The sounds of the waves crashing along the shores of the little island that became our home was all around us, mixing with the smell of the sea. Sitting on the small balcony, overlooking the water, I sipped on my glass of wine. I felt at peace here. I didn’t think I could find happiness again, but right at this moment, it felt pretty damn close to it. Even with the paranoid feelings I’d had when I rushed out of the market and barricaded Matteo and myself in the house.
It was stupid, I knew it. If either my uncle or my husband found us, we’d be dead before we knew what hit us. We would never see it coming. My uncle was a sick, twisted old man that got off on power and torturing humans.
Mom just finished her performance at Metropolitan Opera House in New York city. I headed backstage to see her. I felt hurt and anger in my chest, which never happened when it came to my parents.
Hearing my mom sing her last song and dedicate it to a man in the audience, someone I have never heard of. A man! It didn’t make any sense at all. It was my parents’ song. Did she not love Dad anymore?
Roxette’s “Listen to your heart” was Mom and Dad’s wedding song, a memory of their love that endured hardships. Neither one of them ever told me what those were, but whatever it was, it always put worry on Dad’s face and fear on Mom’s. They told me it was what sealed them together – listening to their own hearts. So why did Mom dedicate it to another man?
The shuffle of the crew of producers, various orchestra musicians, stage managers, and technical staff made it too crowded.
“Hey Grace,” the stage manager called out to me, a wide, happy smile on his face. I guess that meant my mother’s performance was a hit. But something didn’t sit well with me. Didn’t they know that my mother sang a song that was meant for Dad and she dedicated it to a stranger? That wasn’t right!
“Hello, Mr. Tony,” I greeted him. Benefit of spending a lot of time here; I knew everyone, every single member by their first and last name. “Have you seen my mom?”
“She’s in her dressing room.”
“Thanks.” I waved him goodbye and kept on going. Every so often, I’d bump into another backstage worker, greet them, and carry on, determined to talk to my mom. She always said I could ask her any questions or talk to her about anything that troubled me.
Well, this troubled me.
As I neared Mom’s dressing room, I heard raised voices. My pulse sped up with fear. Whose voices were those? I thought I recognized Mom’s voice, but I wasn’t sure. I never heard her yell.
My parents never raised their voices. Not at each other, not at me. Yes, I heard my dad use a grumbled elevated voice at his advisors but it was always with frustration. This sounded more threatening, ugly, mean. What were they saying? I couldn’t make out the words. My heart pounded in my chest, an unfamiliar feeling of fear increasing with each step closer to the cracked door to Mom’s dressing room.
“You will never have her.” Yes, that was Mom’s voice. “Never! As long as there is a breath left in me or Kennedy, you’ll never have her.”
“You just wait and see,” the stranger’s voice was dark and threatening. My ears rang, as my breathing hitched. What were they talking about? “You better listen to your fucking heart and save Kennedy. Because there is nothing you can do to save her.”
“Get out,” she screamed, her beautiful voice that awed the world shaking, and for the first time ever, I heard a terror in my mother’s voice. “Get out. Kennedy will hear of this.”
I leaned forward and could see the tall man through the open door. There were two of them in there, one older and one younger, but only the older one was talking. Instinctively, I knew the older one was more dangerous.
“He knows he can’t do anything about this.” He smirked, disgust on his face. “You two listened to your hearts instead of reason, now it is time to pay the price. You two can have more children. Be smart and say goodbye to this one.”
I watched through the crack of the open door as my mom’s hand flew through the air and connected with the man’s cheek. Smack.
His face turned dark, his whole posture threatening and he took a step, towering over her.
“Aria-”
“Get the fuck out!” I froze in fear as I watched the man’s hand curl around her slim neck.
“It is as easy as this,” he growled. “Snap your neck, and it’s over.”
I took a step forward, everything inside of me screaming to help my mom. As if I could stop him. The floor creaked under my black Mary Jane black shoes. I was still in my school uniform. Both of their eyes snapped to me. One full of fear and one with a look I couldn’t quite describe. Like he was evaluating me.
“Mom?” I didn’t like this man. There should be guards here. Where were Dad’s men that always watched over her and me?
“You must be Grace.” I swallowed hard, remaining glued to my spot, my eyes darting between my mom’s terrified face and this man’s cruel one. I had no idea why but I kept my mouth closed, refusing to say anything to him. “Nice uniform. Good little Catholic girl. That will come in handy.”
I didn’t understand what he was saying. He didn’t make any sense. My eyes lowered to his hand that was still on my mother, his filthy fingers curled around my mother’s pale neck. A fear that he could hurt her swelled with each thump in my chest.
Suddenly, his hand lowered, and he took a step back. Without a glance at my mother, his eyes on me, he strode past me.
“Remember my words, Aria.”
And they were gone. Like boogeymen in the dark of night. With her back against the wall, my mom’s body slid down till her butt connected with the floor. She was so shaken up that her whole arms shook as she spread them open. Without thinking, I ran to her and lowered myself onto the floor, burying my body against hers.
“Mom, are you okay?” My voice shook, just like her hands that kept brushing against my face.
“My little Grace,” my mother’s voice was soft as she brushed hair out of my face. “My precious baby.”
“Who was that?” I asked in a whisper. I was scared he’d come back.
“Nobody important, love.” My mother never lied to me, but I knew she lied to me that day. I felt it in my gut. “Promise me that no matter what happens, you will keep strong. For me. For Dad.”
I raised my head, searching out her eyes.
“I promise, Mom.” I wasn’t sure if I could keep that promise, but it seemed so important to her. I wanted to ease her worry and fears that were edged so deep onto her face now. If it would help her, I would have promised anything that day.
“You’ll always be my little Grace.” A soft, warm fluttering feeling blossomed inside me at hearing those words. I loved my mom and dad. Even more, I loved their affections for each other. I loved their hugs and kisses, but my stubbornness insisted I pretended they were annoying. Though right now, I needed all her comfort, and I sensed she needed mine too. “Never let anyone clip your wings, my baby.”
“I won’t, Mom,” I promised.
God, if only I knew how hard it would be to keep that promise. How hard it was to be strong. Mom and Dad died three months later. It was then I found myself face-to-face with the very same man that had threatened my mother. He turned out to be my uncle. A man my parents had kept me hidden from. Imagine being a child and not knowing you had other family. Never having met your uncle or grandmother. It was a nightmare after that… until the day I met Luciano. I thought I found a savior. So wrong!
Tilting my head up at the moon, my thoughts traveled across the ocean, searching the memories. The past was left buried and behind us when we ran, but it was harder to forget. It was a constant exercise of discipline to make myself not think about him.
The image of my husband’s face flashed in front of my eyes. Even after all this time, the memories hurt. I fell in love with a true villain and learned my lesson. In the hardest way possible. I would never let another man in. Maybe one of these days I’d get brave and take another man into my bed. Although I knew with unquestionable certainty that nobody would ever compare to my husband. The way my body hummed for him, needing his touch.
All the fucked-up shit that happened and I still craved his hands on me; the way he brought me pleasure. And I hated myself for it. I wanted him out of my heart and out of my system. I didn’t want to remember him; the way his mouth felt on my skin or the way his touch lifted me to unimaginable heights. All the while, he crushed my heart like it was worthless, like I was worthless.
A shuddering breath left my lips as I brought my glass of wine to them. This was the reason I always avoided thinking about him. It made me feel like shit.
Reaching over to the side table for my laptop. I checked my emails. It was better than thinking about the bitter past.
Only one email sat in the secured mailbox.
To: The Ghost
From: Ruthless King
Good answer. I’d like to book the next six months of your exclusive services. Max three times per month, as initially agreed. Monthly retention two hundred thousand. The percentage fee per transaction remains the same. You accommodate nobody else.
K
So he was testing me! I didn’t like it; it felt manipulative. I was done being manipulated. But could we afford to refuse his business? No, we couldn’t. Instead of replying, I closed the email and stared at the blank Google Search page. I was so tempted to use it. All I had to do was type in my family’s name or my husband’s name, and I knew there would be information flowing through the web browser. I had so many questions, but I knew they wouldn’t bring me any good answers. Nor any peace.
Curiosity killed the cat, Grace. I needed to remember that.
“What are you doing sitting in the dark, staring at your laptop?” Ella’s voice startled me, and I almost dropped my laptop.
“Damn it. You scared the crap out of me.” I looked behind me to find Ella standing, leaning against the door. “You are home early.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I just wasn’t in the mood to listen to the Italian accent tonight.”
“I see.” In Ella’s language, it meant she was homesick. Maybe I was too, hence for the trip down memory lane.
She came around and sat down on the other chair. I handed her my glass of wine and she took it, gulping it down.
“What’s going on?” she questioned after emptying the glass.
“I checked my emails. Ruthless King was testing us with that fifth transaction.” Her brows frowned in confusion. “I don’t know what it is about. He wants us to do exclusive transactions for him over the next six months, no more than three a month.”
“Weird.”
“Yes. I didn’t reply.”
“Are you going to refuse?”
I shook my head. “No, but maybe we can renegotiate a higher fee cut if we are exclusive. Although he did offer a monthly retainer fee too.”
She nodded in agreement. “It doesn’t hurt to ask for more.”
We both stared over the dark seas; the silence broken only by the sound of waves crashing against the shoreline. The smell of the sea soothed my soul, and I hoped it did the same for Ella. Some days were harder than others. Yes, we loved it here and wanted to settle down, but we still missed home sometimes. We knew we couldn’t go back to the States without putting our lives at great risk.
“I have to tell you something, Grace.” Ella’s quiet voice shattered the silence. My eyes shifted to her. She sounded serious. “You won’t like it.”
“As long as you are not leaving me, we’ll figure out everything else.” I meant it too. Without Ella, I would have been so alone over the last three and a half years.
“Duh, I’m never leaving you,” she replied without hesitance. “We might not be blood related, but we are sisters for life.” She was right; she was more family to me than all my living blood family. She took a deep breath in and then exhaled. “When I went to the main island, I checked out the U.S. news.” I wouldn’t scold her. Not even thirty minutes ago, I was tempted to do the same. I held my breath, waiting for whatever was to come. “Your uncle filed a petition to transfer all your assets to him due to the evidence you are deceased.”
I stared at her, sure that I heard it wrong. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” she muttered.
“He had evidence that I’m dead? That doesn’t make any sense.” Although, I’d never put it past my uncle and my family to proclaim me dead to get their paws on my inheritance. My parents had enough sense to secure it all into a trust till my twenty-fifth birthday. Which was coming up rapidly.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “It pissed me off that he’d rob you of what’s yours. So I sent evidence through a secured mail that you are alive, along with the picture.”
It wasn’t a smart thing to do. She knew it, and so did I. But I understood why she did it. I would have probably done the same if our roles were reversed. After all, that inheritance belonged to my son too.
“Damn, I hope it’s one of the good pictures,” I replied instead of scolding her. She was beating herself up enough as it was. We locked eyes and burst into fits of giggles. It wasn’t funny that my family pretty much took everything from me and now went after the inheritance too. But crying wouldn’t help us.
“I sent the one from our rave party in Germany.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, that one is not too bad.”
Turning my head back out, facing the sea, I stared at the moon’s reflection against the surface of the waves. It was so peaceful in this little corner of the world. You could almost pretend all the evil of this world didn’t exist. But it did, lurking in the shadows. My family was a big part of it.
Money, the root of all evil, but we couldn’t live without it. Ella and I learned that the hard way, after struggling. In the first three months, we moved from one European city to the next every two weeks, scared that we would be found. We tried hard to watch our money, but unfamiliar with going without, we didn’t do a good job. We were both constantly tired and initially lost weight. Even with my pregnancy progressing, it felt like whatever little clothes I had, they hung loose on me.
Two girls in the big, scary world. If we were killed nobody would have missed us. Because we were ghosts, traveling with fake documents either via train or bus, dragging from hostel to hostel, sometimes even sleeping at train stations. We kept our heads down and to ourselves. We often lost track of where we were. Sometimes I’d break down and cry at the cruelty of it all, and Ella would comfort me. Other times, she’d have a meltdown, and I’d help her through it. We survived because we had each other.
As the cash became frighteningly low, we started looking for jobs. Anything that would help us make a little money and survive. Our limited language skills were our downfall. We even got so desperate that we tried pickpocketing. Neither one of us managed a single one successfully so we gave that one up. But we had a little break with the last guy, Dietrich, we tried to steal from. He was a runner for a local crime gang. He cleaned their money and offered to pay us the commission if we helped him.
It came down to starving and living on the streets or giving this a try. The best part was that the guy maintained he did all the laundering himself with his supplier. It didn’t matter to Ella and I, as long as we got paid.
It benefited us to be off everyone’s radar, and it was the reason that Ella and I set up layers of security as we grew our customers. We quickly started finding our own clients… well, criminals if I was being honest and we grew. We were both determined we wouldn’t be hungry again or search for somewhere to sleep safely in the middle of the night.
Dietrich unknowingly saved our lives. Ella and he dated for a bit. We never told him our story, but he picked up on the fact that we didn’t want to be found. So, he gave us pointers on how to be invisible, how to make money on the black market and remain hidden from the suppliers.
We worked hard to keep ourselves invisible, and for the first time ever, I wondered if maybe I should just let my family get their dirty paws on my inheritance. It wasn’t worth my life, Matteo’s, nor Ella’s. We didn’t need millions. If I worked for Ruthless King for a few more years, we’d be settled for life.
“What are you thinking, Grace?”
“I’m not sure. On one hand, I want to fight for what’s mine,” I admitted. “But on the other hand, I don’t think it is worth putting all of us in danger for it.”
If anyone understood, it was Ella. “I agree. But it bothers me to think about him getting away with so much. Look how many people he hurt.”
She was right. My uncle hurt her family, ruining them financially. All because her father refused to be part of human smuggling with him and Benito King. Yes, her father was a dirty politician, but at least he had some scruples.
I suspected my uncle had caused my parents’ death and that was barely scratching the surface. He would have killed me and Ella too, or worse. He would have sold me to satisfy my family’s long-standing tradition. God knew, the Romano family had a reputation to uphold as producing some of the best for their fucked-up arrangement.
We didn’t have any choice. We had to run away, in the dead of the night, like two thieves. It was either run or die. Ella and I weren’t strong enough to take them all down.
“We’ve been slowly chipping away at him financially,” I murmured.
“It’s not enough,” she hissed. “It won’t be enough till he-” She cut herself off, her lip trembling.
I knew she was right. If it was just me, I’d jump right in and cause havoc. I wanted to hurt my family and make them pay. But even more, I wanted Matteo safe. Just the thought of him getting anywhere close to my family rattled my bones with true terror. They wouldn’t hesitate to use my son, just to get what they want.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” she muttered. “Sometimes the thirst for revenge just chokes me, and then makes me act stupid.”
I shook my head. “You have nothing to apologize for. It is how I feel too. Especially when I think about how he almost-” The words faltered, my throat constricted. “The last thing I want is for them to take more advantage of me, but Matteo is more important to me than all that. But you did the right thing by sending a picture,” I told her. “We’ll just have to be careful not to have it traced back to here. I kind of like it here.”
“I was careful.” I knew she would be. “I like it here too, but it would be nice to have an option to visit back. You know?”
I nodded in agreement. My family was her only obstacle. We met in the boarding school, our first year of high school, but I knew about Ella and her family for months beforehand. Her father was a crooked politician that crossed paths with my uncle who made a fatal mistake in dealing with my uncle to secure a passage for his smuggling. Her father provided a state port passage, but he realized too late what it was used for. Human trafficking for Benito King. He should have asked better questions, done his homework. Instead, the idiot only saw dollar signs. When her dad started backpedaling, my uncle demanded the payment back with hefty interest. Her father didn’t have the money, so he promised his daughter. But then he started running his mouth, and my uncle killed him and his wife, brutally. The only reason I knew was because I eavesdropped on his conversation. So, he took charge of Ella – not out of pity or sorrow. He took her in to protect his investment.
Of course, it was always us women that paid the price for men’s stupidity and cruelty. We were just pawns in their stupid games. Unlike Ella, for me, even if my uncle and family that wanted me dead were eliminated; I’d still not be able to go back. Because my husband wanted me dead too.
But we refused to be victims and just take it. It was the reason I told Ella what I learned about her parents’ death when we met. We bonded instantly, and we might have been young, naive girls but we wouldn’t be willing victims. We started researching and studying the men from the mafia world that did business with Benito. We refused to be sitting belles waiting for our ruin. Ella and I were stronger together.
If we only prepared for falling in love too. We wanted to bring those fucking ruthless men to their knees and make them pay, but we didn’t count on our hearts playing too.
