Chapter 42 Rem
REM
Lena is dead. The knowledge is all-consuming, drowning me. I’ve never felt this kind of darkness in my life. Like I want to evaporate into nothing, but a ten-story building is crushing me to the ground, pinning me in my own personal hell.
I twist in bed. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I’m aware of the beeping of the heart monitor.
The various wires and lines connected to me.
The IV of painkillers that has become the closest thing I can find to peace in this purgatory.
I press the red button, hoping it will send me crawling back to restless sleep.
I see her there. Feel her hand wrapping around mine.
Her lips against my cheek. Can smell her soft scent, can inhale deep and fill my lungs with her.
Drown myself in her. Then, I wait for the bliss.
The comfort. The sense of being home. Only for her absence to permeate the recesses of my brain and expose my dreams for what they are, nothing more than desperate, cruel tricks of the mind.
In my nightmares Lena is a ghost and it’s killing me.
I’ve been in bed for six days, in one of the suites of Aldo’s house that’s been turned into a private medical ward.
Six days of private doctors and nurses and Aldo’s staff coming and going, poking and prodding, staring pointedly at my untouched food, no doubt reporting back to my uncle on my progress.
Aldo comes every morning. Asks me how I’m feeling. If I’m eating.
I never answer, but he doesn’t stop showing up.
I still don’t know what happened to Ari, if he’s dead or alive.
Aldo hasn’t mentioned my brother, and I haven’t been able to say his name.
Just thinking about him makes me want to tear the world apart.
An unholy rage constricts my throat and I press that red button several times in succession, dying for oblivion.
“Pressing it over and over doesn’t do anything.” My uncle enters the room. “Not until it’s time for your next dose.”
Che cazzo. I glare as he sits in the chair near the foot of the bed. “What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“You’re off schedule. It isn’t time for our morning visit. Come back tomorrow.”
Aldo’s expression remains stoic. “I wish I could, but this can’t be put off any longer.”
I’m tied to the bed by wires and IVs and, despite the medication, a wicked pain in my leg. I can’t leave, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen. “Fine, talk all you want. I’m going back to sleep.”
As if closing my eyes offers any solace. I still see her, can’t see anything but her, and the stabbing in my chest puts the one in my thigh to shame.
“We have to talk about Lena.”
I turn my face away from my uncle’s voice. “There’s nothing left to say. She’s gone. We killed her.”
“Is that what you think?”
I ignore his question. “I should’ve made her leave. I never should’ve let her stay here, never should’ve let her anywhere near Ari.”
“As if she would’ve let you stop her.”
I groan, screwing my eyes closed tight. I love Lena’s defiance. No—loved.
I’m pressing the red button again, desperate for anything to knock me out.
Aldo pries it out of my fist and pushes the controls on my bed, forcing me to sit upright.
“Stop, figliolo. I’ve let you hide here for days because it seemed necessary for all involved, but now you need to stop and face reality. ”
I direct a slew of curses at my uncle, all of which he ignores. When I run out of energy I just say, “Give me one good reason why I should.”
“Because Lena would want you to.”
Well, fuck. Talk about kicking me while I’m down, and saying the one thing that will actually make me listen. I push up against the pillows and stare blankly ahead. “Say what you came to say.”
“Pronto.” Aldo returns to his seat, his demeanor as calm and controlled as always. “I’ve sent Ari to Italy.”
“What?” I can’t hide my astonishment. “He’s not dead? He didn’t die in the explosion?”
“He didn’t, no. Nor did I kill him, if that was going to be your next question.”
“You let him live after what he did?”
Aldo sighs and his mask drops for a moment.
He’s weary, heartbroken. Just like me. “What he did to you and Lena was unforgivable, but so is what Marco did to him. After I pulled him from Montecristo and he was patched up enough to talk, Ari revealed just how horribly my brother treated him. His life with Marco was torture. I should never have let him mentor Ari, but it seemed like the right decision at the time. It was the one thing Marco really wanted after I took the position that was supposed to be his. Letting my brother fuck up yours was my fault, Rem. I must take responsibility for that. And, consequently, for what Ari’s done since. ”
“What he’s done?!” I’m shaking with rage, disbelief. “He murdered your daughter, my wife, and you’re taking responsibly by sending him on a fucking trip? That’s your form of justice?”
Aldo gives me a hard look. “I said I’m taking responsibility for his behavior, Remus, not that I’m absolving him of the damage he’s done. I promise that San Luca will be prove adequate punishment for your brother.”
“Nothing you do to him will bring Lena back.”
“No. That depends on you.”
Bring Lena back…
There’s a rushing in my ears as I try to decipher his comment. I can’t make sense of it. “What? Bringing Lena back…depends on…me?”
Aldo nods. “You have a choice, Rem. You can let your need for revenge against your brother take over your life and destroy any chance you have of finding happiness with your wife, or you can let me deal with Aristide as I see fit and, in turn, I’ll place Lena—her life, her safety, her happiness—squarely in your hands. ”
I feel feverish and frozen, both at once. My tongue too large for my mouth, my ribcage too tight to contain the riot of my heart. “I don’t understand.”
“Then listen and I’ll explain,” my uncle says, watching me carefully as he relays, from the beginning, how we ended up in this giant fucking mess.
How it took Ari longer than expected to track Lena down, his search stirring up enough whispers that the rumors about her existence reached Aldo.
How, once Ari found Lena, he was too cowardly to kill her himself. How he wanted to maintain deniability if Aldo ever found out what had really happened.
How Ari tasked me, his fixer, with the job.
How my brother fabricated the evidence against Lena believing it would be sufficient to convince me to kill her, no questions asked.
How, when I rebuffed the order, he implemented a back-up plan, including tapping her phone and bugging her apartment, hiring the Arkhangel (real name Alik Valentin) to take her out, and then another soldier from San Luca—the one who attacked her and Bianca in the parking garage—when Valentin refused to complete the job.
“Does Ari know why Valentin backed off?” I ask.
“No,” Aldo answers. “Only that Valentin said it was a Family matter and he wasn’t getting involved.”
“How did Ari take that?”
“Badly,” Aldo confirms. “Seems he added a few more scars to the ones Alik already has.”
Mentally, I put finding the Arkhangel—Valentin—on a future to-do list. To thank him for bowing out and taking the punishment he knew would come when he failed to complete the job.
“If Ari was the one framing Lena, was he framing our soldiers as well? Planting all that bogus evidence to get our guys locked up? He’s done some heinous shit, but colluding with the Paganos… ”
“No,” Aldo says firmly. “That wasn’t Ari. We haven’t gotten to the bottom of that mystery yet but I’m working on it. Same goes for the car bomb. Your brother didn’t conspire with Rocco Pagano, of that I’m sure.”
“Are you?” Aldo’s expression says to drop it so, for now, I do. “What about Lena’s aunt? How did he explain that?”
“That was truly unfortunate, a loss we’ll never be able to atone for.
” Aldo white-knuckles his way through explaining that burning down Mable’s house was one of Ari’s contingency plans for killing Lena, that through the wiretap on her phone he knew she was supposed to be there and had his men tamper with the gas valves in the house.
When Lena changed her plans, it was already too late to reverse course, too much gas had already leaked into the house.
When Mable Fisher turned on her stove, it was all over.
“And that’s when he tasked the Arkhangel with executing her in her own home. The same night I’d gone there to try to find evidence she was working with the Paganos.”
“You saved her life, Rem. More than once.”
“I lead her straight into the monster’s lair.”
“I don’t think she sees it that way.”
The monitor next to the bed starts beeping rapidly. It takes me a second to realize it’s broadcasting just how fast my heart is beating. “That’s the second time you’ve said something like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like she’s still alive.”
Aldo comes to stand next to the bed. He grips my face in his cool, strong hands and plants a paternal kiss on the top of my head. Before he pulls away, he presses something into my lax fingers. I stare at the gold necklace in the center of my now trembling palm.
Ignoring the giant fucking elephant in the room, Aldo gives me a steady look. “You haven’t answered my question. What will it be: will you pursue Ari yourself, or let me handle him?”
“I hate him. I fucking hate him. And I’ll give you the same answer I gave him when he dared me to choose: I pick Lena. Always, over everyone. Do what you need to do, capo, just tell me what the fuck has happened to my wife.”
Aldo smiles and for the first time in what feels like forever, I feel a shred of hope. “I think I’ll let her do that instead.”