Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Ella
“…you’ll still have to make sure to pay it back in time. Consequences…” Muffled voices greet me as I open the front door. Masculine voices I have never heard before, coming from the living room.
“Of course, of course,” Mara stammers, but she sounds different, as if a weaker twin has replaced her. Unsure and thin, nothing like her usual confident, venomous self.
“One month. And if you don’t…”
“I will. You have my word, I…” I hide at the beginning of the stairs, eavesdropping from behind the wall of perfectly curated family pictures of the four of them in black and white, laughing at a joke that never existed.
Who are the men in the living room? And why does Mara sound as if she is on the edge of tears?
Steps come closer, and I hurry to the top of the stairs, staying hidden as I watch them move toward the front door.
Two men. Black suits. Faces straight out of a serial killer documentary.
One of them seems to be in his mid-thirties.
He adjusts his cuff, revealing a large black tattoo on his right hand.
A snake curled around a dagger. Waiting for his command, the other man, much younger, remains stoic.
A smell of danger permeates the air, and with it comes the nauseating familiarity of a bad premonition.
Whoever they are, they are the kind of men you change sidewalks to avoid at night.
Mara steps into view, her impeccable beige suit on, blood-red nails, high stilettos, and her usual perfect rolled updo.
Her nose is straight, her jaw hard and snatched, thanks to the numerous beauty treatments she has been religiously doing for years.
Yet when she offers her hand, I catch the slight second of hesitation.
Her armor shakes. Unsure beneath the detached surface.
“Until next time, Mrs. Brooks.” The older man accepts her hand, but instead of shaking it, he lifts it to his lips and drops a kiss on her knuckles.
Who are they? As if sensing the mountain of questions assaulting me, the tattooed man looks up and finds me.
His eyes are black and unforgiving, undressing me on the spot, writing a promise in indelible Sharpie across my forehead.
One that vows that he won’t ever forget my face.
“Who is she?”
“Her?” Mara winces, her foot shifting slightly as if she is restraining herself from stamping it.
“Nobody. Just a maid.” Poker faces, they linger for a minute more, then leave while Mara holds the door, watching them go.
Once I hear their car disappear down the alley, she shuts the door.
Her shoulders drop, and a sigh of relief catches in her chest.
Then, without a single word, she turns and storms toward the stairs.
She catches my arm in a vise, her long nails digging into my flesh.
I try to fight her, but it does not work.
She drags me down the stairs, each step striking my ankles as she leads me with no mercy, while my cries remain inaudible.
With one motion, she opens my bedroom door, throws me inside, and stands in the doorway.
“I raised you better than that, Ella,” she murmurs, her upper lip sharp and angry.
“I didn’t mean to pry. I’m so sorry, Mara.” My hands tremble as I sign. “Who were those men?” She sighs, smoothing the sides of her updo, perfecting her facade.
“It doesn’t matter who-.” She pauses, exhaling. “What–what did you hear?”
“Nothing, I promise,” I sign fast, facing her, her stature grand and shadowed as if a devil has taken possession of her. “I heard nothing.”
She arches a brow. “You saw and heard nothing. Is that clear?” Jaw to the side, lowering her eyes to mine, she sneers, “If you say a word about this to anyone, anyone, I will make sure you remain in this very room for the rest of the week. And given your composition, I am not sure there would still be skin on your bones after a few days without food.”
“I heard nothing, truly, Mara. I’m sorry,” I sign with tears welling in my eyes, my audacity of trying to listen to her backfiring with the strength of an elastic pulled to maximum impact.
“Huh.” She looks around, her long, sharp nose lifting again.
“I’m going to my facial, think about…what happened and then I will come back to open the door for you.
Be grateful you still have a roof over your head.
” She snaps the words, but a tremor of fear crosses her eyes, and I wonder who has more to lose here.
Her, with her shady business and those men.
Or me, trapped here, unable to feed myself.
At least I know my fate. But does she? She turns.
The door closes slowly until I hear the lock turn, the handle moving, checking the validity of her crime.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, I close my eyes and go back to this afternoon with him.
Back to the glances. The wind brushing my skin while he looked at me.
To him telling me about how his office sometimes feels like a cage, and how I related to him, on a different level, but still.
For a minute, it was as if we recognized each other, both of us chained to circumstances beyond our will.
I rest my hand on my necklace, the metal tangible proof that I did have all the cards in my hand at some point in my life. That luck was on my side before the wind turned. But if this afternoon is not proof enough of fate shooting arrows of joy in my direction, then I do not know anything anymore.
Goosebumps dance on my arm as the memory of his hand.
The feeling echoes through me like a tsunami wave, crushing all my sorrows away.
There was more than a walk and a coffee at that moment.
There was a pull, too strong to comprehend, pulling two beings together who had no business knowing each other.
“Tristan,” I say silently, wishing I could hear the melody of his name on my tongue.
Wishing he could hear it. I do not know what the next few days will make of me, or whether Mara will finally decide to lock me in once and for all one day, but there is one thing I am sure of.
When she does, I will not stay in this room.
Instead, I will visit a place beneath my heart made of cheesecake, trees, and children’s laughter.
And there, we will hold hands and share silence like the most intimate language we have.
No one will come to take it away from me.
It will be my treasured room in my mind. My escape from this cage.
What a sweet place to hide when the world is crumbling down.
Tristan
“He’s alive,” Nate groans, waiting near the elevator after I texted him that I was on my way.
My head is still buzzing from the presence of softness incarnated, and I crack my neck, dragging myself back to reality and to the indisputable fact that, in less than twenty-four hours, I may be in a completely different position.
“Miss me?” I ask flatly. We stride toward my office as Kathy hurries toward us, a sheet of paper in her hand. “Sir, Brenton tried to call three times, but I couldn’t get to you. He asked me to tell you it is an urgent matter.”
“Thanks, Kathy. I’ll take it from here.” I close the door behind us, Nate already placing a call to Brenton on speakerphone. The line rings twice.
“Took you long enough. I almost thought they had gutted you,” Nate mutters, arms crossed, resting against the side of the armchair.
“I just took a walk. You don’t need a babysitter, do you?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “We are about to risk men’s lives, and yours too, might I add, and you go on a walk?”
I know, Nate.
It is precisely because tomorrow could be my last day that I allowed myself an hour to remember what it feels like to be alive. To smear a bit of softness over my armor and photograph happiness in my mind, so I can look at it from hell when I no longer remember the taste of it.
“Sir,” Brenton says when the call connects.
“Brenton.” I straighten my spine, back into CEO mode.
“There has been a development. The shipment you are planning to divert will not be carried by ordinary Vodianov men. Cole will be in attendance, most likely in the same car carrying the goods. An inside source has told me that his father has designated this transfer as high-risk and intends to have his son present to make sure everything runs smoothly. This means…”
“More security,” I cut in. “More men involved on both sides. More risk.”
“I understand this is a large amount of product, sir, but…”
“It does not matter. If we hit them tomorrow, they will have a tremendously hard time getting back on their feet. I will not wait for another opening.”
Nate presses the mute button. “Postpone.”
“No. It is all part of the plan. I am not backing down.” My voice hardens. I press the button again. “Anything else?”
“It is, um, delicate,” Brenton says. His pause wastes time, grinding against my patience. “A source told me about their new methods.”
“Methods?”
“Since their issues with the Scorta family, they have been implementing a different mantra—a much bloodier one. I heard about women being kidnapped and households being invaded. Something to do with a new era of domination Cole wants to lead.” I am well aware that the Italian mafia in the region, the Scorta family, has had several issues with the Vodianovs.
One of those issues ended with a Vodianov cousin being shot by a Scorta man in retaliation for a broken deal they had trusted them on.
Things cooled down for a while, but it is no surprise the Vodianovs adapted.
Staying away from violent activities seems to be harder than expected.
“Thank you, Brenton. We’ll keep in touch.” I end the call coldly before running a hand over my face.
“I’ll call Matt. Tell him to hire more men and take the best ones with us tomorrow.”
“Tristan, what if…”
“What is life if there is not a bit of risk, huh?” My voice drops lower, rougher, reminding us both that we were not brought into this world by chance but to fulfill our family's duty.
To avenge our lineage and dominate this city with our name.
It has always been this way. It always will be.
Nate remains silent, knowing there is nothing he can say that will change my mind.
“In case anything goes wrong, all of this will be yours.” He shakes his head, tugging at his collar.
“Just…” He pauses. “Let’s take it from the start one more time so I can make sure you are not walking into a fucking suicide mission.”
“All right. But first, there is one thing I need you to do.” He crosses his arms, watching as I write a note.
“If anything happens to me, this is the name of a young woman. I will need you to give her the details of this bank account.” I show him the series of numbers attached to a savings account where millions rest, unused.
I could transfer money directly into hers, but it would require layers of security authorization, and I do not have time for that now.
“She will not accept it at first, but you will have to convince her.”
“Tristan, what…”
“Give me your word that if I die, you will find her and give her the envelope.”
“Is this really necessary? Who is she?”
“Your word, Nate.” He sighs, but like the loyal brother he is, he does not question me further, accepting the envelope while I hope he will never have to give it to her.
Ella,
Perhaps not the miracle you were expecting, but enough to help you create your own.
Account : 58YTR6U6296RFG
Password : 98765456789OTA
T.A
“All right, so from the top.” Twirling his index in the air, Nate paces the office.
“I drive with Matt and his men to our warehouse. There, we take guns, ammunition, masks, and all the gear.” Matt is my head of personal security.
We met in juvie, then lost sight of each other as I went into business and he enlisted in the army.
After more than a decade deployed in various parts of the world, he left the service and came to work for me, sometimes as a bodyguard, sometimes as the coordinator of certain operations.
No one knows the field and its risks better than he does, and he can always find old acquaintances to work with us when needed.
“Right. And then?”
“Eight vehicles. Six empty ones to retrieve the drugs. Our men disguised across the road in case things turn bad.”
“How are you planning to force them to stop?”
“Well, that,” I say, my voice turning uneven, “is the fun part. The element of surprise.”
“You’re a crazy fucker, you know that, right?”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” We keep going, finding every flaw in our plan and correcting it, planning until no situation can catch us unaware, until there is no other ending in sight but success.
I will come home alive and with the best card in hand to play against them until their suffocating end.
And besides, on Monday evening, I have to be alive.
Because I have a date with Ella.