by Sara V. Zook
“You’ve never tied me down, Mom. You’ve always taken care of me.”
“Well, that’s a mother’s job. Now it’s time you go do your own thing.”
I paused for a moment, the sadness of not seeing her for a while now getting to me. “How are you doing, Mom?”
“Carmine sent a nice woman to look after me. She’s a caretaker and her children are all grown. She stays here and does everything for me, the cooking and cleaning. She makes sure the bills are paid on time and even takes me to my doctors’ appointment. It’s been really nice having her around.” She breathed heavily into the phone. “Nicky…”
“Yeah?”
“Well, there’s something else I have to tell you.”
“Okay. I’m listening.”
“I had another scan.”
“And?”
“The cancer has spread some more. My lungs are worse. The tumors have grown.”
“Fuck,” I blurted out, grabbing an edge of one of the couch pillows and squeezing it.
“They’re just going to be more aggressive with treatment.”
“More aggressive?” It would only make her sicker, thinner, weaker. No matter how strong my mother was, she just couldn’t get ahead of this cancer shit.
“They think it’s because I missed some treatments is why the tumors grew. I’m sure now that I’ll be back on it, those tumors will shrink right up,” she tried to assure me. “I’m not going to give up, Nicky. I’m not going to say I won’t do the treatments. I have to try.”
“I know,” I whispered, closing my eyes, knowing how much pain she was going to be back in once the chemo started up again.
“Nicky?” someone yelled from downstairs. “You in here?” It was Hagan.
“You make sure you call me at this phone number anytime you need me. It doesn’t matter what hour it is. Promise me, Mom.”
“I will, Nicky. I will.”
“I’ll keep checking in on you. I’m glad you have someone there helping out.”
“Nicky?” Hagan hollered again.
I put down the phone for a second. “Up here!” Then I put it back up to my ear. “Take care of yourself, Mom. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I shoved the phone into the front pocket of my jeans and looked up as Hagan entered the room. “Hey, man.”
“Hey,” he said. “Enjoying the new place, huh? It’s real nice.”
My eyes looked toward the TV, what my mom just told me lingering in my mind. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“We have a job. I need you to tag along. We need some more bodies there,” Hagan explained.
“When?”
“Now.”
“Really? I just literally sat down, Hagan.”
“Well, get your ass back up. Come on, we gotta go.”
16
CROSS
“Verna?” I cringed as I said the name of my stepmother. The sound of her voice even annoyed me as I rolled onto my stomach on the hotel bed, my legs crossed as I propped them up in the air and held up my phone.
“Who is this?” she bellowed into the other end of the phone.
I wrinkled up my nose. I couldn’t stand the woman my father had decided to marry, but I didn’t abandon him over it like he’d done to me with Mark. “Verna, it’s me.”
“Who?”
“Lilah.”
“Lilah? What do you want, Lilah?”
I exhaled—loudly. “Just put my dad on the phone.”
“He doesn’t want anything to do with you no more. How many times does he have to tell you that?”
“Put him on the goddamn phone, Verna!” I hissed.
She huffed. “Such language from a young lady.”
“Go get him!” I yelled.
“You’ll have to hold on a second. Let me see if he’ll take this call,” Verna stated.
There were several minutes of silence. I began to wonder if she’d hung up on me, but then I heard his voice.
“Hello? Lilah?”
I pressed my lips together as all kinds of emotions took over me—relief, loneliness, torment. It had been too long since I’d heard his voice. “Hi, Dad. Thanks for talking to me.”
“What do you need, Lilah?” he asked sternly.
“I just need you, Dad. I need you back in my life.”
“What happened to what’s-his-name? I thought you needed him in your life over me.”
“You made that decision. I didn’t want to choose,” I reminded him, his words stinging.
“I thought I made it clear before you married that moron, you can’t have a relationship with me and him. You just can’t. I’m a senator, and you know what kind of reputation I have to uphold.”
“Me and Mark, we’re having some problems right now.”
I could hear my dad chuckle a little. “Well, who called that one? I told you he’d drain you. He took all your money, didn’t he?”
My voice choked as I covered my mouth. “It’s just been so hard, Dad.”
“I’m sure it has been. I warned you about him, didn’t I?” He paused for a moment. “Didn’t I?” he repeated.
“Yes,” I blurted out, the tears streaming down my cheeks. “I didn’t listen to you, and I realize how stupid I was.”
“Sometimes the only way we learn is the hard way. I feel bad that you had to learn that way, but that’s the way life is. Sometimes life just sucks. You’re going to have to put yourself back together somehow. You’re strong. You can do it. You have to. There’s no other way.”
“Dad,” I pleaded, “won’t you just meet me somewhere? I need to talk to you. Please.”
“That’s not going to happen. I have a busy schedule, and we went over this years ago. I warned you, and you didn’t listen. This is how it has to be, Lilah, I’m sorry. You’re the one who did this to yourself. Don’t go blaming me.”
“Dad, please!” I cried. “I have no one else! I have nobody!”
He sighed. “What is it you really need?”
“I told you…”
“Money?” he interrupted me. “I can send you some money.”
I sucked the snot back in my running nose as I wiped it with my hand.
“You do need money, don’t you, Lilah?”
“I guess that would help,” I managed to whisper.
“I’ll get some cash to you, but understand me when I say this is a one-time thing. Where are you? Are you still at that house?”
“Not right now.”
“Where, then?”
I flipped over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m at the Regional Hotel. Room 503.”
“I’ll get my driver to bring an envelope to you. It should be enough to carry you over for a while. Don’t give that asshole any more money, Lilah. Get rid of him,” my dad told me.
“I’m trying,” I replied, bummed that he was getting his driver to come here instead of himself personally. At least it was something on his part, though. He hadn’t just hung up on me like I thought he was going to. I was even surprised Verna had told him I’d called. “Believe me, I’m trying to get him to go away.”
“Well, you know pests don’t always go away on their own,” he said. “Sometimes they need to be exterminated.”
“Yeah,” I answered. If only I could find an exterminator.
17
CAIN
“You want me to drive?” I asked Hagan as we stepped into my garage.
Hagan whistled out his approval. “Wow. Nice wheels, Cain.”
“Thanks. I know.”
“Augie has my car out front. We’ll take that,” Hagan answered, putting on his hat.
I reached for a heavier coat and hurried to put it on as I followed him outside. “Okay.”
We both got in the back of the car and Augie backed out of the driveway.
“Hey, can we stop by Carmine’s real quick?” I asked him, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my coat to get warmed up.
“Why?” Hagan raised his eyebrows.
Hagan shook his head. “Turn up the heat.”
“You got it,” Augie replied, pressing buttons by the steering wheel.
I glanced at the houses passing by outside my window. “I just want to thank him is all, you know, for the house and car. He didn’t have to do that for me.” But it did feel damn good to have those things.
Hagan frowned. “You can’t just approach Carmine.”
I stared at him. “I’m not just approaching him. I want to thank the man.”
“You don’t understand, Nicky.” Hagan chuckled as if I were so stupid for even suggesting such a thing. “A man as powerful as Carmine, he’s the one who calls on you when he wants to talk to you, not the other way around. His time is precious. He’s a busy man.”
“So I guess that’s a no?” I now raised my eyebrows at him.
Hagan snorted as he put on a pair of leather gloves. “That’s a no.”
Why a man wouldn’t want to be thanked for his generosity was beyond me. Hagan seemed to be making a bigger deal out of it than it was. It would’ve taken a minute just to pop in and say my piece. It felt weird not saying anything at all. It made me feel ungrateful. I had never had a new house or car before, and damn it, I was certainly grateful. My mind began to drift to my mother’s words, how the cancer was spreading. How depressing. I leaned my head against the cool window and closed my eyes.
When the car came to a stop, I realized I had drifted off. For how long, I didn’t know. We parked behind another car along the side of the street. Seton and the Triplets emerged from that car.
“Let’s go,” Hagan said to me, his eyes shifting to Augie. “We won’t be long,” he told him.
Augie merely nodded.
I opened my door and got out, pulling up the back of my loose jeans. “Where we headed?” I asked.
Hagan pointed down the street. We approached a run-down house with chipped white paint. There were three cars parked in front of it, and some dogs started to bark from a neighboring place at the sight of us walking by.
“Ready?” Seton asked, making eye contact with us all.
“Wait a sec,” Hagan answered. He pulled a handgun out and extended his arm toward me. “Take it, Cain.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want it.”
“It’s not a negotiation,” Hagan snapped.
I glanced at the Triplets who just stood there silent as always. “I don’t need that thing.”
Hagan huffed out an annoyed sigh. “It’s for your own protection, dumbass.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I don’t care.”
“Come on,” Seton said. “Let him get killed if that’s what he wants.”
Hagan stuffed the gun back away inside his coat. He turned his back to me as we headed to the back of the house. The dogs were still barking and getting more rowdy by the minute. One of the Triplets stood in front of a door. Seton stood beside it. He got out his gun. Hagan and the Triplets did the same. I frowned and stuffed my hands in my pockets.
“Stay behind us,” Hagan hissed at me.
Seton got down in stance as if ready to pounce and nodded to the Triplet in front of the door. The tall, bulky guy took a few steps and then slammed his body against the door. The wood instantly broke in several places and came off the hinges. He rammed it one last time with his shoulder as the door collapsed on the floor.
My heart began to pound. We had just broken into someone’s place. I didn’t have any clue as to what this was even about. Again, I was just a tag-along. The other guys hurried into the house. I took one glance around outside. Seeing no one, I ran in after them. What other choice did I have?
We were standing in a small, crowded living room. A woman let out a shrill scream as she covered her head with her arms and slid down the side of a wall, curling into a ball.
“Stay down!” Seton screamed at her, pointing the guy her way. “Don’t move!”
There were two guys that had been sitting on a couch. Both of them jumped to their feet, their eyes large in surprise at the sight of us. One of the Triplets punched one in the face. He fell back onto the couch. The other guy scrambled to get out of the room, heading toward the front of the house. One of the Triplets leaped his way. The guy turned around with a gun in his hand and a loud shot went off. The Triplet held his arm and looked down as blood trickled from in between his fingers. I panicked. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. My eyes were on the Triplet’s bullet hole in his arm, and I didn’t even see the guy who shot him fall, but somehow he must’ve tripped, and within seconds, Seton was on top of him, ripping the gun out of his grasp. He swung the weapon back, making contact with the side of the guy’s head. He yelled out in agony from the blow. My eyes moved back to the Triplet as he ripped off his shirt and began tying it around his bloody arm.
“Nicky, come here!” Seton yelled.
I was surprised that my legs were still able to work as I moved toward him.
“Here.” Seton shoved the guy’s gun in my hand.
I felt the heaviness of the weapon as I looked up into Seton’s dark, scary eyes.
“Kill him,” he commanded me.
I then looked down at the guy in front of me, the bottom half of his body on the floor, the upper half leaning against the hallway wall. He was holding his head where Seton had hit him. He started to beg me for his life.
“Please, man, please don’t do this, man! I don’t know what this is about! I didn’t do anything! Come on, man!”
Seton studied my face as I studied the emotional wreck on the floor.
“I can’t,” I whispered, the gun pointing down at my feet.
Seton moved his face in front of mine. I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. “You have to, Cain. Do it.” He paused for a moment. “Do it now.”
I clenched my teeth together.
“No!” the guy cried out. “I’m telling you I didn’t do anything! I don’t know what this is about!”
“Fucking liar!” Seton yelled out, kicking at him.
The other guy was still passed out on the couch, the woman hunched over and a blubbering mess as another Triplet stood nearby watching her in case she moved.
“He’s a piece of shit, Cain,” Seton hissed in my ear. “He rapes women for fun. He doesn’t deserve to live.”
I stared at the guy’s face. My hands lifted as I aimed the gun at his head.
“Kill him, Cain,” Seton repeated, his voice calmer, steadier now.
My arms trembled.
“We gotta get going,” Hagan said from behind me.
“Nicky,” Seton warned.
“Please, man! Don’t do this!”
I tried to drown it all out, Seton barking commands at me, the woman crying in the background, this guy begging me for his life. This was the fucking mob. I had to do it. I had to take my place among these guys. This is what you do to keep your stuff, to have an amazing house and vehicle to flash around in front of everyone, to make them jealous of you, to make them want to be you.
I tried to straighten out my arms more so they’d stop shaking. I exchanged glances with the guy in front of me one more time before I shut my eyes tight, put my finger on the trigger and squeezed.
18
CROSS
“You feeling better?”
“Huh?” I pulled my head up from my palm where it had been resting as I stared blankly into the face of one of my co-workers. I was sitting at my desk oblivious to what was going on around me. I was emotionally and physically drained.
Carmella, Rich’s secretary, smiled kindly at me. “Rich said you weren’t feeling well. I assumed that’s why you missed yesterday.”
“Oh.” I pressed my lips together and tried my best to smile back. “Yeah, icky stomach bug or something like that. I’m on the mend, thanks.”
“Do you think it was something you ate at the restaurant?” Carmella asked, her face still full of concern.
The restaurant—a
horrible memory I wish I could forget. I shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe.”
“You don’t look so good. Can I get you a glass of water?” Carmella offered.
“Here,” Rich said, stepping up behind her. He placed a paper cup full of water on my desk. It was the first I’d seen him since leaving his house the other night. He, too, smiled.
I looked away.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Carmella said as she walked off.
Rich leaned against my desk and crossed his arms. “We have to talk about it, Lilah.”
“No, we don’t,” I replied flatly.
He stood there silent for a few moments. “Lilah…”
“Go away, Rich.”
“I don’t want things being awkward.”
“Your fault, not mine,” I reminded him, still not making eye contact.
As he walked away, I leaned my head back down in my palm and sulked. How had my life gotten so out of control with Mark—with Rich—with my dad? Life sucked right now. It didn’t look like it would be getting better anytime soon.
Another woman passed by my desk and stopped when she saw me. “Lilah? You okay? You look really pale.”
I grunted as I stood up and stormed off toward the bathroom. I splashed some water on my face and grabbed a paper towel to dry it. I was fed up. Mark hadn’t come home last night, luckily for me. I assumed he was still with that Spanish whore carrying his ugly spawn. Nausea overwhelmed me at the thought of the pregnant woman, him touching her, her touching him. Puke. I coughed and began to gag, gripping onto the sides of the sink to steady myself. I hadn’t had much of an appetite lately. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had anything to eat. I should probably take better care of myself. I made a mental note to start doing that right now. These things had happened for a reason. It was time to be independent, take my life into my own hands and be my own person. That’s what I craved. This was the perfect opportunity to let my strength shine through. I just had to dig it up out of its deep grave somehow and revive it back to life.
The only way I could truly feel happy was if Mark was gone, like gone permanently. Something told me that even though he had this woman on the side and god-even-knew how many others on the side as well, that he’d still be crawling back, begging for money, for a comfy bed to sleep in and for me to snuggle up next to him. How had I been so blind? How could I have possibly fallen for him and even gone so far as to marry him? How had I put up with this shit for so long? What a bunch of wasted years.