Chapter 21
BANE
She was the last of his thirteen victims.
Thirteen girls that motherfucker stalked, kidnapped, raped, tortured, and killed. Almost all not yet twenty years old, with their whole lives ahead of them.
Lives he snuffed out, leaving gaping craters in the lives of those they left behind.
His name was Lorenzo Cielo. The media called him “The Barber” because of his fondness for shaving his victims’ heads once he had them in his clutches.
Dove and Lark were the last two girls he scooped off the street and brought to his house of horrors out on Staten Island. The authorities later found twelve other bodies buried under the basement, after the fire that razed the hellhole to the ground during the attempted rescue.
What was never revealed in the ensuing media storm was that Lorenzo had once worked for Cesare Marchetti as his driver. He’d gone by Lorenzo Caputo back then: after what happened to Dove and Lark, Cesare spent a lot of money to make sure that little tidbit was buried.
I looked into it later: it wasn’t anything sinister on Cesare’s part, prick though he is. He buried Lorenzo’s connection to the Marchetti family because a criminal organization doesn’t exactly want media or law enforcement scrutiny.
It could have been sheer coincidence their paths crossed. Lorenzo might have recognized the two of them at the club the night Dove cajoled Lark into going out with fake IDs.
But we’ll never know, because that motherfucker died the same night she did, in a hail of bullets when Cesare’s men kicked down the door of his hideout.
The night one life was snuffed out and another was stripped down to the bones.
Lark didn’t want to go out that night. I know that because she texted me about Dove twisting her arm and being relentless about it.
The woman I loved could have been spared what happened to her that night, except the person she considered her best friend pressured and pushed her.
I’m under no illusions that Lark was perfect.
Far from it.
She had her demons. She had a darkness inside her that she was constantly battling, trying to make peace with. I think it’s something I recognized in her because I fight the same battle myself.
Maybe that’s why when we met that first day we truly saw each other, in ways no one else ever had.
She was a broken, flawed, beautiful disaster. But she was my disaster. Mine.
I slowly twist the glass of vodka on the dark wood of my desk. Here I am again, facing something so similar that I don’t know how to begin to process it.
A different sent of dark eyes that look right into me, seeing so much more of me than anyone else ever has. Seeing what I hide from everyone, and try to hide from her.
I know what I’m doing is wrong. I know I’ve drawn her into this entire thing under false pretenses, because of my need to trap her, and keep her, and force her to look at the ugly past.
But it’s quickly turning into something I didn’t bargain for. The warm embrace of a chaos I never thought I’d feel again. The thorny allure of a beauty that can cut and maim.
A knock on the door pulls me from my thoughts.
“Yes.”
Sergey enters with a curt nod.
“Well?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. I’ve personally gone through every frame of CCTV footage from any building within a four-block radius, including this one.” He slowly shakes his head again. “I…” he frowns and looks down uncomfortably.
I know what he’s afraid to say.
“Speak,” I growl quietly.
He slowly drags his gaze back to mine. “Either this guy is a fucking ninja who knows the exact blind spot of every security camera in the Upper West Side, or…” He subtly shakes his head.
And there it is: the thing that’s been slowly burrowing into my mind until it's stuck there, like a thorn I’m trying to ignore.
I’ve seen her records from the rehab facility in Italy. I know all the meds she’s on. Lithium. Risperidone. Zoloft. Lexapro. Buspirone. Fucking lorazepam…
That’s…a lot. And I say that as someone who’s been on antipsychotics and antidepressants most of my life.
I’ve been trying not to see it. But I can't pretend it isn’t there anymore.
“Or else…what,” I murmur quietly.
Sergey looks right at me. “Or else there was no-one chasing her.”
I nod silently as I glance down again at the crystal tumbler in my fingers.
“Do you have the witness interviews from the bus incident?”
“Yeah.” He pulls a folder from the collection under his arm and drops it onto the desk in front of me.
I open it and page to the report from the bus driver who braked just in time to avoid flattening her.
I’ve seen it before, but it’s still jarring to read, after hearing her detailed, vivid account of someone physically grabbing her and shoving her into traffic.
His exact words are that he “didn’t see who pushed her”.
I slide my eyes down the page to where the driver’s contact information is listed: D’Angelo Harris, who lives in Bushwick with his wife and three kids.
I stand abruptly. “I’ll be back, Sergey.”
He frowns. “Where’re you going?”
“Brooklyn.”
“I already told the police everything I saw.”
D’Angelo’s large frame fills the doorway of his duplex as he eyes me warily. Behind him, I can smell dinner cooking and hear teenagers laughing and yelling over the sound of the Jets game.
“I know you did,” I say calmly. “I’m just looking for any details you may have forgotten at the time due to the shock, but have maybe since remembered.”
He looks me up and down, then folds his muscled arms over his chest. “Do I need my union rep or my lawyer present for this?” he growls.
I shrug, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my wallet. I thumb out three hundreds and lift them between two fingers. “I don’t know…do you?”
D’Angelo’s gaze drops very deliberately to the bratva tattoos on the back of my hand, and the others on my neck, visible above my collar. Then our eyes lock.
“I'm not interested in your money,” he growls.
“And I’m not interested in you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I mutter back. “You did nothing wrong. In fact, I think you probably saved her life.”
His brow pinches. “So… This is about the girl?”
I nod.
“She yours?”
“She is,” I growl.
D’Angelo takes a deep breath. He glances behind him, then turns back to me, stepping out onto the small porch and half-shutting the door behind him. “Like I said, I already told the police what I saw…”
“I know,” I say, pulling the report out of my jacket, my eyes dropping to it. “It says here that you didn’t see who pushed her, and I wanted to—”
“That’s not what I said.”
I raise my eyes to his. “Excuse me?”
D’Angelo shakes his head. “I didn’t say I didn’t see who pushed her.” He looks at me with a mix of sadness and maybe pity. “I said I didn’t see anyone push her.”
My jaw tightens. “As in, you couldn’t see—”
“As in no one pushed her,” he murmurs. “I saw the whole thing plain as day. Your girl threw herself in front of my bus.”