Chapter 14 #2
I nearly spit my iced tea out. “Marriage counseling? Why do we have to do that?”
“Because I fucking said so.” Kaiser shifts gears and speeds up to merge onto the highway.
“It’s not a real marriage,” I argue, but I’m distracted when his bicep flexes and his shirt sleeve moves, revealing a nasty-looking burn.
“Ooh, you got a rash. Does it hurt?”
He doesn’t answer. Which is fine. I was going to offer to kiss it better, but if he’s going to be rude…
“It looks painful. Next time you’ll think twice before playing in my secret garden.”
“It looked like a bunch of flowers.”
“Just because it’s pretty doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. People think natural means healthy. I can name twenty ordinary household plants that will kill you.”
“Like belladonna?”
“I’m probably the only person you’ll meet who grows belladonna. Which is a shame. It’s a lovely plant. It just happens to have dark purple berries that can cause you to go mad.”
Kaiser doesn’t say anything. I take a little nap and wake up when he parks the car. I stare up at the neo-Gothic building. The sign reads St. Xavier’s Cathedral.
“A church? We’re going to a church?”
“Father Francis is waiting.” He opens my door, pulls me out of the car and guides me in with his hand on my back.
I half expect him to burst into flames when he enters the church, but he walks in like he owns the place.
I can’t believe he’s making me do premarital counseling for an arranged marriage.
A priest is indeed waiting for us. He’s around forty and looks like someone’s kindly uncle. Kaiser shakes his hand and introduces him as Father Francis.
“Good morning, Belladonna,” the priest says. He has a short beard and deep smile lines around his blue eyes. A disarming face, but something about how he studies me unsettles me.
“Call me Bella.”
“Shall we?” He sweeps out a hand and leads us to his office, which smells like old books with a faint whiff of incense. Bookshelves cover the walls from floor to ceiling. The leather-bound volumes have faded text on the spines. It reminds me of the oldest parts of the main library at UU.
Father Francis settles into a plush armchair that looks older than me. The burgundy velvet is worn down on the arms.
Kaiser maneuvers me to a couch facing the priest. I sit at one end, but Kaiser sits in the middle, and his weight tips me toward him.
Then he puts his right arm around me and pulls me close so my thigh is flush against his.
And as if it’s not enough that we’re practically welded together, he reaches across with his left hand to grab my right wrist. There are wrestling holds with less contact than this.
Suddenly, I’m hot all over. I try to tilt away from him, but then I’m just snuggling into his arm. I cross my legs, but it only makes me aware of how wet I am, just from him manhandling me. Meanwhile, he looks unbothered. It’s so unfair.
Father Francis smiles at us. “I’m so glad we could meet together today.”
“This is a farce. You know that, right?”
Kaiser’s arm squeezes me gently, but I ignore the warning. “He knows.”
“I do.” Father Francis tilts his head. “I helped oversee the negotiations.”
My heart speeds up. I feel like I’m about to explode. How did a priest get caught up in all this? He must have some ties to Fraternitas. Now it makes sense why Kaiser brought me here.
“Then you know this marriage is fake. My father signed a contract.” My face is flushed with anger. I haven’t forgotten that my father signed the contract on my behalf. “No one even asked me.”
“Is that important to you? Do you want Kaiser to ask you? Get down on one knee?”
Is he serious? He has to be mocking me, except he seems genuinely interested in my answer.
“I don’t want to get married at all.”
Father Francis nods like this is normal. “I understand that the situation isn’t what you’d choose. But people marry for many different reasons. Security, stability, heirs, love—”
“Lust,” I throw out and wish I hadn’t said anything. I don’t want to be in lust with Kaiser. Although if I confess to this priest all the things Kaiser did to me last night, will that get him in trouble? How much authority does Father Francis have over Kaiser?
As soon as the thought comes, I dismiss it. The priest probably only has as much authority over Kaiser as Kaiser allows. But maybe I can learn more about what’s going on.
“Marriage is sacred. I’m here to help you find common ground. See what values you share. Even though this is an arranged union, there are ways you can come to terms with a partnership. Meet each other’s needs.”
Right now, I need to kill someone. And then maybe have an orgasm.
It doesn’t help to know that Kaiser would be great at meeting both of those needs.
“Bella, what do you want out of this partnership?”
“Respect,” I say before I think about it. Damn it, I should’ve said “Freedom.”
I don’t know why I’m even answering. Maybe I just want to see where this conversation leads. But I can’t discount the fact that the priest has years of experience eliciting deep secrets from people, and right now, he’s using that power on me.
“Communion,” Kaiser says before the priest can ask.
“Do you think you can come to respect Bella?”
I lean into his arm, the one with the rash on it. He sucks in a breath and says, “Yes.”
“And Bella, do you think you can give Kaiser what he needs?”
“Isn’t communion your area of expertise?” That’s what they call their fake cannibal ceremony, right? Holy Communion.
Father Francis grins. “I don’t think that’s the sort of connection Kaiser wants with you.”
“I don’t know, sometimes I think he wants to eat me.”
Father Francis continues as if I didn’t say anything. “To commune with someone is to share a deep intimacy. Closeness. Connection. All humans crave it. But it requires a level of trust. Do you trust each other?”
“Nope.”
Kaiser shakes his head.
“But you do desire him.”
“I plead the fifth.”
“She does,” Kaiser says.
I elbow him in the ribs and immediately regret it. “Ow.” It feels like I banged my funny bone on a doorjamb.
Kaiser helps me rub it better. His big hand massages my skin, and it feels good, as it always does when he touches me.
When I look up, Father Francis regards us with a satisfied expression. “Well, that’s a start.”
Just when I think this can’t get any worse, Kaiser straightens, becoming alert. I catch a glimpse of someone walking past the half-closed door.
“I need to speak to Atticus.”
“Go ahead,” Father Francis says. “It’ll give me a chance to get to know Bella better.”
Fuck.
Kaiser rises, and I instantly miss his heat. I don’t want to be left alone with the priest and his scary questions.
But I can’t beg Kaiser not to leave.
“I’ll be right back.” He pauses in the door to point his finger at me. “Be good.”
“I’m not converting to Catholicism. So don’t even try,” I say to Father Francis. “I avoid all religions made up by a man in a desert.”
If he’s insulted by the way I dismissed most belief systems, he doesn’t show it. “You don’t need to share my faith for me to share my wisdom. Do you have any questions for me?”
So many. “What can you tell me about Kaiser?”
“He’s loyal. He’d do anything for his brothers. Even before that, he was willing to sacrifice himself for his twin.”
“He has a twin?”
“A twin brother. Both of them have been part of Fraternitas from almost the beginning.”
I want to ask him more about Fraternitas, but I need to be more subtle about it.
And I want to learn more about Kaiser.
“What’s his last name?”
“He’s never told it to me.”
“Does he have any other family?”
“Fraternitas is his family.”
That’s exactly what Kaiser told me. Word for word, which is kind of creepy.
I’ve heard how gangs recruit young men by preying on their need for a family.
If Fraternitas did that, then it isn’t just a bunch of loosely associated criminals; it’s a brotherhood.
The members aren’t just willing to kill for power and profit. They’re willing to die for each other.
If that’s true, then they’re more dangerous than I ever imagined. “When did he join?”
“He was almost one of its founding members. I don’t know what he’s told you about his past, but when I met him and his twin, they were living on the street and had been for years. Since they were very young.”
“How young?”
“You’d have to ask Kaiser if he remembers when he left his childhood home. I met him when he was eight.”
I suck in a breath. My childhood was no picnic.
After my mother was murdered, my father retreated into his shell.
He protected and cared for me, but he kept his distance emotionally.
And the nature of his business meant we kept to ourselves.
We didn’t get close to people or make friends in case they would betray us.
Still, I always had a warm, safe place to live and plenty to eat. Papa was able to buy me whatever I wanted.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to be an eight-year-old growing up without a roof over his head. Without a fridge full of food or an adult who could pay a heating bill.
My gut twists.
“I had a ministry providing food to anyone who needed a free meal. A few, like Kaiser and his brother, would come, and once they trusted me, they brought more and more children. That’s how I started what would become the school.
” He picks up a brochure with a picture of the cathedral on it.
The text reads ‘Hieronymous’ School for the Lost.’
“It started with me teaching runaways after I fed them. Then I expanded the hours and raised money to build the dorms. There wasn’t much, but I had to do something. At first, the children slept on padded mats on the floor.”
My stomach churns, and my throat feels tight.
I remember last night, how Kaiser tucked me into his side.
At some point, he pulled me on top of him.
When I woke up this morning, he was wearing me like a weighted blanket.
I got the sense that he was able to sleep anywhere, anytime, in any condition. “Kaiser did that?”
“He would never stay the night. The older children were like that. They’d bring the young ones in and encourage them to stay, but they preferred street sleeping.
I tried to meet them where they were.” He gives me a brief smile.
He seems lost in memory. It may be an act to lead me on, but I sense real emotion in his voice when he talks about his ministry. At least part of this is genuine.
“He did allow me to teach him to read.”
“And then he joined the gang. Or helped start it.”
“He joined after it started. There were a few years when he and his twin were… separated from us.”
What? “What does that mean?”
“That’s Kaiser’s story to tell. But I hope you will ask him.”
My thoughts are swirling. Father Francis has given me some answers, but I only have more questions.
I want to know everything about Kaiser. I tell myself this is so I can destroy him anytime I wish, but really, it’s because I want to know him.
“Ask him. I’m sure he will tell you, Bella.”
I shake my head, remembering the scars on his back, the ones he covered with tattoos. “He won’t.”
“You won’t know until you ask.” But I do.
Kaiser lied when he said he wanted communion. He doesn’t want connection; he wants control. He won’t let me touch him, even when he wants it. Instead, he makes the rules. He touches me, pretending we’re close while manipulating my every move. Intimacy that’s as fake as an arranged marriage.
“It’s not like we’re really getting married.”
“The marriage will be real.”
“If my father wants an alliance so much, he should marry Kaiser.” As soon as I say it, I want to take it back. I want Kaiser all to myself. For now.
“That won’t be enough to seal the alliance. Your father doesn’t value his life. He values yours.”
“Whatever.”
Father Francis folds his hands together, his expression turning serious.
“Do you know what they call your father? The Poisoner. Several months ago, Alfredo Vesuvio ordered delivery from his favorite restaurant. By the next morning, he was dead. At first, the doctors thought he’d had a heart attack.
But the head of the Vesuvio family learned later that a second autopsy showed traces of arsenic. Your father poisoned his food.”
“No, he didn’t,” I blurt, before I remember I’m supposed to be mining the priest for information, not volunteering it. “He wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Evidence suggests he did. No one else blends poisons like your father. His techniques are so far advanced, we don’t even know the extent of what he can compound. And we’re his allies.”
I want to snort. The Boscos and Fraternitas are not allies.
Wait. Father Francis said, “We.”
“Are you part of Fraternitas?”
He holds up his hand. There’s no ring. “Not officially.”
“Unofficially?” I’m betting on a priest not lying to me in his own church.
That’s against the rules, right?
He gives me that subtle smile, the one that’s starting to unsettle me. “It was my idea.”