Cut & Blow_Book Three

by Ashleigh Giannoccaro

I start to cry because I know I was stupid. I was seeking attention that I couldn’t get anywhere else, but Rain wouldn’t understand that he was always the center of everything.

  “I know, I was stupid. And I can’t undo it, but for the love of God, Rain, he doesn’t deserve this. All he is guilty of is loving me. I swear.”

  “How long have you two been a thing? How long have you been keeping secrets, Viviana?” My brother steps closer from the front and I feel Rat stepping closer from behind me. “This is none of your business, Rat.” He looks at him, while he sneers at me with a vicious threat in his eyes.

  “Rain, I love him. Don’t do this.” The metal knuckles fall from his fingers to the floor with a loud clang and my brother moves towards me, seething with anger.

  “Rat, get him cleaned up and taken home. I will see you tomorrow and we can discuss what the fuck you are doing here. In the meantime, I need to have a private family discussion with my sister.” His eyes stare at mine only.

  I hang my head to my chest knowing that this isn’t even close to being over. I go to where Romeo is still bound to the chair and kneel on the filthy floor to look into his swollen and bloodied face.

  “I’m so sorry,” is all I can manage between sobs. I just want to hold him and make it all go away.

  “I’ll make sure he’s okay,” Rat says, holding out a hand to help me up off the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” I say it again before I get up and follow my furious brother from the building, and to his waiting car.

  Nineteen

  Blood Red

  ROMEO:

  I knew I would probably get killed for what I did. I didn’t mind dying for her. But, mostly my motives were selfish; I didn’t want anyone else to see her that way. I wanted the memory of him on her gone forever. Just once in my life I wanted to be the hero, her knight in aluminum-foil armor.

  Rat unties me and I collapse face first onto the floor.

  “You stupid fucking fool,” he says, lifting me up so that I am sitting with my back against his knees. “You’re lucky she actually loves you. No way in hell I would have told Rain the truth if it was me. You would have been dead.”

  I groan because I can’t talk past the blood that is coating the back of my throat while it pours from my sinuses. My face feels like it’s been through a mincer and the repeated blows to my kidneys make my insides feels like oatmeal.

  He puts his arms under mine, lifting me by the armpits to my feet. “Can you walk just a bit? Nico and I will hold you up.” I nod, my legs are fine, a bit like jelly. “Hospital?” he asks, “Or home?”

  “Hoshp –” I gurgle a half reply.

  “Okay, let’s go. Nico, you have the honors of coming up with a believable story as to how the hairdresser got fucked up before we get there. Because if we add the police to this then Rain will definitely kill someone.”

  They drag my sorry ass to Viv’s car and recline the seat all the way so I can half-lie down. Nico sits behind Rat, who is driving what feels like way too slowly.

  I close my eyes and pray her brother doesn’t send her away to a convent in the Italian alps.

  There are lights and masked faces and voices, things blur and fade, then come back too loud and too bright. I hear someone say catheter and I decide to allow myself to pass out again.

  I haven’t been beaten this badly since the family decided I was too gay to stay. In fact, it was Rain who did the beating then too, not because he wanted to, but because his father was watching him. I think it hurt more that he didn’t stand up for me than the actual blows did.

  No one visits me in the hospital. I didn’t expect anyone to come see me. I don’t have family. Chelsey is going to be so mad about the Rat that she won’t come.

  I wallow in my self-pity, checking my phone every ten minutes to see if anyone has texted or called. But, there’s just nothing.

  The anxiety keeps spiking my blood pressure and setting the alarms off; I can’t wait to get out of here. It’s five days post surgery to fix a tear in my spleen and it feels like I have been in here a year. Another five days and I can leave. I ask the doctor when I can go twice a day, and I think he’s beginning to wonder if I don’t have some sort of amnesia from being hit in the head.

  The stitches above my eye have healed and a nurse is coming to remove them later today. I can’t wait for a real meal, my own bed, and a shower. The bed-bath courtesy of a very friendly male nurse was most unwelcome. After a nice dose of pain management, I float back off to la-la land again. I’m going to miss the good drugs when I leave.

  When I wake up I search the wanted ads, because I am almost certain I will be looking for a new job. There are a few salons hiring, most of them miles away from home and well below my pay grade, but I take screenshots of each advert so I can contact them when I am set free.

  I am deep in the classifieds when there is knock at the door. There to greet me with a smile, and a bag of what I hope is real food, are Edmond and Rat. They come into my room and give me the once over.

  “Haven’t I been telling you kids that falling in love is stupid, since you were twelve? Huh?” Ed mutters. “Idiot, what were you thinking?”

  He unpacks the contents of the brown paper bag onto my tray table and the smell has my mouth watering. Rat takes a seat in the only chair in the room and puts his feet up on my bed. “So how’s the accommodations?” He looks around the small room with only one window with a view outside.

  “Amazing.” I roll my eyes at him. “Only another week.”

  “Why so long? Your face looks fine now.” He frowns at me.

  “Well, if any of you bothered to check on me, you’d know that your cousin ruptured my spleen and I had surgery to fix it.”

  Ed looks me over, like he’s wondering if I’m lying.

  “Shit, I thought you were just hiding in here in the hope that Rain doesn’t come back and kill you.” Rat puts his feet down and leans forward with a serious look on his face. “That’s why we came. He’s coming to see you later on.”

  There goes the monitor again, beeping uncontrollably, bringing a nurse running to my aid.

  “Calm down, or I’ll kick them out. You hear?” She turns the annoying noise off and gives them both the eyeball before leaving.

  “What does he want?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. I am not exactly the most popular family member. Although he has asked me to stay for now.” Rat sounds relieved by that. “Viv isn’t okay, Romeo. He was so angry.”

  The bleeping goes off again and Ed hits the button to stop if before nurse Betty comes in to scold them. “What did he do to her?” I ask.

  “It’s not what he did to her, but what he made her do.” Rat goes quiet, and swallows loudly. “Just get better, she needs you man.”

  “What happened,” I insist.

  “It isn’t my place to tell you. I only have third hand stories from the boys. But, he is coming here and you are not going to escape his wrath. I doubt he will hurt you, but you won’t like the things he’s going to say to you. My advice is suck it up, nod and smile, and just say sorry.”

  I shovel down the stew that Ed brought. It’s so damn good that I don’t even care it isn’t hot.

  “The food that shit?” Ed asks, watching me eat like an animal.

  “You have no idea.”

  They both laugh at me.

  “I’ll bring you dinner when I close tonight, see if I can sneak it in after visiting time. That nurse is a bit of a bitch though.”

  “I think she’s sick of me.” I finish my food and close the polystyrene container he brought it in. That was so good, but it all curdles in my stomach at the thought of Rain visiting me. Maybe I can ask for more meds and just be asleep. “Thanks Ed,” I say, leaning back; my tender belly still hurts when I sit up.

  They stayed until the nurse kicked them out about an hour after visiting ended. Ed asked if he could bring me dinner and she said yes, if he brought some for her too. I want to laugh when she smacks him on the ass,
but it hurts too much.

  “I’ll come see you when I can,” Rat says, before he follows them out.

  “Thanks man.”

  I sleep for awhile and then scroll through the channels, the impending doom of Rain’s visit making it impossible to relax.

  Everything is uncomfortable and I’ve adjusted my pillows a thousand times. I’m dozing in and out when I hear the commotion outside; the nurses are having a go at someone. I know who it is before he even walks through the door to my room.

  What I wasn’t expecting was for Viv to be standing one step behind him, looking at the floor like a child that has been spanked. She doesn’t look up at me. Rain, however, glares right at me. I open my mouth to greet him, but I am stopped.

  “You don’t get to talk yet. I have some things to say.” He stands at the bottom of my bed, holding onto the railing; his wedding ring clinks against the metal. “I know you think you were helping her, but helping her would have been coming to me to tell me my sister was in trouble. The people she was involved with targeted her, with a plan from the start. You have no idea how our world works anymore, Romeo. Next time she is in trouble you come to me.” He said next time. “You should have brought this to me the second you saw it. I think we all know that. Stealing from me was almost as dumb as pretending to be gay for half your fucking life.”

  She just stands there looking at the floor. I can’t help but notice that her hair is a mess, hanging down around her face, hiding it from me.

  “I’m sorry, Rain.” I take Rat’s advice and just apologize.

  “My wife, and you can thank God for her, asked me not to send you away. She says she needs you. But I swear, Romeo, steal from me again and you will wear concrete shoes at the bottom of the river. Viviana’s problem has been taken care of, and I have given her a month to find something constructive to do with herself or I will pick a job for her. My sister needs to grow up. While I don’t for one minute accept, or like the fact, that you two seem to have some sort of relationship that you were willing to die for her – in my book that counts for something. If you two are going to be together I expect to see you, at her side, and that means church on Sundays and lunch. It also means that I will hold you responsible for any other stupid fucking stunts she pulls.” He talks at me, his anger radiates heat that I can feel from where I sit. “Viviana has something to say, then I’ll give you two a few minutes.”

  He steps aside so she can come closer. When she lifts her head I see her dead eyes and the paleness of her skin. The dark circles and dry lips all tell me that Rat wasn’t lying. I smile at her, because even looking like hell she makes my heart beat fast enough to set off the alarms next to the bed.

  “I’m sorry that my stupidity nearly got you killed.” She swallows hard and heaves air into her lungs.

  Rain nods his head at her and leaves the room, taking his irate presence with him.

  As soon as he is gone I open my arms, and say, “Come here.”

  She comes closer, but slowly, unsure of whether or not she should. Patting the bed, I move over, inviting her to sit beside me, and when she does I wrap my arms around her. God, I have missed her. I breathe in her scent; I savor the feel of her small body against mine.

  “I’m sorry,” she whimpers again.

  I hold her and just let her cry. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” I ask.

  “Maybe when he’s not just outside the door.” She shifts to look at me, her hands holding my face. “If you still want anything to do with me?”

  “That’s a silly thing to ask, Viv.” I kiss her, to show her just how much I still want to do with her. It’s laced with apologies and promises, making up for the week we have been apart and everything else in between.

  “This isn’t that sort of room,” the nurse says as she comes to turn the blaring and beeping alarm off again. Smiling at one another, Viv blushes at the intrusion. “You can come back at visiting time young lady, but my patient needs to get some rest now.”

  Kissing her cheek and hugging her close, I whisper in her ear, “I love you, Vivvy, even if your brother tried to kill me for it.”

  She nuzzles her face into my neck and I feel the wetness of her tears soaking into my flashy hospital gown. “I love you. I’m so sorry.” She sits up and wipes her face on her sleeve. “I’ll come back later, do you need anything?”

  I shake my head. I probably do but I can’t think now. “Just you.”

  She hops off the bed and blows me a childish kiss before she is escorted out of my room.

  Rain sticks his head around the corner, and says, “I’m sorry too.” He’s not a man to apologize, so I know he means it. “Get better soon, Ailee is missing you at work.”

  Twenty

  Burgundy Brown

  VIVIANA:

  When Romeo asks if I want to talk about it I force the vomit back down my throat. I don’t know if I can talk about it. What if he can’t look at me the same again? I can’t even look at myself the same way.

  Rain says I need to grow up; I feel as if I’ve aged fifty years in a month. I have an ultimatum, he wants me to do something proper with my life. The words ‘the devil makes work for idle hands’ actually came from his mouth.

  I don’t have the faintest idea what I want to do. I spent all my time looking after my father and Rain. The thought alone makes me panic. I have no idea what to do if I’m not doing that. This has been the problem all along; I have nothing.

  I leave the hospital with my brother as I am not allowed to be unsupervised, like a grounded ten-year-old. At the office he makes me sit on the sofa opposite his desk, where he can see me, while I die of boredom and he works on his computer. I don’t even have friends to text.

  That’s the other thing: I’m a twin, I never needed friends because I always had her. I text Val, but I know she’s in class and won’t answer me until later.

  “We are going downstairs for drinks, then I’ll take you to the hospital for visiting.”

  Rain talks to me without stopping what he’s doing. “Is Ailee coming?” At least then there will be someone to talk to.

  “No, she’s busy.”

  Ugh. Seriously, another night of man talk, secondhand smoke and shit pub food. Yay. “Can’t we go somewhere else?”

  “No, the guys are coming to meet me. We have business to discuss.”

  “Rain, the food is shit. And it’s fucking boring.”

  “Yes, but you can’t run off and make porn there, so it’s perfect.”

  “Fuck you, Rain.”

  “Keep going, Viv. I swear you are pushing every last button I have.” He looks at me now. “I am trying very, very hard, not to lose my shit with you. Shut up, stop whining, and use this time to think about what it is you are going to do with your life.”

  “I don’t fucking know!”

  “Well then you really can’t be trusted to be alone, can you?”

  “I hate you.”

  “Hate me all you want, Viv, I won’t let you ruin your life any more than you already have.” He stands up and shuts his laptop. “I’m not dad, Viv, I won’t coddle you, and I certainly won’t turn a blind eye to your bullshit. You get to be my shadow until you grow up and show me that you can be trusted.”

  I want to hit him, but I also want to cry.

  He grabs his jacket and pulls it on. “Come, let’s go.”

  I get up begrudgingly, grab my purse and follow him downstairs. The bar is not as busy as usual and the music isn’t as loud as it normally is. Rain sits at his regular table and I just stand and stare at him; there’s no one here to meet him.

  What a crock of shit.

  “There’s no one here, Rain. Please can we go and get a proper meal?”

  “Sit down, Viv. You have bitched about the food here for two weeks now.” He puts his hands on the table and motions for me to sit next to him. I slide onto the bench seat. “You know, this place has had one owner for three generations; an Irish family that our great grandfather rented the space to.”


  “I didn’t know that.”

  “The old man has been here a long time, he’s tired and things are going downhill quickly. I was thinking since you don’t know what to do with yourself that I could make him an offer and you could, fix things. So the food isn’t so shit when we come down here.” I sit here a little shell shocked. I’m not sure I want to run a dirty dive bar. “You can cook, you love taking care of people, and you’ll be right downstairs so I can keep my eye on you.”

  He has this all planned out, doesn’t he? “You want me to work in a dive bar?”

  “No, I want you to turn this place into something that is your own.”

  I don’t have a better plan. To be honest, when he told me I needed to find something to do, not one thing came to mind. So maybe his idea is better than no idea at all.

  “Mine as in actually mine, or a front for some other family shit?”

  “Actually yours. Your inheritance, if you want to call it that.”

  The waitress who has served us all week puts down the same drinks we have ordered every night, interrupting us, “Val is getting a college education, you get this?”

  Looking around the place, the tired old décor and decades of clutter don’t look like much, but now that I’m seeing it as potential there’s so much I could do.

  “Okay,” I say, picking up my beer. “But you cannot smother me, stalk me, or otherwise drive me insane.”

  “Deal.” He hands me two sets of keys. “Your car back and the keys to the bar. You can come in tomorrow and talk to Andrew about when he wants to shut down and hand over.” Rain grabs my hand as I reach for them. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Viv. I should have seen that you were in trouble.”

  “It wasn’t your job, Rain.”

  “I’m your brother, it’s always my job.”

  “I’ll be okay. It’s over now.” Just thinking about it makes my hands shake. Some lessons in life you never get over. I doubt I’ll ever be over all of this, but I know I will never go back to that place.