Change in Plans

by Meagan Fink

  He’s using a cane yet he doesn’t put any of his weight on it, as if he only uses it for show or possibly a weapon. In fact, now that there wasn’t a window between them, he doesn’t look very frail, but rather he seems strong and healthy.

  “Really?” asks Tita doubtfully. She looks him in the eyes, challenging. The man glances to the left and then back at her. Before she can react, the man bends down and pulls out an assault rifle from under his chair and points it at the two of them. He stands up letting his cane fall to the ground; the guy could move quickly for an old geezer.

  “You want to know what the security is for, it’s to keep people like you out. I’ve been waiting for the Morans for many years now; and during that time I’ve had to watch as your group killed my family, so I’ll enjoy this,” he says and cocks the gun and then aims it at Luca.

  Well this has escalated quickly.

  “Wait!” yells Tita. She jumps in front of Luca, holding her hands up

  “Tita move, he’s unstable,” growls Luca. She glances over her shoulder and shakes her head, her eyes pleading with him to trust her. He nods, although his expression shows he doesn’t like it.

  “You are Greg Blackson then?” she asks.

  “You only ask because Blackson is the one you were sent to kill!” he yells, and he levels the gun at her chest.

  “No! No, we’re not here to kill you sir; my name is Tatiana Lasko, my parents were Johnathan and Emily Lasko. You, you’re my grandfather,” she says quickly. “Well, that is if you are Greg Blackson.” His glare turns icy; obviously his family is a sore subject for him.

  “I am Greg Blackson but my grandchildren died four years ago along with my daughter. Don’t you dare make that remark,” he says, his voice hard and sharp.

  Tita shakes her head, “No, no, my mother Emily died four years ago, yes. But my brother Dyton and I, we escaped. I have proof of this,” she says. She slowly reaches up to her neck, holding her hand up to show him she wasn’t going to make a threatening move. His hands tighten around the gun and he takes a step forward, he was anxious to get this over with.

  She grabs her locket and pulls it up over her head and slowly hands it to him. He stares at her hand and then looks back up at her; he grabs the locket and studies it, while occasionally glancing back at her and Luca.

  “Where did you get this?” he growls. He grips the locket in his hand and holds it over his heart.

  “From my mother, she gave it to me before she died,” she says, as she watches his face to see if he decides that she’s lying and should shoot her then and there. If that’s the case Dyton would be finished, no one else would help him. Heck, no one even knows who he is.

  “And when was this?” he asks skeptically.

  “Four years ago in Berlin, Germany,” she says.

  “Where, what was the location?” he asks, needing just a little bit more proof.

  Tita looks down and closes her eyes, as her thoughts return to that awful morning. “We were in a bomb shelter, it was in the early morning. We were just sitting down to have breakfast when they arrived. Dyton and I escaped through a secret tunnel under a desk.”

  She watches as the skepticism leaves his face only to be replaced with disbelief.

  “I built that tunnel,” he whispers. He starts to lower the gun and steps closer to Tita. He studies her face, noting the similarities between the two of them but more than likely between her and her mother.

  “It is you, Tatiana,” he says, tears glistening in his eyes. He walks even closer; he reaches out a tentative hand to hug her, and she lets him.

  “I thought you were dead!” The man, now apparently back to Greg Blackson, turns his attention to Luca.

  “And you must be Dyton!” he exclaims and actually walks up to him and gives him an awkward hug. Tita can’t help but smile at seeing the shocked expression on Luca. But then it also makes her sad, her grandfather should be hugging his real grandson.

  “My how you two have grown; but I thought Dyton was younger than you, Tatiana?” he asks, glancing over at her.

  “He is, he’s 11,” she says with a sad smile.

  “Eleven?” he asks quizzically and looks Luca up and down, “You’re a big guy for 11, are you taking something?” he asks.

  Tita gives a humorless laugh, “No sir, he’s not, this isn’t Dyton,” she says.

  “Oh please, call me Grandfather, I’ve always wanted to be called that,” he says with a smile. After a moment he frowns, “Then, if this isn’t Dyton, where is he?”

  “He was taken.”

  Tita and Luca had talked about what they would say to her grandfather. Tell him that they were going to betray him to his enemies? That was ruled out pretty quickly. Explain what had happened to Dyton, and tell him they needed to do an exchange? Nope. They decided on telling him what had happened to Dyton, but only that they had come to see him so he could help them get Dyton back. After all, the best way to tell a lie was with the truth.

  “Taken? By whom?” he asks. He hands Tita her locket back and sits back down in his chair, again seeming to be swallowed. He motions for them to sit as well and they do. Tita takes a chair across from her grandfather so she can see him straight on, and Luca sits on the sofa in between them, watching them both.

  He doesn’t seem to be surprised to hear that Dyton was taken; and Luca takes note of that.

  “I’m guessing you have a good idea of who it is,” says Luca, leaning forward. He perches on the edge of the sofa, ready to fight at any moment. He glances around the house every couple of seconds, as if the birds were going to attack him. He seems nervous which is strange; he was usually so poised and calm. Luca glances at Tita and his jaw tightens; he quickly glances away, and his gaze settles back on her grandfather.

  “Yes, I suppose I do know. I knew those traitors would come after all of us, those high-hat apes!” says Greg, with a sneer. He then glances at Luca and frowns.

  “And who are you?” asks Greg.

  “He’s a friend. He helped me and Dyton get out of New York,” says Tita quickly. No way was she going to tell her grandfather that Luca was part of the Moran family; who knew how he would react to that.

  “Is he a, fellow, of yours?” he asks, giving Luca a condescending look.

  “I’m not her boyfriend, if that’s what you’re asking,” says Luca grinning sheepishly.

  Tita blushes, “We’re friends, that’s all. Now about Dyton,” she says, trying to direct the conversation away from Luca.

  “We need your help to get him back,” says Luca.

  “Yes, I would say you do. That family, they don’t have any limits; they will do anything to get what they want, even go to the extent of kidnapping an innocent boy,” he says, shaking his head.

  “Sir--- uh, Grandfather, in my mother’s letter she had said that you would explain things, what Blackheart really is, and how our family got involved,” says Tita. That was the only thing standing in her way. She wanted answers now. Then, and only then, would she go through with the rest of the plan.

  He looks at her alarmed, “Your mother hadn’t told you yet?”

  “No, she said that she was going to, but, she never had the chance.”

  “We had a plan to tell you once you had reached 16; we thought that by then you would understand why we did what we did. We would explain everything to you, what Blackheart was made for, what it later turned into, and, most of all, what went wrong; but, as you said, something interfered,” he says, looking at the floor.

  “I wanted to stay with you and your family for the possibility that they would find you; but we all knew that the larger our group the more easily we would be found, so a few others and I moved to America,” he says, looking at her. His eyes have a deep-rooted sadness to them, the look of a man who had seen too much sadness and death for one lifetime.

  “What is Blackheart?”
she asks.

  “It is quite a long story, my dear,” he sighs.

  “We have time.”

  Her grandfather combats the idea of telling her, but in the end he sighs and begins their story.

  17

  “It started in 1861,” says Greg.

  Tita and Luca glance at each other, this is what both of them have been waiting for an accurate and truthful explanation of what has haunted their lives for so long.

  “Your great-grandfather, my father, Henri, was born in America and when he was 25, joined the army for the Civil War. He was a very brave man, the bravest of his squadron in fact. Even though he was brave that didn’t make him a cold-blooded killer, even if that is what some people say he was, he wasn’t,” says Greg. He lifts his hand and rubs his forehead, as if the very experience of retelling the story was painful in itself.

  “Your great-grandfather had killed people but only when necessary; even then, each time racked his conscience. He couldn’t stand to see men kill for pleasure; despised it with every fiber of his being. Unfortunately, not every man felt the way he did about the matter.

  One night a prisoner was taken captive. This prisoner had been dragged into the middle of the forest by King, the leader of the squadron, along with two other men; one of those men was my father.

  “Knowing that my father detested violence, King gave my father a knife and told him to get as much information as possible from the prisoner.” Greg pauses, a distant look in his eyes, perhaps remembering the first time his father had told him this story.

  “Well what did he do?” asks Luca. Luca must have heard the story of how their families had met plenty of times before, but never from this perspective.

  “He dropped the knife. He had looked into this man’s eyes who was on his knees completely at Henri’s mercy. But the man wasn’t scared; he wasn’t begging for his life, but instead, he had pity for my father. Henri knew that this prisoner understood the struggle that he was going through. But then he realized that he didn’t need to be in this struggle. So he dropped the knife.”

  “Well that was stupid,” says Tita, her head in her hand. “Didn’t he know that his boss, King, would have just killed the prisoner and then kill Henri?”

  “My father never said if that had occurred to him or not, but what he did say was that he would not kill this man at his feet. He simply refused. So when he dropped that knife, he was basically betraying his country.

  “The prisoner knew this, so he returned the favor by saving my father’s life. King had been so infuriated by his supposed weakness that he just ordered Henri back to camp and to leave the prisoner where he was. Back at camp Henri probably wished he were dead,” says Greg. As he pauses he looks at Tita, thoughts going through his head that she wishes she could hear. “He never did explain what King had threatened him with; he always conveniently skipped over that part of the story.”

  Henri probably hadn’t told his son because it would have scarred him, thinks Tita.

  “Anyway, that night during the argument between my father and King, what they didn’t know was that the prisoner was not alone. His family was with him, a group of twenty men at least; armed with muskets and swords, they had come to this man’s rescue. They vowed they would get revenge by killing everyone in the camp, but this man said to leave just one alive.

  “After rescuing my father from what I’m sure was going to be a firing squad for the type of betrayal he had committed, Henri went with this man and this group of soldiers. It turned out that those men were all family, and they accepted this stranger because he had saved their leader’s life. Henri and this man soon became inseparable; they became as loyal as brothers. Henri left the army and brought his wife into this group where they were safe and had the same viewpoint on things. Everyone in this group was antiwar, they all wanted peace.”

  “Who was the man, the prisoner I mean?” asks Luca.

  “His name was Victor Moran, but everyone referred to him as Ace. Eventually Ace became the title for the leader of their group, the leader of Blackheart.”

  At the name Victor Moran, Luca’s eyes light up with recognition. Fortunately Greg doesn’t notice, but she does. Was Luca proud of this man? Did he think about him as a role model? Tita forces it out of her mind.

  “So then what did they do together? Did they steal from the rich and give to the poor?” asks Tita.

  “Close, but not quite. They made a pact to protect others from what everyone else did. That once a war broke out, they made it their sole purpose in life to put an end to it. They didn’t choose sides, but instead, they fought both sides no matter what it was they were fighting for,” says Greg, he stops to sigh and a small smile plays on his face, “They were going to stop war with war,” he mutters, shaking his head.

  “Anyway, like I said the two men joined their families, after Ace and his men returned to their home, Henri moved his family to Germany because his family was smaller than Ace’s. They all lived in the same village and taught their sons the same trade; made them believe in their cause. Blackheart began to grow as the two families got bigger and more people began to join, with complete strangers devoting their lives to something they knew nothing about. So while my father and the original Ace were alive, the organization thrived with its sole purpose to help people. They fought many wars and were victorious; they grew in wealth and in reputation, and they became very well-known. But once they had both died and their children took over, then the priorities began to change. Instead of fighting against war they began to fight with it, even starting wars themselves. The Morans ordered us to kill more people, to hurt more families instead of helping them.”

  He pauses but, before he can continue, Luca speaks up, “But it wasn’t all the Morans’ fault. Your family still followed the orders; it took a joint effort, children of Henri and Ace both ran the organization, so you can’t put the blame on just one,” says Luca defensively. Greg looks at him quizzically but then slowly nods.

  “Yes, both were responsible. But the Laskos realized what they were becoming and left. Anyone else who didn’t like what was happening and wanted change were welcome to come along, and others did. I think that was what really tipped the Morans over the edge, that people agreed with us. Ace then sent his men after those that had left---”

  “Wait, I thought you said Ace died?” asks Tita.

  “The original Ace, Victor Moran, died a while ago, yes; but the Ace of our generation, Victor’s son, he attacked us.”

  “So was this Ace who sent his men after you the same man who killed my mother?” asks Tita, her hands forming fists. All of this, her parents’ death, Dyton’s kidnapping, was it all for revenge? She couldn’t understand it.

  “Yes, that was the same man,” says Greg, his jaw clenched; apparently, he feels the same about it as she does.

  “Well then what happened to him?” asks Tita, as she casts a quick glance in Luca’s direction. This might be a touchy subject for him because he was suspected of killing his father but that was a lie, so then how did he die? Luca had said that her grandfather had killed Ace, but was that true?

  “I’m not sure,” he responds after a moment of silence. “And frankly, I don’t care, the world is better off without him.”

  Luca suddenly tenses as if he had been punched. His hands form fists so tight that his knuckles start to turn white.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but do you mind if I use your bathroom?” asks Luca. Tita looks closer at him, he looks pale with a thin layer of sweat covering his face; how was he this distraught about his father?

  “Luca, are you all right?” she asks. She leans toward him putting her arm on his shoulder; he’s shaking.

  “I’m all right, I just need to check my side,” he says, as his hand touches his stomach. She nods and looks at her grandfather who is looking at him with concern.

  “Grandfather, where is your bathroo
m?” she asks.

  “Down the hall and to the left, it’s the second door on the right,” he says, pointing to the back of the sitting room where a hallway is.

  “Do you need some help?” she asks in a whisper, helping him stand.

  “No, no I’m all right, you should get your answers,” he says, giving her a knowing look. They don’t have long; they need to call Isaac to make the exchange. She nods and watches him walk down the hallway and then turn left; a couple seconds later a door closes.

  “What is wrong with the lad?” asks Greg.

  “Oh, he was cut with a shard of glass a few days ago,” she says, sitting back down. A few days ago, had it only been that long?

  “Oh, poor fellow,” says Greg frowning.

  “So did Ace completely kill off the other side of Blackheart? Are we all that’s left of the Laskos?” asks Tita. She had never really thought about this before. She didn’t think she had any other family, but what if there were others who hated Blackheart as much as she did?

  “Well, there have been rumors that a revolution was growing, that a distant cousin or uncle was building an army to fight Blackheart. But it’s only a rumor, Tatiana, I wouldn’t put much faith in it.” He leans forward and looks her in the eyes, blue meeting blue; his face becomes serious and his voice filled with melancholy.

  “So Tatiana, about Dyton,” he says, leaning forward in his chair with his hands perched on his cane.

  “Yes, what do we do about him? How do we get him back, you know the Morans best,” she says. Actually Luca probably knows best what to do, Luca knows Isaac, and her grandfather only knew the man that had tried to kill them all.

  “Honestly Tatiana, I’m not sure how to go about getting him back. I’ve been hiding from that family for almost 19 years. Now yes, I do want to get Dyton back but I’m not sure it’s possible,” he says sadly.