by Fariah Zaidi
“Look, I don’t know what you’re thinking but here’s my offer- you get something to eat so that I can give you painkillers and we can go ahead with the plan.”
“What plan?”
“Saving your queen, of course.” he smiled, “We still have time until tomorrow morning.”
I picked up my plate again and began eating, my ears and eyes trained on Steven.
“This morning, when you so graciously ran back to save two strange girls, I pulled you through one of the back tunnels before the blasts went off and hauled your heavy ass all the way here.”
“Is that your way of calling me fat?”
He smiled slyly, but went on with his story, “Anyway, moving on to our relations, before your father married your mother, he had a one-night stand with a woman named Dina, who consequently got knocked up. Fast forward to us being six, she died in a car accident.”
“Us?”
“Yes, me and my twin sister, Sienna. But I believe you know her as Brooke.”
“You gotta be shitting me.” I slapped my palm against my forehead, “You’ve been working for Valentin this entire time.”
It took me seconds to be on full alert. I discreetly eyed the guns on the table, thinking of a plan.
“Relax, would ya?” he rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner, “If I wanted you dead, I would’ve left you in that club.”
“All the same, I would feel much safer with a weapon in my hand.”
He got up from his seat, picked up a gun and tossed it to me, “Satisfied?”
I nodded and he returned to his story, “Anyway, Sienna and I had run away from the dreadful foster homes we’d been put in when were sixteen. We wandered the streets until Valentin found us one day and took us in. At that point, he was like a savior for us- he gave us food, clothes, a roof over our heads. But then-”
“Then what?” I prompted at his pause.
“Then the training began.” he sighed, looking away, “We were too dumb to know that no one is that nice unless they want something in return. He began training us to become monsters, to transform into these hateful killing machines, eliminating people on his orders.”
My fingers tightened around the gun.
“I’d already been searching for my father for a long time, secretly using Valentin’s resources. I had some leads that pointed towards your family. It was a year ago that I ran into Alessandro Esposito in a club in Italy. Something about him just pulled at me. I snagged the glass he was drinking from to compare our DNA. And it was a match.”
“Why didn’t you come forward then?” I asked.
“I don’t know. We were scared, uncertain.” he shook his head, “But I knew whose side we were on the night Carl Hanson kidnapped Zara. Just so you know, it was I who handed her that knife so she could cut her ropes. Also, I was the one who pulled her to safety after you all burst into the warehouse throwing bombs all around.”
“Are you expecting a heartfelt thanks?” I asked sarcastically.
“No,” he shook his head, “what I’m trying to say is that we’ve been secretly helping you along the way. It was I who sent you those flight details and footage and it was I who called you in the club to tell you it was rigged.”
I looked at him, trying to analyze whether I could trust him or not. As before, I didn’t feel any danger from him, or animosity. My instincts were hardly ever wrong. And right now, they were telling me that even if I didn’t believe he was my brother, I could still trust him.
So, when he asked me to resume eating the food so he could tell me further details about this plan that he had, I agreed.
I was willing to do anything if it meant having Zara back home and in my arms.
Hold on mia regina. I’m coming to save you.
Twenty:
Wedding
Enzo
In the dark of the night, six black SUVs came to a halt outside the guarded entrance of the Lancaster Airfield, a private airport for the elite citizens of New York City.
A guard rapped on my window and I rolled it down. The moment he saw me, he scrambled for his walkie, ordering the gates to be rolled open. We rode over to the Espositos’ hangar and got out. There was excitement among our soldiers as they carried their bags of arms and ammunition to be loaded on the plane.
Few hours ago, when we’d walked into the mansion, defeated and devastated. We didn’t have the courage to break the news to everyone about what happened in the club and how we’d lost Stefan.
Every time I closed my eyes, I would hear Mama Bella’s anguished cry over and over again. It took several minutes to calm her down and finally Ria took her away to her own room. With heavy hearts, Vincent, Alessandro, Silvio and I sat down next to Rafael and discussed what we needed to do now.
“You’re the underboss.” I told him, “What do we do now?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, his eyes still red from crying, “We cannot just assume he’s dead. We still need to see the body.”
“Have you not seen the news?” Vincent shouted hysterically, pacing back and forth in the bedroom, “The police, firefighters, they’re all the saying no one could’ve survived it! It’ll take them days to sift through all the debris.”
“I know, I know.” Rafael assured him.
“What about Zara? We still need to get her back.” Silvio intervened.
Rafael was quiet for a moment and we waited for him to give orders.
“Alright,” he finally said, “Enzo, Vincent, we know Valentin has taken Zara somewhere near Rome. Find out where she is. Take the jet, however many men you want. I want her back. Valentin thinks he can go ahead with his plans now that Stefan is dead, but we won’t let him.”
“I’ll call Luciano in Rome and have him assemble the soldiers.” Alessandro stated, taking out his phone, “It goes down tomorrow.”
I fixed my suit and climbed up the short stairs into the plane. Taking a seat at the very end, I settled in for the eight-hour journey. It was going to be a long day tomorrow.
We had a war ahead of us. And we were fighting it without a king. The possibility that Stefan was dead was slowly starting to sink in. I’d worked with him for so long, we’d been friends, brothers for so long that everywhere I looked it would remind me of him.
I’d placed my iPad and my phones on the table in front of me and one of them pinged loudly with an incoming text. Barely a second later, it pinged again and then again. I picked it up and opened the message. It was from a blocked ID.
At first, I didn’t believe what I was seeing. I felt a flurry of emotions in that moment- shock, disbelief, surprise and then a huge smile curved its way to my lips. I wishfully replied to the texts and that’s when the phone started ringing.
I answered it and talked to the other person for a long time. It was in hushed tones, and by the time I hung up, we were already in the air. I sighed deeply and settled back down in my seat.
End result being the same, there was a slight change in tomorrow’s plans.
Zara
I remembered waiting up for my father, Theo, on a rainy weekend. He had been returning home late and I’d barely seen him during the week because he was working a lot of shifts at the restaurant. Fourteen-year-old me did not have any idea how to lessen his stress or cheer him up. So, the next night, I simply waited for him in the living room with a bowlful of chocolate chip ice-cream- our favorite.
It did work.
He was surprised to find me sitting on the couch in the middle of the night. But the moment I cleared some space and sent him a grin, he plopped down beside me, and we dug into the dessert. We would talk about anything other than his work, we would often watch movies or he would tell me his childhood stories.
It was a tradition that was carried out well until I got into college. Those midnight treats were just a way of showing support.
“I read this quote by Imam Ali that said- ‘Life consists of two days- one for you and one against. When it’s for you, don’t be proud
. When it’s against you, be patient.’ I just want you to remember Zara, that life will throw all kinds of stuff at you. Some days there will be bliss, other days will be dark. It’s the darkness you overcome that’s makes you stronger.”
I remembered those words with all my heart. Because they’d helped me a lot after he was gone. One minute I had everything and the next, nothing. I’d lost all hope.
And now, every moment, every memory that I’d shared with Stefan played in my mind like torture. I sat on one corner of the bed, gazing out through the cracks of the barred window and crying. I grieved for the man who’d put back together the broken pieces of my heart. Each time I closed my eyes I would see him- his handsome face, his beautiful grey eyes and his smile. And slowly and slowly it would start to fade. I begged and pleaded the conjured image to stay. My entire being would crumple when I couldn’t see him anymore.
When I saw the first rays of the sun rising over the horizon, I knew what I had to do. It was in the early hours of that morning that I decided to put my grief aside and let my rage and hate control me. If I couldn’t bring Stefan back, I would undoubtedly rain hell on Valentin. He was not going to get away with this.
Sienna found me in the morning, in the same spot she’d left me in last night. She quietly placed the tray of breakfast on the table and turned to me, “The wedding happens in two hours. I’ve to help you get ready.”
I turned to her with a smile, “Before that, I need you to do something for me.”
She listened carefully to what I had to say. And when I finished, she was looking at me like I’d gone crazy.
“His men are going to kill you.” she whispered fiercely.
“I no longer care.” I shrugged my shoulders, “This is the second time he’s killed people that I loved. Stefan and I promised each other we’d kill him. And that’s a promise I must fulfill. Valentin dies today.”
“Are you sure you wanna do this? Have you even killed someone before?”
“No, but I’ve dreamed of this moment for a long time now. For two years- after countless haunting memories and nightmares- I’ve imagined how he would look when the life drained from his eyes.”
She nodded, “I’ll be right next to you when that happens.”
I hungrily dug into the breakfast after she left the room. The coffee felt heavenly.
In the next two hours, I channeled all my grief into thinking about what was going to go down after I walked down that aisle. I thought of Stefan, and as much as I wanted to cry, I held my emotions. I was doing this for him. I wanted to show him that his efforts didn’t go in vain. I may not be able to bring down the whole empire, but I was sure as hell bringing down their king. It didn’t bother me that his army would run to kill me. It didn’t scare me at all. It delighted me in fact, when I thought of their reactions. If I was going out today, I would do so like a queen. Stefan’s queen.
This was reason why after I slipped into the mermaid styled wedding gown, I took efforts to tie my hair in a neat bun, apply some concealer to cover my bruises and some eyeliner to hide my puffy eyes.
As I applied the dark, rusty-red lipstick, I remembered something Stefan had said to me- it takes a monster to destroy a monster. I never could have known that the monster would be me.
Sienna walked in as I was slipping my feet into the heels. The appreciative look on her face came with a sly comment, “Someone’s dressed to kill, quite literally.”
I laughed and stood up, “What are you, maid of honor or something?”
“Yes, indeed,” she rolled her eyes, “in his twisted fantasy, the bastard wants an authentic wedding.”
“I still don’t understand why he’s going through all this.” I shook my head, watching her take out a phone from her pocket and check it.
“I think we established that,” she chuckled, “he’s fucking crazy.”
I laughed along with her. She was wearing a plum colored dress that stopped right above her knees and a pair of tall black stilettos. Her hair fell in loose curls down her back.
“Did you find it?” I asked hopefully.
Her grin widened and she lifted her dress to reveal the holster on her thigh. But it was the dagger that she handed me that had me excited. My dagger.
“Where was it?”
“In his office desk. I knew he’d keep it after he found it in your pocket.”
There was a sharp knock on the door. She checked her phone again and this time looked up at me excitedly.
“It’s time.” she pulled me into a hug.
“Why do you keep looking at that phone?” I asked curiously as she guided me out the room. The last time I remember being in this corridor, Valentin was dragging me down to the basement. Sienna chose to ignore my question until we walked down the carpeted staircase and stood at the bottom of it. I was astounded by what I was seeing.
An altar had been prepared at the far end of the room and a long carpet ran all the way from where I was standing, forming an aisle. On either side of it, men stood in green striped masks, hands steadily on their rifles. Valentin stood at the altar next to a balding priest and the sight of him almost made me want to puke. And I would’ve had I not known he’d be dead by the end of this joke of a ceremony.
Sienna let go of my arm and right when I was about to move ahead, she leaned and whispered in my ear, “Maybe you won’t be needing that dagger after all.”
Her secretive smile compelled me to ask more questions, but I couldn’t. She just gave me a wink and pushed me forward. All the way down the aisle, I prayed to the God I didn’t believe much in to give me courage and strength. I thought of all the people I’d lost- Celine, Theo, Stefan, Valerie, Sofia and our soldiers, I thought of all the people who’d been hurt- Rafael, Ria and everyone in the Family.
My eyes fell on the masked men who stood on the sides. I almost halted in place when one of them winked at me. I could almost see his lips resisting the urge to smile.
Valentin’s giddiness was visible the way he fidgeted in his place, his grin wider than ever. He walked down the two stairs and offered me his hand. I pointedly ignored it and went to stand in front of the priest. A murmur of chuckles rose in the crowd and he yelled at them to be quiet.
As everyone piped down, Valentin motioned for the priest to begin.
It was then that in the silent hall, loud, confident footsteps were heard. Everyone’s eyes turned to the direction it was coming from and the crowd burst into excited whispers.
My heart started thudding wildly in my chest as my eyes focused on the double doors that were thrown open near the stairs. There were disbelieving gasps and shocked murmurs as the person came into view.
My heart leaped, crashed and threatened to burst out of my chest. Above the noise in the room, his rugged voice rang out.
“Couldn’t wait for the guest of honor?”
Twenty-One:
War
Zara
Pin. Drop. Silence.
Nobody moved. Nobody even heaved a breath. Though I doubted I could hear anything above my hammering heart. I could recognize that voice anywhere. It was ingrained my heart, my brain, each cell of my body. My eyes eagerly searched for him.
He finally came into view. Valentin’s soldiers reached for their guns. Despite being armed, the look of pure shock and fear that was slapped on their faces made me want to laugh.
If there was one man that I knew of, who would have the balls to walk through a sea of guns aimed at his head, unarmed himself and with abundant confidence, it was Stefan Esposito.
I watched, along with the rest of the crowd, with my jaw dropped to the floor, as he moved to the front. The man I was grieving for last night, the man everyone thought was dead, now stood a few yards away from me, hands casually shoved in his pocket.
He looked like he always did. Ever so handsome. Ever so sexy.
And today, he looked dangerous.
I was a bewitched onlooker- watching him hold himself with such authority and grace. He knew he had the
game. He knew he was going to win. He didn’t need a crown to show that he was the King. I realized that this was the moment we’d been preparing for- the two of us against the monster.
Finally, finally his eyes met mine.
The intensity that fled between us was electrifying. Those dazzling grey eyes locked with mine, overwhelmed with all emotions that I could think of, silently communicating. I almost stumbled, almost went weak in the knees when his lips curved in the most devilish smirk and he winked at me.
This was real. This was happening.
He was here.
Stefan.
My Stefan.
I wanted to run to him. Run into his arms, feel and know for myself that he was indeed here. But he gave me a subtle nod, asking me to wait. An assurance to hold on just a few more moments.
His eyes then moved from me and locked on Valentin, who, by the way, had gone pale in the face. All the smugness and giddiness from a few moments ago was replaced with a laughable amount of fear.
“But-but how… how are you-” he stuttered, sweat beading his forehead.
“Alive?” Stefan mocked.
“I killed you!” Valentin screeched hysterically.
“Clearly you didn’t.”
“Then I’ll kill you now.”
Valentin pulled a gun of nowhere, aiming it at Stefan’s head, “You really thought you could walk into my house on my wedding day with your shitty theatrics?”
Stefan chuckled. He laughed with a gun, and about two hundred others, aimed at his face. He was unfazed by it.
“You really thought I would come alone? Look around you, bitch, I’ve got you surrounded.”
The room erupted in gasps and curses. Even I started looking up and around me, almost clapping in glee when I saw soldiers- our soldiers, stepping out from behind pillars and doors.
“You started a war, and now I’m going to end it.”
That was the last thing Stefan spoke before the end began. Valentin and his men scrambled for cover as gunshot began whizzing. Not only had they gathered at the upper level balcony that looked down at the hall, Stefan’s soldiers began emerging from the lower level, from all sides. Armed Espositos stealthily entered the room, taking down enemies one by one.