Chapter - Bay
BAY
The first one of them I kill is Matt.
It happens exactly one month after the Halloween incident.
And that first time, I have Ennio’s help.
He works with me to put together a plan that will keep me safe from any potential police investigation.
At this point I no longer have any doubts about who he is, he doesn’t bother to hide it anyway.
Ennio Ferro is the nephew of Anzo Ferro, the mafia capo. The Ferro family is the biggest and most powerful in the city, and he has access to resources I couldn’t even dream of.
To make my alibi absolutely solid, Ennio promises he’ll abduct Matt while I’m at school.
After school everything goes as usual.
My parents drive me and Alex home, but I slip out through the back entrance, making sure none of the cameras my parents have scattered all around the house catch me.
I push through the shrubs and come out onto a side street about one thousand feet east of my parents’ property.
There is already a car waiting for me, and Ennio is the only one inside.
I look at him in surprise. I had expected him to show up with his alpha bodyguards. Or soldati, or whatever they’re called.
"Wow, you kidnapped Matt by yourself?"
Ennio levels a cold stare at me.
"A gun is a powerful force equalizer, besides, I know a thing or two about self-defense and martial arts, and he was no real opponent. A village thug with five brain cells," he adds, his face staying just as unmoving and coolly superior as always.
"I know a bit about that too, but kidnapping… That requires a little more than that."
No comment comes.
We pull away and Ennio drives, and I’m afraid to ask the question, but at the same time I’m not afraid at all, which feels strange. I feel this rush in me, like I’m high on adrenaline.
"Where is he?"
"He’s waiting somewhere it will be easy to get rid of him."
And that is the entire answer I get.
Ennio gives me a brief, unreadable look.
"Next time you’ll have to take care of these things on your own. I’m helping you this one time. I have my own matters to handle."
I swallow hard. "But I don’t have a car," I throw out the most pathetic argument any beginner killer could possibly come up with.
Ennio sighs deeply. "You can legally have a driver’s license already. And if you don’t have a car, I could lend you one from time to time, just learn how to drive at least a little so you don’t crash with a body in the trunk."
I stare at him for a moment. This man has an answer for everything.
"Thanks. How do I repay you?"
He rolls his eyes slightly. "You keep asking that. You’d better believe I’m the kind of man who always collects his debts. One day I’ll come, and when that happens, you’ll return the favor without hesitation. Are we clear?"
"Will it be killing someone?"
Ennio gives me a look like my words are mildly amusing.
"What else could I possibly want from you?"
"I don’t know. Money? Sex? Transporting drugs in my stomach?"
Ennio seems almost entertained, even though his face doesn’t show it, it looks like a perfectly still mask for the most part.
"None of those things, and definitely not fucking, I don’t do alphas. Or minors."
I freeze for a moment and then stare at him again, eyes wide. His profile doesn’t move at all, this guy kidnapped an alpha and now he’s just calmly driving, one hand on the wheel, the other elbow hanging out the window, completely relaxed.
We drive through a dark forest, and even though our conversation is not overly shocking, I still feel this constant awareness of where we’re heading and what is about to happen, like a background hum that burrows into my mind.
"Fucking… that’s not something I can even think about right now," I mutter. "After what happened, I don’t want it now or in the future."
Ennio glances at me sideways, his flawless profile with that classical Roman nose looking like it was carved by some perfectionist sculptor.
"Don’t shut yourself off from something like that, Bay. Don’t let them take more from you than they already did."
His words hit me in a certain way, because he’s right, I don’t want to give them power over me, not those bastards, not after everything the first ones already took.
"Treat everything like a winner, not a loser. Take every fall as a lesson, turn it into strength and come back twice as strong."
"I read about that… that this kind of thing, trauma, can cast a shadow over… you know. Those matters."
Ennio makes a sound that’s something between a snort and a grunt.
"There’s a way out of everything. If not the soft way, then the hard way. Focus on physicality, on sensations, cut out everything else, every doubt, fear, uncertainty. Push through it and take what’s yours."
"I don’t even… you know. Do it. Myself."
Ennio is silent for a moment. He clearly didn’t sign up for this kind of counseling halfway through a drive to a planned murder. His lips twist barely noticeably, like the topic disgusts him a little.
"Why not?"
"I’m still angry. Miserable. I feel broken, I don’t have the mental… you know, strength to even fantasize. I’m stuck in this kind of darkness all the time."
There’s a moment of silence as we turn onto some narrower local road.
"That Alex? He’s your boyfriend, or what?" Ennio asks suddenly.
"He’s kind of a boyfriend but not completely, kind of a best friend too, honestly I don’t really know, the lines are blurry, but we, you know, we don’t do anything like that."
Ennio is silent again for a moment, but I want to know more.
"You managed to get over it, how?"
He snorts with impatience, as though he is angry that he has to explain everything quite so literally.
"At some point I just made the decision that I wouldn’t let anyone take away that basic gift our bodies give us, the ability to feel pleasure.
I suggest you do the same, start with an internal decision.
Put on a porn video or create your own vision.
Don’t sit in the corner of your own psyche, frightened.
Consciously direct your paths, your choices. Fight. Never give up, got it?"
I stay quiet for a moment while the forest stretches around us, the road cutting through empty land.
"It sounds so easy when you say it."
"Never let your enemies win, not even the ones inside your own head. Move forward, even if every step is brutal, still push. Then one back to regroup, then another, until eventually it gets lighter, until it settles into your bloodstream. Continue, no matter what kind of shit life throws at you."
I don’t comment on his words because there’s truth in them, and it’s hard not to agree that it’s probably the best strategy anyone can take, the only question is whether I have enough strength to deal with everything life has thrown at me.
I’m not a mafioso, I don’t have that soldier-like mindset Ennio carries so naturally, but… who knows. Maybe I could start building something like it in myself?
We slow down as we drive onto a side dirt road, deeper into the forest.
"What is this place?" I murmur.
"State forests," Ennio replies shortly.
I don’t ask anything else because there’s no point. Tension rises inside me.
We drive for a long stretch along the uneven track, with swampy terrain around us and huge puddles across the path.
The SUV rocks heavily, dusk already settling between the trees.
Finally, Ennio turns once more, this time driving across a completely raw, earthy, wooded area that barely qualifies as a road, and eventually we stop in what looks like a small clearing.
There’s an old shed standing there.
With calm movements, Ennio takes out a gun and then gets out of the car, so I follow him with nervous steps.
He unlocks the door and we step inside the shed.
I hear something muffled.
There’s a closed wooden crate against the wall.
My heart pounds in my chest as Ennio opens it with another key.
A choked sound reaches me, the kind someone furious might make if their mouth were gagged.
It’s Matt Hanson, tied up like the pig he is.
A feeling spreads through my whole body, like I just drank suffocatingly sweet liquor.
"Take the gag off his mouth," I say, feeling something cold as liquid nitrogen settle inside me, something free of fear, because I remember the events from Halloween far too well.
Ennio removes the gag from Matt’s mouth.
"You bastard!" Matt bursts out. "You have no idea what you’ve done, my whole family will come after you, and there are plenty of us!" he screams.
"What I plan to do is wipe out every member of your family who even slightly threatens me," I throw back, not recognizing my own voice, but there’s something new in it, something that matured over the past year since my childhood ended.
The old Bay is gone, and staring at Matt, I feel something new crystallizing inside me.
"But you know… I’ll be more fair than you were," I say slowly.
"I’ll free you now. We’ll fight. The better one wins."
Ennio looks at me with slightly raised eyebrows.
"Are you sure, Bay? You don’t have developed glands yet, you don’t have the source to pull extra strength from," he says matter-of-factly.
I snort.
"My strength doesn’t come from that shit," I gesture to my neck, "I have… you could say another source," I answer coldly.
What’s astonishing is that Ennio doesn’t try to argue or convince me otherwise. He simply takes out his gun and stands by the wall with an indifferent expression.
And that works for me.
He treats me like an adult.
I say I want this, and fine, I’ll get it. A fair deal, whatever happens, it’s on me.
Adults live with the shadow of consequences, and I’m an adult, that was raped into me.
I take off my hoodie. Then my T-shirt. I see Matt’s eyebrows lift slightly.
Standing over him, I straighten up. We look at each other. His gaze slides over my tattoos, but he doesn’t comment. Ennio stays silent too. Good, because in this room there is only raw, naked truth.