Sounded like I might have watched one too many films, but when that was your life and your father was like mine, it wasn’t all that hard to imagine. I couldn’t claim to have seen it happen but I knew stuff. I would be very foolish to assume the stuff that happened in the movies was just reserved for just that.
Pa had a cleanup crew that came on the scene when they needed to clear bodies.
My first experience with the like was after I watched my mother get killed and seconds later my father shot the man who killed her. Donny Morales. That was his name and he was, in those seconds, getting ready to kill me too.
Pa killed him, saving me.
Part of me always remembered that, even though Pa locked me away for months after the incident happened. He locked me away to keep me safe. It was horrible but for my safety.
All that time though, I never knew what it was Pa had done to Donny to make him come for us in that way. I still didn’t know.
The cleanup crew took him. A year later I saw on the news that the feds found body parts in the desert. Not even all the body parts. A hand and a head. That was it, and it was of course a skeleton of the hand and head. They were able to establish that it was Donny. The other parts of him were never found.
I knew what had happened to him, and I knew only one person could have arranged for him to be disposed of in such a way.
We turned off the road sharply and it snapped me out of my thoughts.
Frankie and I hadn’t said all that much in the last hour. Xander shifted and groaned like he was going to wake up but then drifted back off to sleep.
“We’re practically there, doll,” Frankie declared.
Ten minutes later we approached a woodland area with a lake. The moonlight beamed down on it in that fairytale manner that made the water sparkle and glisten. It was the sort of picturesque scenery I would have loved to paint. Definitely loved to paint something so moving yet peaceful with the overpowering silver moon hanging over the lake and trees with a shiver of shadows surrounding it.
Something for another time, maybe.
My creative mind was always seeking something, desperate to do what it loved. That was what I should have been doing.
This started out with me just wanting to go to Europe to finish my art studies. That was all.
Then things changed.
We drove for a few more minutes until a cottage came into view.
I gazed on ahead, curious.
We parked up and the door to the cottage opened. A woman rushed out. She looked like a classical image of an Italian mother. Warm presence, plump, long wavy hair that flowed out into the night and when she got close I realized she looked like an older version of Frankie.
“Ma,” he beamed and she smiled.
Frankie got out and gave her a hug.
I’d never heard Frankie talk about his family. All the time he’d worked for Pa he never mentioned them. I understood why. It must have been that same thing of keeping the people you love out of business.
Two men rushed out of the house too, both looked like him also.
Brothers maybe.
While his mother helped me out, the guys got Xander.
We all went inside. Xander was placed in a room where one of the guys tended to his wounds. He worked like a doctor so I guess he had to be exactly that.
I stayed with him while Frankie went off with his mother.
I learned within minutes that the guy tending to Xander was Alberto, Frankie’s middle brother and the other guy was Zivelle. He was the youngest.
I observed them as they moved around and I could tell they were separate, as in they seemed to exist outside the business. Outside the usual mafia related restraints. It was their mannerisms that gave them away.
Alberto had a lot of work to do on Xander. He had broken ribs and thankfully that seemed to be the worst thing that we could tell just from the physical examination he did on him.
He did advise us to go to the hospital though as soon as we could because there was no telling what damage could have happened internally without more extensive checks.
Of course I definitely agreed. It was just on the basis of a matter of when and how we would get to the hospital.
Xander woke up fully a little while after but he was so weak. We had him propped up on a stack of pillows. I sat next to him with a warm rag placed on his head that seemed to comfort him. He’d complained of a headache earlier.
Every time it went cold I’d warm it up.
I was just about to again when Xander reached for my hand and pulled me back to sit down.
“Baby…” he breathed.
I moved to him, careful to avoid his wounds and kissed him. It was a kiss my body longed for. “Xander…”
“Jia.” He cupped my face and it was a direct contrast to the rough manner in which Armand had handled me earlier.
When Xander touched me it warmed my heart.
“How are you feeling?” I moved my hand over the edge of his jaw.
“Can I just be happy to see you?” His voice was thick with emotion.
“Of course.”
“Stay with me, just stay here. My head feels fine. I don’t need that rag anymore. Just you.”
I cupped his face too, looking over his bruises. I couldn’t believe I was holding him. “Of course. If you need me to warm it again in a little while I will.”
He smoothed his hand up my face.
“I love you,” he told me on the edge of a heartfelt whisper. His words were like a gentle caress on my soul.
I beamed down at him. “I love you too.”
“Thank you.”
I chuckled. “You aren’t supposed to say thanks.”
“Baby… it would only be bad if one of us told the other they loved them and the answer was thanks.” He gave me a weak smile.
“I know, that’s really bad. But I mean you don’t have to thank me for loving you.”
He bowed his head for a few seconds then lifted it back up, his bright blue eyes meeting mine. “I do… I do, because I trust you. I trust you, Jia, with everything I have in me. I don’t find it easy to trust people. You have proven to be the most trustworthy person I’ve ever met in my life.”
He was talking about this morning.
“It’s okay. I told you I wouldn’t say anything,” I reminded him.
“You could have though, I’m not sure that if the tables were turned that I could have done what you did. I’ve never been placed in such a situation and it was unfair that you were. I slipped up baby and I got caught.” His hand dropped like a leaded weight to his side.
“Can you talk to me a little more about what’s going on? The blueprints I mean, and what happened when Pa caught you. Do you feel strong enough to talk?” It was my eagerness to help taking over. Seeing him so helpless made me want to help even more and do what I could, whatever that may be. It was like I’d found strength from somewhere despite the weakness that had taken me earlier while I was with Armand.
“Yes… The blueprints are for a nuke… and your father was keeping them in a place where he didn’t share with his knights.” He seemed a little more stronger as he spoke, although he took a few breaks to catch his breath. He swallowed hard then continued. “The area was all secret. No surveillance, not even on the plans for the building. My friend, his name is Wes, he always had my back. I thought it would be safer for me alone to go for the prints when some Ra guys jumped us at our base. So I went alone, blind and your father caught me. You know the rest of the story.”