Chapter Thirty-Nine #2
“Fine, I’ll show you,” she said, digging her free hand into the jacket she wore over a white tank top as she pulled out some papers. “This was from the year I was born. Check it out.” She flung the papers at me.
Taking my eyes from her, I picked up the papers, looking through them. Frowning as I read.
What in the world …
My mind was drawing a blank, and my heart wasn’t functioning correctly as my eyes went on, word after word. My signature was there, my name was there, on the page, with the MCSS dealings …
“Two hundred and sixty-six children were born into this business and trafficked that year. Alongside me. Two hundred and sixty-six out of thousands from the following years, the years before mine, up until now—all without identities because they were made for one thing and one thing only, to be used this way, to be sold. How could you, Elio?”
My head snapped upward as my eyes met hers, understanding the hate within them.
Her words … they were like consecutive slaps to my face.
Her accusation was cutting me more than the fact that this was what my father had needed my signature for when I was only eight.
She believed this. She believed I did this.
I tilted my head, watching her with disbelief as hurt made a home in the tightness beneath my chest.
It was that time all over again when my mother and siblings had burned in that church, my father had spread a rumor, I was accused, and no one had bothered to check the facts.
I dropped the papers, my gaze rising to the gun. I swallowed, letting the silence stretch as I looked back at her. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
She faltered at whatever she saw in my eyes.
“You have it all figured out. I hurt all those children and all those people … I am at the end of your gun. Kill me, get revenge once and for all, and end the MCSS and me. Then I won’t hurt any more children, and I’ll stop ordering my people to ensure all the trafficking is conducted perfectly.”
“Your fucked-up sarcasm isn’t really needed right now.”
“Oh, it didn’t sound like the truth? It didn’t sound like something I would do? Did it sound absurd to you, Zahra?”
“You can’t tell me you didn’t know this was happening under your name, Elio, because that would be a lie. It’s too huge to go under your nose.”
“I don’t know why you’re still here fishing for answers when you’ve already made assumptions. You already think I’m capable of doing all that is written on this paper. You already look at me with hate; you’ve already pointed a gun at me.”
I watched her throat work, her chest heaving.
We held our gazes for almost a minute, the doubt in her eyes filling the silence.
The hurt I knew was in mine helped to accentuate the tension.
I fought to control the dreadful heaviness on top of my heart.
“You don’t love me, Zahra,” I said, my voice quiet as I swallowed.
“You don’t feel the same way I feel about you; you don’t know what I’m capable of.
You don’t know me—and if I’m being honest, your accusation and your assumption without even deeming it fit to ask me? Hurts.”
“How do you explain the signature—”
“Do I even have to explain anything to you?” The disbelief I felt made me wonder if this was really happening—if she was really asking me this.
“Can’t you see I would never be a part of something like this with everything you know about me?
Isn’t my—isn’t my character enough to tell you that I would never do a thing like this?
Isn’t my love enough to show you that even if I knew about this happening under my name, I would tell you when you told me about your past? ”
“Don’t turn this around, what the fuck was I supposed to think? Your name was everywhere!”
“These people existed before I was even born. I have never been involved in the MCSS business, Zahra; neither did I care about what they were up to because when I decided to end my life, I was going to end this whole empire along with it. That was why I needed to find the flash drives. I didn’t see one with my name, nor my empire’s, nor my father’s.
The MCSS is sovereign. Do you know what ‘sovereign’ means? ”
“I don’t fucking care,” she said, swallowing as tears welled in her eyes. “All I know is you are involved in the very thing res-responsible for this broken person that I am today.”
I frowned. “Even if you know I didn’t actively have anything to do with it?”
She didn’t answer …
She didn’t want to say something she couldn’t take back.
What did she come here hoping to achieve?
I sighed. “You won’t have to be at war with yourself if you just believe me—”
“I’ll choose to believe whatever the hell I want to believe. I have been taught a lot of lessons in my life, and I cannot afford another one—not with you.” Her voice shook. “Just give me the damn flash drive, Elio.”
I looked at the drive in my hand. “Is this what you wanted? Is this drive the reason you needed the protection my name offered? You have a secret you don’t want anyone to know? Or is this all for Manuel?”
She scoffed. “Manuel…” she mused aloud before she leveled me with a glare. “There’s no Manuel, Elio.”
I paused, watching her.
“There’s just me. That flash drive belongs to me. I rule Sicily; I own Sicily. I’ve owned it for years.”
I knew my soldiers would storm this place any minute, but the thought at the forefront of my mind was the information she had just let loose.
“You once asked me who I was,” she said, her eyes and the tone of her voice promising malice.
A different kind of composure—one that I saw and noted the first time she talked back to me—took over her features.
“Manuel pushed me aside. He was done with me. Told me I could leave. He had used me, gotten all he wanted, and his obsession with me was slowly fading away…”
“You told me you left.”
“I was na?ve, tempted by the idea of freedom so I didn’t see he had discarded me,” she explained.
“I left, yes. But I didn’t tell you I went back.
I went back, and slowly, gradually, I killed him.
I made it hurt; I made it last a long time, made him suffer because nobody uses me, nobody controls me, I am the one who does the throwing away, I am the one in fucking control.
” She took a step forward. “I fought tooth and nail to become somebody in a world where I was made to be nobody.
“Manuel Conti has not been pronounced dead yet because I wanted it that way. Stopping this ring was my last mission before I settled down and tried to figure out what I wanted for myself and what I would do with the power I acquired after taking his life. I thought I had it all figured out. Bring down P. Deluxe Corp, stop the ring, and save a lot of people—and maybe I could get to keep Street, but then I found out that it is much, much more extensive than I thought, and the man that I—the man that I fell for, was the overseer of everything.”
I could see the strength she’d used to hold the gun. The force of her hate. Her body shook with her words.
“I know the MCSS are sovereign,” she bit out. “But without the Marino empire, they wouldn’t exist; without your legal name as a backup, they wouldn’t get away with this shit they’re doing—trafficking and making children in the name of research facilities.
“I know you were maybe eight years old when I was born. But you’re no longer eight, Elio. You’re not a child; you know right from wrong and the consequences of ignorance, yet you chose never to check what these people were doing to earn you billions of dollars every damn month.”
I clenched my jaw.
“What makes you think I would believe something so fucking unbelievable?” she asked.
“Because you’re hurt, and you’re not listening to me, and I understand—”
“You don’t understand shit about me!”
“If you can just relax, sit down, and come to your senses enough for you to think clearly, we wouldn’t have to resort to being at odds with each other. We can figure something out.”
“I don’t want to figure anything out with you, Elio.” She quickly looked toward the door and then back to me. “Give me the flash drive.”
“Not until you listen to me. Por favor, Zahra, drop the gun. Any minute, my people will storm this room to find you pointing a gun at me. In this position, after your betrayal today, they will shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Then give me the drive.”
“I am not letting you leave. We can easily sort things out once you have a clearer mind.”
The sound of footsteps reached us, and the moment she glanced back to the door, I charged. She gasped as I grabbed her wrist, raising her hand as a shot from the gun rang out, hitting the wall. I rose to my feet, and the weight of my body made her move backward as she fought me for the gun.
“Let go of the gun,” I warned, but her grip was firm, even as I tried to pry her fingers from the weapon.
There was panic, anger, and hurt in her eyes, three dangerous emotions to be felt all at once.
Three emotions that made me rethink our whole conversation.
The tears that had been in her eyes, and her silence when I had asked her if she still hated me despite knowing I hadn’t been actively fueling the MCSS’s business.
“Zahra, we can talk about this.”
“Let. Go. Of. Me,” she said with grit, her voice strained as she tried to kick me, elbow me—anything to get me to let go of her and the gun, but I held firm, not wanting to hurt her.
“Why are you so scared of believing me? I know you know I have nothing to do with the MCSS, and I am ready to rectify my mistakes; why do you think I will hurt you when you know I do not judge you for your flaws and mistakes because we all make them? I love you regardless of your identity or anything you have done.”
She supplied me with a humorless laugh. “Yeah?” she questioned, tears filling her eyes. “Even if I confess to being responsible for Casmiro’s shooting?”
I held her wrist tighter as she tried to twist the gun until it was right at our sides, and my body pushed hers to the wall.
My eyes burned into hers as I said, “Even then, I love you.”
Her lips trembled, her eyes softened, and her chest heaved, but she recovered from whatever thought had crossed her mind as her eyes hardened once more. “Well, I don’t deserve it, and neither do I want it, so let me fucking go, Elio.”
My heart squeezed. “Never. Not when I know that’s not what you want.”
“It’s what I fucking want!” she lied, twisting her hand until the gun was between us. I felt it slipping from her grip as I fought with her to get ahold of it. I couldn’t let my people see her with the gun. She was too stubborn, too hurt to see how dangerous that would be. “Let me go, Elio.”
“Why!”
“I just want to leave, okay? I’m done here; give me the flash drive, and let me go. I can’t be with you!”
I pinned her body to the wall, pressing against her, locking the weapon between us.
“You want to leave me, Zahra? Do you think it’ll be easy knowing all I know now?
Did you think telling me all of this—hating me for something you know I wasn’t responsible for, confessing to almost killing Casmiro, and making me think you didn’t believe me when I told you I knew nothing about the MCSS—would make me let you go? ”
Her facade faltered as my fingers worked on the gun between us while bringing my face closer to hers, her breathing mingling dangerously with mine.
“You can run, Zahra; you can run like hell, go wherever the fuck you want to go, but know that I would never stop chasing after you. I will find you every damn time until you realize there is no point in running.”
She closed her eyes, and tears ran down her cheeks as her body relaxed, trusting. “Why won’t you just let me go, Elio?”
“Because I love you. Because whatever crime you commit is a crime I will forever be willing to forgive.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Zahra—”
“I can’t do this again.”
“Listen to me—”
“No.” She opened her eyes and pushed away from me, noticing her loss of control of the weapon. “I can’t trust you. You and everyone in that fucking organization, you all are monsters, and I will not make the same mistake again. I will not trust the wrong person again.”
“Zahra—” Her next move was fast; I didn’t see it coming until I felt the pain exploding around my jaw from a hit caused by her head as she simultaneously slammed her leg against my shin, pushing me and regaining control of the weapon as she tried to reach for the flash drive.
I collected myself, swerved my hand, and threw the drive to another corner of the office.
She charged toward it, but I blocked her path, my hand covering hers on the gun as she tried to push past me.
This time, I didn’t hold back on my strength.
I tried prying her fingers off the weapon, leaning my weight over her.
“Zahra, listen!”
The sound of the hotel door slamming open made her jump in panic. She faltered, and as the weight of my body forcefully pushed hers to the wall, the gun went off between us at the impact.
She sucked in a sharp breath.
I froze.
Our struggles stopped as footsteps rushed into our space.
But they dulled out into background noise as the gun clattered to the ground.
Her breathing shuddered as she looked up at me, lips parted, eyes glistening. Slowly, ever so slowly, in my shocked stupor, I looked between us—at her chest. There was a rapidly spreading red stain on the white tank top she wore.
My heart stopped.
My mind stopped.
Everything stopped.
“El…” Her voice dropped faintly as she instinctively gripped the shirt around my bicep.
The last thing my sanity registered was the tiny sound of her breath stopping, the single tear that slipped from her drooping eyes, and her knees completely giving out right underneath me.