by DCS
Matthew blew out a breath of relief when Marc released her. "You might want to sit again." He cast Marilyn a sympathetic glance, walking back over to his open briefcase. Marilyn leaned against the railing until the shakes had steadied and her strength returned, then she sat. Marcello remained standing, impatiently waiting for the answers.
"You cannot under any circumstance, see, visit, or otherwise acknowledge Kayla’s existence. Eventually she will contact you both, but her purpose will be to stop you, Marcello,” Matthew explained.
Her little girl. Another man's child. Used. Turned against them; against her husband, the man who should have been her father. Marilyn's eyes snapped to Matthew, a mother's instinct laying hold. She couldn't see her own daughter? Did... did she even want to? Could she take her child into her arms, knowing that her father had... was not... Marilyn's brows drew together as Marcello laughed bitterly.
"Nice." He touched his finger to his nose then continued. "So I am perfectly clear, my wife was fucked by an Illuminati member whose sole purpose was to impregnate her, take the child and use it against me. Have I covered it all? Yes? Why? What the fuck is she stopping me from doing? Who are they?!"
Matthew didn't shy away from Marcello's furious fired off questions. Instead he reached into the briefcase and pulled out the second folder. “Why? Because the Brotherhood’s Seers have told them that you will prepare your family to allow the Ascension.”
Marcello blinked then simply stared at Matthew in rude, impatient misunderstanding. “What?”
Matthew tossed the folder at him. “Marcello, what do you know about how your father obtained Alcyone Island?”
§
Matthew had gone. The friend of their family had just dropped a bomb and left them cold. It was too much to process all at once. And all she could think about right now was….
Her heart pounded even faster. Marilyn's eyes snapped to where Marcello stood. "What did you mean when you told Matthew you would 'take care of her'?"
Marcello’s hand dropped from the railing to his side, head slowly cocked. "What do you think I mean?" That was said calmly, the rest was not. "I was just told that your bastard fucking child has every intention of killing me and you have an issue with what I'm going to do to her?!!"
Marilyn sprang out of the chair and slapped him, open palmed and hard, right across his face. No playful punch. "Don't talk to me like that. She is a year old. Don't be so short sighted."
He had never hit his wife. He wanted to after the sting of the slap. He wanted to as the red imprint stained his skin and sent short little streaks of inconsequential pain through his face. It was so pale in comparison to what was going on inside. "I see. You've drawn your line in the sand quite clearly, haven't you?" He straightened fast from the railing, leveled his eyes on her. "I don't give a fuck if she's six months old. No enemy of mine will have the last say."
"So you want to kill me. Is that it? Because that little girl is me." Her palm burned. She'd hit him hard enough to make the other side of her knuckles hurt. "Think, Marcello. What if this was Amanda? Would you kill her, knowing what she might one day do?" Aquamarine bored into gray. She was grasping at straws. Fighting for the life of her child. "Where is the man I married? Where is my husband? He would rise to this challenge, not take the coward's way out and kill a helpless child."
"The coward’s way? The coward’s way?!" He growled in fury and grabbed her by the shoulders hard enough to leave a mark. "Your child..." The words were like acid on his tongue. Not his. Not his. "…is going to try to kill me. So you better get used to the fact that when that day comes and that pretty little face that doesn't look a fucking thing like mine steps into the arena, I will pull the trigger. And if you stand in my way you can join her." He didn't mean it. Or maybe he did and he was a little more like his father than anyone had given him credit for.
"Don't." He was going to make her choose. No, he would make the choice for her. Marilyn's eyes burned. She winced under his grip, but she didn't back down. She leaned into the crushing vise of his hands. "Don't."
Marcello didn't release her, not yet. "Did you know? Don't fucking lie to me either, did you know?"
Marilyn met his gaze. "I thought he was you. He came into our house, and our bedroom. He threatened me, and forced himself on me, and when I wouldn't lie there and take it, he injected something into my neck." Tears slipped down her cheeks. "He raped me. When I woke up, you were there, and it was just like any other day. I haven't remembered a single thing until now."
He didn't know what answer he was looking for. What did he really want her to tell him? The truth was ugly and so much more than infuriating. He'd never not trusted her, except once and he'd been manipulated then. There was no excuse now. He stared at her in silence and dropped his hands from her shoulders; but he didn’t pull her into his arms. An interruption prevented him from saying, or doing anything else. The guard appeared in the sliding glass door informing him of an urgent phone call. They always were. He looked at his wife in silence a moment longer then called out, “I don’t care, not now. Take a message.” The guard hesitated but orders were orders and he disappeared back into the house.
Her hand fell to her thigh. The ocean breeze rippled her clothing and pulled at her hair; sensations she loved, but didn't feel. Marilyn closed her eyes against the setting sun and bowed her head.
"What would you have me do, Mari?" Marcello asked the question quietly, watching her.
Marilyn opened her eyes and looked at him, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "Don't be rash. Don't do anything without asking me." She drew a breath and was relieved when it didn't shake. "And let me kill him."
His response to her words did not come immediately. "I can't promise the first." Quietly. "But maybe the latter.”
"No." She shook her head "You promise me the first, Marcello. You promise me!"
He dropped his head between his shoulders when she came at him. Christ, he felt like his whole body had been stretched over a barbed wire fence. He didn't move, but he didn't look at her as he raised his head. "I'm a man, not a saint. I love you, more than I think you know. But I cannot promise you I will make the right choice. Not because of you..." His tone hardened. "…because of him." He sighed. "I hope you can understand that."
"You are my husband." The confrontation gave her something else to focus on. Gave her heart a different emotion to feed off. It distracted her. So she pushed. "Don't punish me because of him."
"Do you think I want to do it?" He finally snapped his eyes to her. "Do you think I want to hurt you like that?" Teeth bared. "You have two other children, I am their father. Would you rather me dead?"
She wouldn't give herself the time to allow his words to sink in. She forged right ahead. "You're not giving yourself enough credit. You are a Terenzio. By blood. If there is anyone, any family, that can overcome this, it's you and yours."
He frowned at her words. Silence echoed. Eventually he sighed hard and ran his hands over his face. "All right Marilyn. But if my hand is forced..." She knew. He was a Terenzio. By blood.
Marilyn nodded, her tanned shoulders glowing a rich orange in the sunset. "What do we do now?"
"Try to rest this evening. We'll go back tomorrow. Start the boys working on him." Matthew had been very wrong to assume that they wouldn't find this man. Very wrong.
Rest? Marilyn's lips twitched. She touched the side of her neck. "Bliss is just an injection away."
Marcello’s eyes hardened at her words. That was eating away at him more than anything else. His own house. His wife. His Island. A fuck you in every possible way. "I'm sorry he...that I wasn't there."
"If it hadn't been then and there it would have been another time and place." Marilyn had been a little reckless in the later years of her adolescence, especially when thrust into the world of business and the mafia. Then she met Marcello, and she hadn't wanted, needed, or been with anyone else. Until…. A small shudder ran through her.
He could see it, could i
magine it. Her struggles against the strength of another man. The hands all over her. He wanted to scream with the sudden fit of rage he felt. It was a selfish reaction, he knew it. She had taken it, and he hadn't been there. He was going to kill every single one of them, Ascension be damned. But, where did that leave her? He turned his head to look at his wife, really look at her, in stretched out moments of silence.
He was finally able to speak. To pull out of his own rage, if only for a little while. Gray eyes slightly softened; just enough. A pause and then, "They don't get another point. Your daughter will be your call."
Your daughter. Marilyn buckled again and barely caught herself. "Marcello." Many years ago, he had told her that things would be harder before they became any easier. She thought those hard days were behind them. "When will it be easier?"
The conversation came to mind the instant she said it. It seemed like yesterday, how long had it really been? Decades? He slowly shook his head. "I don't know, Mari."
Then there was nothing else to do but bear it. Marilyn breathed a single, long breath and drew herself upright. “Could you do it?" He had pulled the trigger on her. But that was before they were married. Before that night on Phoenix Isle, when he told her he loved her and she said it back. Did that change anything? "Could you kill your own child?"
She still knew how to do that to him; ask questions he hadn't yet asked himself. Real questions. He ground his back teeth together, stared sightlessly out at the beautiful scenery over her shoulder. It offered him no comfort now. He knew his answer wouldn't bring any either when he finally said to her. "I'm not my father."
No, he wasn't. That face was one of the reasons she let herself love him. It was unsettling, though, to find herself thinking like her father-in-law; considering options he would execute without second thought. Perhaps experience, in this lifetime and others, guided her to her decision. "If it comes down to it, I will kill her." Marilyn's hands tightened. Her entire body was taut as a wire. "I wouldn't be able to forgive you. But I can live with never forgiving myself."
Never, never had he expected to hear that from her. Visibly troubled eyes shot to her face, settling there in silence. Gradually he looked away, back to the view before them. "We'll see how this new side game plays out. Twelve years is a long time."
"It won't play out well." In high school, she had read a story about an African woman who cut her children's throats to keep them from a life of slavery. If anyone was going to kill her child, it would be her. Her hands again tightened. Her jaw worked. A single blink spilled the fresh tears that welled in her eyes.
"Maybe." Marcello said after stretched-out moments. "You don't know that yet." He paused again then continued. "Matthew DeMarco didn't tell us twelve years in advance to make us suffer. There is definitely more at play here." He slid his eyes over to her, watched the tears fall. "Show her you love her first. When she does get here, I'll be vastly improved at being the man who doesn't exist."
She wiped her face and turned to him. "We have twelve years." Marilyn came close in that familiar way. Touching without. "Now, make me forget about the last hour."
Marcello recognized it before she spoke. Felt it close in around the darkness and warm him. Her. For the first time it didn’t ease his restlessness. The last hour had become a new piece on the board that must be given time and attention in order to manipulate it. It wasn’t just a game anymore. Still he touched her, with a quick tug that made her gasp gently and the harsh press of his mouth that she willingly accepted because he always had a way of calming her fears when words could not, and she needed that now.
He lifted his hands, framed her face between them and parted her lips with the insistent push of his own. She felt so good. But for the first time it didn’t matter. He broke away from her and whispered, "I can't. Not yet."
Her eyes closed. Her face pinched. Marilyn pulled out of his hands, and walked away.
Chapter 13
“Men should continue to fight, but they should fight for things worthwhile, not for imaginary geographical lines, racial prejudices and private greed draped in the colors of patriotism.”
-Albert Einstein
November 6th, 1959
Dion Corporation Private Retreat
Madeira Islands 10:10 AM
It’s a simple question, DeMarco. Can you do it or not?” Marcello Terenzio asked curtly, but not unkindly. The warm ocean winds caressed his damp hair and brushed across his clean shaven cheeks. Just how raw his gray eyes really were remained hidden behind the black sunglasses. His arm was draped comfortably over the back of the chair. He sat casually, like a man with nothing to lose despite the magnitude of what he was asking. No one knew he was near his breaking point.
Matthew clasped his hands in front of him, his elbows resting on his knees. He was not surprised at the request; he had known it would be asked eventually. The problem was that while the success rate for Terenzio was high, the retaliation rate was even higher. He opened his hands and set his mother’s wheat-hued eyes on Marcello. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I’m not going to ask you twice, Matthew,” Marcello replied simply.
Matthew drew his hands over his face and sighed, leaning back in the chair. He dropped his arms dejectedly into his lap. “All right, Marcello. I’ll have the information delivered to your command center.”
“No.” Marcello reached into the front pocket of his loose white shirt, removing a folded piece of paper which he slid across the table. “Send it there.”
Matthew snatched up the paper and read over it twice. When he was finished a lighter was produced from his pants pocket and he set the small thing ablaze, letting the flames die out in the ashtray. “Give me forty-eight hours.”
With the exception of occurrences during time spent with his children, Marcello Terenzio smiled for the first time in three hundred and ninety-four days.
§
November 12th, 1959
Old Town
Alexandria, VA 11:12 PM
For someone like Marcello, it wasn’t terribly difficult to get close to Deucalion. Most just wouldn’t dare go after a high ranking Illuminati.
As promised, forty-eight hours later a sealed black envelope arrived at the smaller command center inside the Villa on Madeira Island. Ninety-six hours later the ’57 Chevy pickup was rumbling through downtown Alexandria, Virginia in a section commonly referred to as Old Town. Quaint antique shops, little boutiques and dusty old book stores ran up and down the red brick sidewalks, finally ending at the Potomac River.
The truck came to a stop across the street from a small Italian café, engine still running. Ciro, personal security for the President of Dion Corp, drove the monster, the low set rim of his fedora throwing a half shadow over his wrinkled but sharp face. Marcello sat in the front seat on the right hand side, silent. He could have brought more men with him but this wasn’t business; they had made it personal.
The Brotherhood called check. It was his move.
At precisely 11:11PM, Deucalion and two other men came out of the café and into the deserted streets drunk and laughing. Inside the truck two strong clicks interrupted the silence. Ciro kept the lights off and began inching the Chevy closer to their targets.
More laughter from the men echoed out and Deucalion stumbled toward the back door on the right side of the black Silver Cloud Rolls.
Ciro slammed his foot on the gas and the pickup obeyed, shooting forward. The three men at the Royce turned startled, two reaching for weapons underneath expensive pinstriped suit jackets. As the Chevy slammed into the back of the car all three men went scattering backwards, tripping over themselves to avoid the impact. Before the truck had rocked to a complete stop, Marcello was standing at the open door, the silencer on the gun barrel barely muffling the sound of the two bullets fired in rapid succession, landing in the chest of the man at the passenger side of the Royce. Just as he dropped Ciro’s arm extended out of the window, his gloved finger pulling the trigger once to
put the bullet squarely in the forehead of the man on the driver’s side.
Deucalion was not armed and had risen quickly to his feet as both his bodyguards were killed. He narrowed eyes on Marcello with his hands slightly raised and for a moment, clearly didn’t recognize him. When Marcello came closer it finally sunk in and his laughter resonated through the night.
“You know I almost expected you sooner. I knew you were dumb enough to try a stunt like this.” Deucalion said, amused.
Marcello stopped in front of Deucalion, studying the man who had raped his wife and was now laughing at her husband. With handsome blue eyes and a matching face, he stunk of cologne that was too expensive and the suit was tailor-made. Pathetic.
Marcello didn’t respond with words, he hit him with a gloved fist hard enough to send Deucalion stumbling backwards. He advanced on his target and hit him again with vicious intent, sending the Illuminati to the pavement.
Deucalion grunted in quick pain when he landed on the concrete. He leaned on one elbow, drew his fingertips gingerly over his bleeding lip and looked down at the blood. He shot his eyes cruelly up to Marcello. “It won’t change your reality, Terenzio. Just between us, she liked it after awhile.” He smiled callously at the memory. “I know how soft Marilyn is. I know how she tastes. I know how wet she gets, how much of a whore she really is. I felt her nails digging into my back when I made her cum.” He sat up completely and spat out, “And one day that child that she had just for me is going to kill you. Live with it.”