25. Mason
Chapter 25
Mason
T hree months had passed like it was nothing, like a fleeting breeze but still, my brother’s text message message remained at the forefront of my mind. No matter what task my boss Sebastian Deluca had me doing, that text lived rent-free in my brain.
Hurry to the hotel, Rain needs help. I have to go, but Mom is alive.
Nora and I had just started the Flash, cuddled up on the couch in her apartment, because she’d been wanting to rewatch. I hadn’t watched it and my knowledge of Barry Allen stopped at knowing he was a comic book character.
The second I read that text, it was as if lightning had invaded every cell of my body. Years of buried grief had wanted to erupt to the surface but I’d pushed it down.
Carmine and I had arrived at the hotel and found Rain in a puddle of confusion and our brother nowhere in sight.
The realization that our mother was alive had sent me and all of my brothers into a tailspin.
Where had she been all that time?
Why had she left us?
Why had she faked her death?
And why had she only taken Matteo now, after all these years?
All we had were nothing but questions until one night, Carmine and I started sparing.
Sweat had beaded on our brows, and was pouring off of us but we couldn’t stop. With our fists raised and our concentration locked in, we’d thrown punch after punch. Carmine had danced out of reach nearly every time.
“Are you even trying?” He’d grinned.
“Fuck you,” I’d thrown back along with a lightning-fast jab connecting with his lip.
“I have been thinking,” my brother had launched himself into a spinning kick making contact that sent waves through my body causing me to stumble backward.
“Jesus, I hope you didn’t hurt yourself,’ I rolled my eyes.
That was when Carmine called time out and I agree, exhausted and wanting one of the beers that he kept in his gym fridge.
“No really,” he murmured out of breath. “I’ve been thinking. Mom could have come back at any time, right? She’s been gone all these years…and why Matteo?”
Leaning into the fridge I grabbed a glass bottle and tossed one to my brother.
“Are you jealous?” I’d asked quirking a brow.
“Bro, get fucking serious for a minute,” Carmine’s exasperation had been apparent so I’d sobered up.
“I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” I shrugged, taking another drink.
Carmine inhaled deeply, his chest rising and falling before he spoke again. “You’ve seen what Matty can do. He’s different, and it's been the elephant in the room ever since he choked the fuck out of me, with his mind.”
“…his Corsican…”
My younger brother took a sip of beer, clearly a little salty about the incident between him and Matteo still before speaking again and finishing my sentence. “Is a dick!”
“He said he was sorry,” I finished off my own beer and tossed it into the recycling bin before grabbing another.
Carmine continued to nurse his. “He wasn’t really sorry…but back to what I was getting at. Mom’s been living a very fucking low-profile life. Do you think Dad even knows she’s alive?”
I groaned. “Maybe they fucking planned it and this is some controlled experiment. Wanting to see how we react to loss and pain or some shit.”
“Which leads me to something else…”
Carmine leaned in closer, his voice a whisper. “Mom was a geneticist, I’d bet you a million dollars she has big brother locked up in a lab somewhere. Someone out there knows something and I think the answer is somewhere in those old files and records I kept stored at the house.”
As I cradled the cool bottle of beer in my hands, I stared at the fizzy yellow liquid and murmured, “Find a missing link.”
“And we find our brother…”
After that, Carmine, Nora, and I meticulously sifted through anything we could find, looking for clues that Alaska Zacharra might have left behind. Her books, worn with time, were decorated with the symbol she’d worn around her neck which we’d discovered was a symbol for the old lab bankrolled by my father. We’d put together a board in my living room, pinning up pictures and old yellowed documents, even clipping certain passages from the copy of Frankenstein that Matteo had abandoned in the basement of our childhood home.
When I’d leave Sebastian’s house in the evenings, I would head straight home and stare at that board wanting the secrets to spill themselves. Even Nora, with all her abilities to hack networks and find information, was coming up empty.
She’d been sitting up on the granite counters, eating a one-pan pasta dish I’d made when I’d walked in between her legs. She was wearing nothing but sweats and a t-shirt and just as I was about to lean in and kiss her, her eyes had grown wide.”Move!”
“What? What is it?” I whirled around to watch Nora sprinting over to the board staring intently at the documents pinned on the board.
Concern etched into my features, “Nora…”
“Come here,” she waved me over and I joined her. “I can’t believe I never noticed this before.”
“What?”
She reached onto the board and plucked down a photograph of my mother with some people I didn’t know.
“What about it?” I took the photo and stared hard at it.
My mother and father had been at some charity event, looking young while she held some award. Both had been dressed up fancy, with her in a light pink dress and my father in a dark tux. They seemed in love, hell my father had even stared at her adoringly. There was also a man on my father’s left, similar looking, and on my mother’s left an Asian couple. There were others too but they’d been cropped out. Flipping the photograph over, I saw a date: the 1991 California Medical Research Ceremony.
“These people might know more about your mom,” Nora had smiled so widely before hopping onto her computer, immediately beginning the digital hunt.
After some intense research, we found the Asian couple first.
“Holy shit, am I reading this right?” I looked over Nora’s shoulder as we pulled up an article on the couple's death. They’d been killed recently in some sort of break-in.
“Susan and Shin Taoko were found dead in their home this weekend,” Nora began to read quietly, the article scrolling. “The home was ransacked..blah, blah, wait….FBI Agent Matteo Zacharra was on the scene but declined to be interviewed at this time citing the case was ongoing…”
Nora had turned her eyes to mine, “Spooky.”
I agreed, “My mother’s former colleague and her husband wind up murdered and my brother is involved with the case. Fuck.”
“That’s pretty much the end of that,” Nora had sighed. “Nothing else on Susan.”
“What about the other guy,” I’d asked.
“The one beside your dad…I’m already on it,” Nora pulled the laptop closer and started pecking away.
I could watch her work on her computer for hours, for some reason it soothed me.
Us, my Corsican whispered and I knew he was rolling his eyes before quietly slipping away again.
Nora had worked diligently on finding the man’s identity, and before I knew it, I’d drifted off. She had awakened me an hour later, kissing sweetly on my lips. Of course, that got a rise out of me and I became hard instantly.
In between kissing me, Nora had grinned.“Baby, I think I have something.”
“Tell me with your shirt off,” I grinned.
“Stop be serious,” she’d reached for the laptop that had been placed to the side.
A slow yarn slid out of my mouth and I rubbed my eyes trying to focus.
“He’s older, but I’m more than sure this is him,” Nora pointed to an image search she’d run. An older-looking man with close-cropped hair in a dark suit with a red tie stared sternly back at me, while the American flag was offset in the background.
“Who is it?”
“His name is Jacob Lance. According to his LinkedIn account, which by the way hasn’t been updated in a year, he’s ex-military and he’s also the deputy director of the Seattle FBI field office,” Nora revealed looking pleased as pie with herself.
“Jacob Lance,” I repeated the name, even though I had no idea who he was. “And you said Director of the FBI in Seattle.”
“Yup,” Nora nodded. “I have a feeling he could help solve this mystery.”
I’d sat up and scrubbed a hand over my face before turning to grin at Nora. “I think me and Carmine are going to have to pay the director a little after-hours visit tomorrow evening.”
Exactly one day later, Carmine and I were checking guns when Nora sent a text.
“I’ll be at Rain’s,” I read the text out loud.
Carmine was lining up the sights of his gun. “You think we should let Rain in on this?”
I shook my head. “Rather not worry her. She’s been so distant from Nora lately, like a full-blown recluse.”
“Hmm,” Carmine sat his gun down reached into a cabinet, and pulled down some ammo.
I shot Nora a text back, Love you. Tell Rain hello for me.
Turning the phone off, and tucking it away I waited for my brother to be finished. I was bringing one gun and a Corsican. Carmine on the other hand thought he was going to war and had a bag full of weapons to throw in the trunk of his car.
“You can never be too prepared,” he shrugged as we walked out into the darkness. The sun had set a few hours ago and
“We’re just going to talk to the man,” I quirked a brow.
“You think a government agent who knows Augustus Zacharra Sr. and Jr. and a formerly dead Alaska Zacharra is just gonna hand over all that information willingly?”
Carmine popped the trunk of his classic car and tossed the weapons inside.
By the time we’d reversed out of the driveway, I had to admit Carmine had a good point. I shot him a wry grin, “Let’s not kill the guy.”
Carmine shrugged, “I haven’t had a good kill in a while, no promises, bro.”
I didn’t argue it any further. At some point, I knew we were going to do some killing. My Corsican was itching for some sort of action, I just didn’t want to kill an FBI agent.
The drive to Jacob’s Lance was relatively uneventful, with light traffic. We parked down the road from the house. Nora had found specs online and I’d memorized every inch of the layout including where the alarm power box would be.
Carmine and I moved with stealth, disappearing and blending into the night. Our feet didn’t even seem to touch the pavement as we headed for the house.
Mansion, my Corsican whispered.
The deputy director was definitely making a good government salary and lived in luxury despite not having ever been married and no children.
We hadn’t been able to find anything on him but I knew better. If he knew Augustus Zacharra, there was no way he could be squeaky clean.
Nah, I thought. This motherfucker has dirt he’s probably killed to keep hidden.
Carmine and I did quick work on the alarm system and we worked the perimeter up just once more. We noticed only one light was on and it was in the the area of the house that had to be his study. The old bastard was probably having a nightcap. Finally, we slipped inside the mansion and an eerie silence fell into place, our footsteps barely even made a sound, both of us with Glock 9s ready to dance if needed. We followed the faint glow of what had to be a desk lamp, finding ourselves outside of the study door.
Carmine took one side of the door and I took the other. He raised his gun, took a breath, and eased the fucking door open.
I could smell cigar smoke in the air as I sniffed before easing inside.
“Ahhh, the other two,” a voice said from a chair that wasn’t facing the door.
Carmine and I stopped, guns still trained to shoot.
I heard the older man sigh, and he stood up and turned to look at us, a laptop in his hands. His face was burned horribly on side, and he wore glasses but this was definelty the man we’d come in search of.
“I wondered when you’d come,” Jacob Lance nodded.
“How…”
He turned the laptop around and I could see a video feed of his entire house on the screen. “You don’t get this old in a game like this and not have a cameras.”
Carmine winced. “Hey…I handled the alarm system.”
Jacob chuckled. “Would the two of you mind lowering your weapons, please? It’s making my dog nervous.”
I heard it then, low growls and a bull mastiff appeared.
Jesus, a whole ass horse, my Corsican assessed the animal.
“I don’t know about that, Chief,” Carmine looked the man up and down.
“If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you years ago before you became what you are now…” Jacob looked at his dog and spoke. “Relax, boy they’re not here to harm me. They want answers.”
The dog relaxed then eased himself down onto the oriental rugs decorating the office floor. His tail did a few thumbs but his eyes never left Carmine or myself.
My arms faltered just a little, and finally, I lowered the gun. “You knew our parents?”
Jacob’s face took on a solemn look before he turned away and walked over to his bar. “Drink gentleman?”
Carmine still hadn’t lowered his gun. “Bourbon?”
Jacob chuckled, looking at me. “Just like your father.”
His words felt like a paper cut slashing all over my body, biting and eating away at my flesh. We were nothing like our piece of shit father.
“Carmine put the gun down,” I murmured still waiting.
My brother let out a sigh, “This is not turning out to be as fun as I’d hoped.”
Jacob finished making his drink and handed one off to Carmine.
He then settled back into his seat and slowly Carmine and I moved around the dog who was slightly snoring so that we could see him better. “I’m surprised,” he said after taking a sip. “That it took so long.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Carmine rolled his eyes. “It’s not every day you have to comb through twenty to thirty-year-old documents and such.”
Jacob nodded and sipped again but I just wanted to get on with it. This wasn’t a fucking social call.
“Tell us how you knew them?”
Jacob’s eyes moved to my face and I wondered what he was thinking. Slowly, he lifted a finger and pointed at the left side of his face, the part covered in thick raised scars. “Your father…he did this to me, you know. He and I were great friends but like every great story, there’s a woman. Yes, I knew your parents, Mason. I knew them better than anyone.”
“Do you know where my mother is?”
He shook his head. “No, but I always had my doubts about her death. Five years ago, I heard chatter she could be alive, that she’d faked her death.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose wondering if I could have stumbled into another dead end. “Is there anything useful that you might know that might help us locate my mother?”
“Both your parents were strategic. If you wanted to lure Augustus or Alaska out into the open you’d have to first give them something they wanted.” He finished off his drink.
“Any idea what that might be?” Carmine followed suit with his drink and walked it over to the bar, sitting it down. Jacob’s dog got up and went over to sniff Carmine who calmly reached down and scratched behind the dog's ears.
He’s such a dog person, I thought.
Turning my gaze back to the deputy director, I watched as he reached for a cigar, and lit it up, sweet smoke curling into the air. “Hard to say,” Jacob mused, a smirk formed on his face. “But if you can figure it out, you boys will have her on you like flies on shit.”
For a minute, Jacob’s words hung in the air and then Carmine broke the spell. “You said our father…he did that to your face?”
The older man took a long drag on the cigar and expelled the smoke slowly before answering. “Obviously the woman in the equation was your mother. Things were beginning to crumble with her and Auggie, the son of bitch was never right for her but he married her because he knew what she could do for him. Anyway, they had a particularly nasty fight one night and she called me up… ”
He paused and pulled on his cigar, with me and Carmine hanging on his every word. “Asked me to meet her somewhere, and I did like a fool. But Auggie was relentless, he followed her. Stalked her like prayer. Our meeting was innocent by the way but your father was a jealous son of a bitch. We were sitting inside my car at a lake when he walked up to the driver's side of my car and knocked on the window. Alaska begged me not to roll the window down. To dry off…should’ve listened. He tossed gas into my face and flicked a cigarette in…I’m lucky.”
A chill worked its way down my spine but I wasn’t surprised. My father was a fucking monster but of course, I’d always know that.
“Anyway, I woke up in the hospital days later…never saw Auggie or your mother again.”
“You didn’t think to go after him?” I asked.
“Me, go after your father? We both know I’m lucky to be fucking alive,” Jacob snuffed out his cigar. “And I think I’ve answered enough of your questions boys. I’ll be needing you to get the hell out of my house before I call the cops and have you both arrested.”
Glancing over at my bother, I nodded to him feeling unsatisfied as hell. The information had been good but it hadn’t scratched that itch beneath the surface, only irritated it.
“We appreciate your time, Mr. Lance,” I said trying to keep my tone in check.
“I mean you ain’t really tell us shit we could use,” Carmine shrugged. “The bourbon was good though.”
Jacob gave us both a wry smile as we departed and we were nearly to the door when he said something once more. “Boys, if you happen to get your brother back and figure out this entire mess that was stirred up with whoever is wearing his face…tell him his job will be waiting for him.”
As we walked out the front door and back into the night air that had cooled off dramatically from the summer heat, I looked over at Carmine. “I can’t tell if that was a total bust.”
He shrugged, fiddling with his key, the familiar jingle hitting my ears. “I don’t know…we just gotta find something to draw mom out. Something she’d deem important.”
“The question is what? I mean clearly, we don’t mean shit, or else she wouldn’t have left us with Dad.”
“We’re gonna figure it out,” Carmine hopped into the driver's side of his car.
The entire ride back to his place, I prayed he was right.
That we would figure something out and bring Matty home.
I just didn’t know what it would be.