Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Tatiana
For a week, I do nothing but grieve.
Even as my body heals, my soul dies a little more each day.
My mother paid my medical bill in advance.
She was clever enough to have done so in cash.
She never left anything to chance. She believed in always being prepared for any unforeseen event.
For that reason, she’d stashed away a small sum of cash she’d pinched from the grocery allowance every week until, over the years, it had accumulated in a substantial amount of money, which she’d hidden behind a loose tile on the side of her tub.
Every so often, she’d take me into her bathroom and show me the plastic bags filled with banknotes so that I wouldn’t forget where to find them if anything happened to her. She’d said it was our secret, that Leander and my father weren’t to know about the money.
She was right to have settled the cost of my treatment at the clinic in cash.
Leander would’ve traced her credit card payment to find me.
He’s reached out to me on social media via direct messages.
I used one of the nurse’s phones to check if there was any news from Dante.
A part of me still hoped what had happened was a misunderstanding and that I was mistaken.
I told the nurse I wanted to get in touch with my family.
She was kind enough to let me browse on her phone for a few minutes every day while she was dressing my wounds.
There were indeed messages.
Plenty.
Dante blew up my inbox, asking me to come to him. To call. Then telling me he’d find me, no matter how long it took him. Not once did he say he was innocent, that he wasn’t responsible for the rocket that blew up my father’s cars.
The news reports later stated the middle car was the target.
My father never went anywhere without a convoy.
The car in which he traveled always drove in the middle.
He must’ve changed his mind at the last minute and instructed his driver to follow at the back.
Maybe he had a foreboding that something was going to happen.
The first two cars were hit the hardest. Even so, my father and his entourage didn’t escape.
His driver crashed into the burning wreck in front of them.
Their car caught fire. The rest… I don’t want to think about it.
The fact that Dante didn’t deny his involvement spelled out his guilt loud and clear.
He might as well have shouted it from the rooftops.
He never gave a damn about me. He only used me to kill my family and take over his enemy’s territory.
That’s how it works in their organizations.
There are always wars for power. And if the man who played me didn’t care about me, there was no reason for him to want to find me…
except if he wanted to finish what he’d started.
He’d want to make sure he gets rid of my father’s heirs so that we don’t lay claim on the inheritance he’s taken for himself. In our circles, it’s standard procedure to kill your victims’ next of kin so there’s no risk of vengeance to come back at you. Leander would probably be next.
Ignoring the pain that ripped like a clawed fist into my stomach, I deleted Dante’s messages. My brother’s messages weren’t any better. I never expected solace, but he gave new meaning to being a menacing asshole.
At first, Leander told me to come home so we could bury my parents in the respectful way they deserve to be put to rest. When that didn’t work, he resorted to threats, describing in detail how he’d cut my baby out of my womb if he ever got his hands on my whoring body.
Then he told me if I felt any loyalty toward our family, I’d marry Joni Stein and let Joni avenge my parents’ deaths.
What he never mentioned was that Dante took over my father’s territory the moment my father was dead.
Dante didn’t waste any time in amassing power.
Even now, he’s running the show from his new throne, not showing a stitch of mercy or remorse.
I follow the news, and although there’s no evidence to back the allegations, everyone knows Dante Morici gained the most from my father’s death.
He’s stolen my family’s empire, snatching it away from right under Leander’s nose.
One of the girls from my high school, whose father worked with mine, happened to mention in the condolence message she emailed me that Dante offered my father’s men a deal.
Most of them took it. To not have done so would’ve meant their heads on figurative spikes.
Only a handful remained with Leander, leaving him powerless.
Jazz sent a message to warn me that Leander has been pestering her about my whereabouts.
He probably would’ve followed her if it weren’t for the fact that he was too drunk to stand on his feet when she fetched the bag with clothes for me and the baby from the condo.
Jazz lied for me, telling Leander she’d dropped the bag off at the local hospital and that she had no idea where I’d gone after that.
We agreed then and there that it was safer if I disappeared and to cut all contact between us.
As soon as I can move around, I get dressed and discharge myself. I still feel pain with every step I take, but I’m sure Leander is turning the city upside down to find me.
Dante too.
Leander told me in one of his many messages I’d inherited half the shares of the company, and that I should come forward to claim them.
He was stupid enough to mention in the same message that the shares were part of the marriage contract my father had negotiated with Joni Stein.
He still said nothing about Dante, but my mother had been right.
Dante was never there for me. He was only there for the money and the territory, and if I’m to inherit a part of it, it only endangers my life.
Using the money my mom had left in the bag, I take a taxi to the address my mom had whispered in my ear.
What I find there shakes me to my core. My mom told me she’d stolen something valuable from my father as insurance for a rainy day.
I expected savings certificates or money but not an antique diamond necklace that had been all over the news, a necklace that had disappeared mysteriously from a museum exhibition.
It seems that my mom had her own agenda when she stole the necklace from the safe, because I also find false passports for her and me, a loaded gun with extra bullets, a burner phone, and cash.
My mom was planning on leaving my father. She was going to leave Leander behind, take me, and run away, and if her careful preparations are anything to go by, she’d been planning this for quite some time.
But because of my terrible error in judgement, she died before she could be free. So I honor her effort. I honor her memory by becoming someone else. And then I do what she wanted us to do, what Dante forces me to do.
I run.