by Laura Rossi
“It is not a problem, Mr. De la Crux. But there was no need to take my knives away,” I said to him and watched him nod. “I only use them to defend myself and I don’t think I need them now.”
“No, you don’t,” he admitted and turned to look outside the car window, his long black ponytail fell on his shoulder. “But my men are very cautious these days. You’ll get them back as soon as you get out of the car, I promise you that.”
I nodded and didn’t say another word. I wasn’t there to talk, I knew I was there to listen.
“So, you are Sebastian, The Killer,” he mumbled, squinting a little as he puffed out smoke from his nostrils and lips.
“Yes, that’s what they call me,” I confirmed.
“I have heard a lot about you. And I watched you fight a couple of times. I wanted to meet you in person.”
“I am honoured,” I said to him and watched his lips curl into a smile.
“You are invincible.”
“So far,” I kept my comments to a minimum, not showing any emotions, while deep down I wanted him to get to the point as quickly as possible.
I had kept so low profile over the last few years, that I wasn’t used to being picked out of the crowd. I felt like Alejandro De la Crux was studying me and It could mean no good.
“You know who I am?”
“Yes, sir,” I nodded.
“Very well. Then this makes things easier,” he crossed his legs and leaned back on the seat. “Do you own a gun? I know you can shoot.”
“Yes,” I told him.
“Yet, you don’t take it around with you,” he pointed out and I nodded.
“I don’t need a gun to protect myself. I can use my hands.”
“I know you can,” Alejandro smiled again, playing with the gold chain around his neck.
My eyes went to the pendant: a cross with snakes and roses.
The De la Crux emblem.
“I know how deadly your hands can be. Which is why I wanted to speak to you,” he paused and rubbed his chin.
“I am going to have to make a run. I need to go into hiding for a while. I have people after me, people from another neighbourhood- The Ruins. Do you understand what I am saying?” he said and I simply nodded.
Of course, I knew what he meant. Maybe Mr. De la Crux had killed someone or had had someone ‘taken care of’ from another clan. I knew the Chinese mafia ruled The Ruins.
Or maybe Alejandro had overstepped the border or stolen from their profits in the drug market. It was something big anyway, for someone like Alejandro to make a run.
“I need someone like you, strong that can address one on one combat,” he went on.
“I am a fighter. I fight in a ring. How can I be of any help, sir?” I asked.
“I need a personal bodyguard. Not for me. I am going into hiding. But I have family,” Alejandro squinted again, as he took in another drag and the car filled with burned tobacco. “I need you to protect my family. They won’t come in hiding with me.”
The air got stuck halfway down my throat.
“For reasons I cannot discuss now, I won’t take them into hiding with me. But they need protection.”
“I am not a soldier, Mr. De la Crux,” I started to say but Alejandro cut me off instantly.
“I don’t need another soldier. I have soldiers. They know how to fire. My family already has four with them. I need a bodyguard. Someone that will protect them with his body, with his life. I need a fighter. Someone fearless, someone invincible. Someone deadly like you,” Alejandro said and I noticed his voice had changed.
It wasn’t calm anymore, it was a little nervous, tense.
As I thought of a smart way to pull myself out of this, I watched him open an envelope and take out a shit load of money.
My eyes scanned the notes, roughly three or four thousand euros.
“This is for kindly accepting the deed,” he said, an evil grin stamped on his face. “I know I am asking a lot from you. This means no fights until I am back. This inside here is for the job. Five hundred thousand euros. You’ll get twice as much, when the job is done in a few weeks. I need to find the fucker who wants me dead, get him killed before I can come out of hiding. In the meantime, you’ll keep my family safe. Do we have a deal?” and he handed me the envelope.
I took it, but didn’t say yes. I stared at the money in the envelope, evaluated the options until I caught sight of something in the brown bag.
My hands dug inside, as Alejandro eyed me content.
He thought I was counting the money, he thought I had been offered my price, when really I was looking at something else.
A picture.
I would have recognized those eyes anywhere.
Sad Eyes.
It was Andrea. Andrea and a little boy.
“I need you to protect my son. Protect my woman, while I am gone.”
He went on, as I looked up from the envelope trying to mask my surprise.
His woman.
“I am putting the most precious things I have in your hands, Killer. Nobody is to lay a single finger on them. Do you understand me, Killer?” Alejandro pressed on.
“I understand, Mr. De la Crux,” I nodded.
“Good. Do we have a deal?”
“Deal,” I said holding his stare, but my mind was elsewhere.
Andrea.
I couldn’t believe it was her.
I stretched out my hand to shake his and watched him smirk.
“Very well, Killer. Suspend your fighting from today. I need you on this starting now and for the next couple of weeks. They go out, you go out. I want you to be their shadow” and I was handed a mobile phone. Further instructions would follow, Alejandro reassured me. “I will be in contact”
I watched him drive away, as I quickly readjusted the knives on my body.
Andrea, I thought, holding on tight to the envelope, while I walked home fast.
Andrea was Alejandro’s wife.
I had slept with Alejandro’s wife.
Chapter 6
The gangster’s wife
“You can’t do this to me” Joe said the minute I set foot in the house.
The women were gone but he was still walking around, half naked in my apartment.
They had been eager for a second round in the morning, he said. I didn’t know if it was true, Joe was a professional liar but he was loyal to me. Or maybe he hung out with me for the women, the money. I couldn’t blame him for taking advantage. Everyone took advantage of someone in The Market, especially if you weren’t strong enough to survive on your own. And that was just Joe’s case.
“I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks. I’m going back to Naples,” I lied to him, while I put some stuff in a bag.
“What about the fights, man? You can’t just leave like this” he whined, following me around the small one-bedroom apartment.
“Reschedule them. I am off for two weeks. I need to go home,” I had to lie again.
Nobody had to know where I was going, who I was working for. Nobody had to know about Mr. De la Crux and my task. And Joe couldn’t be trusted with such a secret.
While I showered I could still hear Joe grunting and talking on the phone. He was cancelling my fights, as I had asked.
The hot water hit my shoulders and I winced. I had a couple of bruises on my back and the pain hit me again the minute I stepped into the shower.
It didn’t matter. I had no time to deal with the bruises. No time to waste. I gulped down two painkillers and slipped on a clean pair of jeans and a shirt, my head elsewhere, my mind already miles away with Andrea.
She had a house in one of the poshest neighborhood of the city.
I had hardly ever set foot in the Hillside- too clean, too middle class for a rotten, society dirt bag like me.
As I drove through the streets and the scenery began to change all around me, I started to think of how it would be to see her again, what she would say once she saw me.
It had been a while now, but I hadn�
�t changed. She hadn’t changed. Her delicate face still looked innocent and pure. Her cold blue eyes were still sad. Nothing had changed.
Except now she had a son. Her husband had a name. And it was Alejandro De la Crux.
I stopped the car right in front of a white, new two-storey house. All around it, was a little garden.
There were so many other houses there but I could tell that was the right one. There was a car parked in front of it and two men outside her door.
Alejandro’s soldiers.
The men eyed me suspiciously, but I walked towards them, hands up behind my head defensively, until I was close enough for them to hear.
They had been informed I was coming, they knew who I was and what I looked like. The men only asked If I had my gun with me.
“Yes,” I told them.
I had brought the gun, the knives. Everything to protect Andrea.
With my heart in my throat, I knocked on the door and waited for someone to open.
It was only a matter of seconds, before this slender, fair skinned, beautiful woman opened the door.
Andrea blinked at me, speechless, just a small whisper escaped her lips.
Yes, It’s me.
“What…?” she murmured stunned but I spoke up before she could say anything we could regret. Too many people around, listening.
“My name is Sebastian. Your husband sent me. Can I come in?” I spoke slowly, my voice calm.
I tried to look cold, detached but inside I was screaming. My hands were aching to reach up to her face.
Those lips, that mouth, I thought recalling her moans, how her hands had clawed behind my back.
“Sebastian…” Andrea said my name and her raspy, sexy voice made my stomach twist.
I thought I would go crazy, seeing her lips tremble like that.
She was staring at me like she had seen a ghost, a ghost of her past.
“My husband? Why did he send you?” she asked, her face hardened.
“We can talk inside,” I insisted and finally Andrea moved to the side, letting me through.
The house was immense. Well, not immense but four times bigger than anything I had ever lived in.
I noticed how refined and elegant it was- cream coloured walls, high class furniture and it smelled like fresh, clean laundry throughout.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded to know.
I took a good look at her and my scrutinizing eyes must have made her feel uncomfortable, because Andrea crossed her arms over her white shirt and looked away.
“Your husband Alejandro De la Crux sent me.”
“Alejandro De la Crux is not my husband,” she spat out, her cold eyes digging into mine. “Not anymore.”
Not anymore, the words echoed in my head, but I went on.
“He sent me over to protect you and your son.”
“I told him I don’t need more guards. This is my house. I don’t want his protection. I want him to leave me alone,” Andrea raised her voice and I watched her move around the living room, her body tense, her face worried.
“You need protection.”
“I can’t believe you are one of his soldiers” she shook her head, disappointed.
Andrea bit her lip and held back a tear. She might have been able to stop it from rolling down her icy blue eyes, but I saw it. It was there. I remembered her tears. Every single one of them.
“I am not his soldier. I don’t work for anyone, I don’t work for the mob,” I said.
I wanted her to know this. I had never worked for an organization, for a gangster.
In any other circumstance, I would have never have said yes to De la Crux. But I had to say yes, because It was for her.
I wanted to see her again and I wanted her to be safe.
It was all for her.
“They want him dead and you are his family. You are in danger, too,” I tried to explain, but Andrea shook her head.
“We are not his family,” Andrea said and looked away, her voice full of resentment. “I want nothing from him. Eddy and I are doing fine on our own. I don’t want those men outside and I don’t want you here.”
“They want to kill him,” I pressed on. “And they’ll try to kill you, too.”
Andrea went silent for a moment. She sank on the couch, her hands over her eyes a second later.
“I want Alejandro to leave us alone. I want nothing to do with him,” she mumbled, still holding her face.
“You know that’s not possible,” I told her, as her head snapped back up and she looked at me.
I could tell she was going to say something, but a little boy entered the room, running towards his mother.
“Mommy, mommy,” he giggled and jumped on the couch. He leaped in his mother’s lap and wrapped his tiny arms around her neck.
Mommy – my chest went heavy, as I noticed Andrea’s eyes softened, her mouth opened slightly in a half smile.
Just seeing her son, had changed her completely. She seemed less tense, warmer, sweeter but I knew deep down she was hiding the tension, the fear. She was trying to protect her son from everything that was happening around her.
Eddy, his name was Eddy and he had the most innocent, big, blue eyes I had ever seen. His bright, pure stare would dig right through you, making you question everything, even your own intentions.
I don’t think I have ever had those eyes- so innocent and joyful.
I must have had, before I realized the horrible things that life had set out for me. I just couldn’t remember having that stare, I couldn’t remember looking at life the way Eddy was looking at me then.
He wasn’t afraid, he was happy and not at all doubtful. He didn’t know what pain was like, what suffering meant, how it could change you.
I watched Andrea hold him tight and realized she must have done everything in her power to protect him from the rotten surrounding world.
From Alejandro’s business.
“What’s your name?” he asked me, tilting his head to the side.
“I’m Sebastian,” I replied, never looking away.
“Are you mommy’s friend?” Eddy asked, with the same joyful tone he had addressed his mother moments before.
Andrea and I exchanged a look.
Lovers. We were lovers, for one night- I thought but just nodded.
Andrea
“Stay the night,” he had said to me. “Stay. I want you all night”
“You know I can’t,” I had moaned, my lips trembling as he slid into me again from behind, holding me tight against his body. His body rocked into me, faster and I moaned again.
“Come back to me then,” he had insisted, pressing his lips against my shoulder, as our bodies swayed against one another.
“Forget about me, you have to forget about me.”
I remember everything, everything we had done that night. Every, single thing.
How he kissed me, slowly, every inch of my skin. How he pulled at my hair a little, while his thumb rubbed my chin, only to move all the way down to my neck. He loved my long neck, he had said to me and then he had planted a kiss there, right where my chest began. I had panted, my stomach burning with desire.
I remember the feeling of his big, rough hands all over me and how surprised I was, when I realized how gentle they actually were with my body.
We were hot, sweaty, tangled in one another, our breathing the only sound in the room for a while. I can’t forget how the fire spread across my chest, when he touched me. I can’t forget how his lips felt on mine.
“Who are those men after you?” Sebastian had asked but I hadn’t told him.
I hadn’t told him anything about me. Not one thing. Not my whole name, not where I was from, who I was with. Nothing, apart from what I really was.
A prisoner.
“I’m not allowed to think, I am not allowed to talk, I am not allowed to breathe without permission. I am just a beautiful object to look at and use from time to time” I had confessed.
In sile
nce, I had stared into his dark brown eyes, as the cruel truth sank into him.
“You are beautiful, that you are,” his grip around me had tightened. “But not like something to worship, something to keep locked up somewhere. I can see it in your eyes, what you want, what you need. You want to live, you want to feel. You want to be loved, fucked, possessed. You want to live. You are wild. I can see it in your eyes”
I had wanted to tell him he was right. I was wild. I wanted to live but I just didn’t know how to anymore.
When someone threatens not just your life, your everything, how can you fight to take back what’s yours? There are worse things than death. I was sure Sebastian knew that already, but somehow, I didn’t have the courage to tell him everything. To tell him my story.
“I’ll protect you,” Sebastian had murmured then, causing me to sit up straight.
That had been my wakeup call. I was back to reality, back into my living hell. It was time to go back to my cage.
“You can’t. And I don’t want you to,” I had kept my eyes down, my hands busy tying up my ankle boots. “It’s time for me to go”
“Eddy, would you like something to eat?” I asked my boy, with the sweetest voice I could manage.
He nodded and his soft, little, brown curls bounced up and down, over his face.
“Why don’t you go up to your room. I’ll be there in a minute with a sandwich,” I smiled a little and patted his back.
Eddy skipped away, small toy in hand, and waved to Sebastian, before heading up the stairs. My stomach tied in a knot.
I can’t believe he is here- my throat felt suddenly dry, I blinked a few times and stared at him in silence, like it couldn’t be true. Whatever tricks this life was throwing at me, this was the least expected. The cruellest.
So many times, I had thought of him. Of us together.
Countless times- I studied him warily, at a distance, like I was scared to be anywhere near him.
It would have hurt, I knew it would. I couldn’t let the memory of that night walk back into my life, into my present. It had been just a one-night thing. I had gone back to my life after that. And so had he.
Why is he here?
I took in a deep breath and found the courage to walk towards Sebastian, my cold, blue eyes were back on him again, full on. No smile.