Chapter 13
Leo
I hightail it out of there and head to my apartment in Tribeca. I’m getting out of the shower when a message pings on my phone. It’s an image, revealing an invitation…to the memorial for Bianca Bonucci that’s to be held in two weeks.
Anger flares inside me. The fucker! He’s really going along with this. Just like that, he’s going to give up on her.
I storm out and take my car to Mattia’s house in Lenox Hill. Traffic’s a bitch, but I let it fuel my frustration instead of letting it get to me. I have a destination in mind, and I won’t back down before I’ve made my point.
Finally, I reach Mattia’s neighborhood and swing the car into his driveway. Once out, I storm to the front porch where I bang on the door instead of ringing the doorbell, rage coursing inside me. If I had my way, I would’ve broken something already, but I know I need to contain myself as exploding won’t do any of us any good.
Mattia opens the door. I brush past him inside and brandish my phone, the invite clearly displayed on the screen.
“What the fuck, man? You’re ready to write her off like this?”
“It’s a memorial, Leo. Something to remember her by—”
“I don’t need a fucking ceremony to remember, damn it! And neither should you. If you go ahead with this, no one will keep on looking for her.”
“You will, though.”
Hana’s quiet voice stops my rant in its stride. I turn toward her and frown. I haven’t seen much of her in recent weeks. Ever since the day I found out Bianca had gone missing, actually.
I don’t know why, but warning bells are ringing in my head as I gaze at her. Hana’s nowhere near the wreck Mattia currently is. Even his father is looking worse for wear lately, though I suspect it’s more from seeing his stepping stool on the syndicate’s ladder disappearing from his sight than the actual loss of his daughter.
I don’t know—something about Hana’s not adding up. She’s as calm as always, composed, maybe even harder-looking than before, if that makes sense. There’s a tension at the corners of her lips, a frown that wasn’t there before in between her eyebrows. She looks ready for battle.
Or maybe I have this completely wrong , a little voice inside tells me. Maybe she’s the one holding Mattia up, and she’s reaching the end of her tether. The frustration in her stance? It could be exhaustion, the fact they’re not catching a break ever since Bianca went missing. Mattia was already beating himself up that he didn’t pull her out of that alliance when she found out who Abrashi really was behind closed doors. He’s felt guilt about this, I know it. He was ready to kill the fucker himself in my restaurant.
This is taking its toll. On all of us, not just me. I have my reasons for wanting her back, but they do, too. Bianca is Mattia’s blood, the little sister he promised to protect. While I looked at the twins as little nuisances, when Bianca was born and we were shown the pink-faced baby, I scrunched my face up. Mattia, he cradled her head in his little palms and kissed her softly on the forehead, already looking out for her.
I glance at my best friend now and take a long, deep look at him. He looks like he’s aged a decade in the past few weeks, since every lead we’ve had on Bianca hasn’t panned out.
This is killing him.
Hana steps up to me and places a hand on my arm. “Leo, you have to stop this. Look at him. Look at what this is doing to him.”
To us. She didn’t add this, but I heard it. There’s hardly any of the complicity they had together after their honeymoon. Mattia told me they were trying for a baby soon after the wedding. Still no good news so far, though.
“Hana, I…”
I was all set to say I’m sorry, but something’s stopping me from uttering those words. From giving up on the search for Bianca.
“Leo, drop it.”
Her tone is so hard, so cold, it takes me by surprise. I never would’ve thought she could even sound like this. Something’s definitely rubbing me the wrong way now, all my senses on high alert. My gut is telling me something’s going on, and I know not to ignore it.
“We need closure,” Mattia says softly.
He exchanges a glance with his wife, and Hana turns and leaves, her mouth a tight line, body tense and stiff. I’ve never seen her like this.
Mattia’s phone rings. When he answers and turns away, I follow in Hana’s footsteps down the hallway. There’s something not adding up here. My heart starts to hammer away.
Do they know something about Bianca? Something they’re not telling me?
Have they found her but won’t disclose it?
The cold, calculated monster in me? He’s rearing his head up. The other monster, the one who fuels my blood? He’s taken center stage since I left Ardian Abrashi’s broken body in a cellar in Hell’s Kitchen for one of my father’s capos to find.
There’s something here—I know it.
Hana’s voice drifts to me as I get close to the conservatory. It’s strange, but I’ve never heard her speaking Japanese before. I know she is of Japanese origin, but Mattia said she’s from Hawai’i. I don’t know the language, but she sounds worried, panicked even.
Secrets , my gut whispers. Secrets abound.
When she whirls around and sees me, she goes so pale, I’m worried she’ll faint. I rush to her, pushing my suspicions away for the time being.
“Hana, what’s wrong?”
She blinks at me, then continues with her phone conversation. It sounds like a man on the other end.
Is she cheating on Mattia? The way she paled, it almost felt like guilt at being caught. I frown, watching her, looking for signs of her duplicity.
The call ends, and I’m about to ask her if she has a lover when Mattia steps into the room, staring at us.
“Han?” he asks.
She gulps, hard. “It’s Bérénice. She’s in labor.”
Mattia pales, too. “But it’s too soon.”
“Hiro’s a mess. I have to be there for him.”
I blink, not able to follow their exchange. This is so not what I was expecting to hear or even what I was imagining.
“Wait, what’s going on?” A thought strikes. She mentioned labor. “Is this…are you guys using a surrogate or something?”
Hana and Mattia both freeze. Then she bites her lip, pleads with her husband with a look. When he finally gives a small nod, his shoulders slump, and he sighs.
“Hiro is Hana’s brother,” he tells me.
I’m stunned and stare at him. “I thought she was an orphan.”
He shakes his head. “She is, but…it’s complicated.”
“Matti, I have to go,” she says, almost begging.
He nods. “Yes. Sure.”
I’m still trying to keep up when she leaves and we’re alone in the room. The silence is ringing with surprise for me.
So yes, it turns out Hana’s indeed been hiding something. It has nothing to do with a lover, though, and even less to do with Bianca. What was I thinking, though? That Hana knows where Bianca is, that she’s hiding her? Why would she do this? Why on Earth would she put Mattia through such hell?
I shake my head, clasp the nape of my neck in my palms. I’m losing my mind. The monsters have taken over and are having a field day erasing any rational part of me. All this searching for Bianca, it’s making me paranoid. I’m going to lose my shit at some point if I keep this up.
“Matti,” she yells. “I can be on a plane that leaves in ninety minutes.”
“Book it.”
I blink at him. “She’s going to…?”
“Japan? Yes.”
“And she has a brother?”
Mattia sighs. “It’s a long story. You better come with me to the airport.”
Soon, we’re on the way JFK. Hana remains silent as Mattia brings me up to speed. Hana’s indeed an orphan, in that her parents are dead, but she does have a brother, who happens to be the foster son and heir apparent to a Yakuza boss in Tokyo. He’d been hiding her in Hawai’i, until gang activity ramped up there, putting her safety at risk. She came to New York then, met Bianca, but Mattia soon found out who she was.
In exchange for Mattia’s protection, his father suggested an alliance between their two families. I snort hearing this. That bastard of Roberto Bonucci is playing on all fronts, it seems, aligning with the Yakuza through one child and the Albanians with the other, and through the latter, with the syndicate, too.
I think back to their wedding day, to how Bianca was rankled by their non-existent PDA on such a momentous occasion. She’d been on to something—it was essentially an arranged match. No wonder Mattia waited for his wedding night to bed Hana.
Bianca. She’d been on the money about this. What else did she get right? She found out about Abrashi before any of us, knew what he was capable of right away.
My stomach churns. A dark alleyway leading to a crossroad of back ways in The Bronx, which is Albanian territory. Blood in a splatter on the wall, the drops stopping at the end of the alley. No further traces of her, and that dark sedan with the tinted windows could’ve been anyone’s car.
I recall a son of a bitch telling us he’s good at what he does because he always covers his tracks.
I refuse to look it in the face, but I have to.
Ardian Abrashi lured Bianca to The Bronx, attacked her, abducted her…and most probably killed her and got rid of her body, covered his tracks so we have no way of finding her ever again. Until his family found a new bride to marry him off to, his girlfriend would’ve given birth to their child. His family would’ve had to accept the fait accompli and marry them off for the child’s sake, to legitimize its birth. Ardian would be off the hook, happy with his wife and baby, all while the nuisance of his fiancée would’ve been dealt with and forgotten about.
He planned it all out, and worse, he pulled it off, too. The fact I killed him doesn’t change a thing for Bianca in this deal. She lost, either way.
As we drop Hana off at the terminal, I also drop the weight I’ve been carrying—the one of trying to find Bianca Bonucci when all clues point to her being gone…
I don’t want to admit it, but Mattia is right. His family needs closure.
And for this, I need to let the very idea of Bianca Bonucci being alive go.