Chapter Twelve
Elio
“I mean, it’s normal to get tired of the hustle and bustle,” Milk said, chewing on the slice of pizza she was eating.
“You just want to settle down and have a comfortable life.” She swallowed, picking up her drink.
“Live your dream, have everything you want, be able to afford every need without having to steal or cheat or kidnap someone, you know?”
I responded to her ideology with a firm nod, unsure how the easy conversation had turned into what they would desire to do with their lives after they quit the criminal activities they were known for.
Their suite wasn’t as large as mine, but it was still classy. The same couch that was in my suite was here, but the living room area was smaller, cozier. The windows didn’t exactly overlook the ocean like it did mine, but while you could still see people on deck, the ocean wasn’t too far away.
Sucking on the straw of her drink and gulping down its contents, Milk dropped it back beside her when she was satisfied.
“If I could have had my way with life, I would have wanted something peaceful … like finishing college, designing a fashion line, having a salon that’s like paradise, a spa place, a good husband, and a perfect family, living in some perfect house somewhere in New York…
” She sighed. “I still plan to do it if we get that gold … I want to be normal.”
Upper nodded, relaxing on the ground, his back leaning against the couch Dog sat on. “If I could have a do-over, I would have fought more for what I deserved.”
“You should have,” Dog muttered after taking a drink from the beer bottle he held. “You came from money … If I were you, no one is booting me out that easy.”
I wasn’t certain what precisely they were talking about. But reading the room, it had to do with Upper’s past.
I had been here for two hours. I wasn’t bored, but I was supremely out of place; though this bunch didn’t point out any oddity, they probably did not find anything bugging about my presence.
Usually, I would call this careless, but I was 78 percent sure they were cordial because Zahra and Elia had found a substantial reason to be cordial with me.
I would not deny that being here was entirely … relaxing; it made me feel good to pull off being amongst these people. My thoughts were tranquil; they suddenly didn’t matter.
Zahra, though, hadn’t left her room since I arrived.
Milk had offered to alert her to my presence, but I refused, deciding to speak to her in my own time while I got to know the people my brother spent his time with.
“I was almost twelve and scared of what I was,” Upper explained. “The royal family did not exactly love me before, so, I left.”
I frowned. “Royal family?”
There was silence around as they looked at me with confused stares.
“You didn’t know?” Elia asked first.
I shook my head.
“I thought y’all ran a storm of background checks on us?” Dog asked.
“We did,” I answered. “Casmiro did,” I clarified. “But I did not bother to check it myself.”
“Why?” Milk asked.
“I did not care enough to waste time checking.”
“Oh…”
“Why were you sent out of the royal family?”
Upper shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t like to talk about it,” he said, gaining Elia’s attention. “It’s, uh … very rough, panic-inducing rough.”
I watched Upper’s gaze lock with Elia’s, which lingered for approximately three seconds before Elia looked away.
Sometimes, I despised my invasive, unnatural, and observant nature. I despised it because half the time I did not want to learn certain things, but I ended up learning them anyway.
“But,” Upper said while breathing in, “one thing I want to do, after we get that gold, is start up my education again. Go to college, learn more, and get a job that pays.”
“What about you, Dog?” Milk blurted out the question.
Dog’s brows snapped down in a frown. “Why the fuck did you attack me like that?”
She blinked. “What?”
“You just asked like you have been dying to know what I would have done with my life and what I want to do.”
She pressed her lips together, cheeks going pink. “I mean…” She was flustered now. “Isn’t that what—what we’re all doing?”
“Yeah, you just came on too—”
“Dog, just answer the bloody question,” Upper spoke over him, glancing at Milk and deciphering her sudden distress.
What a mess.
Dog sighed, raking his fingers through his hair, scattering the already scattered arrangement. “Well … if there was one thing I could redo, I would ask my parents the question that had been burning in my mind when they brought me to Italy. The simple question of ‘why?’”
“Care to explain?” Elia asked.
“My parents … they were murdered a week after they brought me here and took my—” He cleared his throat.
“Well … my dad was an agent for the CIA, and my mom was a cop. When I get the gold, I will join the FBI and find out what happened to them. They were pretty big with people who were people, so with a little digging, I can get my answers.” He shrugged.
“You don’t know what people would be willing to reveal with a briefcase filled with gold on their desk. ”
“So,” I started, “a thief wants to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation. How do you suppose that would work without a clean background check?”
“I have money. Nobody knows I’m a thief; my background is a clean slate. I’m smart, I’ll train, I’ll do whatever it takes,” he said, determination in his eyes.
I nodded. “Impressive.” I offered, “If you ever need to talk about this, whatever it takes, my doors are always open.”
Dog blinked at me. “For … real?”
“Hm. I have a few favors owed to me by people who might be able to answer your questions; I can grant you a favor too.”
“What’s the catch?” Dog asked.
“You owe me a favor, one I probably won’t have enough time to collect, but it could help you.”
He observed me. “All right, we’ll see.”
I responded with a firm nod.
“What about you?” Upper gestured to Elia. “What would you change, and what would you do with the gold?”
Elia’s gaze lifted to look around the group, settling on me for a bit, allowing me to see that he was caught off guard, despite knowing the question was going around.
“I…” He trailed off, eyes unsure. “I…” He looked down at the drink he held and shrugged.
“Don’t really know. There’s nothing I would change …
there’s nothing to change. As for the gold, I don’t really care about it.
I might travel, uh…” He looked lost, like he didn’t know what he had planned or hadn’t thought about it.
His eyes held this heavy cloud like his whole life had been a blank page.
He didn’t know what to write on it or where to start writing …
the middle, the top, the bottom—or maybe I wasn’t reading him right, perhaps this thing I saw didn’t stem from how I had erased him.
He cleared his throat. “Um … I don’t know.
I guess I haven’t really thought about it,” he said, drinking from his beer bottle like he didn’t want to speak any further.
“And you, Marino?” Dog asked. “You’re not taking the gold, so the question there is, what would you change?”
I thought about the question and allowed the silence to stretch as my gaze focused on the littered center table, a vivid representation of my life since I was born. A clear picture was painted before me, a mockery of the irony in my life.
I swallowed. “Nothing,” I answered with the truth. “I would change nothing.”
“Really?” Elia asked, shock evident in his voice.
“Hm. I believe the only people with the right to change something are the ones who deserve the do-over,” I answered him, removing my gaze from the table. “I would change nothing, but it doesn’t mean I will not correct everything.”
Then it was silent.
“You see,” I continued, “changing doesn’t have the same effect as correcting.
Changing means losing yourself and the person you’ve grown to become; correcting, rather, is most effective because you get to grow into something better, you get to look back at the past you, and you get to own the pride for how far you’ve come.
Our past makes up most of who we are; the future is much sweeter, but the present is where the work is, what you’re willing to do, to correct and to grow. ”
I watched them let my words sink in. Almost two minutes flew by; everyone was lost in their own heads.
“Thank you,” Milk said, swallowing tightly. “You just answered a question I didn’t realize I had been asking all my life.”
“Me too,” Upper echoed.
Dog raised his beer bottle to me with a tight smile.
While Elia just stared at me with a frown, one that didn’t come from anger but concern.
“You’re welcome. Glad I could … help”—I paused a little before adding—“unintentionally.” I cleared my throat. “I should go check on the missing member before I leave; I have Casmiro arriving today.”
“Oh yes, he told me he was flying in,” Upper said.
I nodded, getting to my feet as Milk commented to Upper about talking to Casmiro; it brought up a debate I tuned out, walking toward Zahra’s room, where Milk had gestured to early on when I arrived.
Standing in front of the door, I knocked three times.
There was no response.
I waited a few seconds before raising my hand and knocking again thrice.
When I got no response, I placed my hand on the knob, debating leaving it be or walking in without a response from her. Walking in would be rude; I would hate it if someone did that to me without waiting for a response … but she did the same to me a long time ago.
What if she needed help and couldn’t talk because she … she … had choked herself with the wire of a … hair dryer?
Accidents happen.
The option of leaving it be lost the debate, and I found myself twisting the knob and walking into the room.
She was on the bed, on her side, eyes closed, sleeping.