Braden: A Dark Mafia Romance (5 page)

“There were too many people.”  I said, answering the question I knew he was waiting to ask.

“I’m glad you didn’t take an unnecessary risk.”  He reached for my bottle after I took another gulp.

“I need to talk to Mary.”  I looked towards him.  “Will you go with me tomorrow?”

“Of course.”  He clasped me on the shoulder and stood up.  “Do you need some time alone?”

“Yeah.”  I nodded and he returned it as if he was reading my mind.  He walked inside the house and left me alone on the porch.

Stefano and I would always be family, with or without our Mafia ties.  His sister had been my first love—my only love.  While I was away in Iraq, she waited patiently for me to return.  I thought our dreams were going to finally come true when I got back.  She didn’t need the money or the Family.  She just wanted a nice quiet life.  She kept herself busy waiting tables at one of the Family’s restaurants while I was gone.  I was there when the bullets ripped through the walls and shattered the glass on the front of the restaurant.  I was too slow to save her.  Before I could get in front of the bullets, three ripped into her and I held her in my arms when she died.  She was more than the woman I was destined to spend my life with—she was my life.  Because of that moment, my path was chosen for me.  I didn’t take it alone.  Stefano’s grief over his sister’s death pulled him into the Family and turned him into a killing machine.  I was already a killing machine, but her death made me into a monster.

“No, Angela Madison…”  I said as if she was still able to hear me.  “I’m definitely not done with you.”

I was denied retribution after we lowered Mary’s body into the ground.  The Family’s code gave that right to Stefano, and he got vengeance while I grieved.  By the time I finally found my place in the Family, he was already a made man.  My time soon followed as I saw Mary’s killer in every single person I put a bullet through.  Death was easy.  Life was a commodity that people struggled to hold onto; one false move and your soul woke up in whatever version of heaven or hell you believed in.  I understood the risks, but everything I did just drove me closer to Mary in the afterlife.  I still believed in that—I had to believe in something.  Sure, there was a damn good chance I was going to hell if all those stories were true, but at least I’d get to see her peering at me from beyond the pearly gates before I was sent on my spiral towards the devil’s furnace.  It wasn’t like I wanted to grow old or gray; I hardly wanted to live without her by my side.  I sat alone in my grief for nearly an hour before I finally turned in for the evening.

***

“You know you can just talk to her, right?”  Stefano said as the car got closer to the graveyard.  “Her soul doesn’t rest here.”

“I know, and I do, but I feel like she can actually hear me when I’m standing at her grave.”  The car tilted back and forth as we took the uneven one lane road that led to her plot.

“Yeah, I feel the same way.”  Stefano stepped out of the car first when it finally came to a stop.

Stefano was always the first one to speak to Mary.  I don’t know why it happened that way, but it was just the way it had always been since we first made the trip together.  I had no idea what he talked to her about.  We never discussed our conversations with Mary.  We had both changed so much since that day.  Stefano was barely more than a boy then, and I still believed in the happily ever other people got.  Mary and I planned to leave New York City after we were married and settle down somewhere out west away from all the violence and the noise.  She would have made a beautiful bride and I would have been so proud to be her husband.  Those were the dreams of a boy, shattered in an instant by a violent world she didn’t belong in.  It became the only world I knew, and deep down I started to like it.  I watched Stefano walk back towards the car and exited as he entered.  His eyes were as dry as they were when he approached her grave.  I don’t think Stefano had anymore tears to cry.  He internalized it all and turned it into rage.

“I miss you, Mary.” I said as I took my spot at her grave.  I knelt down and touched her tombstone, feeling the cold concrete against my fingertips.  “I hope dad made it up there.  Hopefully he’s fighting with mom just like the old days.”  I struggled to hold back tears.

There were so many things I wanted to say, but what I wanted most of all was forgiveness.  I had been with hundreds of women since Mary passed, but I had never felt any sort of connection with them.  I thought that piece of me, a heart that could love, was put in the ground beside her.  Something had stirred within me when I felt Angela’s touch.  It felt like a betrayal of Mary’s memory.  When I stood over her grave the day she was buried, I swore an oath never to love another.  That utterance had been a promise and perhaps it was that promise which kept my heart locked away in a stone box of cruelty.  As I knelt there beside her, I remembered telling her that I wanted her to find someone else if I died while I was in Iraq.  I even made her swear to it; I didn’t want her to die alone if I didn’t come home.  I knew she would have wanted the same for me, but I too stubborn to let anyone in.  I finally stood up and stared down at the ground again.

“I know Stefano is right, and I know you’re not here.  You’ve seen the monster I’ve become.  Last night was the first time I faltered.  I could have easily killed her…”  I sighed and closed my eyes.  “Something held me back…”

As much as I wanted to blame the footsteps on the stairs, I could have easily dispatched anyone who discovered us.  Two bodies would have made an even bigger impression than one.  I walked back towards the car with my mind as clouded as it was when I walked up to Mary’s grave.  Talking with her was always enough to clear my mind, but the fog Angela had blown into my head wasn’t so easily dissipated.  I sat down beside Stefano and motioned for the driver to take us home.  Stefano reached into his jacket and took a sip from his flask.  He offered it to me and I took with a nod of appreciation.  Stefano was one of the few people in the world I trusted, but I just couldn’t share my confusion with him.  There was no way he would be able to understand.  He had lost his sister, but I had lost everything—possibly even my soul.  We passed his flask back and forth in silence until it was gone.  It was barely enough to take the edge off of my conflict.

“Who would have thought we would still be going to her grave together five years later.”  Stefano said absently as we reached the end of the long road leading away from the graveyard.

“Does it bother you?”  I asked, looking over at him.

“No.”  He said with a shake of his head.  “I’m glad she had someone to love her as much as you did.”

“Do you ever think about walking away from all of this?”  I tapped the driver’s shoulder and pointed towards a liquor store ahead.  He nodded in confirmation.

“Sometimes, but then I realize I like having more money than I can spend and an endless supply of pussy.”  He cracked a smile as the car pulled into the parking lot.

“Yeah…”  I nodded.  “There is that…”

We drank from our bottle with the conversation getting a little lighter once we had an adequate amount of booze in us.  I still couldn’t get Angela off my mind.  I felt trapped between my love for a memory and my strange feelings for a woman I barely knew.  How could one sexual encounter make me feel so confused?  Once we got back to the house, I retired to my room and looked at the wall.  I had created a montage of the Madison family, each with a target drawn over their face.  I pulled the picture of Angela off the wall and stared at it, thinking back to our encounter.  By all accounts, she was nothing more than a useless member of society, important only to her family—and maybe her best friend who was still locked up in one of our cells.  She was so beautiful, so naive, and so confusing.  I sighed and pinned her portrait back to the wall, reaching into my pocket and pulled out my switchblade.  I flicked the blade out and jammed it through her face.

“I’m not through with you yet, Angela Madison.”  I said angrily as I stared at the image of her face lodged beneath my blade.

Chapter 7:  Angela

I woke up in my bed and sat up with a pounding in my ears.  My shoulder ached and my back was sore.  I rolled out of bed and removed my nightgown, staring at my bruises in the mirror.  The mysterious Braden had left his mark on me.  Without the physical evidence, I might have thought the whole thing was a strange dream, but there was no denying what I saw.  Braden had been real and I fucked him.  Nothing could change that.  I was fairly certain I would never see him again.  I didn’t even know his last name.  I ran a bath and sank into the suds, letting the warm water ease some of the suffering in my muscles.  After laying there for a while, I washed myself and got dressed in my normal attire, a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt.  I walked out of my room and looked into Danielle’s room.  She was already studying like her life depended on it.  I rolled my eyes and walked downstairs to the living room where my mother was attempting to work out in front of the television.

“We have a gym, mom.”  I said, motioning towards the basement door.

“The gym doesn’t have enough room for Tae-Bo.”  She threw a leg up in an awkward kick.  “How’s your head?”

“Ask me again after I have a cup of coffee.”  I walked towards the kitchen.

“What’s wrong with your head?”  My father asked, stepping out of the kitchen sipping a cup of the nectar I needed.

“Nothing, dad…”  I smiled with a tilt of my head and walked past him.

“Did you ever hear from Ronald?”  He asked loudly as I poured a cup.

“No…”  I realized I hadn’t even checked my phone.  I ran upstairs and grabbed it, walking down them with a blank screen in front of me.  “Still nothing…”

“Have you tried calling his parents?”  My mom asked as I sat down in the living room.

“No, I think they’d call me if he was actually missing.”  My phone suddenly started ringing in my hands and Ronald’s home phone number flashed.  “Okay, that might actually be them.  He never calls me from his home phone.”  I pressed the button and lifted it to my ear.  “Hello?”

“Hi Angela, this is Beverly.  Have you seen Ronald?  He’s not answering his phone and he didn’t come home last night.  Is he crashing at your house again?”  The voice on the other end of the phone was Ronald’s mother.

“No, Mrs. Edwards, I actually haven’t heard from him at all.  I thought he was mad at me for something and avoiding me.  You haven’t heard from him either?”  I felt a sudden surge of overwhelming worry.

“No, but you know how he is.  If you hear from him, please have him call me.”  She sighed.

“Absolutely, I’ll call a few of our friends and see if they’ve heard from him.”  My eyebrows folded together in concern.  “Please call me if you hear from him.”

“Of course; thank you dear.”  Mrs. Edwards ended the call.

“His parents haven’t heard from him either…”  I said absently as I stared at my phone.

“When was the last time you talked to him?”  My father asked.

“I spoke with him day before yesterday, but nothing seemed off with him.  Let me make a few calls.”  I darted up the stairs with my phone, dialing the first of our mutual friends.

Every conversation was the same as the one before it.  None of our friends had heard from Ronald.  It was like he had dropped off the planet without a trace.  The worry really started to build because it seemed like Ronald wasn’t simply avoiding me.  Unfortunately, Ronald had a history of random benders and getting swept up into the lifestyle his family’s wealth provided him.  It was nothing for him to start partying in New York City and end up in Las Vegas by the time he finally came down, although it had been an awful long time since he did something like that.  It seemed like he really took his job seriously and most of his partying consisted of going out with me or a couple of our friends.  It was entirely plausible, although I thought it rather unlikely, that he was bedded up with a tramp somewhere.  I finally conceded my search and walked back downstairs to find my mother’s exercise routine done and my father still sipping his coffee.

“Did you find out anything?”  He asked as I sat down.

“No, most people thought it was strange that I was calling them looking for Ronald.  Usually it is the other way around.”  I sighed and shook my head.

“Maybe his mother should file a police report.  If nobody has heard from him since Thursday, he is technically a missing person at this point.”  He picked up his newspaper and flipped through it.

“If he doesn’t show up for work on Monday, something is definitely wrong.”  I flipped over to my text messages and winced at the ones I sent while I was buzzed the night before.

“I would have already filed a police report if it was you or Danielle.”  He peeked over his paper at me.

“If it was Danielle and you didn’t find her nose in a book or her face pressed up to the television screen playing a video game, you would probably need to send out the National Guard.”  I smiled and chuckled.

“If it was Danielle, what?”  My sister came bouncing down the stairs.

“Sorry sis, we were just talking about Ronald.  Nobody has heard from him since Thursday.”  She sat down and her eyebrows showed concern.

“Seriously?  Well why isn’t anyone looking for him?”  Her voice got elevated.

“What do you think we should do, go check his room?  He could be anywhere.”  I shook my head and rolled my eyes.

“Maybe he’s just tired of chasing after you all the damn time.”  Danielle got up and ran back upstairs, stomping the entire way.

“What the hell is wrong with her?”  I looked over my shoulder with a confused look on my face.

“Really?”  My father asked.  “You don’t know your sister has a crush on Ronald?”

“What!?”  I broke out laughing.  “Are you serious?”

“Don’t give her a hard time about it, Angela.  You were her age once.”  He placed the paper down in front of him and picked up his coffee.

“Maybe mom should spend her time trying to set them up instead of complaining that I have no interest in him then.”  I continued to chuckle.