50. Ara
Goosebumps erupt along my skin as I wear a long black dress and coat because its cold as fuck tonight. I almost find it fitting. I feel like I’m walking to my own grave. It’s most likely why Luca told me to wear all black. Which suits me just fine because it’s my favorite color. Besides all of the events, glam, and attention constantly suffocating me I feel myself now more than ever.
The only person I sent a text to was Dmitri. Not that I entirely trust him, but he is also in a way the only friend I have. He has after all seen the true me. And should I not resurface from the Armani mansion, I can depend on him at least to initiate the final step of my plan. He would after all gain one of my father’s companies he had originally bargained for. I advised if he doesn’t hear from me in two days, I’ve given him clear instruction to pull the strings I’ve been carefully webbing for the last few years.
Even in my death I have every intention of wreaking havoc. It feels oddly freeing despite my beating heart and trembling hands as the Armani mansion comes into sight.
Luca’s driver picked me up less than an hour ago and now we’re moving up the pebbled driveway toward the ominous mansion where in some ways it all began. Well, when I first encountered Luca anyway. I haven’t been here since, and now it feels like returning to the devil’s den.
When we park outside the main entrance, Lorenzo is waiting for me beside the front wooden doors. When the car comes to a complete stop, he makes his way to open the door for me. He looks me up and down and pauses momentarily on the black boots I’ve opted instead of heels. A stark contrast to the elegant dress I wear and etiquette of most women he’s probably used to dealing with. Fuck it. Luca wanted black; I am not going to give him an elegant gothic bride. I am going to do this my way.
“Mr. Armani is waiting for you,” he says and gestures me through the front door.
“Lucky me,” I sarcastically say. Lorenzo is watching my every step in his peripheral but says nothing as I pull back my shoulder and raise my chin. I find it ironic he’s double my size but looks at me like I’m the threat.
My palms have become clammy and I can’t steady my breathing. I try my hardest to act like my usual calm and cold self. I never thought the closer I’d get to the end I’d feel waves of emotions and trepidation. If not for the phantom of my mother, I would’ve had nothing to strive toward either. Nothing to live for. Who would I be without all this bottled hate and cold calculation to ruin others.
Most likely, my mother would hate the woman I’ve become. I made my peace with that considering we definitely wouldn’t meet in the same place in the afterlife. If there was such a thing. Yet I find myself holding onto the small delicate cross she always wore. I didn’t believe in the faith, but I believed in her.
“Is he going to kill me, Lorenzo?” I ask as we walk down the main hall of the mansion. It’s so quiet tonight I swear a pin drop could be heard. I felt no reluctancy in casually asking Lorenzo because I was already in the belly of the den. Despite his brutal appearance I’d never quiet been scared of him.
Lorenzo doesn’t reply, and I suppose that’s as good as a yes. A pang of guilt runs through me. Perhaps I should’ve said goodbye to the girls in some way. I am just about to go missing off the face of the earth after all. Guilt rides me hard. If they knew this side of me, would they really accept me?
I told myself for so long it was a lie and I was being disingenuous toward them. The truth is all parts were me. I’d just never had a friend group like that to share those thoughts or experiences with. I thought I was simply using them but realized too late they’ve given me a gift I’ll forever be grateful for. Inclusion. That in the past six months, for the first time in my life, I haven’t felt entirely alone.
When we walk past the office a dark shadow crosses the room. Dario is sitting on one of the leather couches with a glass of whisky pressed to his forehead. He seems confused when I walk by. He recognizes me, but I doubt from our first encounter. Most likely from photos, tabloids, and articles about my association with his brother. I wasn’t hiding behind a mask or an alias.
This is me.
I pause when Lorenzo descends wooden stairs. Last time I was escorted downstairs I was forced to watch a brutal fight. It is now my belief nothing ever good happens from walking downstairs and yet… I follow.
The moment I look up, a sick nauseous swirl runs through me. Five white masks stare into my direction. The hounds. I take in each and every shape and height. Different sets of eyes stare from the dimly lit bar room. They lean against things lazily as if they are cats awaiting their owner’s arrival. I note two of them have blood on their masks and another chill runs through me.
None of them have the same build as the one who broke into my home that night. I’ll always remember it. The way he smells. The sound of his voice. The color of his almost black eyes. The demeanor of his very existence. I’d already faced him since unmasked. But only once before Luca intervened.
“Through this way, Miss Barone.” Lorenzo gestures to the wooden door. He takes a position beside it and rests his hand on the handle. “Mr. Armani is waiting for you inside.”
“Because that’s not eerie as shit,” I say under my breath. One of the masked men chuckle from behind me. It gives me some type of satisfaction but does nothing to ease my tension. I’ve succumbed to this ending. It is just a shame it is dealt by the hand of the man that inexcusably and irrevocably has been the first to make me feel anything in years. Lorenzo opens the door.
He is not a good man nor am I a good woman. It’s only fitting the same monster carves out my heart first with his stupid unsaid promises. He said he wants me forever. But I am only ever intended to be discarded.
Mine, he’d called me. I don’t even think either of us know how or are capable of love. And that is a fairytale anyway.
We used each other and I had to remind myself of that every waking hour. That whatever I think this raw emotion and feelings are. They’re not for me to acknowledge or for Luca to own.
I step through the door.
The room is dimly lit. The first thing I notice is Luca sitting in the corner casually on a brown leather sofa with whisky in hand. The resemblance between the brothers is fitting. My heart falters and my feet come to a stop when I see the other man in the room. Only a table with two chairs coming between us.
The door shuts behind me and suddenly the space is too small. Ivan is tied to a chair across the room only a few feet away. My fingers itch, aware of Luca watching me.
“This is who you’ve been watching this whole time, isn’t it?” Luca’s voice sings to me like a lullaby.
I can’t yet look in his direction, fixated on the man who’d taken everything from me. The man that it took me over half my life to find.
“It was never me you’d been stalking, was it?”
Luca had always been two steps ahead of me.
But I only need this moment now.
With lightning speed I pull out the gun I concealed within my jacket and point it at Ivan. I expect Luca to move or grapple me to the floor, but he doesn’t so much as sigh.
With a calm voice he says. “Let’s have a quick chat, sweetheart. Don’t worry, Ivan’s not going anywhere.” Ivan’s gagged, beaten bloody, and bruised. He’s barely alive but he is conscious.
I lick my lips. He is finally in front of me.
Luca stands up and out of instinct I point the gun in his direction. He chuckles as he puts his hands in the air. “Have you ever even fired a gun, sweetheart?”
I pull the trigger and the whisky glass he’d been drinking from only moments ago explodes on the side table.
Lorenzo bursts into the room but Lucas’s quick to shout. “Stand down. I’ve got this handled.”
Lorenzo looks between us, his gun already pointed at my head.
I did not come this far to only come this far.
I redirect the gun back in Ivan’s direction. My hands are trembling. I’ve waited for this day for so long. From the moment I first saw him stand over my mother’s limp body and I sat there terrified as a young girl, my legs unable to move. I know without a doubt he wanted to kill me that night too. And part of me wished he had.
“Do you know how disheartening it is to realize it was never me you’d fixated on,” Luca says almost sounding as half crazed as I felt. I watch him from the corner of my eye. His slow predatory steps toward me are unnerving.
“When did you figure it out?” I rasp. My voice doesn’t even sound like my own. Ivan’s in my line of sight as he thrashes and tries to kick out of the chair. Luca acts as if we have all the time in the world, lazily taunting me. I supposed he’d always been like this. The only one who was running out of time was me.
“When you pulled that little arson stunt of yours at Amor. You knew I’d react and call Ivan back to fetch my brother. The night you were in the mansion, Ivan was supposed to be there, wasn’t he? Unlucky for you he tried to steal a shipment of drugs from me the very same night. Then he got sent away to Italy and you were stuck with me. You couldn’t go to Italy and chase him even if you wanted because your father restricted you from being able to apply for a passport. If you did, he’d be made aware and you’d be brought back to his watch with a new hubby in tow. So you had to find another way to bring Ivan back, is that the gist of it?”
My gaze drifts to his and a darkness swirls within those beautiful blue eyes. He’s wearing all black, his dress shirt half undone. “I must confess I didn’t think you had that much crazy in you.”
“I don’t need to hear that coming from you,” I say breathlessly as I’m trying to contain my uncontrollable shaking.
“On the table is the contract between our fathers. I don’t suppose you really need that now do you?”
I flash him another uncertain gaze and shuffle a step to the side, further away from Luca, not at all comfortable with how casually he fills the distance between us. “No. I don’t. I knew early on the contract they’d arranged. The price was my mother, was it not?”
“Ahh but today I found out the motive behind it. Aren’t you the least bit intrigued?” he asks almost flamboyantly as if he’s loving every second of these theatrics and I definitely sense he’s toying with me.
I lick my lips and readjust my hold on the gun. My father’s motivations had always been clear from the moment I tracked back a large deposit into his bank account and he’d suddenly got himself out of a dire situation. But to ask Luca for more…would he even tell me the truth?
Sensing my trepidation, he continues. “You have mafia blood in you, sweetheart. Your father might be a coward. However, your mother came from a line of well groomed ‘businesspeople.’”
I look at him now. “No, my mother was the furthest thing from violent.”
“Perhaps when you were born. Your father and her married under a very convenient contract. Why don’t I have Ivan tell you himself since he’ll be dead by morning anyway,” Luca suggests wholesomely. He walks toward the brute of a man and rips out the gag.
“I should’ve fucking killed you too when you were too young to even string a sentence together,” he seethes.
Luca backhands him, and spit and blood go flying. I’m rattled but also mad. As if Luca was taking my prey. I had to kill this man. Had envisioned it many times before. But standing in front of him with gun in hand is a very different reality.
“Your whore mother put up such a fight. I enjoyed—”
With lightning speed Luca slices from the corner of his mouth up to his cheekbone. Ivan screams as Luca places the gag back into his bloody mouth. “Perhaps he’s not going to give us what we want, after all.”
The gun’s pointed in their direction but Luca’s unfazed. He’s never been scared of me. Even when I tried my hardest to break him from the inside out, he barely even squirmed.
“I don’t understand why you’d do this to your own second in charge?” I say. Wasn’t Ivan important to their hierarchy? Imperative to his business dealings when he wasn’t in town. For him to betray him with a shipment of drugs, wouldn’t he punish Ivan himself? So why would he bring him to me like this on a silver fucking platter?
“Consider it exceptional timing but Ivan stretched his neck out too far when he thought he could steal from me. I love vengeance more than most, but I think for Ivan…you were waiting in line first.”
My heart falters at the sick and twisted endearment.
Was he really letting me have this?
Despite everything I’ve put him through, is he really letting me have this moment?
Luca walks up to me slowly. I should be terrified of this man, especially when I’d seen so much of him. I can’t quiet my beating heart or the raging thoughts that consume me. He could’ve dealt with Ivan himself and I would’ve never known. Instead…he brought me here.
“Why are you toying with me like this?” Tears spring to my eyes and my voice is almost a plea. Luca walks directly in front of me, the tip of my gun pressing to his chest.
He’s not afraid of me and never has been.
He wipes my tears away carefully and I’m frozen beneath his touch.
I’m in shock.
Broken into tiny pieces.
“Because, sweetheart. I’m going to be the one to help you pull the trigger.”