What in the hell going on here?
But I keep following the truck until it stops in front of a small apartment complex, in a higher end of the slums. The building has been kept in relatively decent condition. Even with the massive amount of foot traffic present at the moment, you could tell that the people who live here take care of the place.
There are a fair amount of people milling about the building, some of them in small clusters, mostly woman with babies on their hips and toddlers clinging on to pant legs. The women obviously gossiping, all seem to turn at the same time and take notice of the two vehicles, especially when Elda hops out of the truck.
She’s tall for a girl, and when she stiffens her spine like she is, she seems even more so. She’s beautiful in that unearthly way, her tan skin and blond hair making her stand out in a crowd.
The people don’t shy away from her though, even with her face looking like she’s ready to kill anyone in her path, a woman with a little boy clutching her leg steps forward, and puts her hand on Elda’s shoulder, leans in and speaks quickly. Even the child doesn’t seem scared of her as he releases his mom and takes Elda’s hand.
Cobra quickly gets out of the SUV, and we all follow, now more curious than before.
None of the people bat an eye at Cobra’s presence, but the woman all take note of the rest of us, distrust and apprehension on their faces. Some grab their kids in tighter holds, others usher themselves and their family back into their apartments.
“I called as soon as I heard the crash Priest,” says the woman who was holding Elda as we walk up. Elda just shakes her head, pats the little boys head with her free hand. He looks up at her, his eyes bright with a smile to match…he looks at her like she’s a celebrity who’s graced him with her presence.
“It’s okay Kit, really. Get Gabe inside, okay,” Elda says, but it’s not a question in the slightest and Kit knows it. She nods her head, takes the little boys hand and starts ushering the few women still remaining to go back to their apartments and stay out of the way. No one questions why, they just do ask Elda has said without having actually said it at all.
“Did you see that?” Luca asks, his voice too low for anyone but the family to hear.
I did see it, but other than seeing that she’s respected here, I haven’t fully figured out what it means on a larger scale.
Once the majority of the people are in the apartments or heading that way she looks over at Cobra, her eyes still hold that steal edge like the switchblade that was in her pants pocket, but she seemed to be trying to gather some sort of calm, and when she looks away from Cobra she seems to have found it. It didn’t take but a heartbeat. With that calm came a clarity that I hadn’t realized was missing before.
She nods her head at Bones then takes off up a set of stairs to the right of the building, her feet falls, as all four of us enforcers follow her silent steps. Her steps didn’t even make the soft patter our shoes are making. When she stops suddenly, next to what’s is quickly assumed her apartment, I don’t know where she pulls the gun from, but she’s holding a Glock 19 in her left hand. Bones and Cobra are on the left side of the door, both of them carrying guns I hadn’t spotted earlier.
Before I have time to ponder that, Elda is walking into her apartment, seemingly without a care in the world. Bones follows her before I can step in behind her, obscuring the majority of my view with his large body, and I bite the inside of my cheek form ordering him back. He is not mine to command.
“So, who might you be?” I hear her ask, but I can’t see who’s inside the small apartment, but I do hear the distinct sound of a dog tail thumping on fabric.
Bones finally steps to the side enough for me to see Elda, gun held in the perfect marksman stance, her hand steady.
“My god,” says the intruder, and I know that voice, have known it all of my life. Not only am I surprised to find it here, in the confines of this small apartment, I am also surprised by the sound of pure wonderment. He sounds like he’s had the breath knocked out of him, like a kid getting tossed in his first martial arts class, completely and utterly unprepared, and that is not a tone I am used to hearing from this voice.
I should have counted on Alonzo being unable to sit still while we handled his daughter, but even knowing that I should have counted on him rushing head long at the one thing that’s occupied his mind for the last twenty years, I would have never thought he’d go so far as to break into her house.
Cobra stiffs at the sound of his voice, but I don’t think it’s out of fear. He lowers his gun, and Bones takes note of this action, but he doesn’t follow suit. He keeps his eyes trained on Elda, and since she’s not put her gun down even a fraction of a centimeter, neither is he apparently.
Elda’s face doesn’t light up in recognition of the man she takes her features from, and I wonder what story she had heard about her father to cause that sort of apathy. She wasn’t even looking at Alonzo in a way to even attempt to see the similarities.
“Rosary, heel,” she says, not acknowledging Alonzo in the slightest. The dog comes and I see a medium sized dog come into view, but I don’t look to closely. Instead I am shoving Bones to the side, and putting my hand on Elda’s arm that’s holding the gun.
It’s clear that she isn’t a novice gunman when her finger doesn’t react to my touch, nor does her arm when my hand is placed there. She doesn’t even take her eyes off of her father when I touch her.
“Elda, this is your father.”
She doesn’t react to my words externally, but the tension seems to slowly unwind from her.
I look at my boss, and then quickly look away. He’s wiping tears from his eyes, like a man who’s looking at the most sublime landscape before him.
“Hiya Boss,” Tony says, smiling in the doorway of the apartment, further breaking some of the tension.
Alonzo gets a hold of himself quickly, though his voice is still thick when he says, “Good job boys, you’ve brought my lost girl home.”
I notice Bones clench is teeth a moment before I hear Elda breath out a long suffered sigh. She finally lowers the gun, and holsters it, in an honest to God bra holster by lifting her crop top and clicking it into place under the band between her breasts. She doesn’t seem to give a wink about us men standing around her, as she adjust the bra into what I’m assuming is a more comfortable position, and a part of me, a part I try to beat down with a stick, finds her uncaring attitude attractive as all get out. Just the fact that she’d held a gun on my boss should have had me freaking out.
“Technically, you’re in my home,” she says, and Alonzo surprised me yet again by giving a loud laugh.
“You are just like your mother,” he says, and at that she finally smiles, but she looks away from him to look at Bones.
“Come on big guy, put the gun down, no shooting my long lost daddy and all,” her voice is carefully joking and Bones rolls his eyes at her before slowly lowering his weapon.
Alonzo stands up from his perch on her couch, and I see his eyes flit to Cobra for a moment before focusing back on his daughter.
“Hello Elda, I am Alonzo Conti, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. I am your father.”
Elda sits down in a chair I didn’t notice, slightly shaking her head, and while some of the frost in her gaze has waned, a slow burning anger seems to be swirling in the dark orbs now.