by Zoey Parker
“Love you too, Hannah.”
As we separate, she heads for the guest room, saying, “My usual room’s okay?”
“Yep and Hannah?”
She stops.
“Who was it, other than Carlos, that you saw when you were there? Did anyone else come to see you?”
Hannah turns, shakes her head.
“Nope. Carlos was the one who dumped me in that godforsaken little room and he was the only one who came periodically, to lord his victory, sneer at my helplessness. There was a hole in the wall too. Sometimes I’d stare out of it, but the only other person I saw was this woman – his sister, I think – who came down, but didn’t seem aware that I was there. The walls were pure cement, too thick for my yelling or banging to get through.”
“Oh,” I say.
I steady myself on the wall, resisting the sudden urge to sit down.
Toni might have been telling the truth.
“Gabe, what’s the matter?” Hannah is asking, peering into my face.
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the hardwood floor, staring at the black wall ahead of me.
Damn it, Toni couldn’t have been telling the truth, could she?
“Gabe?” Hannah is asking, sitting on the floor beside me.
“About before... when you asked if there were any women while you were gone, I wasn’t completely honest. There was a woman. Toni. Toni Piccolo.”
“What?” Hannah asks, her voice a shocked hush.
I nod.
“I’ve been seeing her for a few weeks, but I had no idea who she really was until today. I found out when I came to rescue you, she was there, said she didn’t know anything about you being there.”
“Shit Gabe, did she know who you were?”
I nod again.
“Don’t know for how long, but yeah she admitted she knew, said she wanted to tell me but… Hann, she’s a Piccolo, this had to be part of them screwing with us, trying to get information out of me.”
“Probably,” Hannah says, “Just… what was she like?”
The words come out before I can stop them, “I don’t know. She was an enigma: passionate yet subdued, fiery yet playful. I always wondered why she was so closed-off, but I guess that mystery’s solved for now at least.”
I frown at the wall.
“And when I was with her... Hann, it was crazy, it was like I wasn’t myself, like time slid away. It was like, everything was perfect.”
I stand up, offer Hannah my hand.
“Though it doesn’t matter now. Everything she told me was basically a lie, so our entire relationship probably was too.”
Hannah stares at my hand, doesn’t take it.
“I don’t know, Gabe.”
I shrug.
“Well I do. The Piccolos have caused us enough problems to last us decades. Now that you’re home safe, I’m going to end it. I’m going to put them down for good.”
Hannah rises, raises her blue-eyed gaze to mine.
“Is that what you really want to do?”
I don’t respond and she continues, “Put them down – just how they’ve been trying to do to us, continue this never-ending conflict?”
I look at her, my rosy-cheeked, clear-eyed little sister. My Hannah whom I almost lost.
“You don’t get it,” I say, “They almost took you from me. I almost lost you, Hann.”
She puts her hand on my shoulder.
“But you didn’t.”
I turn away, back to the living room.
“I’ve got to get to work.”
I’m halfway there when Hannah says, “Oh and Gabe?”
I pause.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve never heard you talk about any woman like that. How you just did about Toni. I’d think about what you’re going to do. Toni’s different and you know it.”
I say nothing, and Hannah continues, “I’m not saying to trust her or go back to her. I’m just saying, maybe make sure she’s lying before you dismiss her altogether.”
I walk back into the living without another word. Sit down and sink into the leather couch in silence.
Hannah doesn’t understand. Just how intense this casual “fling” with Toni has gotten. That I’m not worried that Toni is a liar. I’m worried what I’ll choose if she is.
Chapter 30
Toni
I wake up dead.
I’m on my back on a hard, concrete floor, in a little box of a room. I’m hungry and delirious. I must be dead. There can be no other explanation for this.
I roll onto my side and remember.
Gabriel, seeing me, knowing the truth, rejecting the both of us. His sister, that drugged-out flop of a girl. The blind rage in his eyes. The gun pointed at me.
Slipping my hand in my pants pocket only confirms what I knew already: My phone is gone.
Carlos must’ve taken it out. There goes my last chance.
Now there’s no knowing how long I’ve even been here: minutes, hours, days…
Really, who cares? I’m doomed in any case. I will be shipped, sold and screwed – over and over and over again - and there’s nothing I can do about it.
A low moan escapes my lips.
Why, oh, why did I have to stay? Why did I ever trust Carlos? Why did I lie to Gabe?
Frustrated tears spill down my face.
God, I’ve been so stupid.
I get up on hands and knees, then rise.
Maybe Gabriel’s sister missed something. Maybe Carlos isn’t as careful as he thinks. Maybe there’s a way out.
But all my circling around the room reveals are corners full of spider webs and dead spiders who’ve died waiting. Trapped in a box of an underground room with no flies, the unnatural life killed them. Just how the sex trade life will kill me.
My second circling of the room turns up the smallest of holes by the left corner.
I peer through to see my eerily undisturbed den: the closet door neatly closed, the Renoir painting straight. In the corner of my vision, on my armchair is a pair of men’s legs. The guard who has orders to kill me. As if that was something to really be afraid of now.
Leaning against the wall, I stare dully at the flap door, the one I know leads to the couch with the guard who has orders to kill me. My last chance that’s not a chance at all.
No, there’s no point in even trying.
I wipe away the tears.
It’s just too horrible, all of it – losing Papa, losing Gabriel, having Carlos win and deceive everyone with that lying piece of paper. Me having to become my worst nightmare. No, I can’t take it.
And I don't even want to think about what’s going to happen to Maria Fernanda and Jane.
My hand automatically slips back in my pocket and, feeling nothing, I sigh.
I don’t even have my phone to see if Gabriel changed his mind, considered believing me. No, I have been left to my fate – unavoidably, doomed.
I never had time to respond to his text, explain why I never showed up to the bar, though I’m sure he’s figured it out by now.
I glance at the flap door again, inch toward it.
There’s no point in even trying and yet, what do I have to lose?
I stop in front of it, glare at it, turn away.
Why not wait and see a bit longer? Why not try something else?
My starving belly rumbles out the answer: There is nothing else to try. This is all that’s left.
I crouch down and shove my leg through the flap.
Sure enough, it connects with a soft surface that’s my favorite armchair.
I throw it out again, then again and again, each time sending the armchair shaking, but not moving it.
I strike out with all my might, over and over and over until – suddenly – my feet hit nothing. I pause, then find my feet being shoved backwards.
As I watch in horror, Clarence crawls through the flap. Then, his face horrifically calm, he sits in front of my escape.
He’s holding
a gun.
His deadly smile is saying, “I was hoping we’d get to see each other.”
Chapter 31
Gabriel
Pip is still sitting in the living room. He’s wearing an unobtrusive expression that indicates he heard everything.
“Is it surprising?” I ask him.
“Is what surprising?” he asks me.
With a bitter smile, I say, “Knowing that your Boss is as big an idiot as the rest of them. Fell for Toni Piccolo of all women.”
Pip shakes his head, slides his foot side to side over the black tiles.
“You’re not an idiot.”
I flop down on the couch and glare at the black cityscape on the wall across from me. All the buildings are fused into one black rectangle with white squares of lights, while the sky is a single ashen swirl. It’s the view of an apocalypse, of no hope, of how I’m feeling right now.
“Yes, I am, Pip.”
Even as I speak, I’m reaching for my phone on the table. To check if Toni’s texted me.
“Your sister is right, Boss.”
Pip’s voice is low, sure.
He takes a swig of his water, says, “She’s right, you know.”
As I stare at it, the cityscape is changing before my eyes. Instead of being a somber ode to grey and black, it’s actually that of hidden light: its white pattern on the buildings, the ivory of the sky amidst the gray.
“You realize what you’re saying I should do,” I say.
Pip responds by gulping down the rest of his water.
I rise, check my phone again.
Still nothing. If I’m going to go back to the Piccolo house, I’ll have to do it soon, before…
The door swings open, and Jaws and Pulse walk in.
Seeing me and the empty space on the couch where Hannah was, tentatively Jaws says, “Uh Boss?”
I stride to the door, past them.
“Hannah is fine, I have something I have to do,” I say.
And before I can change my mind, I hurry to the hallway and get on the elevator.
I rush outside through the parking lot. It’s only when I get to the van that I realize I’m not alone.
Pip is waiting there, leaning on the hood of the ugly old thing.
“How did you—?”
Pip gives the hood a pat.
“Elevator is slow. So is van.”
“Hiya Boss we’re coming!” Jaws says, he and Pulse jogging on up.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to do,” I say.
Pulse shrugs.
“Pip filled us in on the staircase.”
I stare at him evenly.
“And so you know just who I’m going to see.”
“We believe in love! We believe in you!” Jaws says.
He’s smiling like an idiot, and I turn to Pip, who shrugs. “Really, they’re hoping you find out she’s a lying bitch and kill her.”
I turn back to Jaws and Pulse, whose scared shitless expressions indicate Pip’s telling the truth.
When I stretch out my arms, Jaws jumps. Smiling, I say, “Okay.”
Pip pats the car bumper again. “Van is slow. Bikes are fast.”
I shake my head. “Bikes are fast but the van is unobtrusive.”
Pip casts a derisive look over to our old white Honda, then, with a scowl, stalks over and gets in.
The others pile in, I get in the driver’s seat, and we’re off.
The trip is fun. The others have the same frenetic energy I have, clearly enjoy me speeding this van along for as good as it’s worth. Soon, the van is flying toward the Piccolo house at an incredible pace. Cars are obstacles to weave around, sidewalks are roads to use during red lights, and the police? They’re nowhere to be found.
Our ride is one smooth-sailing race to the Piccolos. By the time I park down the road from it, my blood is boiling and I’m running on fumes.
I’m ready. I’m more than ready.
I get out of the van, take out my phone and send a message to Toni.
“Where are you?”
And then I wait, leaning against a 10-foot high stone fence with the others.
Five minutes go by, an old woman hobbles by with a trailing stare, and no response comes.
Finally, I call her. It goes straight to voicemail.
When I look down the road where the house is, in the sky I see a plume of smoke.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
“You guys wait here,” I tell them, starting for the house.
But Jaws steps in front of me, shakes his head so hard that his hair spikes move with it.
“No way. We came here to back you up. We’re not letting you go in there alone.”
I take out the White Lady.
“You don’t get it. You guys can spot me outside, but you can’t come in the house. If it’s a trap, then we’ll all be done for.”
The others frown at my words, but don’t argue. Can’t argue with common sense.
So we go.
We walk at a natural pace, only throw easy glances around. As if we’re not the guys who just blew up several buildings and are actually returning to the scene of the crime.
Either our strategy works or there’s no one to attack us, because we creep up to the Piccolo property’s front gate undetected.
The gates are wide open, as if beckoning us to enter. It’s ominous and yet, it certainly makes things easier.
“You wait here,” I tell the others as I head inside.
“We’ll wait at the door,” Pip says.
I turn to glare at him, and find myself glaring at all of them, as Pulse and Jaws are also following behind me.
We stop at the front door, which is still lying on the ground from my first forced entry.
I take a step into the door and stop.
I turn to my friends. I look at them, really look at them. My friends, my brothers. My men whom I may have just led into a trap, and yet who would follow me gladly anyway, through countless traps, through unspeakable danger. Through everything.
Hannah may be family, but these men are family too.
I look into their determined faces and a pit of guilt rolls around my stomach.
What have I done, put family in danger to find family?
I glance away.
“I’ll text you in 5 when I know the coast is clear or I’ve found her. You see anything, you text me.”
They nod. I nod. And then I run through the door.
Inside, there are voices coming from down the hallway. From the room at the end of the hallway.
None of them are Toni’s. Maybe I shouldn’t be here at all.
I creep toward the room slowly, ensuring each step is as gradual and soundless as possible.
I stop at the corner, take out my phone.
Still no text from Toni, nothing. Either she can’t message me back or doesn’t want to. Which option do I prefer?
I switch back to Jaws’ conversation so I’ll be ready to send him a message.
No sooner have I tapped our conversation than is something hard pressed into the back of my head.
“Make a sound and I’ll shoot,” says a familiar voice.
Shit.
“Hand me back your gun,” it commands, and I do.
An ironic scowl comes on my lips. Now the White Lady might actually be used on me.
It’s not unlikely, since the man pulling me into the room with the voices, the man pressing the gun into the back of my head, is none other than Carlos Piccolo.
Inside the ornate Chatelaine-ready room are two burly men who look like they don’t belong. One is short and one is tall and, at my entrance, grins slither onto their faces.
“Gabriel Pierson… No fucking way!” the little one hisses.
With one hand, Carlos tosses him my phone.
“Yes way. When I give the order, send his men out there a text that the coast is clear.”