by Ali D
* * *
I peel my swollen eyes open after what could only have been seven minutes of sleep. Becoming more alert when I hear my boys rushing around in a hurry. Jolting upright, panicked at their frantic packing.
“What’s up? Why the rush?” I yell.
“She fucking snuck out!” Matteo starts yelling at me, like I’m somehow responsible for losing her.
“How in the actual fuck could that have happened? What would she even be sneaking away from? She doesn’t know we’re here!” I ask, screaming back at him in confusion. Now I’m scrambling to put the few things I brought in back in my bag so we can rush out. I wonder if she saw me outside her window. I watched her until she fully passed out, her breathing slow and even, dreaming peacefully. Then I came back to our cabin and woke up Cohen to watch her while I got some rest.
“I’m gonna go check us out real fast. Meet you guys at the SUV.” Cohen says, far calmer than ‘Teo and I.
“I don’t fucking know, man.” ‘Teo pauses what he’s doing briefly to look to me.
“She must think someone is tailing her because there was no movement at all from her cottage after you went to sleep. Cohen said he had a gut feeling something wasn’t right, so he went over to take a look at things. He looked through her curtains and noticed everything was gone so he picked the lock and went into her cabin, only for it to be empty and a window in the bathroom open. That window faces the back of the cottage, it would be impossible to see from here. None of her belongings were there and she made the bed. It looks as though no one even stayed the night. He pulled up the tracking device on her car and he found her already on the road, a few hours from here. I don’t know what the hell is happening but she’s being shady as fuck right now and all of my senses are telling me some real bad shit is about to go down. We need to be prepared for anything now man. I think someone is after our girl.” He says, calmer than before. Probably realizing I’m the wrong one to rile up into a panic.
“What the actual fuck man? Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” Turning my wrath to him, having no alternate outlet. I move to shove at him only to be shoved back.
“Knock it off man. I know you’re pissed. We’re all pissed. Hold it together. Harness that shit and let it fuel you. You’re gonna need that anger when we finally get our heads wrapped around whatever the fuck is going on. I’m not your enemy, brother.” He says to me and I can see he’s taking his own words to heart. There’s a simmering violence behind his dark green gaze.
I know he’s right but I’m so god damn angry. After these last couple of days, I really don’t know how much longer I’ll last before I really explode. I have to let some of it out or innocent people may pay the price.
“Aaaaaaaahhhhhh! Of god damn course someone is after her! Fuck you, you cock sucking, piece of shit, motherfucking world. Fuck this! Fuck every limp dicked bitch, stupid shit, piece of trash that tries to come near MY FUCKING GIRL. OUR MOTHERFUCKING GIRL! Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!” I roar. Without thinking I rip my favorite shirt down the center as I scream and yell nonsense profanities into the universe. It helps. Marginally, it helps bring me to a level of calm that I can at least breathe through some of my rage.
“Let’s fucking go.” I growl out, voice hoarse from my scream fueled rampage.
Matteo and I grab out bags, do a quick double check around the small lodge and make our way out towards the front of the property.
I shoot him a look as we take notice of the EMT’s rolling the pervy guy on a stretcher, also moving towards the front where their ambulance awaits. There are a few police officers talking to them and a couple of the establishment’s employees as they make notes and survey the scene. Even trying to be quiet, they can’t mask the disgust in their whispered voices as they share their concerns on why he has things like “no means no”, “women abuser”, “scum”, “filth” and “pig” carved into him. More police cars pull up by the front lobby. Several more get out and head towards the scene, so we cut across the path and follow the tree line instead. Out of sight, out of mind as they say. This ain’t our first rodeo. If the guy remembers anything, it’d likely be Matteo’s face before he was knocked out and we masked up to get our work done. Cohen wouldn’t have checked us in under our real names so we shouldn’t have anything to worry about as long as we aren’t seen or stopped for questioning. Quickly rushing through the forest covered grounds, we make our way to the waiting car. Cohen is already ahead of us with the quick getaway in mind, and our gps set up, already following our sly little sneak. After throwing our shit in the back, we climb in and Cohen speeds off, not really concerned about speed limits or the fact that there are cops literally everywhere because of the gruesome scene we caused. The only thing left on any of our minds is that it’s time to go get our girl. Her head start fucked us up but she’ll have to stop sooner or later.
“We need to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious. If someone else is tailing her, we need to know about it.” I say quietly.
“Don’t worry bro, we’ll get to the bottom of this. We’ll get our girl back.” Cohen looks to me in the rear view mirror as he speaks. His eyes harden with his resolve to fix everything. That’s who he is, it’s what he does, and I believe with every ounce of who I am that he’s telling the truth. His instinct is unlike anything I’ve ever seen and the way his brain is automatically set to fix problems, really helps when things go to shit. He’ll make an excellent leader for his family’s territories when he comes of age. I’m proud to call him family.
What Alessandra should have realized before she ran is that we really are stronger together. The guys and I, we’ve always been tight. We’ve always been brothers. She made us even stronger. With her, we’re practically invincible.
I almost pity whoever is bringing this war to us, they’re all about to feel our wrath. Not only from separating us from our woman, but also for trying to weaken our bonds as a solid unit. I’m going to kill them. We are going to fucking kill them. Step one, find our girl. Step two, destroy everyone. Step three, make sure our feisty queen never leaves us again. Seems pretty easy to me. It’s a solid plan, I think.
Now that that’s settled, I feel a sense of calm that I didn’t have before. Now we just have to catch up to that feisty queen of ours.
Chapter Thirteen.
Cohen.
We finally caught up to Q when she stopped at another house of horrors type of motel. She had clearly gotten a couple hours head start on us after leaving the last shithole we stayed at. At least the first one did a semi decent job of trying to make the best of what they had to work with. A little money and that place would’ve been a real ‘Cozy Cottage’, a pretty ideal place for a little romantic getaway, securely tucked away in the northern corner of Colorado. Although vaguely run down and dingy, completely not up to my standards, it was fairly picturesque, nonetheless. This place, however, is completely unacceptable. Even rats and cockroaches would be offended to call this place their home. On just this side of the Illinois border, after another lengthy day of driving, we find ourselves parked two blocks down the road from where she stopped to sleep for who knows how long. We’ve driven around and around and around, quadruple checking that it is, in fact her car. I’ve reset the satellite gps twice to make sure we’re where we are supposed to be because, damn. I know enough about Q’s past to understand that she didn’t grow up in good circumstances but how could anyone be comfortable resting their head here? How could this place even still be in business?
What used to be a white building made up of a long stretch of about twenty motel rooms, ten on the top floor and ten on the bottom, attached to what I imagine is supposed to be considered a lobby, is now a yellowish color covered in dirt and possibly shit. As in actual feces. The homeless population squatting nearby is rather astounding. At least four of the windows are busted out in the vacant rooms and have wooden planks nailed up as some sort of janky fix. One of the doors has caution tape blocking the door, as if it were a deserted crime scene. The lobby is es
sentially a room with a barred window and a receptionist that remains on the ‘safe side’ of the safety glass and metal bars and next to the window is a fold out table with styrofoam cups on it and a sign that states there is “Coffee and Tea service” but no coffee pot or tea kettle. The stairs leading up to the upper floor are rickety metal ones that lead to a thin balcony that spans the length of the building, giving way to each of the upper level rooms. I don’t even want to imagine what the rooms look like. Probably infested with mice and bed bugs, with any and all surfaces covered in god only knows what. I don’t want her here. I don’t want her anywhere near here. Why isn’t she staying in any of her grandfathers’ safe houses? Not only would it be safer, but one hundred percent cleaner. Why baby? I need you to be safe. All three of us do. Please put your best interests first... C’mon my love, please...
Matteo, being who he is, hasn't said anything yet but every time we pass the place, he turns an unhealthy shade of red. He’s internalizing his seething for now. The king of bottling up his emotions has finally found something that even makes him expressive. His normal vacant, emotionless state is long gone when our girl is involved. Cohen on the other hand, is wreaking havoc on the backseat of the SUV. Stomping and punching and cursing loudly. He’s the most expressive of us all but this whole situation is clearly destroying him. He’s not handling things very well and I’m preparing myself for the outcome where his chaos and mayhem run rampant. If he unleashes his madness, I’m not sure we’ll be able to stop him until he’s burned the world to the ground. Every time it seems as though he’s managed to control his anger, Q does something to set him off again and this place has him furious. These guys are my family and while I’m just as worried about Q as they are, I’m also worried for them. If this is killing them as much as it is me, then something bad is likely to happen sooner rather than later. I’m doing my best to keep an open mind and trust my love, knowing she’s doing whatever she thinks is best in this unknown situation. Nothing bothers me more than not understanding a situation and having at least two projected outcomes on how to settle the matter. It’s what makes us work. We all have our own strengths and mine is my brain and intuition. Noah is our resident Jekyll and Hyde, charming as can be with an underlying layer of crazy. ‘Teo is our leader in a sense, our decision maker, if you will. When Alessandra came barreling into our world, she was like a dark angel sent to fight all of our demons away. She pulled us from the hidden depths of depravity we were living in and made us better. She gave us purpose. She’s grown our very own dreams into reality and breathed life into us. We weren’t living. We were existing. We were surviving as children raised to be men in a gruesome, fucked up world. We were understanding of our roles. Bred, born and groomed for a life in the mob. To lead and defend territories, to ride the line of successful businessmen and criminals. Now it all has meaning. If you had asked me a year ago if I believed in love, I’d have laughed it off and told you love was weakness. Now I understand that it doesn’t make you vulnerable, it makes you powerful beyond your wildest imagination and that’s all thanks to her.
Deciding to move away from our vehicle, I want to go survey things up close.
“I’m gonna jump out and check out the building on foot. I’ll be back soon. If you can, keep driving around and watch out for anyone suspicious.” I let the guys know my plan and then bail quickly, needing to check in on my love as soon as possible. Instinctively look down and rub my watch. Needing to feel her close.
I come up to round a corner about a block from the roach motel and almost run into someone. I need to get my head out of the clouds and be more vigilant.
“I’m so sor-” I hold my hands up in a placating gesture.
“Don’tchu even worry ‘bout it suga. Say, you wanna make it upta me down here at this local moh-tel? I’ll take real good care ’a you’s. Mhmm, a fine thing like you can prolly afford a sweet lil’ thang like me, huh?” A loud brash twang from the prostitute I almost crashed into, as she speaks. I was too stuck in my own thoughts to take notice of her before I smacked into her very large person.
This can’t be real. The icing on the cake to this shit hole is the cross dressing prostitute that hangs out on the street corner, eyes glazed over on lord knows what. He, err, she has on a neon blue wig and is wearing the largest hoop earrings I’ve ever seen. They hang down to the prostitute’s extremely wide set shoulders and are a matching gold to the strapless, skintight dress being worn. She doesn’t need the extra height but that doesn’t stop the too tall disco ball heels from being worn. The whole getup is, as Q would put it, extra as fuck. I wish she were here with me to witness everything that’s happening. I can’t wait to tell her all about it.
“Oh, um, no thank you. Sorry to have almost run into you. I’ll pay more attention to where I’m walking next time. Have a nice day.” I say with a tight smile. I lift my hand in a goodbye and start to walk off.
“Ya sure? I’ll offa half ’a my services off for ya. A real looker, you’s is.”
The prostitute yells down the road, only adding to my discomfort.
“Nope! I’m good.” I yell back, moving a lot faster than before.
I’ll admit, it takes a lot to fuck with me. I honestly didn’t think there was much that could get under my skin, so for this admittedly fucked up scenario, to have gotten to me, tells me that I really need to focus on the task at hand. I can’t get distracted now. Alessandra has to get out of here. I can only assume, since we are in Illinois, that we are heading back to her old house. Although, I can’t figure out what she’d need to go back for. As soon as she told me that she called her childhood home the Jason Shack, I knew her life had been a bad one. This place may just give it a run for its money though based off of the brief experience I’ve had here.
Finally making my way to the motel in question, I start casing the whole place. It’s pretty late, or early depending on your definition of time, I guess, so I’m able to look around without drawing any suspicion to myself. It doesn’t take long for me to find which room is hers seeing as every other room is vacant. They don’t even bother locking most of the rooms that are empty. All the locks are real key locks so picking it isn’t hard. I open up the door to her room silently and notice her small frame laying on top of a blanket and pillow placed on top of the motel bedding, they are things she must have brought with her. The room she rented is just that, one room with an attached bathroom. I stalk silently through the room to double check the bathroom before doubling back and moving to our girl. Even in sleep, she looks exhausted. She even looks a bit thinner in the face, darker skin feathers out under her swollen, puffy eyes, a telling sign that she’s not taking care of herself. Tear tracks streak down her beautiful face tells me she fell asleep crying. Stress is laying heavily on her, if her taught shoulders are anything to go by. She’s grasping ahold of her heart necklace, telling me she misses us as much as we miss her. This is bad. Something truly bad had to have happened for her to be running scared like this. Tapping her passcode into her phone, I go into her app store and set up a hidden app to allow me access to her phone at all times. I’ll be able to monitor things better this way. Hopefully, we can get some more information from her phone. I’ll also be able to hack her phone calls if need be. I’d be curious to know how much Alessandro knows about what’s going on. Reaching down to brush the hair out of her face, I kiss her gently, barely touching my lips to hers but so desperately needing to feel her against me in some way, shape or form.
“I love you Alessandra. I’ll be here to help when you’re ready. Just remember that I love you, always.” I breathe my words into her silky hair, taking in her magnolia scent that I adore so much. Taking one last glance along her body, I almost don’t let myself walk out the door but I know she needs to do whatever this is, for her. Just like I told her, I’ll be here when she’s ready. We all will. Locking the door behind me, I make my way back towards the car. Going out of my way to avoid the hooker.
* * *
“It�
��s like every step we take further gets worse!” Noah curses this whole trip as he gets an up close look at the love of our life’s childhood home. Calling it a home is definitely a stretch. It’s more appropriate to call it a shack or hovel. To call this place unpleasant would be putting it nicely. There’s no way this could even be misconstrued as a safe place for a child to live, or even an adult for that matter. How did this go on for so long? None of that makes sense. Especially factoring in the drug addled excuse of a mother that was constantly picked up by the police. They didn’t even think one time to take a look at her home life with a daughter registered as her dependent through the state? No, this reeks of underground involvement. We don’t have exclusive ties to the mafia families here on the East coast, but I know when something has been tampered with by the mob. It’s my job to know these things. It’s how we keep everything clean and tidy when it comes to our own less than legal shit. I need to look into what we’ve found on her phone but for now I’ll settle for waiting until we get back to the hotel.
Thank goodness for small favors. Q finally picked a decent place to stay. She’s a bit of a drive out from her old residence but it’s less than an hour so it looks like she’s willing to take advantage of the clean sheets over the extra drive time now that we’re where she wants to be. At least for now.
I left Matteo to set up the surveillance on her room. Fully trusting his hacking capabilities to get into her room and place bugs everywhere. I also gave him the codes to hack her phone. He’s looking into it now and will let us know if there’s anything worth a damn on there.