, do they? Not to a sympathetic apology that’s meant to ease the stress and turmoil a conversation like this brings with it. “I feel bad about what happened.”
It’s the best response I can come up with. There’s a lot more I could do to express the emotions I feel, sorrow, remorse, and misery in his despair. I get the feeling Crue won’t understand anyway. It would be like trying to explain color to a blind man. Impossible.
“I don’t. You shouldn’t either.” He rolls his eyes back to look at the ceiling.
I nod, but his words make it worse instead of better.
“Once my pockets were well-lined, I killed for fun and for the thrill,” he goes on, avoiding any opportunities to linger in my emotional stew. “And to feed a different hunger inside myself. An endless, starving black hole, which demanded more, more, more.” That sentence sends a cold chill through my entire body. The crazy part is, I don’t even know what it means. “But I must’ve done someone special because it caught Lorenzo’s attention. Raised his interest and made him angry. He sent a group of four men to visit my mom not long after.”
Here it comes, the point of his story that I dreaded the most. I listen carefully, but stay quiet.
“Her bright red lips were cut and swollen when I arrived. She had black streaks running down her bruised cheek bones. Her silken ensemble was clinging to her skin like fur on a wet cat. I couldn’t tell whether she was wet from crying or whether it was the rain that was pouring down on us.”
He clears his throat.
“I begged for the first time in my life. Take me and let her go. She has no part in this. She’s innocent . I begged and they laughed. I fell to my knees pleading, but they drowned her in the mud beneath their feet. I...”
He stops, and I want to hug him. Kiss him. Help him through the heartache.
“The point is they killed her. Lorenzo wanted to make it a lesson. Fuck with the bull and you’ll get the horns. I like to think he regretted it in the end, but I doubt that. He didn’t even recognize me.”
“Jesus, Crue, I—” I start, and this time he turns his whole head to face me. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. You asked and I answered. Matteo made me a promise that he would make Lorenzo hurt, the way he made me hurt.” He looks away again to finish. “And he wanted it to be you.”
“If it means anything, I forgive you, Crue,” I say.
I forgave him a long time ago, and I’m sure he picked up on that. On the off chance he hadn’t, saying it now is a way of freeing him. If he’s doing any of this out of some misguided attempt to seek salvation, he doesn’t need to. I don’t care. What happened is behind us, and we can look to the future together. More than wanting revenge for Father’s death, I want Crue at my side. Safe. And helping me raise our child.
It takes a long time for Crue to speak again. So long, in fact, that I almost think he’s fallen asleep.
“This is why I don’t fuck around with emotions, Fia. Partly because they interfere but mostly because I can’t. I don’t understand them.” An indiscernible sound rumbles through his body. “Look at the mess I caused because I tried to play human with you. I chose to help a wicked man because he mentioned my mother. I chose not to finish a job, because of a feeling I don’t understand. They only bring heartache, it seems.”
“That they do,” I say.
And more time passes, with neither of us making a sound. Crue’s thinking about whatever’s going through his mind. Regrets, maybe, or if he really doesn’t fuck around with emotions , what he’s going to do when he stands face to face with Matteo. I’m trying to process everything, all at once.
After a while, I realize that it’s not possible to do that. This whole mess stemmed from a bad decision. From my father challenging a man he thought could scare off easily.
One of his lessons to me was never to underestimate anyone . Everyone has lived a different life to mine, and there’s no telling what roads led them to mine. It seems Father chose the Do as I Say , Not as I Do school of training.
“Stay with me,” I say in a frantic whisper, when my thoughts grow too loud for me to stay quiet. “You don’t have to do this. We can run away together. Make a new life somewhere else,”
I throw my arms around Crue’s head, and am hit by a sudden wave of the emotions he speaks so badly of. I tug his head toward my bare chest. I want to hold him and comfort him, but I also want to promise him that everything will be okay. My actions speak louder than words with the last one, because I know if I said it, I wouldn’t be convincing.
He moves with my motion, and rests his forehead against my bosom.
He sighs. “I want to, but I can’t. Matteo Baronne won’t stop chasing us. He will hunt us to the ends of the earth. I won’t subject you or our child to that.”
Once he thinks that is settled, Crue doesn’t stir again.
“I understand,” I say.
We lie together in silence for a while. Until the peaceful night carries me off to sleep and Crue to wherever he goes to get his rest.
***
Crue’s gone by the time the sun’s early morning rays first pierce the double-wide, glass, sliding door that leads onto a patio. But somehow, and without waking me, Crue has managed to leave me a gift.
I approach it slowly, not sure why I’m being so cautious. If it’s anything like the last gift, I know I’ll love it. Maybe the presentation is at fault. It is a brown cardboard box with no wrapping paper and a plain sticky note glued on top.
Thought you could use a hand , it says, with a smiley face drawn in two dots and a skewed mouth.
I scream, when I see the appalling gift Crue has left on the kitchenette’s countertop. I reach for the wastebin and scream some more, fearing the contents of my belly are about to erupt out of me.
It’s a severed hand, covered in mud and blood, all neatly packaged into a zip-lock bag. My first instinct, helped by the sticky note on top of the box, is that this is a joke, albeit a sick one. In fact, the punchline’s so far over my head, I don’t think I’ll ever get it.
And then I notice the ring. A completely ordinary circlet of gold.
I begin to laugh. It’s maniacal, belly aching laughter. It stings so much I can’t breathe properly, but it won’t stop coming, either. He did it for me. He killed my tormentor, without my having to say a word.
When my uproarious howling comes to an end, I see another note attached to the bag. This one has no smiley face, and the writing is much neater than the pun filled lines before it.
On it, Crue has written an answer to a question he himself asked. Can we change who we are, to watch a Little Flame grow into a blazing inferno?
Yes , it reads, look at what you’ve done to me. You brought meaning to the meaningless. Now, you must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire you—
The black ink from Crue’s pen runs off the edge of the sticky note, in a long line. It’s as if he wanted to add the rest, to finish the quote and to say love you , but didn’t. Couldn’t. I’m not sure what to make of this. Is he too afraid to say it, or is it a lie that he doesn’t want to tell?
Crue will come back. He has to. If not for me, he will do it for our child.
At least, I hope and pray he will.