22. Attila
22
ATTILA
C aleph and I became friends when we were fourteen. We’d gone to the same school since kindergarten, but our paths had never had occasion to cross. It was only as I was standing at my parent’s gravesite, and he was standing at his, that we both looked up and watched each other across the graveyard. I stood by the grave on my own; he was surrounded by a few men in suits.
We lost our parents on the same day. Mine had died in a car accident. His parents had been brutally murdered, and there were whispers that they’d been embroiled in a mafia turf war. I didn’t care either way. All I knew was that my parents were now gone and I was on my own. Completely alone. Whilst Caleph, although the last remaining member of his family and also alone, was safe under the wings of his father’s old friend, Durian Accardi, who insisted he go and stay with him.
I was introduced to the Accardis by extension of Caleph’s relationship with Dante Accardi, who had become like a brother to him. And the three of us were always up to some sort of mischief or other, forming an unbreakable bond that we still shared to this day. When Caleph opened his first munitions factory, I was right there beside him serving as his right hand. And during the expansion, I was still there; I’d always been there in some capacity of another. Even now, I was somehow intrinsically entwined in all of Caleph’s assets, after investing the bulk of my small inheritance in his ventures. Some were more mine than his, but munitions would always be his baby.
“So bring me up to speed on the situation,” Dante says, as he sits in the chair opposite me. I rattle off all the facts to date, noting the way his brows rise in surprise when we tell him about the tracker.
“You don’t want her family to find that tracker,” he says, and it’s also the one fear I’ve had throughout this entire ordeal.
“They won’t,” The Jekyll pipes up.
“How can you know that?”
“The girl is smart. We spoke about what she should do if there was even the remotest possibility that the tracker could be found.”
“Which is?”
I turn to The Jekyll, fix him with a curious look. And for some reason, I’m fuming. When did he even get the time to have a whole conversation with her? I’m suddenly jealous of this time he had with her.
Luna’s face flashes before me. Her dark blond hair with its sun kissed highlights and almond eyes as she set her assessing gaze on me, lighting me up from the inside out. That brief interlude when she scorched my skin with her fingers; the one time in my life when I aimed for casual yet now gulped back my regret.
“When the fuck did you have the time to discuss all this with her?” I ask angrily. Just knowing that he had a private conversation with her is making my blood thicken with anger. Dante clicks his tongue and his eyebrows rise in surprise at my sudden outburst.
“What’s gotten into you?” The Jekyll asks. “You couldn’t wait to ditch her, now you’re getting all defensive on me because we had a damn conversation?”
I turn away in disgust, although I don’t know if it’s out of anger at him or myself that I’m affected by them having their own little moment. I know what happened between Luna and me, but I never stopped to consider if anything happened between them. I rack my brain for any memory I have of leaving them alone together long enough for something to happen.
But no. There was never a time that I left them for more than ten or fifteen minutes. But then, a lot could happen in ten minutes.
“What really happened between you two?” I ask. I’m genuinely curious to know, but I wonder what it will do to me if he actually tells me that something did happen. My heart beats out of my chest as I watch him carefully for a reaction. Would I even know if he’s telling me half truths?
“I could ask you the same question, Attila,” he spits. “Because your anger outweighs the circumstances. And for the record, nothing happened between us.”
I watch as he gets up from his seat and heads toward the back of the plane, where he takes a seat with one of the mercenaries and buckles his seatbelt.
“This is not like you, Attila,” Dante points out, sitting back in his seat.
“I don’t like secrets, nor surprises.”
“I don’t believe he meant either. He considered the situation and took the necessary action required to remedy the situation.”
“The fact that we got into the car and drove for almost an hour, and neither brought up their conversation. That’s where I’m coming from. Why keep it from me?”
“What’s really going on here, Attila?” Dante asks. He’s not one to pry, and I know he’s just coming from a place of brotherly concern. But I don’t even know how to answer that. The Jekyll was right; my anger is not justified. He did what he thought best at the time, and for whatever reason, he kept it from me. It could be any one of a number of reasons, all of which I didn’t want to harp on.
When I don’t answer, Dante looks out the window momentarily, as though weighing his words, before turning back to me.
“You know. It’s okay not to have control all of the time,” he tells me. “I know you like to be in control of every situation. And that’s good… most of the time. But it’s okay to sometimes let go and let the chips fall where they may.”
“Like I said, I don’t like surprises.”
“But sometimes it’s the surprises that keep us going and give us something worth fighting for.”