19. Chapter 19
“When I asked to hang out, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Martina said.
When she had called, I already had plans to shoot more footage for an upcoming YouTube video. So I asked her if she wanted to come along.
“You said you would come,” I responded.
“I didn’t know it would be so…creepy.”
We were venturing into the depths of an abandoned apartment building outside the city. Alessio, Martina’s security detail, walked in front of us, and Short Dino covered the rear.
The once-grand structure was now a shadow of its former self, with broken windows and peeling paint on every surface. We cautiously stepped over piles of debris and avoided rusty nails jutting out from the floorboards as we made our way deeper into the eerie space. I would periodically stop and try to get footage from every angle.
“Ooh, ooh, put me in it!” Martina said, jumping in front of the video camera.
I frowned. “You know I don’t put people in my videos.”
“I’ll get you lots of views. Watch.”
Without waiting for a response, Martina took a determined stride to the middle of the cavernous room, neck craning upwards as she surveyed the stairwell that stretched high above us. I watched her, my grip tightening around the video camera.
She took a deep breath and sang towards the high ceiling. Her voice echoed around the stairway and began to fill every crevice. Martina’s voice was flawless, and it sounded as if an angel were serenading us.
I loved my little sister, but I couldn’t deny that I was sometimes jealous of her. It must be nice to be as perfect as she was.
“Ta-da!” she said. “Tons of views, right?”
She was right. That would probably go viral on my TikTok account.
“Yeah, yeah. Congratulations on being the first face posted to my social media.”
“I accept payment in cash or Bitcoin.”
“Bitcoin?” I asked. “Wait, I never said anything about paying you!”
“I’m just kidding.” She lightly pushed on my shoulder as we ascended the first flight of stairs.
“So what’s it like being married to,” she paused, and almost lowered her voice to a whisper. “The Butcher.”
I almost laughed. The world wasn’t privy to Emilio’s true personality. Obnoxious, funny, and thoughtful. And, as I had started to figure out, kind. They only saw a small sliver - the menacing look on his face and blood splatters on his shirt.
“I followed him after Valentina Alto’s funeral,” she admitted. “Dad looked like he was going to shit himself when he confronted him.”
“Well, he’s in the Mafia. He knows how to be scary.”
“Yeah,” she paused for a few moments, and I thought she was going to drop the subject of my marriage. “He doesn’t like, throw you around or force you to have sex, right?”
I almost choked on my spit. How could she have the audacity to even consider asking such a thing? My mind raced, desperately searching for a way to respond without losing my composure.
Also, Short Dino was walking three feet behind us. He could clearly hear every word of our conversation. I didn’t want to mention anything about our nonexistent sex life in front of him.
“That’s not exactly something you should ask someone,” I said.
Martina stopped in her tracks, her face panicked. “You didn’t say no. Does that mean-”
“No! Jesus, Martina. Look,” I said. “Emilio is fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Ok,” she said hesitantly.
Martina’s lips parted as if she was about to speak, but her words were cut short by a sudden scream. Her eyes widened in terror as they landed on a small spider on the railing near her hand.
Laughing, I reached over to the railing and brushed the spider away. It scurried into the darkness, disappearing between the old bricks. I was also grateful that the distraction had shifted the conversation away from Emilio.
“It’s just a spider,” I said.
“You know I hate them!”
We exited on the first floor of the apartment building. What I saw made me feel like someone punched me in the lungs. It was the same symbol I had seen in my previous exploration. The circle with a V cut out in the upper left-hand corner, with the two dots on the bottom right.
Only this time, it was everywhere. The person had painted multiple on the floor, walls, and even some on the ceiling.
“What the fuck?” Short Dino said. It was a rare moment when there was any sort of emotion in his voice.
“Yeah, I’m not sure if I like this,” Alessio said. “I think we should head out.”
“It’s fine,” I interjected. “Probably was just a junkie on a trip.”
I didn’t believe that at all. But I wanted to stick around to film this.
Short Dino and Alessio looked at each other and shrugged, but I noticed they kept themselves more alert than before.
Quickly, I rummaged through my bag and brought out my video camera. With a swift motion, I clicked it on and raised it upwards, my gaze focused on the digital screen. The symbols popped into clarity under the lens.
“Doesn’t it seem sort of…familiar to you?” Martina asked. “No, I must be confusing it with something else.”
A sharp twist in my stomach made me recoil, as if I had a physical reaction to her words. Had I always subconsciously known this symbol? It seemed to hold some kind of mysterious power over me, pulling me in with its familiar yet elusive aura. Was it tied to a memory, long forgotten? If not, what was it from?
I was going to press Martina for more information, but was interrupted.
“Luciana,” Alessio’s voice was hesitant, “Are you sure about this? These symbols…they don’t seem right.”
Alessio had been my security detail when I was younger, before I managed to convince my father I was useless and he shouldn’t waste his resources on me. He watched over me from when I was nine to fifteen.
“Superstitious, are we?” I asked, choosing to keep my knowledge of the symbols to myself.
He frowned. “It’s not about superstition. It’s about survival.”
“I’ll record it quickly, then.”
Spending the day with my sister was nice, but it was socially exhausting. I was grateful to be in the silence of my own home, enjoying time (mostly) alone. Short Dino was in the living room, but he didn’t make much noise.
I opened up my laptop and started to edit the footage from the day. The abandoned apartment we had been to was ok, not the most interesting I had ever seen, but certainly not the worst.
I started another deep dive on the symbol. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t able to find anything about it.
But if there was nothing about it online, why did it look familiar to both me and Martina?
Grumbling, I shut my laptop to get ready for bed. Hopefully Emilio would be home soon. I hadn’t mentioned it to him, but I always woke up when he slid into bed at night and wrapped his arms around me.
It was one of the small things I could look forward to.