by Alexa Land
“What are you saying?”
“I need to go far away from you. That’s the only way they’ll leave you alone. They won’t at first, they’ll still hound you for photos. But after a few weeks, when they see we’re not together anymore, they’ll move on.”
“Zan—”
“They’ll never leave me alone, though. Never. What just happened out there will be my life until the day I die. Any time I try to go out in public, it’ll be like that. The only way to avoid it is to go back into hiding, and I refuse to make that your life, too. You belong out here in the world, Gianni, living and experiencing all it has to offer.”
“No,” I whispered, trying to stay calm and not alarm the child in my arms. “I belong with you.”
Zan fought back his emotions, agony in his eyes as he said, “I love you more than anything, Gianni. I need you to know that. I’m walking away because I want you to have the best life possible, and that’s not going to happen with me around. You can have the house in Marin if you want it, I’m not going back there. I’ll call my lawyer and have him put it in your name and set up a bank account for you. I’ll make sure you never want for anything.”
“I don’t need any of that, Alexzander,” I said, my voice breaking even though I was trying so hard to keep it under control. “All I need is you.”
A tear spilled down his cheek. “No you don’t, love. You’re strong and capable and you really don’t need me at all. I’d just be a burden. You’d spend your life having to take care of me. I’m such a total disaster, Gianni. I’ve been trying to make it seem like I’m okay, but it’s been a lie. I’m barely holding it together. That’s already bad enough, but when you combine it with the insanity you’d have to face every time you left the house, it’s just not worth it.”
“Don’t do this, Alexzander. Please. Don’t go,” I begged.
“I have to, love. I’m so sorry. I know this is hurting you, but you’ll eventually realize it was the right thing to do. Please take care of yourself. I hope you have a truly beautiful life, because that’s what you deserve.”
“No. Wait!” I exclaimed, jumping up. He left the room quickly, and I tried to follow him. There were dozens of people right outside the door, all of them talking excitedly. I couldn’t run after him, not while holding a scared little boy, so I took a step back into the office to escape the chaos.
Mikey reached me a minute later and gathered MJ carefully into his arms. “Is he okay?” he asked me.
“He will be. He’s shaken up, and he’s going to have a big bruise on his leg.”
“Are you okay?” my brother asked.
“No,” I said as I left the office. “Not even a little.”
I ran after Zan, dashing through the hotel and out to the circular driveway in front of it. Immediately, a dozen flashbulbs went off in my face. Nico caught me in his arms and pulled me back inside the hotel. “Did you see Zan? Did he come this way?” I asked him.
“Yeah. He got in a cab and drove away. What’s going on, Gi? Where’s he going?”
“Away from me,” I muttered, holding on to my cousin’s arm.
“What does that mean, away from you?”
I looked at Nico and said, “Zan just broke up with me.”
Chapter Twenty
Nico drove me to Nana’s house in my car, and Yosh followed in his truck. I didn’t say anything on the drive. Instead, I chewed on my lower lip and stared out the window, my mind racing.
When we got there, we pulled right into the garage, since there were a couple paparazzi camped out on the curb. I noticed idly that the rainbow on the front of the house sparkled in the light from a nearby streetlamp. Nana had gotten it finished and had put her front yard back together over the past few weeks, with the addition of a decorative as well as functional wrought iron fence across the front of her property.
Once inside, I paced around the living room with my phone in my hand, loosening my tie and unbuttoning my shirt collar. “Do you want a drink?” Yosh asked. He and Nico were perched on the edge of the couch, both looking like they might leap up at any moment.
“No thanks. I need to stay sober,” I murmured, continuing to pace.
Nana burst in a couple minutes later with Jessie at her side. “Johnnie! You okay, sweetie? What’s going on?” she asked.
“Zan broke up with him,” Nico said.
“What? The man is totally in love with you! What the hell is he thinking?” she wanted to know.
“He thinks he’s doing me a favor by letting me go back to a normal life,” I muttered.
My phone chimed and I looked at the text message from Shea and Christian. I’d found them right after Zan took off and told them what happened, and they’d driven to the house in Marin to see if he’d gone back there. No sign of him, the message said, but we’re going to hang out here in case he shows up.
I dialed their number and Shea picked up. “Hey. You’re on speaker,” he told me.
“You are, too. So, I thought it was a long shot that he’d go back to his house, since he tried to give it to me tonight. But where else would he possibly go? Does he have any investment properties?”
“Not that I know of,” Christian said.
“What about old friends, someone he might reach out to?” I asked. “I don’t think he had any cash on him, so it seems like he’d have to go to someone that’d pay the cab driver for him.”
“As far as I know, he hasn’t kept in touch with anyone aside from his lawyer, Chet Stanton. I already tried Chet and got his voicemail, and asked him to call as soon as he got my message,” Christian said.
“Alright. Well, keep in touch and I’ll do the same,” I said.
“We’ll definitely call you if we hear anything,” Shea promised.
After we disconnected, Nana said, “So, Zan dumped you, but you’re looking for him? How come?”
“Because I love him, Nana, and I’m worried about him,” I told her. “He was really rattled tonight. He blamed himself for the paparazzi showing up and wrecking my party and for people getting hurt.”
“Who got hurt?” she asked.
“Mikey Junior. One of those big aluminum posts fell over and hit him. He’ll be okay, but the poor kid was really upset. I’m not sure if anyone else got hurt in all that chaos.”
“That’s not Zan’s fault,” Nana exclaimed. “He didn’t ask for those parasites to show up and wreck the place! It’s the fault of whoever the lowlife scumbag was that decided to leak the party information to the paparazzi. If I ever discover who did that, they’re gonna find out you don’t fuck with the Dombrusos!”
“It was probably just some random hotel employee looking to make a few bucks,” I said, then sighed and pushed my hair back from my face. “God, where would he go? Where could he go? He’s one of the most recognizable people in the U.S. right now.”
“Oh wow, that’s right,” Jessie said, rushing from the room. He was back a minute later with a laptop, and perched on the couch beside Yosh as he opened it up. “If anyone spots him, there are going to be pictures all over the internet.”
Jessie did a quick search and said, “Well, so far there’s this.” I went around to the side of the couch and looked over Jessie’s shoulder. The headline on a gossip blog said ‘Lovers’ quarrel’ and showed side-by-side photos of Zan getting in a cab and me in front of the hotel, looking distraught.
“Awesome,” I muttered.
“We can keep monitoring the news and we’ll see where he turns up. You know what else? On the cop shows, they’re always figuring out where someone went by tracing the taxi. This cab’s number is clear as day, right here on the door,” Jessie said, pointing at the screen. “Do you think if we called the cab company, they’d tell us where it dropped Zan off?”
“I really doubt they’d tell just anyone,” I said, “but Christian’s fiancé is currently on a leave of absence from the SFPD. His brother Finn works there, too. Maybe Shea could call in a favor.” I shot him a quick text and included the n
ame of the cab company and the number from the door. He wrote back, I’ll see what I can do.
“Okay, so, that’s something,” I said, then went back to pacing.
“You’re gonna wear yourself out, Johnnie,” Nana said. “You need to sit down and try to relax a bit. Your honey’s gonna be fine.”
“We don’t know that,” I said. “He’s so much more fragile than he lets on. He admitted tonight that he’d only been pretending to be okay. And now he’s God knows where, alone, with no money, nobody to turn to. He doesn’t even have a phone, he can’t call anyone for help.” My voice broke and I ran my hand over my forehead.
Yosh got up and pulled me into a hug, and I held on to him as I took a few deep breaths and tried to keep it together. After a minute he said quietly, “Are you sure Zan wants to be found? I’m not trying to be a dick, I’m just saying. He broke up with you and took off. Even if you find him, then what? It seems like he’ll just push you away, and all of this will be for nothing.”
“I need to find him so I can get him to listen to me, Yoshi. He caught me off guard back at the hotel. I was rattled and I was holding MJ, who was crying, and I couldn’t think straight. Zan believes he’s doing me a favor and that this is the best thing for me. But it’s not. I need to talk to him and I need to make him understand.”
“Understand what?” Jessie asked as I let go of Yosh and dropped onto the couch.
“That he’s the best thing for me,” I said. “He made the decision to end it for my sake, but he never asked me if that was what I needed or wanted. He never gave me a choice, because if I’d been given one, I would have chosen Zan. I need to tell him that, and he needs to listen.”
“Well, by God, then we’re gonna get him to listen,” Nana said, “even if we have to kidnap him, tie him to a chair and force him.” I had to grin a little. Our family might have moved on from organized crime, but the old ways weren’t entirely forgotten.
“I don’t think it’ll come to that, Nana,” I told her.
“Well, let’s just call that plan B then,” she said. “You know, just in case doing it more polite-like doesn’t work out.”
Shea called back about half an hour later and said, “My brother talked to the cab company. They dropped Zan off at Crissy Field.”
“Did they say how he paid the fare?”
“With a hundred dollar bill.”
“I didn’t know he had cash on him,” I murmured. Then I asked, “Did Christian have any guesses why his dad would want to go there?”
“No, none.”
“Does his lawyer live nearby?”
“No, Stanton lives in Los Gatos, outside Santa Cruz.”
I asked, “How’s Christian holding up?”
“He’s really worried about Zan. We both hope you can find him and talk to him. Whatever he’s going through right now, he shouldn’t be dealing with it alone.”
“You’re right.”
“We’re going to spend the night at the house, just in case he decides to come back here after all. It seems like he’d gravitate to someplace he feels comfortable.”
“Good idea. Thank you so much for everything, Shea.” After we disconnected I asked my companions, “Why would someone get dropped off at Crissy Field in the middle of the night? What’s around there?”
Jessie pulled the recreation area up on Google maps and said, “Well, there’s a neighborhood within walking distance, maybe he knows someone there.”
“Why not just get dropped off at their house, though?” Jessie shrugged, and I said as I pushed to my feet, “I’m going to take a drive over there.”
“He won’t be there,” Yosh said. “It’s not like he’d just be standing around waiting for you to come by.”
“I know, but still.”
Yosh got up too and said, “Alright. I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to,” I told him.
He shrugged and said, “I know.”
“Can I come, too?” Jessie asked.
“Sure, why not?”
“I’m gonna stay here and hold down the fort,” Nana said.
We got to the front door, but stopped in our tracks when we saw at least twenty paparazzi and reporters out on the sidewalk. “Shit,” Jessie muttered. “What do we do?”
“We deal with it,” I said. As soon as I stepped outside, flashbulbs started going off and people started shouting questions. Yosh’s truck was parked in the driveway, and my friends piled in quickly.
A reporter yelled, “Gianni! Is it true you and Zan Tillane broke up?”
I paused and turned toward the throng as flashes went off in my face. “You know whose business that is?” I said. “Mine and Zan’s. But if you want to print something, print this. My family was harassed so severely tonight by the paparazzi and by a so-called news station that a little kid got physically injured. That shit shouldn’t have happened. What you’re doing here? Hounding people for a shred of gossip? That’s not okay. Zan’s and my personal business is none of yours. Get a fucking life and let us live ours in peace.”
I got in the truck and slammed the door, cutting off the chorus of yelled questions. Yosh threw the truck in reverse, scattering the paparazzi, and said, “Good speech.”
“It didn’t make the slightest bit of difference.”
“I know. It was still a good speech, though.”
Yosh drove us across town, and when we reached Crissy Field, all three of us got out and stood on the sidewalk. The large open space was dark and deserted this time of night. The bay was directly ahead of us, the Golden Gate Bridge to our left. There was a yacht club in the distance, closed this time of night, beside a private, fenced-off marina. I turned to stare at the neighborhood behind me, on the other side of the wide thoroughfare.
Had Zan remained here? Was he in one of those houses now with someone he knew, or had he just stopped here briefly before moving on? That seemed really unlikely since he’d cut most ties with his past, but I couldn’t think of any other reason to come here. It made even less sense now that I saw it in person.
I turned my back to the houses and stood there for a long time, trying to figure things out. Yosh and Jessie put their arms around me. “I need him,” I said softly as we stood side by side, looking out at the bay. “Why didn’t he think of that? He needs me, too. I know he does.” Yosh kissed my hair, and then rested his head against mine. I whispered, “It hurts so much that he left me behind, even though I know he honestly believed he was doing the right thing for me.”
“You’re going to get through this,” Yosh said. “I’ll help you. So will the rest of your friends and family.”
I looked around. It was really dark, and a cold breeze was blowing off the bay. “You need to come back to me, Alexzander,” I said to the night. “I know you had your reasons for leaving, but you were wrong. You and I belong together. Whatever challenges life throws at us, we’re meant to face them together.”
Yosh and Jessie convinced me to get back in the truck after a while. I’d wanted to stay, even though it was pointless, just because this was the last place I knew he’d been. I probably would have slept right there on the lawn if it wasn’t for my friends, if for no other reason than to feel closer to him.
I felt like crying as Yosh drove me back to Nana’s house. I didn’t do it, though. I needed to be strong and keep it together. Zan needed me, whether he knew it or not, and I wasn’t going to let him down.
Chapter Twenty-One
I rattled around Nana’s house for the next few days, not really eating or sleeping because I was too worried about Zan. There had been no news, no photos popping up on the internet, nothing. “He doesn’t want to be found, Johnnie,” Dante told me after Zan had been gone seventy-two hours. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe you need to accept the fact that he broke up with you, and maybe you need to figure out how to go on from here.”
“You don’t understand,” I told my brother. “Zan needs me. He made a mistake by leaving. I have to fi
gure out how to find him so I can talk to him and fix this.” Dante frowned, but instead of saying anything else, he just squeezed my shoulder. I figured he probably thought I was being pathetic, but when I looked in his eyes I saw only sympathy.
Chance checked in that evening with his usual message: Still no news from Tahoe. It had occurred to me that Zan might try to go back to the cabin, since he’d seemed happy there. During his weeks as our assistant, Chance had made friends with a woman who worked in a local diner, and he’d called her at work and asked her to go by the cabin and see if it was occupied. She said she was happy to help and went by twice a day. The result was always the same, though. The cabin was empty.
I touched base with Chet Stanton once a day as well. He’d gotten a single voicemail from Zan the night he took off. The lawyer had been instructed to put the house in my name and to set up a bank account for me, both of which he’d done. With Shea’s help, we learned the call had come from a cellphone that Zan had borrowed from the cab driver. Stanton was concerned by his client’s disappearance, since he’d heard nothing more from him after that initial call.
My other daily call was to Zan’s physician. I kept expecting Zan to contact him so he could get his prescription. The fact that he hadn’t bothered to do that was upsetting, because it meant he wasn’t trying to take care of himself.
Most surprising was the fact that Zan hadn’t been in touch with his son. He had to know Christian was concerned about him. That worried me more than anything. Christian and Shea were getting married in a month, and I’d been certain at first that Zan would come back for that. But the more time passed, the less sure of that I became.
It seemed as if Zan hadn’t just left me, he’d left everything and everyone. He was out there somewhere, more alone than ever. My heart ached when I imagined what he must be going through. As much as I was hurting, it had to be infinitely worse for him. At least I had the support of my family and friends. He had nothing.