“You’re right. I do have something on my mind, but we’ll talk about it later.” Please don’t ask me anything more about it. Just let me show you a good time for the next few days, so I don’t feel like a complete monster when I leave you. Is there any wonder I hate myself sometimes? I have no idea what the hell lives inside of me, other than the fact that I’m half monster.
What other fucked up shit will I do in life if I carried on? It’s one of the things that have plagued me my entire existence, not knowing what all lives inside of me. I could train myself to be a million things. Read all the books in the world, but nothing will ever change my DNA. And my DNA is fucked.
Thankfully she didn’t say anything more, just gave me a strange look which I caught out the side of my eye before changing the subject. I felt guilty at the relief I felt after passing her off to my sisters. That was too close and, again, very selfish on my part. There’s nothing stopping me from telling her the truth now, other than the fact that I don’t want to mess this up for her. I want her to enjoy the ball and her trip and all the things they have planned while in Europe.
I’d feel like even more of a jerk if I messed things up for her now. But how fair is it that I know I’ll be crushing her in a few days when she’s not even prepared? I’ve tried okay, tried putting space between us, tried pulling back. But each time I did, she’d get this look on her face, a look of loneliness and betrayal that guts me.
I didn’t think anything would ever be this hard, never expected anything to shake the foundation of what I am and what I’ve known I had to be since the night Ma told me her story. If I let myself, I could just say fuck it, stay here, be with her, build a life together. I can see it. But there’s always that thought in the back of my mind that she deserves better. Better than the son of a monster.
GABRIEL
Paris! What’s not to love? I already had my plans mapped out before we even left the states because I knew I would be playing it close. Even though the flights in between the two cities are relatively short, especially by private plane, the drive out to the convent where the runaway was supposed to be would bite into my time.
I hadn’t had time to find an airport or landing strip close to where she is because a lot of Sicily is still old school, it seems like, and the place she’s at is like stepping back in time, at least that’s what it looks like on paper. So, knowing my family and their personalities, I set things in motion through well-placed hints and suggestions.
I knew the girls would hit the ground running, which works out perfectly for me. The whole family had decided to get involved, and Gianna’s grandmother, due to her reconnection with my nana and wanting to be there for her granddaughter’s first coming out ball, was no exception.
Pop was nervous as hell from the jump, almost as if he expected me to take a connecting flight to Sicily as soon as we landed. I knew his game, so my first order of business was getting his snitches on my side. Lancelot wasn’t too hard. He loses his shit in a new city, so it would be easy to keep him preoccupied with touristy bullshit that my sisters were going to drag him off to anyway. As I said, I know all of them and could pretty much write a blueprint for what was going to happen once we got here.
Ma and Stella were already zoning out high-end shopping areas and the best restaurants in the city because that’s their thing. Gramps was busy catching up with some old friends, so everyone had their own thing going on, except me. I, of course, had a smokescreen in place to throw Pop off the scent; the catacombs.
I chose this venue, of course, because Ma and the twins wouldn’t be caught dead down there, Pop has a touch of claustrophobia, and Lancelot is a snob who wouldn’t be caught dead walking through the Parisian underground surrounded by dead bodies, some cop he’s going to be.
That wasn’t for another couple of days, though, so in the meantime, I had some groundwork to do. No one else seemed as edgy as Pop, and I knew he would be keeping his eye on me the whole time, so to put his mind at ease and not have him put a wrench in my plans, I had come up with a sophisticated plot of sorts.
It was the morning of our first day there, and the girls barely had time for anything other than their last-minute debutant crap, so I chose now to take the first step in my plans for my upcoming solo outing. No, I wasn’t jetting off to Sicily right now; I have other plans for that. But this little trip had two purposes.
One, it would give me time to put the finishing touches on my plans, and two, it would show Pop that I wasn’t about to go anywhere, which is a lie, but to give him peace of mind, it was worth it to go to the trouble.
I went in search of the twins Marcus and Matthew and their cohorts Robert and Denver. My family, instead of getting hotels or renting a private villa as planned, had ended up accepting an invitation from Gianna’s grandmother to stay at her family estate just outside of Paris. The place is crazy, like nobility crazy. There was room for everyone, including the security teams, which Gianna’s family didn’t even blink at, and who Pop would die before he let us travel without.
I found my so-called team in their quarters, one of the little cottages off the main castle, yes, a literal castle. They were surprised to see me since I’ve pretty much been ignoring them since they’d been hired a few weeks ago. “Hey, did something happen?” Marcus stood from his chair while looking around at the others.
“No. Who do you work for? Me or my father?” No point in beating around the bush. That’ll only make them suspicious anyway.
“That’s a tough one. What are you getting at?” Again, Marcus took the lead.
“OK, let me rephrase that.” Who is your loyalty to? Me, or my father?”
“That’s another tough one. What is it that you’re trying to ask?” It was Robert who answered this time.
“Simply put, there’re going to be times when there will be certain things that I want to do that my Pop might not agree with. Whose side are you gonna be on?”
“You’re putting us in a tough spot here, Gabe.”
I guess Denver picked up on where I was coming from before the others, who soon caught on. Like I said before, I’m the one who saw that each of them was in a not-so-good position at home when we first met years ago, and it was I who brought that and them to Pop’s attention, knowing that he’d step in. I’m not one to do shit for people expecting something in return, but I have no qualms about taking that stance this time around.
I knew from the first time I saw them on campus that Pop had brought them in at this point in time because he’d grown suspicious of my activities concerning Sicily. Even though I’d gone to great lengths to keep him from knowing anything about my progress there, he too knows his son, and there’re just some things I can’t hide from him.
“OK, think about it and get back to me. Just know while you’re thinking, we can make this very hard or very easy. If you answer correctly, you have no problem, say the wrong thing, and I’ll make it extremely difficult for you. Remember, I am my father’s son; think about why he asked you of all people to shadow me.”
I left after giving them food for thought, knowing that they were smart enough to get where I was coming from. I know that Pop put them on me to keep me out of trouble; I also know that they have no idea what that trouble might be. Pop would never tell anyone outside the family what had been done to Ma, so there’s no way he’d come right out and mention Sicily to them. I have that working for me.