by DCS
June 8th, 2012
Undisclosed location
The Vault time unknown
“They gave him Alcyone Island and the renegade militia that was on it too, to help him,” Vasco said quietly.
“Jesus Christ. You killed Marazano?” Lucien’s jaw was slightly agape.
Vasco frowned at his brother. “I didn’t do shit. But to properly answer your question, neither did Stefano.” He paused and the frown bled off his face. Fuck, this was all too crazy. Not just the memories, though they were enough to make him think he was really losing it, Vasco could recall the calm malicious glee Stefano felt in those moments. Not just recall it, the very feeling felt so familiar to him he realized he was having a hard time not smiling.
“Who shot him then?” Lucien asked.
“Nina did,” Vasco responded quietly, and immediately felt another rush of sensation connected with the memories of Antonia. He still didn’t understand any of it. What was the purpose of providing them with what the original trio was feeling too? For that matter how did whoever put those Holon’s together know? It didn’t make any sense.
Simone leaned back in her chair, arms crossed comfortably over her chest. This story wasn’t just new to her, but to Lil too. She realized that Stefano had never shared with either of his siblings how he had really obtained Alcyone Island, which sounded exactly like something he would do. And she could clearly remember that Nina was loyal, intelligent, deadly and always willing to shoot someone if Stefano asked. Liliana and Nina had shared a love of firearms, and been good friends. Simone couldn’t help but smile at the familiar feelings the memories invoked.
“Nina?” Lucien slowly grinned. The more they got into this conversation the more he was convinced that those Holons had made them remember their past lives. There were too many little details running around in his head that were intimate and personal, that he needn’t know about JT. “I slept with her. Before she married Derek. She was a hot little lay too.”
“Aside from family, was there any female on the island that Julian didn’t fuck?” Simone canted her head at Lucien, amused.
Vasco remained silent, ignoring the reference to Lucien as Julian for the time being. “This is one hell of an enemy.” He pressed two fingers against his temple. His head was pounding and the alcohol wasn’t helping on any fronts. “The Anunnaki are, well…”
“Sci-fi shit right there. And don’t even try to jump on the doubting train, V.” Lucien warned, pointing a finger at him. “Those fuckers killed me. I can still feel their claws, their teeth….” Lucien grimaced, then he looked pissed. “Oh, revenge will be sweet.”
“Before we even begin to get into a discussion on the, how did you say it, Vasco? Anunnaki,” Simone slowly pronounced the word then continued. “Grandfather obviously knows about them. But if you, I mean Julian, didn’t tell him, Lucien, how did that happen?”
Lucien knit his brows together. “Marcello told me that he knew about them and it was time to remove them from the chessboard.” He pressed his liquor glass against his temple again, searching the newly expanded hallways of his memory banks. “I went to them and demanded to know what they’d done and subsequently got eaten.” Lucien shuddered. “It’s so fucking strange to remember dying.”
“Yeah it is,” Simone said quietly. Then she gave a little shake of her head and glanced over at Vasco. “Well, if Julian didn’t tell him, did you leave a note for him?”
Vasco slowly shook his head. “Not that I recall. Did he ever tell Julian what they’d done, Lucien?”
Lucien shook his head. “He refused to say.”
Out of the shadows Rosa suddenly appeared, skipping towards them and carrying a small banker’s box. She dropped it on the table then patted Vasco on the head. Her eyes drifted over the other two in studious silence before she just turned around and went skipping back to where she had come from, calling out in a sing-song voice, “DeMarco.”
Chapter 12
"The virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are the invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the others’ - existences which the spirit alone remembers, for Matter has no memory for spiritual things."
-Honore Balzac
September 11th, 1958
Dion Corp Private Retreat
Madeira Islands 2:11 PM
It was no secret the retreat on Madeira Island was 99% of the time just for the boys. However, when you were Mr. President every now and again you could bring your wife. When you needed a secure private location for a meeting with a member of the politically charged DeMarco family, who had strangely insisted that your wife be present, it was the perfect place.
The hair on his head that wasn’t quite black anymore rippled lightly in the breeze carried off the ocean. He stood out on the terrace, folding up a piece of paper and tucking it into his pocket. Random updates from the Island, they never ceased.
Marilyn stepped to her husband's side, slipping her hand into the crook of his arm. She glanced at the note as he put it away, arching a slender brow. "Everything still in one piece?"
"Uncle Julian started a bar fight. Then he rented out the brothel for the other guy. I love my family, truly." Marcello couldn't help but chuckle. "He's never allowed to baby sit again."
Marilyn rolled her vivid blue eyes. Uncle Julian meant well, but his life's philosophy ground directly against the grain of hers. She was lucky to have gotten to Marcello when she had, before his uncle's seeds of debauchery had fully taken root. But there was affection in her smile, of the patronizing kind. "You know I love him, but I don't really want our children to emulate him."
Quiet laughter left his lips. "Noted. And agreed, Mrs. Terenzio." Marcello tipped his head down, brushing his mouth across her cheek. His voice lowered secretively. "But I am going to enjoy the time alone with you."
Marilyn made a soft sound, deep in her throat and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning in closer to - one of the Guards pushed open the sliding glass door, clearing his throat to interrupt. Marilyn leaned in anyway, taking her slow, sweet time with a warm, promising kiss. It hadn't taken her very long after they had met to learn to work with, around, and sometimes ignore wholly, the frequent interruptions.
Both arms came around her, Marcello’s hands clasped loosely at her back, holding her there as he returned her kiss. Only after did he acknowledge the guard who informed them their guest had arrived. Marcello nodded and she kissed him again, standing up on the tips of her toes after she broke away to give him a peck on the nose. "Should I change?"
"No. This suits you just fine." Marcello smiled softly down at her.
Matthew DeMarco, Director of the newly formed and Above Top Secret Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit, was the near mirror image of his father with one exception; he carried his mother’s wheat-hued eyes. Following in his father’s, U.S. Senator and Don of New Orleans, Alexandro DeMarco’s footsteps, he and his brother had further inserted the DeMarco name into American politics and the dark, dark world that ran it. Matthew was not here to bring good news to the ally of his family, but it needed to be given. Armed guards dressed in plain clothes with the Dion Corp logo on their shirts, escorted him through the open rooms and out onto the terrace. Dressed for Washington and not the islands, he held his suit jacket over his forearm and carried a warm smile regardless of the circumstance of his visit when he saw the pair. "You remind me of my parents."
Marilyn turned in Marcello's arms, smiling at Matthew. "Thanks, Matt, you really know how to make a girl feel young." She fanned her lashes in good humor and stepped up to take his hands and kiss his cheek. "How was your flight?"
"I secretly dislike flying, but your jet has excellent accommodations." Matthew tipped his head and returned her kiss. A Dion Corp guard came out and set down a briefcase. Matthew nodded his head at him in thanks. Then he turned his mother’s eyes to Marcello, extending his hand. "We need to talk."
“I knew you hadn’t come here just to say hello.” Marcello took Matthew’s hand an
d stepped into the embrace, kissing his cheek and hugging him. “What’s the good news?” he finally asked sarcastically as they broke away.
Matthew put the briefcase up on the wrought iron table, using his thumb on the number pad to unlock it as he spoke. The friendly expression on his face melted away in the sudden seriousness of his tone. "There're two parts to this." The latches clicked open. "One, you won't be able to do anything about. The other..." He opened the case, reaching inside for two file folders. Both had the words ABOVE TOP SECRET stamped in red on the front. "…we'll see about that one." Matthew paused for just a moment, then he picked up the first folder and handed it to Marilyn. "You were pregnant a year ago. You were told the child died at birth. She did not."
Marcello had begun bracing himself for whatever it could possibly be, but there was not a chance in hell he could have been prepared for what Matthew just said. Marilyn paled, the words hitting her like a punch to the stomach; a knife to her pounding heart. She sank back in the chair, the straight line of her back, the proud square of her shoulders, bowing. She opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
Marcello spoke for her, his voice sharp. "You're going to have to do a hell of a lot better than this, Matthew." He remembered that day, vividly. How could you not? The crying. The pain. A wound that still stung. She'd taken it especially hard. He flicked the gray eyes to his wife, then dropped that steely gaze to the file folder.
Matthew sighed quietly. He hadn’t gotten to the hard part yet. "Open the folder, Marilyn." Inside was the picture of a smiling one-year-old girl with her mother’s light blonde hair and shining blue eyes.
She shook her head. The second time, it actually showed, "No." Marilyn shook it a third time, but her eyes never left the folder. "No." So many memories flooded her. Someone was trying to get to them, they had to be. "This can't--" The world went quiet. Marilyn drew a breath, much more shallow than she would have liked; it roared in her ears. She pulled the folder across the table and opened it. She looked right into her own eyes and her hand came to her mouth, tears slipping over her knuckles.
When the folder opened, for the first time in a long time Marcello was at a standstill. Their daughter was alive. Someone had taken her, and lied to them. The mixture of emotions was so sudden, so vicious in its intensity it was almost too difficult to contain. He forced himself to lock it down and focus on his wife, his brows pulled together in concern. But as he finally looked down at the picture his world tipped again and just kept toppling, a clammy sweat starting to cling to his skin. He had been in the game too long now. Things were starting to piece together. Matthew was right. For the first time Marcello Terenzio didn’t want to know.
Matthew didn’t say anything more right away. He gave them a moment to let it really digest before he dropped more bombs onto their world. "Tell me when you're ready to hear the answers to those questions."
Their daughter. Their baby girl. The one she had known for nine months that had cruelly been taken from her. Marilyn had held their daughter's tiny, purple body; smoothed back her thin layer of soft, dark hair; kissed the small, stiff fists and touched her round cheeks. Stillborn, they said. Though in the thick fog of dreams she swore she saw the needle and heard the sharp, thin, healthy wail as the doctor pricked her heel. Their daughter. Alive. Marilyn tore her eyes from the photograph and looked at Matthew, fingers pressed to white lips. He had answers. She wanted to hear. She nodded.
Matthew cleared his throat. "Infiltrating the hospital wasn't terribly difficult for them. They did send the best, a few of them, they’re called Darkworkers." He paused, then continued. "Two hundred thousand children disappear every year in the U.S. alone. What happens to them isn't pretty. Your daughter is one of the lucky ones, you could say. She's in a program that will nurture her, educate her, and train her." Matthew looked at Marcello, then at Marilyn. "Your daughter's father is an Illuminati member of high ranking."
Have you ever been so thoroughly knocked from your world you didn't know if you would recover? Been so sucked into a moment that it choked the very breath out of you? It kept coming, one hit after another. His own island hadn't been hard for them to get into. Who were they?!?! Their daughter taken from them. From his wife. The knockout punch? Their daughter’s father was Illuminati. Marcello was not Illuminati. He refused to push the sentence past that because he wasn't ready for what that statement really meant. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak.
Infiltration. Darkworkers. Two hundred thousand children. Matthew's face blurred as Marilyn pulled inside herself; retreating to the dark, quiet place that had been her refuge in the wake of their daughter's death, because nothing else made sense anymore. Then she heard it. Illuminati. Marilyn jerked, eyes focused and snapping at Matthew. "...what?"
"What happened that night went down one of two ways, we can't confirm which," Matthew continued in a calm tone, delivering the information as needed. It wasn't always a fun job. "Either the memory was wiped from your mind or you remember but never told your husband. Regardless, her name is Kayla and she is your daughter, Marilyn. Not Marcello's."
There had been two moments in Stefano Terenzio's life that he had literally snapped. One resulted in the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl. The other had actually been against his second wife. Marcello had snapped once; the day he murdered his own grandmother. He felt like he was on the brink of that darker side again. His head swam. His vision blurred. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. The chair skittered backwards; he realized, after he'd stood so hard it had hit the railing. Their daughter was not his daughter. His Mari had…and he didn’t even understand why. "No." He whirled around and looked at her like he just might..."Tell me he's a fucking liar. Tell. Me."
The memory slammed into her like a freight train; harder and more vivid than any she had ever had. A late night at the office. A quiet ride home. A dark house, but one filled with the warmth and sensation of family. She had gone straight into the shower and thought the silhouette on the frosted glass door was Marcello. She had been too startled, frightened, to scream. Marilyn held the chair so hard her knuckles went white. She flinched as Marcello's chair flew past her and crashed into the rail. She met his eyes and flinched again. He had looked at her like that once before. The day his family tested him. The day he pulled the trigger. Tell. Me. The second wave of memory crashed into her. The struggle. The threats. The stranger's blood in her mouth and the sharp prick in the side of her neck. She woke the next morning naked, in her husband's bare arms, sore from love she didn't remember making. But the third wave came with gut wrenching nausea. A stranger's lips. Teeth. Hips, and... Marilyn barely made it to the railing before her body revolted against the memory and emptied her stomach.
Her reaction was confirmation. His wife had a daughter that wasn't his. Marcello grabbed the same railing, squeezed it so tightly the blood drained from his hands. He couldn't look at her as she vomited; he clenched his eyes shut, trying to drown it all out and wake himself up from the sudden reality that he had neither intended nor created but was there all the same. "How? Why? What?" The single word questions flew out of his mouth on a harsh whisper.
Matthew straightened from his leaning, walking over to Marcello as Marilyn lost breakfast and lunch. "It's complicated, Marcello. And the implications here are bigger than your wife having an affair." Whatever was necessary was not solely a Terenzio motto. It had become the motto these days.
Marcello whirled on Matthew, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and shook him hard. "Bigger implications? How fucking dare you!" He wanted to hit him. He wanted to strangle him and then he was going to strangle his wife. "Who was he? WHO??"
It was not an unexpected response. Matthew understood. He was happily married, had a son, the whole nine yards. He wasn't sure what he would have done if the positions were reversed. It didn't change the present, though. He spoke quietly, calmly. "I'm going to tell you. I'm sure your wife would like to know who in effect raped her. But you’re not asking the right questions, Marcello. What
you really need to know is why. Why you. Why her. Do you even know what the Illuminati are?"
The darkness drew back and Marilyn opened her eyes. The cliff, the waves. She wasn't far from Marcello and Matthew. She heard them arguing, but couldn't make out the words, not yet; just the pained, angry growl of Marcello's voice and the steady undercurrent of Matthew's. Marilyn carefully straightened and when she turned, yelled "Stop!" She ran back to the two men, shoving Marcello from Matthew. "Stop it!"
It seemed like ages ago; the day Marcello had been told she was a traitor by his own family to test his loyalties. The day his uncle told him to kill her, to make sure he could do whatever was necessary. He'd never been violent with her since; until now. Matthews’s words were not lost on him. It just hadn't registered. But she was in his face and when she shoved him he grabbed her by the throat, felt the tender skin under his rough touch and wanted to squeeze until he heard a snap. He pulled her closer to him and demanded between clenched teeth, "Tell me.”
Her husband was a dangerous man. She never doubted it. Never tried to convince herself otherwise. But shock struck Marilyn hard when he closed his hand around her neck and started to squeeze. Her eyes widened and by instinct, she reached up and pried at his fingers. "Marcello..." He had killed her once. Or would have, had the gun been loaded with live bullets and not blanks. He had pulled the trigger just the same, and would do, was doing, it again. She had begged then. She was different now. Marilyn slid her hands to his wrists and held them. She looked into his eyes with steady, pained sincerity. "Marcello. Please."
Matthew winced inwardly, stepped a little closer behind Marilyn, looking at Marcello over her shoulder. "Marc, she didn't know.” Of this he was decently certain. Of course he could be wrong. For her sake, he hoped he wasn't.
A muscle in his jaw twitched. She didn't know. How did you not know? You’re not asking the right questions. What other question was there to ask? His wife had fucked another man. Marcello. Please. His fingers tightened for just an instant, but he finally released her. Anger. Betrayal. Pain. He didn't understand. The man at the top with all the information was fucking clueless. Marcello stepped away from her, set the hard steel of the now veiled eyes on Matthew. "Start talking."