Chapter 6
Aurora
Curse keeps his impeccable, empty-eyed cool when speaking to the border agent.
Meanwhile, even beneath the luxurious warmth of the down-filled parka and the with seat heater on, I’m trembling.
I manage to hand over my fake passport when asked without dropping it, at least, and give a sickly smile when the border agent’s eyes go to my face.
His attention seems to linger a little too long, and my smile falters, nausea rising.
But then Curse says something about us coming back from a wedding, and I realize the agent is probably noticing what’s got to be some very badly messed up makeup ringing my eyes and streaked down my cheeks.
I wipe at my face, even though I know it likely won’t do any good.
After another gut-twisting moment of waiting, we’re cleared to go.
Curse takes our documents, and hands the passport back to me.
I have no idea how he managed to do it, but the photograph in this fake passport is my real passport photo.
Marco told me to renew it not long after Papà died and wedding preparations were in full swing.
There were plans, I was fairly sure, to go on some kind of month-long honeymoon and business trip.
I never learned where we would be going, though.
Marco didn’t bother to inform me or ask for my input.
And obviously he won’t be taking me anywhere now.
I stare at the swirling white of the snow outside, forcing myself to focus on what I see in front of me so I don’t see the images inside my own head. Images of Marco dead on the floor, blood spreading beneath his body like ink.
Images of his uncle, alive, twenty-two years ago.
Their eyes were so close in colour.
Their hands felt just the same.
“We’re stopping here.”
Once again, Curse rescues me, this time from the toxic pull of my thoughts.
“Here?” I ask, squinting. “Where?”
I can’t see much of anything beyond the snow. We’re basically in the middle of a blizzard right now.
“There’s a motel.” As he says it, the building seems to pull itself out of the frothy whiteness, a lone structure backing onto spiky coniferous trees.
“I have a place in Montreal,” Curse continues.
“But I don’t want to keep driving through this.
And I want to ditch the vehicle before we go to a property associated with me. ”
“You’re going to get rid of your vehicle? At a motel?”
I wonder if he just plans to abandon it here as he puts it into park.
“I know some people,” he says, sliding a darkly sardonic glance my way. “I can have it in a shipping container at the port of Montreal by midnight tonight. They’ll scrape the VIN right off.”
“Then what? It’ll just stay hidden there in a container?”
“No, it’ll get shipped off to Africa or the Middle East,” he says. “Happens every day. Usually, the vehicles are stolen first. I’ll just be…” He pauses, as if searching for the right words. “I’ll just be making a donation.”
I let that absorb. He seems to have figured everything out.
Plans upon plans upon plans. I think again about what he said when I asked him what he was doing in New York, and his flippant response that he was there for a wedding.
The fact that he already had a fake passport ready with my photo in it makes it clear that the wedding he was there for was mine.
He intended to take me with him before I ever pushed Marco. Before I ever even made that call.
Was he at the ceremony? It’s surreal to think he might have been. That the boy I loved as a child, and the man who’d rejected me so soundly as a teen, could have been silently watching me marry someone else tonight.
Why the hell was he there?
What does he want with me?
Right now, he wants me to put the parka on properly, apparently, because that’s what he tells me to do.
I slide my arms into the sleeves and yank on the zipper.
I’m just pulling up the hood when he comes around to my side and opens the car door.
Wind blasts in, bringing with it a flurry of snowflakes.
“Put these on.” He dangles a pair of winter boots in front of me.
I take them, ditching my wedding heels and sliding my feet inside the fluffy warmth.
“Anything you don’t want to keep, leave it here.
” He eyes my abandoned shoes where they glitter on the floor of his car.
I make no move to retrieve them, and at the last second I toss my phone down there, too.
Then, I step out of the vehicle. All I’ve got with me now are the clothes Curse provided and the new, fake passport.
Angela LeBlanc. What would it be like? To be her for a while?
Although I’m still wearing Aurora Bianchi’s wedding lingerie. But I’m sure I can ditch that somewhere. I want to get it off my body as quickly as possible. If I can’t get the fasteners undone, I’ll cut it all off if I have to.
A lone light glows above a door ahead, a warm little beacon in the battering wind and snow. As we make our way towards it, I slip on an icy spot, not used to the new boots which are a touch too big for me. Curse catches me firmly by the elbow and doesn’t let go until we walk through the door.
I’ve never been to a motel before. And after everything that’s happened tonight, I expect something much worse than what I see. Because what kind of motel would two murderers on the run end up at?
Murderer.
I am one now. I don’t care what Curse says. I’m the one who started all of this.
I’m the one who brought death down upon Marco Messina’s head tonight.
But I guess even someone undeserving like me can catch a break, because the small lobby of the motel is clean and cozy with a cabin-like feel.
Curse speaks rapid French with the proprietor, a short older man with glasses.
I realize that Curse is still wearing his mask.
I keep my hood up, shielding my face from any potential cameras.
Curse pays with cash, a combination of colourful bills. I’ve only been to Canada once, that trip with Mia when I was sixteen, but I remember loving the shiny, rainbow bills and the coins with the animals on them. Polar bears, loons, and caribou. I don’t remember which bill or coin is which, though.
I might be here for a while. I’d better learn. Angela LeBlanc was born in Montreal, after all…
The man behind the desk tells Curse a few more things.
He could be telling him anything from the WiFi password to warning him about the local bigfoot legend for all I understand of the conversation.
When he’s finished speaking, he hands Curse a key attached to a big plastic tag that’s stamped with the number 13.
Lucky us.
We make our way back out into the storm, following the line of the building until we reach our room.
It’s way at the far end. I wonder if Curse asked for a room far away from everyone else.
Not that being crowded looks like it’s going to be a problem.
I’m not sure if it’s the weather or the somewhat obscure location of this tree-ringed motel, but I don’t see any other vehicles parked in front of the other motel room doors.
I give a small sigh of relief at that.
Curse unlocks the door and holds it open for me.
I enter the room and turn on a lamp, finding it much the same as the lobby was.
Clean and surprisingly homey, with warm wood accents and more than one plaid throw blanket about the place.
Only one bed, though, I notice. Not very big either.
A double, by the looks of it. There’s a small desk with a chair, a TV, and a door that I assume leads to a bathroom.
A bathroom which I only now realize that I need badly.
“I’ll be right back.”
Curse has just locked the door behind us. He turns at the sound of my voice, then gives a single nod. The bag that had my outfit in it is empty now, and left behind in the car, but he’s got another, larger duffel bag with him, which he sets down on the bed and unzips.
He pulls out a gun. The metal of it glints dully in the corner of my vision as I head for the bathroom.
I turn the lock on the handle when I’m inside, though I don’t really know why. If Curse wanted to, he could get through this locked door without any real effort at all. He got into Marco’s house like every door and window had been left wide open for him.
I’ve heard whispers about him over the years.
Him and his brother both. How Elio has become a terrifying force to be reckoned with north of the border, powerful, calculating, and unrelenting.
And I’ve heard how feared Curse is as the Titone famiglia’s best assassin.
I’ve heard how he’s killed men that he never should have been able to access, men with guards and guns and security systems galore.
Slipping in and out like a ghost, leaving untold violence in his wake.
Or sometimes, leaving nothing at all. No body.
Not like tonight, though. Marco is probably still exactly where we left him, with his throat slit open on the floor.
Thinking about this, that someone will no doubt find the body soon, stabs panic into my belly like a knife.
I came in here to pee, but instead I hunch over the toilet and vomit.
I didn’t eat much at the wedding dinner, so it’s mostly burning bile.
My throat stings, my eyes blurring with tears as my body tries over and over to eject more than it contains.