Stolen Kisses

by Gray, Khardine

  I never realized that was going to be the last time we’d speak. The last time she’d talk with me, the very last time I’d see her alive.

  We’d had such a bad argument and I had foolishly used stupid reverse psychology on her, because I thought it would work. She knew how much I adored her, and she’d always come to me when she was younger. She got older though and things changed.

  I didn’t know how ten years had passed so quickly. Year in, year out I hoped that something would come up, but there was nothing.

  I was still looking and hadn’t given up. I had no plans to give up either, even though the police had done so years ago.

  I still had guys searching while I continued my own investigating. The longer I looked and the harder I searched I knew that the person who had killed her must have been some kind of high power fucker.

  Some high power fucker who wanted to teach her a lesson. She was pregnant and wanted to destroy him.

  No one was that hard to find, and it was the evidence itself.

  I kept seeing that damn coffee mug on the table of the penthouse suite. The coffee mug, the newspaper, the empty plate, and Christina’s purse. The person had been there, looked like they lived there, yet the cops said the place wasn’t registered to anyone. I knew all of it had to be bull shit.

  Adding insult to injury not even Raphael was able to help. The man could move mountains, but not in that instance.

  Couldn’t get a name. Couldn’t get shit.

  Something like that should have been easy in our circles, unless the person you were looking for was a bigger fish than you. There were many categories of sharks in the sea, some were more vicious than others. Some had more power than others.

  Obviously, that was what had happened here.

  Even with all of my theories and assumptions I was still here years later with nothing.

  Not even a lead.

  It was a hard thing to accept.

  Every year I came here I hoped to have better news, but all I had brought was flowers. I came with flowers and love.

  Today’s visit hadn’t been planned. It just felt like I should come see her again. I was here at least once a month. In the beginning it was every day, then my friends weaned me down to a week, then the month.

  I’d been a broken man trying to find a way back to myself.

  The rumble of an engine pierced through the silence. I knew the sound all too well.

  It was a bike engine.

  No … not just one, but two bikes. I knew who they belonged to.

  Claudius and Gio.

  Alex wouldn’t come because he’d think it was inappropriate.

  He came on Sunday, because I needed them all here; my three best friends.

  He wouldn’t come today. He wasn’t around at the time when Christina was alive. It was like our stories were similar, but not exactly the same and the differences were enough for him to realize he didn’t understand my pain.

  The thing was I didn’t care about that, but I got it. It was a sort of respect.

  The same sort of respect we showed each other in our personal life and business.

  Claudius was the new boss. He was in charge now and us with him; the whole Chicago operation. Billions of dollars may be involved, but to me we were still The Four—Claudius Morientz’s men, the guys who got involved when shit was going down.

  Gio, Alex, me, and …

  Jude.

  Jude was Alex’s brother. He was also a traitor. He was no longer with us in every sense of that word.

  Alex killed him to save Claudius and that was possibly another reason why he wasn’t here today. It had happened over a year ago, but it was fresh death, and at his own hands—new pain. He’d had two older brothers and both of them were dead.

  On Sunday when we were together it was in a crowd of my closest friends and family. We wouldn’t be talking out our pain.

  Not like we would be today.

  Claudius was the first to pull up. Both he and Gio were dressed in black leather biker jackets. Claudius took off his helmet first and his long black hair billowed in the wind.

  Claudius was the boss, but when he came here like this he was just my friend. Gio took his helmet off too.

  He was more of a brother than a friend to me. Most likely that was probably because our stories were the same. Someone killed his best friend and the killer was never found. No one knew who did it either. Same story as me.

  We each bore a tattoo of a cross in memory of our fallen loved ones.

  Claudius had his on his cheek, and like mine, both Gio and Alex wore theirs on their necks.

  Death was what bonded us together. We’d been friends before, but death transformed us from the boys who’d loved motorcycles into men.

  I watched the two approach and sit opposite me.

  “How’d you know I’d be here?” I asked. Maybe it was a stupid question. With these guys I was like an open book and they knew me too well. Honestly sometimes they knew my mind even better than I did myself.

  “That a question you actually want an answer for?” Claudius asked giving me a smirk and staring at me with his unusual colored eyes. One brown and the other blue.

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “We didn’t think you’d want to be completely alone.” Gio offered and glanced over to Christina’s grave.

  “I just wonder if the next ten years will be like this,” I said returning my gaze to the headstone. “Me sitting here feeling like a failure. Then it will be twenty years. I’m still looking for the mother fucker who killed her, but I … maybe I should just accept I’m not going to find him.”

  “Don’t accept shit Dante. I’ll be the last person to ever tell you that.” Claudius stated.

  I looked at him and took note of the seriousness in his expression. A little over a year ago he’d gotten vengeance on the man who’d murdered Marissa, his first wife. The killer was a man called Goliath. He was a black market trafficker who’d gotten involved in a deal to steal some nukes from Chicago.

  The whole thing was potentially an example of things happening in the most unusual of ways. So, him telling me not to give up was because he knew what he was talking about.

  “Me too,” Gio added. “I won’t tell you to give up, because I’m not giving up either. The similarities we share is that neither of us knows who took our people from us. We have no leads, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find.”

  “I won’t stop looking.” I said it more to Christina rather than them.

  “And, we won’t stop helping you look either,” Claudius added. “We just need to find another avenue, which is what I did.”

  I straightened. “What do you mean? What did you do?”

  I was real interested to hear what he did that I hadn’t done yet.

  “Last night I contacted a P.I., who deals with unsolved murders.” Claudius answered. “I know you’ve hired many people, but this guy is a disgraced ex-naval officer. Someone framed him awhile back for murdering his wife and he lost everything. He was exonerated, but never went back to the service. I figured he was worth a shot, because he owes no allegiance to anyone. A man like that will dig deep and won’t be afraid of what he finds. I think that’s what we need here.”

  The thing I liked about Claudius was that he always spoke with wisdom and experience.

  “Thank you. I don’t know how to thank you,” I replied.

  “Don’t thank me yet. Let’s see what this guy is made of first. If we get results, then it’s a step in the right direction.”

  I nodded and looked at them both. Something like hope sparked in me, waking up the fight in me to avenge Christina’s death.

  I just needed a name.

  Only a name and it would indeed be a step in the right direction.

  Chapter 3

  Maria

  A tear ran down my cheek as I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  I wiped it away quickly and looked back at myself again.
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br />   Dark circles surrounded my puffy eyes and my platinum blonde hair looked a ragged mess even though it was in a bun. My face was gaunt from my lack of food over the last week and my skin was sallow.

  I looked awful, awful and so unlike the woman I used to be.

  My blue eyes had lost their shine years ago, but there was always a spark of something that resembled hope. Today even that was gone and I looked completely drained.

  Understandable in my situation, not to mention the new level of shit I’d found myself in.

  The shit, and the fact that I was back in Chicago.

  Chicago …

  The place I had ran from to start a new life.

  The life that had chewed me up, took me to hell and spat me out, sent me right back here to the devil’s land I knew.

  I ran from the danger in Chicago straight into the arms of a drug lord in Florida. And now I was right back at the place I had started, because it was the only place Franco wouldn’t have known about.

  Not yet.

  He wouldn’t know yet, but soon.

  Franco … would know soon and God help me when he did.

  He wouldn’t know about Chicago, because I did my best to hide my past from him. I never doubted that it would only be a matter of time and he would find me.

  Franco Deville. Franco, my ex-husband who I thought was going to be the guy I would change my life with.

  It had all turned out to be fucking bull shit and I was wrong again.

  I looked at my phone and re-read the headline of the Fox News website I’d searched on Google.

  Franco Deville Freed From All Charges …

  He’d just been released from prison. He was out now and probably looking for me and Flynn, our four year old son.

  I had the good sense to flee days ago when the news hit that there was some inconclusive findings that acquitted him for his life sentence for murder.

  Inconclusive my ass.

  There was nothing inconclusive about the way he killed his business partners. Unknown to him, I had seen the whole thing. I was the only witness.

  That bastard.

  That bastard, he still had power even behind bars. I didn’t know how he did it, but he did. Whatever he’d done had made concrete evidence inconclusive.

  The minute I’d heard that I knew exactly what would happen next.

  I pulled in a deep breath and shook my head at my reflection.

  I couldn’t believe what was happening to me.

  How stupid was I to believe things would change when I left here and went to Florida?

  I’d just ran from one bad life straight into another.

  From one bad guy to a different one.

  Some women just attracted the wrong kind of man. At one time I had thought it was sexy to be with the guys you couldn’t take home to meet your mother.

  I didn’t even know why I thought that since my own mother left me on the doorstep of my aunt’s brothel when I was two years old. She couldn’t even make it to the house. People said she was probably too high on crack, or drunk to find the right doorstep. No one would ever know why, because weeks later she was found dead in a motel room near Millennium Park.

  Not a great start to my miserable life. No wonder I was so messed up.

  Maybe messed up people were automatically destined for bad luck too.

  I’d picked Franco believing the lie he was.

  The image he portrayed five years ago was the opposite to the men I’d been with in Chicago.

  Franco was a rich, successful investment banker who’d set up shop on the coast of Florida with plans to expand into property development. He’d ticked every box for me. Most importantly, he wasn’t a gangster—not a mobster.

  I didn’t realize he was something worse and when we first met, he treated me so good I had never thought to look a little deeper. Not thinking I should listen to those instincts of mine that told me he was just as bad, if not worse, than the men I left behind when I ran from Chicago.

  Franco served two years of his life sentence and I knew he’d come for me. Not because I was his ex-wife and he’d want to get back together to fix things.

  It would be to kill me.

  He’d kill me, because he knew only I could have told the police it was him who had killed his two business partners.

  I was the only person who saw him put the gun he used to shoot them multiple times in the safe back at our home. I’d gone to his office to meet him, trying to look past the abuse he’d dealt me. I was doing my best for Flynn. I’d thought maybe the problem was me.

  He didn’t know I was there. I heard arguing so I hung back just outside his door which was slightly ajar. The argument was about money. His partners wanted more shares in the business venture they were about to undertake. He’d refused so they were going to pull their investments.

  He’d shot them before they could say their next words. Killing them both right there where they sat. A bullet to the head first followed by more shots over and over again showing his rage.

  I didn’t know how I managed, but I left the office unseen and went straight home in a blind panic. It was all too much and I worried what would happen to me and Flynn.

  He came home, strolled into the living room where we were and placed the gun in the safe.

  I knew in that moment it was make or break for me. That night when he went to bed, I got Flynn ready and left. I got to the city and called the police telling them what I had seen and where to find the gun.

  It was anonymous, but Franco would figure it out.

  I had no doubt he’d know it was me.

  The police knew exactly where to look for the gun. Only I could have told them the location.

  He’d kill me …

  Kill me and take our son when he found us. My son, my boy, the only good thing I did in this world.

  A knock sounded at the bathroom door, making me jump.

  Everything was making me jumpy.

  “Just a sec.” I called out.

  “You okay in there Maria? Been in there awhile.” It was Sophia.

  She was my cousin, and … well I guess I could call her my friend. She was a friend to me on the days she felt like being a friend. I’d grown up with her, here in this very house.

  It was on the days she felt like being a bitch that I remembered I stuck with her, because we shared blood. I shared blood with two people in this house. It was clear to me more often than not that they hated me, but they were family.

  What I could call family and who I’d run to when I was in trouble.

  Like now. Although I hadn’t exactly told them what the trouble was.

  They knew Franco had been in prison, but not that I had put him there. They knew he was out and I’d simply said I didn’t want any dealings with him so I came back here to get away.

  “I’m okay,” I replied. That okay meant I was still alive.

  Not the other kind where the hills were alive with the Sound of Music.

  I tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear, opened the door and saw Sophia standing in the passage way. She looked concerned, an emotion I rarely saw in my cousin.

  We looked very different, like opposites. She had jet black hair, brown eyes and was more olive toned skinned. She was very beautiful, but in the past all the guys were chasing me not her.

  It was probably the cause of most of our contention.

  “You sure you’re okay?” she asked.

  “I’m tired.” An understatement, a big understatement. I raised a hand to my head and winced. I would have given anything to sleep just an hour or two. But there was too much to do.

  I’d travelled for days. We took two buses from Florida and arrived a few hours ago. We had to abandon my car because … well Franco could use it to track me. I cancelled my bank cards too and took out the little cash I had earned from my waitressing job. We were poor as it was, living from one month to the next on my meagre salary. It paid the bills and put food on the table.

  “Maybe
you should rest for a little while.” Sophia nodded. “I definitely couldn’t just keep going like that.”

  “When you need money there’s no such thing as rest.” Came a harsh voice that penetrated my soul and reminded me of the debacle I was in.

  Aunt Vira walked up to us and looked me up and down. The intensity in her stare pierced into me.

  “No, no such thing.” I agreed.

  “Don’t be snarky with me girl. Don’t let me remind you, you’re in no position to show anyone any sarcasm whatsoever.” She sneered.

  I just kept quiet and looked at her.

  No one would be able to tell that we were related since we looked nothing alike. From the old pictures I’d seen of her and my mother it was clear they looked nothing alike either.

  My mother was fair like me and didn’t seem to ever have to worry about her weight. Vira leaned more on the heftier side and had grown substantially larger as the years went by. It didn’t help that she had no interest in taking care of herself. Age hadn’t changed that either. With her greasy salt and pepper hair, blemished skin, and ragged clothes, she looked just a little better than a tramp.

  It didn’t help either that when she talked to people she scowled a lot, and with me her scowl was very pronounced.

  Jesus, it was evident the woman truly hated me. She hated me still for leaving the way I had years ago. I would have probably ended up dead if I hadn’t left. The thing was I sort of had to do the kind of leaving where you couldn’t say goodbye and then I never kept in touch.

  Five years had gone by like that. I doubted though that she’d been the worried aunt back home who was devastated that her niece had gone missing.

  “Make sure you get that job. I want three hundred bucks a week and an extra hundred for looking after the brat.” She folded her arms and wrinkled her nose. “You and that boy can’t stay here for free.” She scowled.

  I didn’t bother to tell her that we couldn’t stay here at all. It was bad enough that Vira hated me, but the brothel was next door. I didn’t want my kid in that kind of environment, and I didn’t want myself mixed up in it either. Vira had owned that brothel forever. I was pretty certain it had been there from the dawn of time, just like the gates of hell, tempting young women who were desperate.