Empire by Rachel Van Dyken
“Stay.” His teeth snapped into a tight clench that hinted at how pissed he was.
Everyone got out of the car except for Chase.
Nixon let out a groan. “Really, man? Don’t make me shoot you. Just go, I’ll give you details later.”
“Kill joy,” Chase muttered then slammed the door behind him leaving me and Nixon in a super fun tense silence.
I just loved being alone with him and his twitchy finger. Hell, he probably had three guns on him and, at least two of those, magically trained on me just for shits and giggles.
“Cousin?” I licked my lips. “Do we have a problem?”
“We?” His eyebrows shot up. “You’re a piece of shit, you know that right?”
“Fully aware but it’s always nice to hear compliments from family.”
“And a jackass.” He pounded my chest with his hand, shoving me against the seat.
“Noted.”
“And an idiot.”
“Yup.”
With a sigh, he released me and ran his tattooed hands through his unruly hair. “My wife’s pregnant. I don’t want to be here. Phoenix is one phone call away from needing to fly a red-eye back to Chicago because Bee’s in her last trimester, and I had to physically restrain Mil to keep her from hopping on a plane to kick you in the nuts.”
“We needed one boss to stay behind.”
“Right, you say that to her and see where it gets you.”
I smirked.
“None of this is funny. They’re initiated, fine, they’re in, the blood’s been spilled… but we need a decision, and we need to get them out of here, and we need to do it in a way that doesn’t seem like we’re putting them back in hiding. Add in your whole ‘Xavier wants to meet with Tex’ information you dropped on us this morning, not to mention the irritating fact that the very girl you’re supposed to be helping looks like she wants to put a bullet between your eyes, and well…” He leaned his head back against the seat. “Hell, Frank needs to stop keeping information from us.”
“More Phoenix than Frank.”
“Damn Phoenix.”
“Nixon, this job is mine, not yours.”
His mocking laugh wasn’t helpful. “And you think you’re doing a bang up job? A promise is a promise, you need to marry her.”
“I know that.”
“And the other part?”
I stared down at my hands.
“Sergio, you’ve told her the other part, right?”
I bit down on my lower lip and looked out the window at all the ignorant people who passed our car. If they only knew.
“She deserves to know what she’s getting into, Sergio.”
“And she does.”
“But does she know what else Luca said? What he demanded? For her protection?”
My chest was so tight it was hard to breathe. “No.”
“She thinks your marriage will be in name only.” Nixon said it like a statement. “Doesn’t she?”
“A simple business agreement.” I felt numb, from head to toe, numb.
“Aw, hell, Serg, your days are numbered, man.”
“I was going to tell her after we were married.”
“So she could kill you in your sleep?”
“She’s not violent.”
Something white fluttered out of the window and landed on our car.
I blinked, my mind struggling to make sense of what my eyes were seeing.
A wedding dress.
That had been shredded with scissors.
“Not violent, hmm?”
“Son of a bitch.” I punched the leather seat with my fist and reached for the door.
“Sergio, tell her before we leave.”
“Tonight?”
He nodded.
“And Xavier?”
“Tex means to poke the bear. We bow down now or later, he chooses later. We’ll deliver a message and gauge his response.”
“What kind of message?”
“Sorry, Frank already called dibs.”
“Nixon!” I groaned. “You know it would be helpful if I shot something.”
“Shoot Chase, he’s still a pain in my ass, but this demonstration is all Frank’s. Besides, it’s his mess. Let him clean it up.”
“Fine.” I opened the door just as a shoe box fell directly in front of my face colliding with my boots.
The heels popped out of the box.
I froze.
They were Andi’s
I’d recognize those shoes anywhere.
Barely noticeable grass stains marred the spiked heel, and a piece of blue fabric had been sewn across the open toe.
Without thinking, I gathered them in my hands and charged into the house, ready to toss Val over my knee if that’s what it took to get a confession.
Maybe I’d shoot something after all.
Her.
For wrecking yet another memory of my dead wife.
How can these things come to pass? O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now! –A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Frank
SERGIO DAMN NEAR took off the door. His aggression was palpable, the air tinged with his bitterness, his anger. I let out a sigh as he rushed past me and took the stairs two at a time.
The rest of the men communed in the kitchen.
I stayed back.
The sound of wine pouring and Sergio yelling at Val filled the air.
I leaned against the stairway, wincing. My bones ached. There used to be days I would go without sleep, where the sunlight and darkness melted into one another in consecutive hours, time slipped away.
And now, time it seemed, was doing the exact same thing.
“Bless him, Father,” I mumbled under my breath. Was that my sin then? To bear the weight of poor choices on my shoulders, while Luca toasted to Andi in heaven?
It was as if each jagged piece I tried to pick up and put back together again embedded itself into my skin. I bled, I bled, I bled some more, and then the piece would finally attach itself. The process would repeat.
Because where there was pain.
There was also healing.
I shut my eyes just as Phoenix rounded the corner. “Do you hear that?”
“I hear everything. I’m not deaf.” Not that old either, but I was tired of arguing my point every damn time one of the young ones opened their mouths to bitch.
“He’s yelling—” Phoenix’s voice lowered “—at an innocent girl.”
“That’s life.” I opened my eyes and stared him down. “That’s her lot in life, Phoenix. Sometimes we yell, not so others will listen, but because we hurt so deeply within — screaming is the only option.”
“It’s a shitty option.” Phoenix’s eyes were wild. “She can’t defend herself, not like Andi did.”
“She isn’t Andi.” My voice was calm, because even I, the eldest, the one who had seen the most death was, still, in my own way, mourning a life that Luca had deemed worthy of the Family, a life was still a life, and it meant something, even to me. “She will never be Andi.”
Phoenix pointed up at the stairs. “But does he know that?”
“Of course.” I slapped Phoenix on the shoulder. “It is why he yells.”
He swallowed, looking away as the weight of my hand pressed into him.
We were silent.
I was often silent with Phoenix.
He wasn’t a man who talked through things, but, oh, how he thought. He thought with the best of them, his brain calculating, his judgments swift.
“Do you remember?” A sad smile started at the corner of his right cheek and spread across to his left, the motion making him look more human. “All her little… tasks?”
I chuckled, and removed my hand. “I remember she was a pain in your ass as much as she was a pain in mine.”
“Frank!”
I stood, trying to escape, Phoenix gave me a helpless look as Andi breezed into the room carrying a giant box, papers fluttered out of it. “Shit!” She stomped her foot and gr
When you loved someone, you wished for death to be swift, not slow with uncalculated highs or lows that the human brain couldn’t possibly keep up with or manage.
“Okay, so here’s the deal.” Andi stood, even though she should be resting, since she’d just gotten out of the hospital. “Sergio’s kind of a jackass.”
Phoenix rolled his eyes. “Yes, let’s keep making true statements all day long. That sounds like fun.”
“And…” Andi said, holding up her hand. “…he’s going to revert to his jackass ways once I’m gone.”
Phoenix opened his mouth then stared at me as he whispered, “I’d rather not talk about you… being gone.”
“Tough shit.” Andi punched him in the shoulder. “Now, open the box and let me explain.”
I eyed the wine, Andi caught me staring and, with an over-exaggerated sigh, she poured us both two healthy glasses and then whispered, “It’s going to be epic.”
“What is?” Phoenix asked. Brave man.
“His story,” Andi whispered. “His love story is going to be epic.”
I rejected the thought.
And then I saw the tears well in her eyes. To be peaceful about one’s death, to plan for your spouse’s happily ever after, knowing you would never get one.
It took guts.
It took bravery.
And I vowed right then and there, I would do everything in my power to help her.
Until I was killed.
Or God took me from this earth.
Because finally, I’d found something worthy to live for.
Funny how it had been staring at me all this time without my knowledge. Joyce would have laughed at me. Luca would have said something cheeky about knowing all along.
I was going to fight.
Not for my own love.
But for his.
Because, God, if anyone on this earth deserved it…
It was Sergio.
“You can’t say a word beyond what I tell you…” Andi pulled out a journal and began to write. “From Russia, With love.”
“You okay, Frank?” Phoenix frowned. “You look a little, pale.”
“Memories,” I said in a gruff tone. “It appears they age me.”
He let out a snort. “They age us all.”
Sergio’s voice rose again. I nodded in the direction of the stairway. “Give him a warning, enough to jar him out of his insanity, don’t kill him.”
Sergio yelled louder.
“You sure about the not killing part?” Phoenix reached for his gun.
“Are you?”
Phoenix gave an eye-roll. “Fine.” He took the stairs slowly.
For in the temple by and by with us, these couples shall be eternally knit. –A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Valentina
“WHERE THE HELL did you get these?” Sergio’s voice was so loud I was surprised my mirror didn’t shatter.
With a huff, I turned around and nearly swallowed my tongue. He cradled the shoes in one hand. In his other hand, he gripped a gun leveled at my head.
“Are you really going to shoot me?” My voice shook. “Over shoes?”
“That depends.” His nostrils flared. “Are you really willing to take the chance… over shoes?”
“Neiman Marcus.” I clenched my fists. “The box you told me to open, so I can only assume they’re either from you or Frank.”
“Not me.” His teeth snapped together. “I would never give you something so precious.”
“I’m not even worth a pair of used shoes!” I yelled. “You’re such a bastard!” He was still pointing the gun at me, but I was done. Done with his attitude, with his ability to string me along and then cut that same string, only to mend it and try all over again.
It was cruel and unfair. I started for the door.
“No!” He dropped the gun to the floor and grabbed me by the arm, wrenching me back. “You don’t get to leave. This conversation isn’t over.”
“It is! I’m done!” I yelled struggling to get out of his rock hard arms. “I hate you!”
“And you think I like myself?” He sneered. “You think I want to be this way? How stupid are you?”
“Really stupid.” I kept struggling. “Because every time I let you in, you destroy everything!”
“Oh, so it’s my fault?”
“I’m sorry about the shoes! Okay?” I stopped struggling and slumped to the ground, basically sitting at his feet. “I’m sorry that I threw them, that I allowed my anger with you to overshadow the fact that I was given a gift and didn’t accept it.”
Sergio’s face fell. “They weren’t from me.”
“I know. Because I don’t deserve shoes.” I looked down at my bare feet. I didn’t even get pedicures.
Never had I felt so young.
Or ugly.
Or just… worthless.
“Heard some commotion so—” Chase knocked on the door and let himself in part way, I could see Phoenix close on his heels, gun drawn.
In one fluid motion, Sergio grabbed the gun off the floor and pointed it at Chase. “Leave.”
Chase’s eyes narrowed as he glanced past the gun to my sitting position on the floor. “Are you okay?” He held his hand out, stopping Phoenix from barreling in the room. As it was, Phoenix looked ready to rip someone’s head off.
“Yeah.” I found my voice. “Maybe he’ll get lucky and accidently shoot me so he doesn’t have to marry me.”
Chase’s face transformed from one of concern to complete rage. His movements were quick, precise as he jumped into the air, and punched Sergio in the face, and then threw him onto the floor. Phoenix watched, fists clenched. “Shoot her, I shoot you, and we both know your face is all you have since you’ve never been guilty of a shining personality.”
Sergio was on his back, but I knew he was better than that, almost like he wanted Chase to kick his ass because he wasn’t able to do it to himself.
“Got it,” Sergio whispered.
Chase released him and eyed me. “He won’t hurt you.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Really?” Chase reached around to his back and pulled a gun from his jeans. I jerked, I couldn’t help it. Guns were dangerous, they were violent. I had been taught to fear them.
He handed the heavy object to me and motioned to Sergio. “If he gets feisty, point at his leg and shoot, can’t really hurt much — and if you hit his dick, you get a prize.”
I laughed through my rage and nervousness. “What kind?”
“A big one, for hitting the smallest target.” Chase held up his hand for a high five. I hit it, he saluted me and left.
I quickly put the gun on the floor, careful to set the pointy part away from my body just in case. Wouldn’t that just be ironic? I shoot myself instead of the bully.
“I deserve it.” Sergio didn’t move, just kept laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “You know, if you shoot me in the ribs my lungs will collapse, that would be fun to watch. Or you can hit my heart. It stopped working anyways. Hasn’t since….”
“You’re a dramatic… ass… hole.”
Sergio leaned up on his elbows. “Did you just swear?”
“You bring it out in me.”
“That’s not a compliment.”
“Nope.”
I kicked the gun farther away from me and hugged my knees to my chest. “The shoes came in a box, no return address.”
“No note?” he asked.
I had to lie. I didn’t want him to know about the letters. “No note.” Because letters were different, right? “They came with the dress.”
“They aren’t yours.”
“Clearly.”
“No, I mean, they were hers.” Sergio moved to a sitting position and grabbed one of the heels. “When I packed away all of her things, they were still there, I saw them, I held them, I don’t
“Frank?”
“He’s never at my house,” Sergio said more to himself than to me. “She wore them on our wedding day.”
“Something old, something new, something borrowed—”
“—something blue.” He finished. So many warring emotions crossed his face, like he was waging his own personal war. With trembling hands he reached for my right foot and slowly slid the pump on. And that’s when it clicked. He was the something borrowed. Sergio. It had been his wedding day, he was the groom, on loan. Until when? We both died?
I shivered as my foot stretched against the shoe.
The perfect fit.
Like Cinderella.
Only this wasn’t one of those stories.
Not even close.
I almost wished that they hadn’t fit because that would have made sense, the fact that Sergio and I didn’t fit.
“They never fit her,” he whispered.
Well there went that happy thought.
“But she loved shoes, so she wore them anyway.”
“Sergio…” I didn’t even know why I was trying. Maybe I liked pain and suffering; maybe I was more mafia than I gave myself credit for. “They’re shoes.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He grabbed the other. “I have to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
He twirled the shoe in his hand a few times. “I married her to protect her. We weren’t in love, not right away. In fact, I hated that I had to marry her… because I knew she was dying before I said I do.”
I sucked in a breath and covered my mouth with my hands.
“Cancer’s a heartless bitch.” He chucked the shoe at the door. “And the harder I fell, the more it spread. My love didn’t save her, she was too far gone.” His voice shook. “She told me about you after she died.”
That wasn’t weird. Or creepy.
“I knew her?”
“No, I don’t think so. If you’d met her you’d remember her.” He sighed.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Me too.”
I didn’t know what else to say, what else would make it better. There were no words in existence in the human language that could adequately heal his soul — and make him whole. When it came to cancer, words failed every single time, because it stole without warning, like a thief in the night, like the very devil and, if you were lucky, you escaped. If not…