22. Ciro
22
CIRO
“Y ou should see the look on your face right now,” he snickers.
Ero never snickered before. To be fair, I’ve never stood in the middle of an African nation with my mouth hanging open like a dolt either. Not my best comparison.
But as he pulls down the mask, he’s not smiling. Some things never change.
Unless you hear that your twin brother is dead, and then he turns out to be alive and also the guy who probably killed your girlfriend’s brother and a ton of your new crew.
I’m standing outside my body, staring at myself, at Vanya, at the man in black, jet-black hair with eyes dark as sin.
He’s from another life. A different world.
“Fiero,” the guy who looks like me says. I blink and I’m back in my body. Hm. Tastes like cognitive dissonance.
“I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”
“What do they call you now? Finger One?”
“Just Ghost.”
I snort loudly, not bothering to cover my lip flapping spit take. “Wow.”
“It’s a long story.”
“It’s a lame nickname. And I didn’t ask for the story.”
“Ciro…” Vanya stands next to me, stiff as a rod. “This is your brother. The one who is dead.”
“Twin brother. Dead. Yeah.”
“Legally dead, sure.” Ero shrugs. “You must be Vanya.”
She stares wide eyed at him. Something terrible tries to connect in my brain, but I’m so frazzled. My brain is shaking like a jello cup at a rave.
And Ero just watches us, a smug look in his eyes.
“This is impossible. How did you find us?” I finally stutter out.
“Well, it actually is a funny story. You found me.” He steps from the shade of the overhang, spinning his mask on one finger.
“You bastard. You killed my family!” Vanya growls, taking a step forward. It’s then that it all clicks back into place. That my brother is responsible for…
Shit.
And we don’t have any weapons. Ero on the other hand has two pistols, knives, and who knows what else.
“Take it easy, Ivanka,” Ero frowns, holding up his hands placatingly. “I was just?—”
“Her name is Vanya, and everyone just…wait.” I snap, blocking her path, hammering my brother with a vicious glare.
“Huh. A girl finally got you good. Never thought it was possible.”
“A lot has changed.” I need to get a handle on this. Now.
“Clearly. I barely recognize you. I certainly didn’t in Russia. But I heard rumors about an American. Even shot at you without realizing it. Then you showed up here, looking for the Mocro…looking for me, or this mask anyway.”
“That is why you wanted his name. To know for certain.” Vanya shakes her head. “All of that torture. And then you convinced Adil to let us live.”
“It was you?” I ask, feeling two steps behind.
“No shit. We also tortured you to see if you knew where Pyotr was. You were a little delirious, though.”
“Fucking murderer!” Vanya shouts, her eyes wild. I share her anger, her outrage, but I can’t reconcile it with my brother being the one in the mask, the one who killed Matvey.
“That’s my job. Now can we get going? Lotta ground to cover.”
“I will go nowhere with you, I will bury you—” Her words are cut off as Fiero flips out a gun and pops off a shot at her.
No! I rush for Vanya as she falls. It hits me how quiet the gun was as I lift her body.
“Relax. She’s just unconscious. I figured she wouldn’t be keen on me.”
“Neither am I.”
“We need to talk. Get in the car.”
I hesitate for a moment, anger and frustration warring in my head and heart like a wheel of fortune but with emotions. Only the pie slices on the wheel are almost all titled “strangle your twin brother.” The wheel slows, stopping halfway between “dissociate” and “freeze up.” So I head toward the car.
After sitting Vanya in the back, gently propping her head on a blanket, I slide into the passenger seat, my heart pounding. Ero eases into the driver’s seat, giving me a side-eye.
“What?” he chirps, starting the car.
“This is fucking weird.”
“ You’re fucking weird.”
I start to argue, to snap back. Instead, I close my mouth as he pulls out along the deserted road. For a split second, I have a flashback, severe déjà vu. The two of us in a sports car, road-tripping and totally wasted across the Mojave Desert. We were barely eighteen.
Then I’m back in the present.
And Ero looks like a stranger sitting next to me.
“Where are we going?”
“My place. You really are different, aren’t you? You’re so fucking serious. Where’s the laugh? Where are the wisecracks?”
“Oh, I smile plenty, and I laugh when I find something funny. This ain’t it.”
“You’re right. This is fucking weird.”
“Like you speaking in complete sentences and more than one in a stretch? Yeah.” I leave the obvious chasm between us that has to do with the fact that he tortured me and my girlfriend just twenty-four hours ago and slaughtered a bunch of Volk before that.
He drives us out to the coast, then up along the Atlantic. A few hours slip by. Unless my geography is way off, we’re heading toward Casablanca.
We drive in silence for a while before I can’t stand it any longer.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Me? You look like you’ve lived ten years in six months.” Ero huffs.
“Are you going to insult my looks, or tell me a freaking story?”
“Fine. You sure you want to go there?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
“It’s not a happy tale.”
“What’s new?”
“I just don’t want you to feel bad. Worse.”
“Are you serious?” I level a flat stare at him.
“Call it my conscience. You’ve been through a lot.”
“When have you ever had one of those? I swear, there’s always been something wrong with your brain. Quit stalling.”
“Careful, Ciro. You might end up calling the kettle black.”
“If anything, I’m not the pot. You are. Crackpot .” I cross my arms.
“Not your best work, Teacup.”
“I’m not gonna waste my good material on you.” Dammit. He’s sucking me back into our old dynamic.
Sighing, he lets me pout for a few moments before continuing, “I take it by now, you know that Adriano’s AWOL.”
“Yep.”
“And we all lost Alessandro’s number.”
“On purpose. They were supposed to move too. No way to reach them.” I rattle off the details like I just read the file. Adriano’s orders were specific.
“Right. When Adriano sent us away before he went back to get married, he gave us each orders…”
“No shit. I was there. Mine were intercepted,” I cock my head, looking out the window.
“Mine were too. So instead of meeting with a contact to get a new identity and disappearing, I almost got nicked by the authorities in Spain. Got shot. Ran. Wound up across the Strait of Gibraltar in Morocco.”
“Dom burned everyone he could. Told the Bratva I was coming. I wound up in the Gulag for three months.”
“That explains a lot. Mine was an underground ring of slave fighters. I killed a guy in Northern Morocco trying to get enough money to see a doctor. Turned out to be Mocro. They came at me with everything they had for revenge. I fought back. Hard enough that they decided to keep me alive. Put me to use in the ring. Then doing hits. Got Adil’s attention because of my skill.”
“Geezus, Ero. And no one knew who you were?”
“Most people never knew who the four of us were. Just that we existed. The benefit of being the ‘silent one’ was that no one knew anything about me. And there was the whole, I got killed in Spain. Cops recovered a body. Claimed it was me to save face.”
“Explains why the Bratva told me you died.”
“I did. A couple of times. Defib is a bitch. Gives you a reputation when you survive, though.”
“Ugh. The last thing you need is more of an attitude. Pfft. Ghost.”
“Anyway, I’ve been part of Adil’s Hand for a few months. In that time I’ve killed three hundred people.”
The statement slaps me across the face. I stare at him for a moment, stunned. Not just because of the number, but because of the neutral, impassive look on his face.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve killed. A lot.
But always for a reason, for survival, or self-defense.
“And you just…agreed to this?”
“Don’t judge me. I didn’t know what else to do. Aless and Adri always gave the orders. I just…”
For the first time, I see it.
The sense of uncertainty. Ero always seemed like the one who just got it. Who knew what we were and accepted it. But he was just…
A kid. Given a gun, told what to point it at.
It never occurred to me that he couldn’t survive without someone to report to. That his silence and brooding nature might have been more than sociopathic tendencies. Or maybe something really is wrong with his brain. Maybe he really believes that his actions don’t count, that it was Adil’s choice and not his.
“You killed the Bratva leaders?” I jump ahead, summarizing.
“Yes. Some. My counterparts took care of the rest.”
“And the Volk? How many did you kill?”
“I do not know. When things got out of hand in St. Petersburg I was ordered to go in and clean up the mess, take out any stragglers. That’s when I ran into you. And the insane guy with the flattop.”
“Fyodor.”
We’re approaching a small building on a low cliff, overlooking the sea. It’s simple. Fairly well hidden from the main road. Just the kind of place someone like Ero would keep as a crash pad.
“I finally got my own place.” And he fucking smiles . Or as close as Ero ever gets to it.
“You just have to leave it every time your master blows his dog whistle,” I mutter, unsettled by the expression on his face.
We stand on the grassy cliff for a moment before heading in, carrying Vanya and placing her on the bed. The place is spartan, minimalist. Fiero’s always been tidy. Never owned many things.
When I get back into the living area, he cracks open a couple of beers from the fridge, passes one to me. “Now your turn.”
I sit down, unsure of what else to do. This isn’t right. None of it.
But I dive into a version of my story, leaving out key details. Stuff that my oaths to the Bratva and Vanya will not allow me to share.
And it dawns on me what’s really bothering me.
That I can’t trust this man. My brother. He is as much a Mocro as I am a Bratva now.
We both broke out oaths to our family, the Diamantes. Even if we are scattered to winds, something about it eats at me. Shames me for the first time.
I catch him up to the present, leaving off with our adventure at the casino.
“Wow. So that’s why you look a thousand years older than me now.”
“Fuck you, dumbass. I look good .” For the first time since he picked us up, I actually smile. “Nice place, by the way.”
The view of the ocean is unreal through the living room window. It’s quiet. Peaceful.
“The only good thing to come out of all of this,” he remarks tonelessly.
“How long will she be out for?” I change the subject, uncomfortable with the unfamiliarity between us.
“A while. Long enough.”
“For what?” I sit up, seeing the change in his demeanor. His gaze sharpens. He leans forward, resting his arms on his knees.
“For us to leave. Together. I have passports, money, weapons. It’s all set up. It’ll be you and me again.”
“And Abas will just let you go?”
“Ero Diamante is dead. So is Ciro, for all the governments of the world know. The people we are now can die too. We can start over.”
“Do you really believe that?”
He inhales, watching me. “You really have changed.”
“So have you. But the one thing we have in common is that neither of us can get out. Adil Abas would never suffer you to live as long as he owns you. And there is nowhere he couldn’t find you. You know that as well as I do.” Why do I feel like I really am talking to a younger sibling, like I am the mature one?
Ero grimaces, then nods reluctantly.
“But you aren’t running for a different reason,” he mutters, glancing to the bedroom.
“You’re not wrong. It’s more than that. The Bratva is my family now. They don’t just own me, I am one of them.” And I realize deep down that it’s true. I care about the people, the organization. Maybe it is all tied to Vanya and Matty. Or maybe I feel like I belong there.
The look of despair, of disappointment, on Ero’s face crushes my heart.
Like full-on tearjerker.
Stupid emotions.
“So that’s it. You turn your back on the Diamantes. On me.”
“That’s not fair. Or true.”
Still, he believes it. I see it in his eyes. Never mind that he’s in the same boat. Sworn to another crime family.
“Then I guess I’ll be following my orders after all. Get cleaned up. Get some rest.” Ero orders, his tone vacant and distant. I can only assume he’s meant to escort us to the nearest port or travel station.
But right now, I don’t care. My brother is alive.
As relieving as it is, our reunion is anything but joyful.
I just sit there, feeling miserable as he gets up and stalks out of the house.