Falling.
Falling to his death.
Falling a good fifty feet down.
He landed on the ground. From up here he looked like an ant.
As I looked down at my Christina’s murderer, images of her flooded my mind.
I remembered when she was born. I actually remembered it.
Pa had made me promise to take care of her. To always care for my baby sister.
He made me promise again on his death bed.
I recalled images of my beautiful sister as she grew up. I loved her so much.
Elliot’s death didn’t bring her back, but somehow, I felt peace. Peace and something lift off my shoulders from the years of not knowing who killed her.
I turned away from the gruesome sight of Elliot’s body down below me and climbed back up to safety.
I looked on ahead. In the night sky I could just about see the helicopter with Barabbas getting away.
It was fine. There was always next time.
Always next time.
“Dante,” Number Two’s voice filled my ear again.
“Yes.”
“You need to get to the docks now. Franco has Maria and the boy. He’s on the roof of warehouse 12.”
I didn’t waste time asking for any more details. I ran.
I ran hard, hoping like hell I could save them.
My girl and my child.
Chapter 31
Maria
It was a week after I got to Florida that I’d met Franco.
I managed to get a job in the restaurant on the beach. Although I practically felt like a fish out of water, I was fascinated with the sea. It was so beautiful. So gorgeous with the depths of the blue on blue. I’d never seen water like that before.
On postcards sure. The lakes around Chicago and Michigan were pretty. I’d never really gone any further.
I was so embarrassed to admit to anyone that I’d never been anywhere. Never went on vacation or anywhere worth noting. I was just there in Chicago. Florida felt like paradise to me.
He’d walked up to me while I was on my break that day. It was my third day on the job and I’d taken to spending my breaks on the beach. Just sitting there marveling at what it all looked like. I’d thought it would have been amazing to go there with Christina. She’d loved water. I was thinking that very thing when Franco walked up to me and asked me where I was from.
He could tell that I was new to the area and I was embarrassed by my transparency. It was then that the first inkling of protection filled me and I told him I was from Ohio.
The little spark of something that made me lie then for whatever reason unknown to me, was blossoming inside me now. The terrible regret of getting involved with this man assailed me.
His men positioned me about ten feet away from him and Flynn then left us.
Left the three of us on the roof of the warehouse. It was the biggest warehouse that lined the docks.
I hated it here, so much death and all sorts of shady shit things had happened here.
Now it looked like I was about to join the horror stories.
I was about ten feet away from Franco and Flynn. Him with his gun in his right hand, while his left held Flynn.
Death was in the air. I shuddered inwardly at the thought and I just didn’t know how he was going to work it.
How would he exact his punishment on me?
How would I decide if Flynn got to go with him?
I would do whatever it was he wanted me to do; to save my baby.
The smile on his face pulled at my insides. It pulled and twisted at me, making me sick.
“I found out you weren’t from Ohio shortly after we met.” He spoke piercing the silence of the space between us. “I always have the women I’m interested in thoroughly checked out before getting with them. When I discovered you were a nobody from Chicago I thought you were a safe bet. But, I kept Chicago on my mind just in case. After all I never knew why you wouldn’t just say you were from here. I figured it had to be down to embarrassment or something. I checked out Ohio when I first got out of prison. Chicago next. Thankfully I never had to dig too deep in Ohio and with your amateur escape here it was kind of easy to find you.”
I just stood there listening.
What could I say? There was nothing left. At this point it was just a wait and see game.
I was at the part of the game where he had me in checkmate and I had to wait to see what he would do next.
“Maria, do you love Flynn?”
What a foolish question. “Of course I do. I love him with everything in me.” I looked at Flynn and saw his little face gazing at me.
I was so sorry for this. For him having to go through all of this. He deserved better, a mother who could protect him.
Maybe it would have been better for him to have been taken away from me rather than this.
“Flynn, do you love your Mama?”
“Yes.” He cried.
This was all pure evil.
“Flynn do you think your Mama would do anything for you?” Franco asked in a taunting voice that carried across the distance between us.
The cold night air stung my cheeks. It made the pain rippling through me feel so much worse.
“Yes,” Flynn answered.
Franco looked back to me. “Well Maria it seems like the boy thinks you’ll do anything for him. Is that true, what would you do for him?”
“Anything.” I shouted.
“Good, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.” He held up his gun and pointed it at Flynn.
“No! Please ... No ...” I screamed unable able to stop the tears.
“Maria you decide what happens next. In order to secure Flynn’s ticket with me back to Florida and save his life you will jump. You will jump off the side of this building and kill yourself.”
Oh my God. My God.
No.
Kill myself? Just walk off the side of the building and allow my baby to see me do that knowing I’d be dead.
Flynn started crying again. Franco tightened his grip on his arm hurting him. He was hurting him, digging his fingers into his shoulder torturing him.
“Franco … please, why don’t we just both go with you. Flynn needs me. He’ll need someone to take care of him. I’m the best person to do that.” It was a final attempt to save both of us.
Franco growled. “You should have thought of that when you turned me in to the police. You fucking bitch, fucking selfish bitch. You were just looking for a chance to leave me. You turned me in and issued the divorce papers a week after I was sentenced. Of course I will not take any form of pity on you. Jump now.”
“Please just shoot me. Just shoot me.” I wailed, because I couldn’t kill myself. I couldn’t.
He pulled the trigger getting ready to release it on Flynn and my soul screamed.
My little boy, my little baby, he was only four years old. His father stood over him ready to kill him.
The seconds that passed made me think of Dante and all the love he showed us. Like everything else I touched I screwed up with him. I was grateful Flynn had him if only for a little while. Flynn had him in his life to show him what real men did.
I was grateful for that and angry that Flynn would have to grow up with a monster like Franco.
So, so very sad, knowing I had to go. I was going to do this, because I would do anything for Flynn.
It was wrong to regret. Ridiculous now to think I could have done things different.
Foolish to blame myself for not being with the guy who was always there. The man who always had my back.
Dante with his charm, and his vibrant personality. Dante who meant so much to me.
I was a foolish girl way back then who never realized she had love. A foolish woman now to have lost it.
Dante with his old bike—
vintage.
Franco smiled when I turned to move toward the side of the roof. I would have to step on the rail to jump over.
Flynn started scre
aming worse than I had ever heard him and yet as I took my procession on the path of death all I could think of was Dante’s old bike.
I could even see it now, hear that thing in the echo of my memories tearing down the road.
Could hear it …
I stopped inches away from the rail as the sound rippled through the night.
Wait, I could hear the bike. I hadn’t imagined it.
As I looked ahead of me to the roof of the warehouse adjacent to us I saw it. I saw him.
Dante!
Dante on his old bike, but he’d just taken off from the roof top and was sailing through the sky. Sailing across the gap at magnificent speed that didn’t quite seem real.
I watched as if in slow motion as the bike came across in my line of sight and he twisted around to fire a shot at Franco. It got him right between his eyes.
It was all I saw, because Dante continued in motion with the bike right over the other side of the roof.
Instinct and adrenaline pushed me to run, but all I was doing was screaming.
Screaming for him, because I saw what was going to happen.
The bike must have hit something and blew up. The impact knocked me back and I fell, but got up straight away.
I had to see what happened to him.
I rushed to the side, but couldn’t see him anywhere, just the water from the lake that rippled in the dark.
God in heaven where was he?
“No! No!” I screamed.
I had to find him. Oh God I had to do something. Anything.
I got up and didn’t even remember Flynn was there.
My poor baby was still standing up crying in shock and Franco lay dead at his feet.
I grabbed Flynn and ran. Together we ran through the fire exit doors and down the steps which seemed to take forever. I couldn’t get down them quick enough and time wasn’t waiting for me.
I’d just gotten to the ground floor when Claudius burst through the door.
“Maria you okay?” He cried.
“Dante fell over the roof.” I screamed.
Gio and Alex had joined us and when I said that Gio whirled back around running toward the riverbank.
We followed going right up to the side. I set Flynn down frantically and looked around, but it was so dark and the tears pouring from my eyes didn’t help.
It didn’t help at all.
Dante …
He sacrificed himself for me—he did that.
The torment of that knowledge alone made every fiber within me ache with grief.
“There!” Gio balked and started taking off his shoes.
I couldn’t see anything.
Gio jumped into the river and swam far out. I could barely make him out against darkness. Then he was swimming backwards toward us.
Swimming backwards with his arm around a lifeless looking Dante. Blood covered his face. Gio pulled him up on the bank and I cried harder when I truly saw him.
He must have hit his head and he looked so pale.
Claudius rushed to them and I made a move to go too, but Alex held me back.
“Let me go to him.”
“Doll stay here. Let them see what they can do.” Alex said holding me in place.
My chest caved when I watched Gio check Dante to see if he was breathing and started to resuscitate him.
Placing his hands on the center of Dante’s chest Gio started the compressions. Thirty compressions to two rescue breaths. Thirty more compressions to two rescue breaths. Another set just like that followed by another until I saw tears running down Gio’s cheek.
My legs gave out and I started crying harder.
Gio never gave up though, he continued for another round until Claudius landed a punch in his face and took over.
“You fucking New York punk wake up. Wake the fuck up, don’t you dare leave me!” Claudius screamed his hair whipping out in the wind.
I couldn’t allow him to leave me either. I wouldn’t let him go.
Alex released his grasp on me and I ran over to Dante, throwing myself down next to him. I held his hand as Claudius continued the compressions and breaths.
Claudius stopped and growled.
As he did I took over. I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t.
“Come back to me. I cried. Please! Please! I love you. I love you. Damn it come back to me.”
I didn’t realize that I’d started punching instead of doing the compressions.
“I love you!” I screamed from the depths of my soul and slapped him hard in his face.
It was like something jolted through him, he coughed and making a choking sound then water sprayed out of his mouth.
It was like I’d just imagined it, the whole thing and now this part. I could of sworn he was dead and I’d lost him. I just wasn’t going to accept it.
He continued to cough and Claudius helped him get the water out of his lungs.
Dante looked at me when I touched his face.
“Maria.” He said, his voice was so faint I barely heard him. “I love you too.” He whispered.
I was still crying so much that I couldn’t talk. I just looked at him, at the man who was my everything and so much more.
I just looked at him and I was filled with the deepest relief— he was alive.
Chapter 32
Dante
It felt like days had passed.
I went through various phases of being asleep and awake.
Sleep then awake seeing Claudius with Maria next to him.
Sleep then awake seeing Gio and Alex with Maria next to them.
The pattern continued, Flynn and Maria, Maria and other people; Luc, Amelia, Ava, Marcus, and even Gibbs.
Different faces, but she was always there; my Maria.
I tried, but couldn’t stay awake long enough.
Not long enough at any point to say anything. I would realize I was awake then sleep would take me again. It took me and it felt like the moment I hit the water I had hit my head on something sharp. I knew the impact of the two knocked me out.
It wasn’t surprising with how much I’d been through in that one day, a bomb at my house, the raid on the civic center killing Elliot and the creeper, and then jumping my bike the twenty foot distance to save my girl.
I rode hard and fast when Number Two told me Franco had Maria and Flynn.
When he told me Maria was verging closer and closer to the edge of the roof like she was going to jump, I knew what that sick bastard was forcing her to do. I did the only thing I could do at the time, because I was too far away to save her.
It wouldn’t have worked any other way.
I had seconds so I rode up the side of the building and jumped from the closest one to the next which was the roof adjacent to where she was. There I built up my speed and launched. I was a quick shot so I wasn’t worried about that part. I just focused on getting across from one roof to the next. The only thought I had on my mind was saving my girl and my child.
Claudius was right in the end. He’d said to remember I said that when I cooled off.
I did and I knew I had to save them by any means.
My life was …
It didn’t mean anything. I just wanted to use it to save them. It would be my way of saying ‘I love you too,’ and she’d know it. She’d know that I did and I always had.
Sleep then awake. A few days more like that until I did it. I managed to keep my eyes open and stay awake.
She was right next to me, her head resting next to my leg. She was sleeping. Her beautiful white blonde hair always looked like it was glowing.
20% angel, 80% devil, and she was all Maria Ferrara.
No … I think now it was the opposite. 80% angel because only an angel could have called me back from the other side, and the 20% devil was the part of her that made me always want her.
I couldn’t explain it. It felt like I’d had an out of body experience and I could hear the guys, but the life left in me just wasn’t enough. She had called me th
en and I knew how disappointed she’d be if I didn’t come back.
It was like those times when I was younger and I thought she was going to end up homeless or something, because Vira treated her so badly. It felt like all those times when I worried about her wanting to take her away and spend the rest of my life making her happy. All those times rolled into one and shoved the fact that she didn’t tell me about Elliot right out of my mind.
There was nothing to forgive, because she didn’t do anything wrong. She’d been right to wait until she knew something. She did exactly what she would do once she knew for certain, told me it was him, no matter what that meant. She had told me.
It was all over, and time to move on.
We had the memories and now it was time to make more.
I moved my hand over to touch her head. She stirred in an instant like she was waiting for me to wake.
“Dante,” she gasped. “You’re awake, you’re awake.”
“I’m awake baby. I’m sorry I scared you.”
“You can’t apologize for that.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry for everything.”
“Don’t be, you ... you did the right thing. I was an ass just hyped up on rage. Forgive me.”
“Dante please, it’s okay. I’m sorry about your vintage bike.”
“You mean my old bike?” I tried to laugh, but it hurt too much. My head hurt.
“It’s vintage.”
“Told you, that you’d be surprised by what it could do. My other bikes couldn’t have done that.” My head was aching like a bitch.
“Baby, let me get the doctor.”
I grabbed her hand. “No, wait. I don’t want sleep to come for me again.” I didn’t feel like it was, but just in case there was something I wanted to do. Something that came to me just before I jumped my bike. It was a vision of her that I had realized I wanted. I knew that leap would take me to my death and it was the last thing on my mind. “I don’t want to fall asleep again and not do this.”
“What, Dante?”
“It’s funny when I imagined doing this I never thought I’d be in a hospital bed looking like shit.”
“You could never look like that.” She smiled.
“I think I do. Please just imagine we’re somewhere you’ve always wanted to be, and I look a hell of a lot better than I do now.”
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