tmp_2e400c932cd646dccd3ec2acdba43a25_mQf9rc.fixed.tidied

by BSmith

  Stefano could have prevented it. He could have not walked outside. He could have let Seth take him out weeks ago when he had been spotted.

  Only if you are not on that path, Stefano.

  He didn’t fight it. The sharp, echoing boom that startled the unknowing sheep on the street brought forth a sudden heat, and then searing, debilitating pain. Stefano’s hands shot up, fingers clutching the front of the assassin’s shirt as he met the eyes of his murderer and whispered: “I know.”

  Two strong arms caught the staggering Terenzio, the gun gone as quickly as it had appeared. The assassin even managed to paint an expression of concern on his face, though when his eyes caught and locked with Stefano's, they were laughing. How hard the mighty fall. It didn’t matter if Terenzio knew; he was still going to die. The assassin stepped backwards as Stefano toppled to the pavement. As the crowd began to gather around the dying man, he melted into it, thinking how pleased Mrs. Adams would be.

  Stefano couldn’t get his breath. No, no. It was too soon. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t leave, not until he saw her. His vision became fuzzy, darkness rapidly crawling from the edges. The shouts of the crowd around him faded until there was nothing but silence. His arms shook, the strength to hold his weight failing.

  It was one fight Stefano would not win.

  His chest hit the pavement, staining it crimson. The falling sunlight caught on the gold of his wedding band; the last thing he saw. For him, it had been enough.

  §

  June 21, 1974 - 4:44 PM

  Alcyone Island

  Bazaar

  *Marcello Terenzio, head of the Terenzio family, leaned against the concrete pillar with his arms folded over his suited chest. He moved through the Dion Corp Empire like a ghost. To the underworld that his family also controlled, he didn’t exist. The deception had allowed him to manipulate situations from afar for decades. That never made him less busy, or sought-after by key people. No one bothered him right now, though, and he was glad; because after telling his wife that morning that he would be too busy to wander around the Bazaar with her that afternoon, there he was; waiting.

  Seconds later, the doors opened, and Marilyn stepped through them, with her purse hanging from the crook of her arm and her eyes fixed on the sheaf of papers in her hand. The warm light of the afternoon caught in the waves of her blonde hair, filling the age-lightened strands with youthful color. It was a different light, however, that came into her face and brightened her eyes when she glanced up and saw her husband. Marilyn smiled, deepening the lines around her mouth and the faint webbing of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. "I thought your afternoon was booked?" For a man who didn't exist, he tended to be very, very busy.

  Thirty some odd years later, Marcello still felt a little like a boy with an insane crush when his wife smiled at him. Uncoiling from his stance, he stepped into her. "It is. But I knew your husband wouldn't be around." He brushed her cheek with his thumb and kissed her. "I haven't ditched a meeting in a while. I was due."

  The light danced in the blue-green of Mari’s eyes, like the reflection of light on water. "He won't be. Not for another..." She checked the watch on her wrist. "Three hours, at least." Her smile widened into a faint grin. "You should kiss me again, while there's time."

  "Is that right?" Marcello matched her grin. Lowering his hands to her waist, he pulled her closer so he could kiss her again.

  Some thirty-odd years later, Marilyn still couldn't get enough of her husband. Grin deepening in the heartbeat before his mouth met hers, she closed her eyes and caught his face between her hands, wrinkling the documents she had been studying just seconds before.

  Marcello lingered in the warm, familiar taste of her mouth, earning lowered smiles from a few of the never-ending stream of employees that flowed in and out of the building. Easing back, he kissed the tip of her nose. "What are you putting on the American Express card today?"

  Marilyn’s nose wrinkled affectionately. "I haven't decided, yet. I thought I would wander up and down the aisles and see what jumps out at me." She glanced away long enough to stow the papers in her purse.

  "Now, that sounds exciting." There was teasing in Marcello’s feigned excitement. He took her hand in his own. "You know, there are better things we can do with a quiet afternoon."

  "There are," Mari agreed, threading her fingers through his. Her grin resurfaced. "But if you're ditchin' all of your meetings, then you and I have the rest of the day to do those better things. The bazaar closes at seven."

  "Fine. I'll just drag you down a deserted alley like we were in our twenties again." Marcello just might have been serious. Giving Mari’s hand a gentle squeeze, he tucked his other in his pants pocket and began walking toward the Bazaar.

  Marilyn didn't doubt Marcello’s sincerity. Time might have given them a few wrinkles and gray hairs, but it hadn't smothered the flame that burned between them. If anything, it had made that flame burn hotter and brighter. She could think of no better way to spend an afternoon than basking in its glow. "Let's try not to get caught this time."

  Marcello laughed, shaking his head in sheer amusement at the memory of the last time a healthy dose of lust had over taken them in public. "The expression on that man's face was priceless."

  Mari laughed with him and rubbed a hand over her cheek. "I think it took a day or two for the red to come out of my cheeks."

  "That near permanent blush suited you." Clear affection lit Marcello’s eyes.

  "Suited you, maybe." Mari dug him good-naturedly in the ribs. "As if it wasn't bad enough that I couldn't get rid of it, but whenever someone asked me about it, it burned up into my ears and went a darker shade of red."

  That did nothing to prevent another round of laughter. "I still say that wasn't the worst. The near catch in the elevator; now that could have been a disaster."

  Mari laughed again—she could, in hindsight—and wrapped her hand around Marcello’s arm, giving it an affectionate squeeze. "Oh, I wouldn't have been able to look those people in the eye for a month."

  Humor made the corners of Marcello’s eyes crinkle. "It would have been my fault. You did warn me. But then again, I never seem to be able to help myself." He pressed a kiss into her hair.

  "You're about as good at not bein' able to help yourself as I am at denying you." She smiled up at him, her eyes glittering, and glanced out over the bazaar with its bustling, open stalls and charming blend of island authenticity and Alcyone tourism. It was one of Marilyn's favorite places. Tightening her fingers around Marcello’s as she made her decision, she led them into the closely-packed aisles of the food vendors. A slow smile curved Marcello’s mouth as he watched his wife. Like most men, shopping wasn't high on his priority list. Marcello simply enjoyed spending time with her. And annoying her at intervals. "I had lunch with Kayla today."

  Marilyn chatted amicably with the locals, asking after family members and loved ones and the well-being of dogs and goats and the occasional chicken. The man from whom she had been buying fresh eggs for the last twelve years had just finished updating her on the condition of his favorite spotted hen when Marcello spoke. Mari paused, glancing up at her husband, and tucked her carton of newly purchased eggs beneath her arm. "How did that go?"

  "It was... fun." It had only been recently that Marcello had stopped being so much of a ghost in Kayla's life and had attempted to get to know her; or at, least the face, she showed them. Marcello found it difficult to stop the faint smile that touched his mouth. "She has your stubborn look."

  Neither could Mari stop the small, pleased smile that settled along her mouth. Kayla's existence—and now presence—had been trying, to say the very least, but Kayla was Marilyn’s daughter. She was Marilyn’s flesh and blood. Marilyn knew her in ways that no one else did, and she was connected to Kayla in ways that no one else would ever be. It pleased Marilyn that she had passed some of herself into the child that had been a stranger to her for so long. "It's funny how you bring that look out in both
of us, don't you think?" she teased.

  "I just have that effect on the women in my life." Marcello winked, his smile deepening.

  SVT Construction was in the process of building a parking garage across the street. The lot was half finished. It was from the second level, absent of the construction workers that had called an early day that the assassin set his eye in the scope.

  "You love every minute of it, too." Mari stepped into Marcello, lifting onto the tips of her toes to kiss his cheek, and slipped her arm through his. The dry, cloying scent of fresh herbs and heavy, fragrant spices drew her further down the aisle, and she stopped a stall laden with sacks of seeds, leaves, and finely ground powders. Mari peered at the selection. "What did the two of you talk about?"

  "Where she wanted to go to college, and whether or not she wanted to join the company afterwards." His mouth twitched. "The conversations that our son tried to avoid."

  The assassin curled his finger around the trigger, slowly turning the weapon. The scope made a bull’s-eye over his target’s chest. He held his breath.

  Mari sifted her fingers through a mound of fennel seeds and smiled over her shoulder. "What did she say? Is she going to follow your footsteps to Harvard?" If a mother's love could turn a killer's heart, then maybe, just maybe, a father's could be softened; allowed to love another girl as completely and as fiercely as he had loved the daughter that he had lost.

  "She's considering it." The whole conversation had amused Marcello. Since coming into his father’s world, one of empires and crime, the time of his life spent in typical academia often felt like it had happened to someone else. "I told her I'd come when the two of you fly out to Boston to take a firsthand look."

  "I'll make the arrangements, then. And after the official tour of the campus, you can give us the real tour."

  The assassin, Matthew DeMarco could wait no longer. He squeezed the trigger, just once. He didn't bother to stick around to see if he'd hit his mark; he knew he had. Marilyn Pearl-Terenzio would die. Abandoning the gun, Matthew turned around and jogged away.

  Passing on the spices for now, she smiled at the young woman behind the stall, thanking her for her time through that simple gesture, and turned toward Marcello--but halfway through that turn, she jerked back. Behind her, a fine red mist that she couldn't see burst into the air. Marilyn's mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her brows furrowed, confusion and shock seeping into her features. She glanced down and saw blood welling in a round, perfectly formed hole in the front of her shirt. "Marcello...?" Her legs gave out, and she sagged against him.

  There had been moments in his life when he felt like the world was giving way beneath his feet. But nothing, nothing was quite as horrifically surreal as the moment he realized his wife had been shot. Shock spread across his face, his eyes dropping towards her chest that was rapidly staining red. No. "Mari?" He stepped into her, catching her weight in his arms. No. No. No. "Mari? Baby?" That smooth, calm voice was suddenly frantic. He sank to his knees and pulled her back from him so he could see her wound. The world didn't give; it shattered. He snapped his eyes up to the woman behind the stall. "Call an ambulance! Now! Tell them Isis is down. Do it!" For security purposes, Isis had been his wife’s code name. After a shocked pause the woman ran off to find the MP Officer that was stationed somewhere in the crowd.

  There was no burst of pain. There was no heat, lancing through her chest. She didn't feel anything but a distant tingling in her toes and a cold weight that spread through her ribs and pushed down on them. The world moved a little more slowly than it should have, and the sounds of the bazaar seemed distant; muffled. She could hear Marcello, though. His voice and the panic that edged it were perfectly clear. Mari dug her fingers into his shirt, holding herself up as she drew a deep breath. It made a wet, bubbling sound and hitched in her chest. She coughed, and realized what was happening when she took her hand from her mouth and saw that it was spotted with dark red blood. She was dying. "Marcello..."

  "Mari, stay with me." He pulled her closer and touched her cheek, his eyes desperate and pleading. "Hang on, Mari, just hang on. Please. Please. They're coming."

  There was no fear. There was no panic; not in her voice, at least. She sank into him, breathing in shallow, bubbling gasps as she wrapped her blood-flecked fingers around the hand on her cheek. "It's okay," she said softly, pressing her forehead to his. "You'll be okay."

  No, it wasn't. No, he wouldn't. Marcello clutched at her hand, willing her to stay with him. "Mari, don't." His voice cracked. He could feel the tears, wet and cool, rolling down his cheeks. "Don't leave me. You can't leave me. I can't do this without you."

  His arms were warm; so very warm, and wonderful. Her one regret was that she couldn't wrap her own arms around him, now, because the tingling was spreading and numbness was following in its slow, cold wake. It was all that she could do to keep hold of his hand; and to smile through the tears that rolled unchecked down her cheeks. "Yes, you can. I love you." Her voice trembled with emotion. So, too, did the corners of her smile. "I love you."

  "Baby, no. Mari, please." Marcello stared down into her eyes and felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest. "I love you, too. Mari, I love you so much. Don't go."

  Marilyn’s breath came in shorter, desperate gasps. Her pulse tripped erratically in her throat. She felt the seconds stretch longer and longer between heartbeats, and the world went a little darker each beat. Marcello's face—that beautiful mouth and those eyes; how she loved the color of his eyes, like the soft, luminescent gray of the sky after rain—swam in and out of focus, and in a moment of desperate clarity, she clutched his face, wanting to see him clearly one more time. "It's okay," she whispered, nuzzling his face. She brushed his tears away with her thumb. It left a bright red streak down his cheek. She kissed him then, tasting the coppery tang of blood on the warmth of his lips, and gave him one more smile. "I love you, Marcello... I love..." The light went out of her eyes, and her hand slipped off of his cheek. She was gone.

  When those beautiful, expressive aquamarine eyes went blank, for a moment, Marcello was deathly still. When reality swiped its cold, feral claws through his heart, he wanted nothing more than to join her, because surely, he couldn't live with this pain. “Mari?” he whispered, and heard nothing. Gripping her to him tighter, Marcello’s silent tears became a heart-wrenching scream.

  §

  June 22, 1974 - 12:12 AM

  Alcyone Island

  Farmhouse of Marcello and Marilyn

  The silence was thick. It’s presence a weight, staining the air. Marcello sat in his wife’s drawing room, facing the garden. She loved sketching. When he built the house, he had filled up that room just for her. Her drawings were everywhere. He could almost still feel her; see her curled up in her chair in front of the window with pad and pencil in hand.

  Fourteen years ago, he had learned a few truths about the world. Those truths weren’t all about the evil that thirteen men and their alien masters did. Some were spiritual in nature and fascinating in their concepts. Some had amazing potential to be scientifically proven one day. One of them concerned death. Death was not the absence of life; it was a transformation of form. It sounded great. Until they took Mari away from him.

  Marcello closed his eyes against the fierce, painful assault that thought brought. The reality of it crushed his heart; an intense, choking pressure from which there was simply no escape. The Brotherhood had done this. He knew it was Them. Marilyn Terenzio was not a woman with enemies. The strike had been personal.

  He was not young, anymore. He was sixty-one years old. They had been married for thirty-one years, and it wasn’t enough. He didn’t want to hear at least you had that long. If anyone said that to him, they were going to eat a bullet. He shouldn’t have to live without her. It felt… wrong. He didn’t want to live without her. How could he walk the line that he had to walk without her there to keep him from the darkness? How could he be a father to their children, look into the eyes and fa
ces of the lives that carried a very tangible, visual piece of her, and not fall apart?

  Marcello’s hand clenched into a fist that he pressed against his chest. He had spent the last fourteen years collecting information; learning what They controlled, how They controlled it, where their weak points were. It hadn’t been that difficult, once he knew where to look. For fourteen years, he sat on that information, allowing his uncle to play the game as his father instructed, biding his time because Matthew DeMarco had told him that his was a higher purpose.

  A higher purpose that, right now, Marcello didn’t give a fuck about. They were sorely mistaken if they thought that he would just accept this transgression without consequence. Marcello shot to his feet, went into the darkened living room and snatched up the phone. He stabbed the buttons.