by Stella Rhys
“He was the craziest piece of human shit to walk this Earth,” Jesse muttered. “Dante Senior. All the most fucked up things you’ve ever heard about the Toro Family doing – that wasn’t under my dad. That was under Dante Senior. He wasn’t a businessman. He was just a sick bastard. He’d gouge a man’s eyes out in front of his kids and sleep like a baby at night. My mom hated him. She saw the things he did and after ten years of being a Toro, she was done, she had to go. Loved my dad but left him and took me. Let him keep Stefan. She wouldn’t have gotten away with taking him.” Jesse’s voice trailed off toward the end and suddenly he was back to reminding me of my so-called neighbor, skateboard Sean, all thoughtful and boyish as we sat next to each other on the ground, his attention distracted by a nickel wedged into a crack in the pavement. Jesse picked it up and spun it, his eyes flickering as he watched it dance in the rain. “I visited my dad every week to see him though. Stefan. My grandfather would always be there and he’d always sit in the kitchen and watch us. And he’d just stew over me. He thought I chose to – “abandon the Toros” is what he called it. He loved Stefan to death, never said ‘no’ to that kid but he hated me with everything inside him and it just got worse as I got older.”
Jesse picked up the coin when it stopped spinning, running the thin edge along his skin, drawing lines. It took me a few seconds to realize he was tracing the scars – the ones he’d used to undress me the night we had sex. I had asked him, when he was Sean, to tell me about the skateboard wipeout behind every one. And for every story, he got an article of my clothing. His niece, Gianna, had proven those stories to be true but I was slowly starting to wonder if they were the real reasons behind his scars. They were far too fine and neat to be the results of high-speed collisions on gravel. I peered up just in time to see Jesse reading my mind, wearing a tired version of his usual grin. “Someone’s catching on fast.”
“He did those to you?”
“When I did something he didn’t like. Or if Stefan somehow managed to piss him off. The one time he tried to burn Stef’s little arm with his cigar, I broke a bottle over his head. Don’t even remember what happened after that but I woke up in the hospital and my dad was pissed,” Jesse laughed, pushing up the sleeves on his shirt and gazing down at the fine lashes that licked across his rock-hard biceps. “So he took it down a notch after that, kept it to little burns and cuts to remind me of what a little shit he thought I was. My mom thought I was doing them to myself, cried every night. I couldn’t tell her the truth or she’d never let me go there again. But it was fine. They didn’t hurt that bad after awhile and every burn and cut was like my badge of honor. If I was Dante Senior’s punching bag he’d have nothing left for Stef, so that worked just fine for me.”
“Then I don’t understand,” I whispered. “I don’t understand how anything was your fault. You did everything you could for Stefan.”
Jesse flicked the nickel into the dark. I never heard it land and for some reason, that made my skin prickle. Or maybe it was the way Jesse’s eyes fixed on me, with a darkness that put a bad feeling in my stomach. “Stef walked in the room one day when my grandfather had me on the wall by my throat. Right as I was spitting out my teeth.”
“What?”
“I was nineteen. I told him I didn’t want to be a part of the Family so he pistol whipped me and picked me off the floor by my neck. And then he just started squeezing. I was bleeding everywhere but that wasn’t enough for him. He kept squeezing. Tighter. Tighter.” The vein in Jesse’s forearm swelled as his fingers curled into fists, mimicking the chokehold. “I remember the moment I realized that he wasn’t going to stop. And I was blacking out just thinking about my mom. How she’d kill him if he killed me, and then she’d kill herself, too. I was so scared. I was crying just thinking about her beautiful face. But then out of nowhere, I saw Stef walk into the kitchen with his headphones on.” Jesse’s eyes were wet, far away as he gave the smallest laugh. “This fucking kid. Dr. Pepper in one hand, Sour Patch in the other. And he saw me. Froze. I looked at him one last time and I blacked out. Could’ve sworn that was it for me but at least I saw the person who loved me most right before I went.”
The agony on Jesse’s face wrestled every emotion out of me. He was doing everything in his power to hold onto his tears, so instead he got mine. I couldn’t help it. My heart ached for him. I could see his pain, practically see the memories flickering in his eyes, playing through the rain like a scene from an old movie. Jesse shook his head as he squinted through the sheets of water, as if seeing young Stefan right across from him in the alley.
“But next thing I remember, I’m on the floor and I can breathe. One big, deep breath. And I can see that Stef’s just sitting next to me crying, holding my head in his lap. He’s got blood all over his shirt and next to us, our grandpa’s still bleeding but he’s dead. Skin white, eyes open.” Jesse cursed and shook his head. “Stef was twelve when he cried over having to kill a mouse but a year later he managed to kill the head of the Toro Family with a dull fucking kitchen knife. We couldn’t figure out how he did it. I still don’t know how he did it.”
The image sent a violent shudder through my body. I wondered if it was my way of trying to reject the sympathy I felt. I refused to feel for Stefan Toro but my heart was overriding me.
“My dad and Uncle John covered up what happened but Stef cried probably every night for the next year. Called me at all hours with nothing to say, just cried on the phone. He tried to kill himself his freshman year of high school but we found him in time, pumped his stomach and after that, they all coddled him like a baby. Never let him be alone, never let him do anything for himself. Always sent someone to look after him and he hated it. He hated being treated like this damaged, fragile little bird. So he repackaged himself. Decided after high school that he was a cold-blooded assassin and he didn’t kill his grandfather, he murdered a Mafia boss. Tried to get into fights, always lost. Tried to run business, always failed. He was trying to prove himself to the Family up until the shit last year with Gavin. No one told him to do what he did but he wanted respect. He wanted us to see that he was a man and that we didn’t have to look at him like someone who should be pitied. So he went as hard as he could.”
It explained the three days of torture – the videotaping before cutting open Gavin’s throat. I couldn’t think of anything to say so I brought myself closer to Jesse. There was sorrow in his eye but at the same time, disgust curled his lip. I watched his handsome features twist in a war of emotions and suddenly, I understood him. I could see the internal struggle that had been ravaging inside him since we started this mission. “Did you come tonight to remind yourself?” I asked suddenly.
Jesse nodded. He palmed his close-shaven head, his fingers digging into his skull. “I needed to see the people Stefan hurt. How bad he hurt them. Because as much as I hate him for doing this to the family, I don’t want to kill him. I can’t. I still remember him as that kid who’d do anything if you bought him candy and I still wake up giving him excuses. For everything. Gavin. The FBI. I know I can’t forgive him but I also can’t stop the urge to take away his pain.” Clawing harder at himself, Jesse grimaced when I tore his hands off his head. They twitched to get away from me so I held onto them tight.
“You can’t stop being his big brother.”
“No.”
“That’s okay, Jesse,” I reassured him softly, holding his hands in my lap and trying to figure out if I really meant what I said. I had no idea if it was really okay. Stefan was a murderer – a sadistic one at that. I wondered if it was really possible to keep loving someone who could do something so horrific. My eyes drifted elsewhere as I thought of Elle, imagining if she’d ever gotten the chance to grow up. The tears immediately came.
Fuck. I hated doing this – mostly because I could still imagine a life with Elle. If I thought of her long enough, vividly enough, imagining all the things she would’ve done if she’d beaten the cancer, it sometimes felt as if she were still
alive. As if she never died at all. It was like a high. Back on my couch, alone in the apartment I never left if not for work, I could ride that wave of imagination for hours, pretending that Elle was still around and I’d simply not spoken to her in awhile because she was at camp. I imagined that to celebrate her remission, we had all scrounged up to help pay for some sort of fancy summer camp where Elle got to catch up on living. She got to do things like swim and paint and learn how to sew, which she’d always wanted to do. She’d get to sit in the grass with the other girls, in floral skirts she’d made herself, and take a million selfies. Elle had taken a lot of herself, especially during the chemo, but she always dreamed of taking one with a big group of friends. So I even pictured her friends.
The crash was always brutal. Remembering that she was dead, in the ground with my grandparents, never to wear another dress besides the one she was buried in – it always spiraled me into darkness that took days to dig out of. I hadn’t gone to that place in awhile. Since meeting Abram, I’d stopped having the time or lack of distractions that were needed to sink myself in a fantasy world where I hung out with my dead sister all day. But sitting in the dark, rainy alley, holding Jesse’s hands, I closed my eyes and tried to take myself back to that dangerous but sweet-as-honey place in my mind. Where Elle was alive. She’d beaten the leukemia for good and she was a teenager now, old enough to start making real mistakes. To stop being as perfect as she was during every one of her twelve years. She would’ve been beautiful and that, of course, would’ve caused its fair share of problems. It would get her noticed. I imagined her niceness would get the best of her at some point. Some boy would break her heart and take away a chunk of her faith in the world. But knowing Elle, she’d try again to see the best in everyone. She’d trust someone again. She’d do it over and over, telling herself that the mean ones were only exceptions. But eventually, she’d give someone her heart and this time, when it backfired, she’d finally be broken.
I pressed the back of my wrist against my mouth, silencing my tears as I thought of lovely Elle at sixteen, crying in her room and finally realizing that it didn’t pay to be hopeful. I imagined bullying at school. I imagined the girls who used to heckle me for being a “slut.” Word got out that I hooked up at a college party and it was over from there. Those same girls still existed in Elle’s generation and with her, they’d taunt her for being inexperienced. Probably dumped for not putting out. Elle would be bitter for being socially set back by the cancer. She had, with every ounce of strength in her tirelessly fighting body, beaten the sickness just for a chance at being a normal teenager – only to find that the world was cruel to girls who stayed innocent and sweet.
She’d endure shoves in the hallway, vicious rumors, notes passed around her in class. Then one more humiliation by the mean girls – some prank in the locker room, private photos posted online – and Elle would snap. The world would see her scars and she’d think, this wasn’t what I fought for. I wasn’t sure if she’d hurt herself or the girls but I knew in my heart she could do something drastic and terrible.
“Isla.”
A mangled breath ripped from my throat. I gasped, blinking raindrops from my eyes to see Jesse holding my cheeks, staring into me.
“Where did you go?”
My chest heaved as I panted. I knew the answer to that question – I went to see Elle – but I wasn’t going to answer. My dress was a pile of wet cloth at my knees as I caught my breath, realizing that I’d gone from holding Jesse’s hands to having his wrapped around mine. When he repeated his question, I only shook my head. Jesse’s murmur was close to my cheek.
“You were thinking about her.”
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t be able to do it either.” Jesse gazed at my lips. “No matter what she did, you wouldn’t be able to stop defending her.”
“No. I wouldn’t.”
Jesse closed his eyes for a second. “Tell me it still needs to be done, Isla.”
“What?”
“I need to hear it from you. I need to hear you say that Stefan deserves what he’s going to get because I don’t know if I can stop myself from waking up one day and leaving without you guys. I could find him easy and I’d hide with him till the rest of our family was dead. I could do it.”
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, I wanted to say, imagining the chance to live with Elle forever. To buy her new clothes and just show her the world. Tears streamed from my eyes. “Don’t make me do that, Jesse. Please don’t put it all on me.”
“Isla,” he pleaded, his breath brushing my lips.
My tears hit the ground with the rain. Okay, run with him, I decided. Just let him know what he did wrong. Don’t ever let him forget. Give him another chance at life but make him repent every day. Somehow, that idea made me feel good. It gave me the most bizarre sense of relief. I wanted to just tell Jesse that and give him the happiness he so wanted. But my lips refused to do it.
“He deserves it,” I blurted, sobbing. “Stefan deserves everything he’s going to get.”
As true as they were, each word swung like a hammer at my chest, cracking my ribs and rattling my heart. But I had to say them. Stefan Toro had tortured and killed someone. If Elle ever did something so gruesome, I’d understand that she needed to face a punishment. I’d just never be able to get over it. I’d never have peace again in my life, and I’d never be happy. Lifting my gaze at Jesse, I looked at him with true sadness, wondering if he knew what torment lay ahead of him forever. I felt so, so sorry. I wished I could help him but I couldn’t. Letting Stefan go free would destroy Abram and rightfully so. He had done something atrocious and he didn’t deserve a rebirth. It wouldn’t be fair. So my heart bled for Jesse – for the pain he felt now and the pain he’d feel for the rest of his life.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed as Jesse finally let his tears fall. I said the it over and over but I knew it meant nothing anymore so I pulled him into my arms, holding him against my chest, trying to comfort him the way Stefan had on that bloody kitchen floor so many years ago. “I swear, I’m so sorry.”
He said something like it’s okay, though he couldn’t get the words all the way out. He cupped my cheek when he sat up again, raking his fingers into my soaking wet hair and pressing his forehead to mine. Our hot breaths collided in the thick air and I felt his mouth drawing closer to mine, my heart racing with fear that he’d kiss me. Instead, he only whispered two words that sounded sweet as they left his lips.
“No wonder.”
I didn’t know what it meant but before I could ask, I heard a clatter at the end of the alley. Tearing apart from Jesse, I turned to see someone standing there watching us. I shouldn’t have rushed to my feet. It made me look guilty, as if I’d done something wrong. But whether or not I did, it clearly wouldn’t have mattered because Nate was already seething as he stood there, drawing conclusions to something that never happened.
“You’re a piece of work,” he muttered when I got to him.
“It’s not what it – ”
He was gone before I could catch him, with only a half-minute lead though that was all he needed to tell Abram before I could get to him first.
chapter fourteen
Rain-drenched and barefoot, I ran back to the hotel, flying through the front entrance. Several Monarch staffers marched forward, no doubt to demand I put on my shoes, but they were pulled back before they could reach me. Abram’s security – they were in my corner. I tried to give a nod of thanks before disappearing into the elevators, finally shoving my feet back into my heels.
The party was over and my pulse was hammering by the time I got up to the floor. But through the cracked doors, I could hear low, muffled conversation. Abram and Nate. There was something ghostly about the way their hushed voices echoed through the empty event hall.
“There she is.”
Nate’s voice was hard when I finally pushed through the doors. He was sitting with Abram at a table in the very center of the enormous room,
under the biggest, most ornate chandelier. They both held glasses of Scotch in their hands. Their tuxes were impossibly neat, as if nothing had happened tonight at all. If only. I couldn’t even pretend that was true, my breath quivering when Abram’s wolfish stare finally landed on me. Right away, I could see the anger. The sheer disappointment. My heart dropped so heavy into my stomach I had to clutch it with my arms. “Abram, let me explain.” My voice broke off toward the end as he rose to his feet and came to me, all six feet and four inches of his stiffened body rendering me speechless. Intimidated. He ignored me, his jaw tighter than a bow and arrow as he stood in front of me.
But to my surprise, his gentle hand cupped my cheek. The breath I let out filled his mouth as he kissed me, pulling me tight into his arms, as if I’d disappear if he let go. “Isla, I’m so sorry for tonight.” His low murmur caressed my skin and suddenly, relief crashed upon me. I tried to contain my relief as he apologized for the chaos – for the mess I had to take care of while he was manning the gala. I kept my silence as I realized that Nate hadn’t said a word.
Whatever he had been discussing with Abram, it had nothing to do with how he found Jesse and me in the alley. The night had been a disaster but it could’ve been worse. I had no idea what was going on but I didn’t question it, only gathering my poise to finally respond. “It’s okay, Abram. I’m fine. I’m just glad you are, too,” I said genuinely before peering carefully past him at Nate. He stood behind Abram, his cold grey eyes glued to me with revulsion. Our stares locked in silent battle, I realized he hadn’t sealed his lips out of compassion. Of course not. Whatever he had planned for me, I’d have to wait for it. And in the meantime, I’d be left guessing.
“Mr. Lenox.”