Neither of us could take the wait anymore. I pushed, slowly, and we both sighed once I was in to the hilt. I held her legs, up and out, working my hips slowly, watching as she got used to it, as desire rose in her again. Then she was moaning and squirming, pushing her hips into mine, taking me in deeper.
At her squirming, I stopped, releasing her legs. I shifted the both of us until I was lying on top of her, her legs and arms wrapped around me, my hands under her shoulders. We moved in sync, her hips pushing up to meet my thrusts. I kissed her as we moved, her mouth, all over her face, whatever skin I could reach. I moved my tongue lazily, thrusting it in and out of her mouth to match the rhythm of my cock moving in and out of her body.
When orgasm came, it hit us at roughly the same time. I felt her squeeze around me, and I was spurting into the condom, muffling a groan in her mouth.
We lay in each other's arms as we came down from the high, Elda snuggled up to my chest.
"Will you tell me?"
I opened my eyes, before closing them again, keeping her head tucked under my chin, one arm around her as the other hand stroked her hair.
"About what?"
"This general, why you two wanted to kill each other. You were in the army, correct?"
I hummed. "Right. The IRA. I wasn’t originally posted under him; he ran a special unit. I worked my way up, earned my way in. It was great at first. I mean, not great, but I wasn’t made to enlist because I didn’t have a choice, it was something I wanted to do since I was young. I dreamed of it, and I achieved that dream."
God, I had been so naïve back then. Like I'd thought it would be the answer to everything. I wouldn’t listen to my parents, especially my mother when she begged me to stay at home. I left as soon as I was eighteen, young and fit, and was going out for training about a month later.
"What happened?"
I felt my face fold into a frown as I remembered. "I escaped, from the IRA, from Ireland. I decided they were nothing more than a rebellious group. I didn’t feel the passion and drive for the movement like I did when I first joined. They were killing too many innocent people and for a cause that I no longer believed in anymore.
"But why escape? Wasn’t there any other way of leaving?"
"Trust me, Elda, there wasn’t. I knew it wouldn’t be as simple as saying I didn’t want to be a part of it, anymore. That would be defecting, and it wouldn’t be taken lightly. I couldn’t even stay in Ireland after. A friend helped me cross the border, change my name, arrange for some papers. I moved to the States. I have a different name than the one I use, even Bable is an affected surname. I kept my first name, Luke, out of some sentimentality. I knew the General would want me dead for the betrayal, but Luke was a common enough name, he couldn’t possibly look for every single one."
It seemed like he had done something similar, though. I hadn't told Greco enough of my background for him to be able to track down the General, so it was an easy guess who had contacted whom first. I wasn’t sure if he'd even checked to be sure it was me, or if he would have just waited to confirm the body.
"It was stupid of me, probably," I mused. "He must have assumed the tack I would pick and followed it. There was no other way he could have found me, not after five damn years."
"What do you mean?"
"I needed someone big, someone powerful when I came here. The only way to survive was to find someone like that and stay anonymous. I'd been trained to kill, it was the only skill I had. But I couldn’t exactly join a different army, now could I? Besides, I didn’t want to. And I wanted the man dead, and I couldn’t do that on my own and penniless. So, I looked for the biggest and baddest, and I found Greco. I picked him by chance, then we met, and I got the job as his hitman. He knew me as Luke."
I wondered how long it had taken the General to find me, the past five years or if he'd been waiting for me to come out and the search was more recent.
"You're skipping something. Why did you want him dead, if all you wanted to do was escape?"
This was the part I didn’t like; the part I would have wished she'd forget. I wrapped her tighter in my arms, and she moved closer willingly. I focused on her warmth and took a deep breath.
"When I left, my unit and pretty much the whole of the IRA even though they didn’t personally know me, took the defection as a sort of betrayal. Especially the General, as the man I worked directly under. Unlike the rest of them, the General took it personally, as I knew he would, because he made no secret of his philosophies. I knew he'd feel that I was weak, and I knew in his mind, anyone that was defined as being weak should be executed."
His views had bothered me most. More innocent people had died under his rule in the two years I was with him than in the nearly five years I'd worked for Greco. He didn’t differentiate between army and civilian. It was a wonder he'd been able to work with a criminal. But then, Greco's views weren’t so far removed from his own, just less extreme and limited to what affected his income and his business.
"So, when I left, I wanted to get as far away as possible, knowing he'd search for me. I didn’t, however, expect him to go after my family."
Elda went rigid in my arms, and I gave her a light squeeze.
"My parents, my baby sister about five years younger, an older brother and sister, twins, only three years older. They were all still quite young, the two oldest being twenty-five. I don’t know how he did it, but he got them all home somehow. Big sis had a kid, though she wasn’t married, and the baby was there, too, maybe a couple of years old. He murdered all of them. Then, he made sure, when it was reported on TV, his face was in just about every news delivery, by TV or newspaper, and his voice on the radio."
There was a short silence where we just breathed, and I ignored the ache in my chest, burying my face in her hair.
"How can you be sure that he did it?"
"Even if he didn’t do it personally, he had a big hand in it. Why on earth would he parade himself for the news talking about the death of my family right after announcing my disappearance, nearly four months later?"
"Did he say you were behind it?"
"Oh, no. He acted very much the leader he supposedly was, a man worried about his subordinate's whereabouts and his mental state should he hear the devastating news of his entire family's demise."
I'd wanted to choke him, just reach into the TV and wrap my hands around his neck, when I watched the interview where he spoke about all that. I'd also wanted to cry, and there were nights when I had nightmares, thinking of all the ways he could have gotten them together, imagined him using my disappearance as an excuse to lure them into a trap.
"My plan, when I decided to look for work, was to go after the General's family, like he had mine, and then go after him. He had a family about as big as mine, even had a daughter and two sons, but his wife was deceased. There were his parents…"
I'd have to spare them with him gone. There would be no satisfaction in killing them for nothing. I wasn’t the same monster as the General, and I wasn’t so needlessly cruel. They were innocent in everything because they had nothing to do with my family's murder other than being related to the man responsible.
"I guess I didn’t expect him to find me before I got to him, but I waited too long. I don’t regret keeping my name, though. After my family was gone, it became a way to remember them by." I shrugged. "Killing the General is enough. Originally, I planned to, but I don’t need to kill his family. They were innocent in all of this."
There wasn’t any more to say, and we stayed in silence for a time. Then I felt her shift, and I loosened my arms. Her hair tickled my chin as she moved her head, and I looked down as she looked up, and our eyes met.
"And what about now?"
"Now…"
"What are… you going to do now?"
I didn’t miss her hesitation, and I smiled. "Don’t you mean we? What we're going to do now, together."
"We don’t really know each other very well," she demurred.
"I don’t know
about you, but I have no home, so I can go pretty much anywhere. Besides, I killed a man for you, even though he was just conveniently there. At least give us a chance before you write me off."
"I guess there is that." She sounded amused. "Very well. I should warn you, though. I live in Italy and I happen to love my home.
I smiled. Like that was going to deter me.
"I always fancied living in Italy. The food, the climate. And most of all," I added, teasing, "the women."
She growled at me, making me chuckle. She only growled at me some more.
"If I drag you with me anywhere and you end up paying attention to someone other than me, I will kill you."
I roared with laughter. Then I rolled her over, pushing her into the mattress as I took her mouth in a feverish kiss.
Chapter 24
Luke
"Are you sure there's nothing more you'd need?"
"I didn’t really have much to begin with," I admitted, a little sheepish. "But I had papers waiting for me and that’s really all I need, right? I can buy everything else."
I only took a few things when I left home and enlisted. I left the army with even less. The photo of my family and a few personal effects that I hid somewhere nearby every time I moved.
She didn’t have any more than I did, but then she probably had more wherever it was she called home. I let her get our tickets, standing by with our single bags until she came back.
It was still very early in the evening after everything went down, and neither of us had really slept. There had been too much to do, after all. The bodies had been found, but no news about the identities had been leaked to the press, yet. I'd spent the day trying up loose strings, and Elda had insisted on helping. But both Elda and I knew we had to run before Greco's family got over the shock of his death and sent out search parties.
I'd dumped all the clothes I'd had before, so I ended up buying a few outfits and I also bought a new smartphone. It was my first time having one, and Elda almost laughed at me when I told her. I couldn’t drag my weapons around, but she'd told me of someone trustworthy, to either hold onto them or send them to where we would be going securely. It was the last thing we had settled before we made our way to the airport.
After all the stress of the past forty-eight hours, and the rounds Elda and I had gone through last night instead of sleeping, my body was feeling weighed down. She was only marginally better than I was. I could keep going, it was only long enough to get on the plane, but I could use some coffee anyway. She must have seen the grumpy look on my face.
"We have some time, long enough to get a coffee. Honestly, I'd like one, too."
So, we did that, sat at a café in the airport and had a quick drink. There were people around, so we didn’t have much of a chat.
The plane boarded maybe ten minutes after we got back, and I followed her onto the aircraft.
We were both on our way out to Italy.
We settled in with our meager luggage and waited for the plane to take off. She sat at the window, and I took the aisle seat. A part of me still expected something to come up, I was a ghost, but I'd shaved my facial hair and I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror that morning because it was the face that had been plastered on the news after my family was murdered. More than just wanting to hide, I hadn't wanted to look at that face again.
No one else seemed to recognize me, either. As big news as it had been five years ago, this wasn’t Ireland where it got a lot more coverage and public attention. Most of the locals probably wouldn’t even remember, if they'd done more than paid cursory glance at the passing news.
After everyone had boarded, and the pilots went through a few flight checks, we were off. I breathed a sigh of release, then, tension leaking out of me, leaving me even more exhausted than I already was.
Still, I couldn’t sleep. I glanced down at Elda sitting next to me, her head leaned back against the headrest with her eyes closed. I knew she wasn’t sleeping, though. I took her hand on the armrest between us and squeezed, and she opened her eyes to look at me.
"What is it?"
"You never did tell me your story."
I'd been curious, too. It was hardly the place to be talking about it, even a small murmur carried, but most of the people around us were already asleep, the ones awake had earphones on. No one would be paying attention to us.
"Greco was my father."
Even though I'd guessed, it was still a surprise to hear it said so bluntly.
"I didn’t get any of this information until four years ago, on my twenty-first birthday." She took a deep breath and seemed to be bracing herself.
"Years ago, when she was still young, my mother met a man, back in Italy. They didn’t meet much at all, because he lived in the States, only visiting once every couple of months, or so. But she was smitten. That man was called Greco. My mother never knew he was already married at the time, or that he was part of the mafia. She fell in love, believing she was loved in return. So, you can imagine, to her, the news that she was pregnant was a joyous one. He had been away too long, but she waited for him. Until one day he returned. She told him about the baby."
He wouldn’t have found it particularly happy. Neither would his family. Even though they were somewhat more relaxed, Greco's family was extremely strict, especially when it came to heirs. It was a disgrace to have a mistress, to not be properly married. Even though they were relaxed, it was only to the point of sleeping around, so long as no one got pregnant out of wedlock, or a wedding would happen. I could just imagine what it would have been like, twenty-five years ago.
"When he found out, he disappeared for a while. My mother couldn’t reach him, he no longer sent her letters. She thought he had run, scared, and she was devastated. But then he sent people to Italy to kill not only my mother but me as well, while she was still pregnant. We got lucky, though. The details got fuzzy there, no one wanted to tell me exactly what happened. I do know there was help from some local authorities, though. But we lived through the ordeal, and my mother and her parents knew who they were dealing with. The only way they survived was by going into hiding."
She stopped, swallowed.
"I spent the last four years training and getting ready to come to the States to avenge the one man that wanted to kill my mother."
"But your mother didn’t survive. Or you wouldn’t be here, right?"
"Right. My mother had a stressful pregnancy. When the time came for her to give birth, none of them really expected her to survive. I was born, and my mother died, because she couldn't even go to a hospital to boost her chances, Greco's men were everywhere. But her parents were still likely in danger, and me too. I believed I was raised by my grandparents, but it turned out they were just friends entrusted to look after me while my real grandparents hid.
"I only got to know them once I was much older. On my twenty-first, when I went back home hoping to surprise my grandparents, only to meet them there with a few unexpected surprises in the room. Everything I learned that day made me hate Greco. This man that I never knew became my worst enemy, even if he was my father."
"And your solution was to turn into a hit woman," I murmured slowly.
"All I could think was that I wanted the man dead. From that moment onward, I stopped studying. Stopped training to be the lawyer I had aspired to be. And trained how to be a killer. It wasn’t hard, with my looks to hook up with some guys in the mafia. It wasn’t difficult for them to show me what artificial beauty could do, and with the right training, I could be a killer.
"So, I trained to kill."
She paused and blinked, then looked at me. I couldn’t judge her, considering the turn my own life had taken. It was likely I'd killed more people than she ever had, even though she was only a couple of years younger. It still made something shrivel in my chest, just hearing her. She didn’t deserve what had been done to her, all because the bastard couldn't keep it in his pants.
"I even took some contract killing job
s, just so I could be ready when the time was right to kill Greco, and I needed the money to do the job..."
"And the wedding was your opportunity."
She nodded.
I thought back to conversations I'd had with Greco. He had three children, all of them sons. I had guessed Elda was his daughter when I realized their eyes were similar, the one he said he could have had.
"Greco talked about his past at times," I murmured. She was looking out the window, and she turned back and met my eyes. "He would talk, sometimes, about his foolish youth and actions he regretted."
She rolled her eyes. "His regret wouldn’t have brought my mother back. I'm not sorry he's gone. Once my true grandparents know he's gone, they'll know they can stop hiding, stop looking over their shoulders all the time. They're already old, and they've been carrying that kind of burden for the past twenty-five years. I'm lucky that they stayed alive long enough for me to meet them."
I could see the wet sheen in her eyes, and I didn’t say anything more, squeezing her hand.
Chapter 25
Elda
We were on a plane heading to my homeland, and I was the most relaxed I had been in the past four years. It was still sinking in, that it was all over. Greco was gone, and my mission for the past four years wasn't hanging over me anymore. It felt a little surreal.
And I wasn’t alone.
I felt Luke squeeze my hand, and I squeezed back.
"Wouldn’t you have wanted to talk to him, at least?"
I scoffed at the notion. I never thought of talking to Greco, because every time I tried, all I could envision was it falling into a screaming match, mostly on my end, and Greco ending my life before I could do anything. He had wanted to be rid of me when I was an innocent child; why would he prefer a young woman that would bring a scandal of illegitimate children to his family?
"What for, Luke. I lived my whole life without a father, and after knowing what he did, how could I feel any differently, how could I feel anything other than hatred for that man? I spent the past four years working toward this goal. I did things that I would never have thought myself being capable before I turned twenty-one. I am completely fine with the progression of things."
Dirty Indiscretions: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 10