GABRIEL
I watched and listened to Fontane’s meltdown and couldn’t dredge up even an ounce of sympathy for the man still. His wracking sobs of lament were just the beginning as far as I’m concerned and not a reason for me to ease up on him or show compassion. There are just some things in life that shouldn’t be so easily excused, forgiven, yes, but swept under the rug, hell no.
His daughter has been living with the repercussions of his actions for more than a decade. She’s almost an adult now, almost able to stand on her own two feet, at least that’s my hope, so it’s too late for him to pull his head out of his ass and get his shit together. I’m going hard on him with no letup because I dread what would happen, could happen if I leave him in her life.
There’s no guarantee that he won’t mess up again. It’s taking him this long, with all the evidence thrown at him, to come to terms with the truth. What could be his reason for not wanting to believe his own daughter and the things he’d seen firsthand? It can only be one of two things, either his ego won’t let him accept that he’d been wrong all along, or he’s afraid to face the truth.
Both those things are the products of a weak mind. If he can’t love her enough to put her first, then there’s no need for him in her life. I know part of my reasoning is selfish and self-centered. I want her to become strong, independent, and able to stand on her own two feet. But I also have the need to eliminate her enemies before I can safely go on with my plans without worrying about her future.
I slipped away to visit the grandparents under the guise of playing a game of chess with gramps before leaving for the trip, but in truth, I had way more important things to discuss once I got there. It had been tricky at first, letting someone else in on what I had planned. I had to because I admit I needed help, and other than Pop, I could only find it here.
No one would suspect, least of all Pop, that I would take such a chance. But herein lies the other reason I have to put space between Gianna and me. I’m not the boy she thinks she met. I’m not nice, not sweet, well I have been, with her. What I am is a calculating bastard who’d do whatever it takes to get the result I want.
I have a code of ethics that I live by, true, but if you cross me, there’s no length I won’t go to to end you. I dabble in things the world would shudder at, my computer is my weapon of choice for now, and I use it, along with others like me, to find and destroy those who prey on the weak with my mother’s past as the driving force that pushes me to go where most would falter.
I’ve sent men to jail after exposing their dark secrets, brought corporations down for using human beings like chattel; these are the kinds of things I do in my spare time. My heart, the one she’s been flitting around these last few weeks, has been dead or just about for a very long time.
But the kicker to all this is that I’m the one who thinks she deserves better. I want more for her, even though it kills me to think of her life with someone else. But I’ll be gone right, so… I rubbed my chest where it hurt and walked inside my grandparents’ home.
“I see you found a way to get yourself to Paris after all. Are you sure you want to go through with this? If Draco gets wind….”
“Yeah, I’m sure. This is just a preliminary visit, though, nothing to worry about. I think I finally found the one I’ve been searching for. I’ll start there.”
I held my breath waiting for the advice to put an end to things now. It always comes the closer I get to my goal, and I know it’s just that ingrained filial piety and the belief in protecting the women in the family that had got me this far with my need for help.
It hadn’t been easy in the beginning; there’d been a lot of questions. I’d had to share part of Ma’s story, which hadn’t been the easiest thing, but my calculating mind knew that it was the quickest way to cut through the noes I was sure to get. It had worked too. I might be good with a computer, but knowing people in the know had been more useful at this point in the game, and that’s where I’d needed help.
My plan is a long, drawn-out one, only held back by the fact that I still don’t know where my grandfather is. I’m not expecting the search to be easy; I’m not even sure if he’s alive or dead, but I know I won’t put the finishing touches on Ricci until I find out. I think Pop and I are both thinking that Ricci either has him stashed somewhere, or he finished him long ago.
According to Ma’s words, her dad had gone after Ricci after sending her away. Since Ricci was still alive and kicking, that meant the old man had failed. But where is he now? Pop had searched the whole of Sicily looking for him, that much I know, with no luck, and my search hadn’t produced anything, but I think I may have found someone with some answers.
I’ve spent most of my planning time trying to find the people who would’ve been at the party where Ma was violated on that horrible night. By process of elimination, I think I’d found most if not all of them. It had taken meticulous precision to comb through Ricci’s life going back decades to find those closest to him.
The fact that most of them were still friends, still did things together all these years later leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The man is scum, and so those he surrounds himself with can’t be much better is my thinking. I’d found the ones who’d been there, even got my hands on a picture from that night by hacking into his and others’ computers a while back.
But there was this one female that seemed to have fallen off the face of the earth. The others were pretty much still going about their lives as usual, but this one had been silent since around the time of the attack. There are no records of her weeks after that night, which leads me to think she’d either distanced herself from them because of it or had gone into hiding for whatever reason.
There’s no death on record, nothing, not even a rumor. She’d just up and disappeared one day. I’d found her family, her siblings, and a few cousins, but there was nothing there either. That’s where I’d needed help. I needed men or women on the ground where my computer couldn’t reach, and since my family is Italian, I’d shamelessly used their connections in the old country to get me what I was after. “So, I guess the boys came through.”
“They did.”
“Be careful, don’t do anything rash. I gather you’ll be going in alone?”
“It’s the best way for now.” A half-truth since I plan to go it all alone, but that admission would bring me more trouble than I want to deal with.
We went over my plans, some of them anyway, the parts I wanted to share. I know it was only to make sure I had all the bases covered, though we’d been through this a hundred times. I could see the questions starting to form with my every answer and made my excuses in haste. There was no point; I won’t turn back.
The girls were still playing dress-up when I got back, so I threw myself into something else I’d been neglecting these past few weeks. ANONYMOUS is my safe space. A group of men and women who don’t know each other beyond the keyboard but share basically the same drive to eliminate the dregs of society from whichever corner they’re hiding out in.
I came across the group by chance a long time ago and had been using it as a staging ground of sorts ever since. I’ve honed my hacking skills, among other things, through the work I do with the team. Even though we don’t know each other personally, there are a few that I’ve grown close to over the years. I don’t know their names, other than their handles, but I don’t fool myself, and neither do they I suppose that we couldn’t find each other if we wanted to.