Survivor (The Soul Mates Series Book 1) (10 page)

“Do.  Not.  Speak!” My father roared so loud that I jumped.  Guiseppe was getting closer to Uncle Morty and I was starting to feel queasy.  “It seems that I can really only trust my family and because of your behavior I’ve had to bring my princess into this life, the life that cost me my wife.  My fucking beautiful girl.  The one person that this life should never touch.  Your actions mean she now has to live this life,
brother.” 
I had no idea what that meant but these words seem to be causing him physical pain.  “Your actions mean that Lucky is finished in Miami and when I say finished, I mean out to grass in a way he’s never going to recover.”

“No Franc, he has a family,” Uncle Morty whispered holding his head in his hands.

“You did that.  You put his family in that position you greedy motherfucker.  His wife and kids will be visiting him in that place until he recovers… or not.  That,
brother
, is on you.”

“Let… let me make it up to you, we can work this out.  I made a mistake when I was under pressure Frankie.”

“No.  We’re done.  Guiseppe…” My brother finally stepped into play and Uncle Morty collapsed to the ground sobbing.  I didn’t like what I saw, but I was too terrified to intervene.  I could tell my father was upset and hurt, he and Morton Foakes had grown up together, he was my father’s groomsman and a godfather to us all.  He was so deeply disappointed and I’d never seen this side of him, I had no idea what to say.

“You needed to see that Antonia, you needed to see what hurt and betrayal feels like.  Morty under estimated you, if he had even the slightest idea that you had uncovered his activities he would have run after the last time we spoke.  His biggest mistake however, was under estimating me.  Do not do that, do not under estimate my reaction to betrayal and never be blinded by love.”

“Yes father,” I knew there was a lesson I should be learning here but my mind refused to piece it together, it couldn’t get past the dead look in my brother’s eyes and the sight of a grown man on his knees begging for his life.

“You’ve proved yourself to me and as much as Guiseppe is against it, you’re joining the family business.  My contact in the IRS assures me your book keeping and forensic accounting is spot on.  Morty has given me some trust issues, which means you’re up.  You are now running our books, doing our finances and our accounts, the whole fucking kit and caboodle.”

“Really?”

“Luca, Valentino and Leonardo will bring you all the books from the businesses.  Mattia will be on hand to help you with whatever you need, although he’s got other tasks to keep him busy.  You’ll report into Guiseppe on the master ledger.  I want you checking the validity of all the regional business ledgers before you roll up the financials to the master.  You will present the master accounts on request to your brother and me once a month.  If you come across something that can’t wait, you report it to him immediately.  You will be paid a wage and like the others join the family bonus scheme and as such you will be as accountable as the family in the event of bad times.  Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“No.  Thinking so is not good enough.  Yes or no Antonia?  One day all this will be Guiseppe’s and your chance to impress is now.  This is your last chance to walk away.”

“I’m in.”  I didn’t even think about it.

My father walked forward and took me in his arms, “My beautiful girl, joining the business.  Please understand your importance.  The information you will learn is as vital to our survival as it is to our demise.  Do not put me or your brother in a position where we regret this decision and ultimately have to take action we’d rather not.”

Holy shit, I knew what that meant.  “I won’t father, I’ll make you proud of me.  I promise.”

When Guiseppe returned later that night, he stopped by my room and formally expressed his discontent with the decision made by our father.  He was troubled, I knew that he’d dealt with Morty’s punishment himself, it was a lesson he needed to meter out in person.  For everyone’s sake they needed to see the evil that my brother was capable of. 

“I know he thought you could walk away, after that one job and not be involved now, not be a threat.  But you forget I know what you’re really capable of,” he told me.

“Know what?”

“You were already in too deep the first time you laid your pretty eyes on those pages.  You’d already seen too much.  Your skill or fucking gift has always been a blessing Toni, but fuck, right now it is your curse.  You couldn’t walk away from this even if you wanted to.  I suspect you already know this.”

“Guiseppe…” I was going to try and convince him that I wanted this.  I finally had some purpose and grounding to connect with my family.

“Please Antonia, don’t put me in a position where I have to do something else that sends me to hell.  I beg you.”  He was disheveled and had been drinking a little as he wiped his hands over the growth of whiskers on his chin.  I couldn’t answer him, it was all I could do to pull my emotions together enough to nod in agreement, my brother looked lost, but a lot like the boy I remember.

He was too far gone into a life he couldn’t walk away from.  I misunderstood his original insistence at keeping me out of the business, I thought he hated me and didn’t see what I could do as valuable.  It wasn’t that, it was just the opposite, he knew what getting involved would mean and he was always just trying to protect me.

If ever the saying
be careful what you wish for
was true, it was now.

I’d wished for inclusion and the reality was something very different and frighteningly ugly.  The reality meant I’d end up paying for it with my freedom and probably my life, at the hands of my brother.

*****

Ross

I’d rarely found anything surprising of late, but fuck me, her story was enchanting.  Someone wanting to be involved and loved being sucked up into a life she couldn’t possible envisage.  Hearing that, after she’d already blown my mind with the training exercise, finally made the pieces slot together into one crazy coherent picture and it was amazingly ugly. 

I couldn’t imagine how anyone lived a life where they remembered everything that their eyes had ever seen and the pain of being unable to forget.  It was such a simple luxury that we mere mortals took for granted, when I thought of what this girl had seen and been through, it was unbelievable and I felt fucking overwhelmed.  It was a surprise she hadn’t ended in a facility somewhere, rocking and staring at a corner.  Even being able to comprehend growing up with the normal trials of childhood would be bad enough, not being able to forget the cruel acts of children must have been horrid, but for her, growing up in that family, well… words failed me.

After her outburst I had to pull my shit together pretty quickly, I could see a range of emotions work through her.  Cara seemed relieved to be able to say those things out loud but at the same time she was terrified at having laid herself wide open.  I got the impression she expected a specific response from me, if I was to have a guess, it would be one of a travelling circus freak, fortunately my face was impassive.

“What happens now Ross?”

“What do you mean?”

“Now you know, what happens?”

“Cara, babe, I don’t follow, should somethin’ different happen?”

She looked at me all confused, “In all my life, no one has taken that information on, or figured it out and not demanded I hide it or exploit me in some way.”

I stepped closer to her and stroked her cheek, “Again, I don’t know what to do with that baby.”  I realized that if I was in her personal space, she concentrated on me, it was shit of me to resort to this and use it, but if intimidation helped me get a straight answer, I’d go with it.

“My father learned pretty quickly, I was an asset, the information in my brain was the key to his entire estate.  I went from being a misunderstood youngster, to a prisoner treated like a human tape recorder or Xerox machine.  My brothers used to make me listen to conversations and repeat them back and it was fun at first.  But when they realized I was retaining visual information as well as spoken details, I was hidden away.  I became far too precious to live a normal life.  For a while I tried to forget stuff or at least pretend, but my stupid brain protested about that.  It had a switch that used to trip me up when I lied.”

“Sounds a lot like my brain,” I joked.

“It was like I wasn’t capable of lying.  The amount of times Mattia used to try and lie for me or tell our father and Guiseppe that he was to blame for things was crazy,” I watched her take a deep breath in, I knew she was working up to something.  “He was like a human punch bag and he just took it all, to protect me.  That’s the one thing I can’t get straight in my head, what’s happening to him now.  I can’t cope with thinking that they’re….”

“OK hush, your head is filled with enough stuff without you crammin’ in extra stuff by lettin’ your imagination loose.  No more dredgin’ up memories tonight, I’m pleased as fuck you’re sharing, but enough.”  I took her in my arms and leaned down to kiss her, I promised myself I wouldn’t do this and I’d wait for her to be ready.  Just one kiss won’t hurt, we both need that connection and I try and tell myself I won’t let it progress.  I felt her meet my kiss in return and then struggle to wrap her arms around my massive frame, only when I heard her whimper, causing my cock to harden did I pull away.  “Your decision baby.  I’m ready, just say the word, but maybe tonight you need a good night’s rest.”

“Thank you Ross,” she whispered, resting her cheek against my chest.  I’m fairly sure she was listening to my heart, trying to see if it was as out of control as I know her own.  Her response made me ache, in a good way, deep inside.  It felt like I was soaring, there was no promotion to be gained, no good graces to win for the department head, it was just me doing something out of the goodness of my heart.  Hearing the way she said those words made me understand that no one had genuinely, shown her good old fashioned kindness.  This girl was perceptive to her surrounding’s and emotions, she’d learned that trait to survive as long as she had and I had no idea how I was going to keep her safe anymore.  It wasn’t like we could hand back some accounting ledgers that she’d stolen, she was the fucking ledger. 

No, in order to keep her calm and safe, I was going to need my under cover skills, because right now, I was playing a game of pretend.  I was pretending that everything is going to be OK until I figured out what the fuck to do.

We ate dinner later on, the atmosphere felt different and I knew it was because she had come clean.  We relaxed casually on the front porch eating chicken and roasted vegetables on mismatched plates, shoveling food with forks, not feeling the need to engage in conversation.  The evening sun was warm and I let my crazy male hormones wander to places I promised her I wouldn’t.  Hearing her story had made me feel closer to her, only it was not the kind of closer I was after.  I took our plates back inside and dumped them in the sink before grabbing a couple of cold beers and going back to sit next to her.  “You doing OK?”

“I think so, for the first time I’m terrified because of what could be, but in a good way.”  There was no mistaking the glint and desire in her eyes, she wanted me as much as I wanted her, but I was determined, she had to make that first move.  I glared back at her, pleading with her to understand and give my body the go ahead.  “Ross…, I don’t know how to do this?”

“What feels right baby?”

“This does,” she answered immediately.

“That’s a good start, tell me what you want,” I said, surprised when my own voice sounded shaky.

“You,” and her positive response was again instantaneous.

Her cute effort to push through her nervousness made me chuckle, “Good to know babe.”

I stopped talking to give her some space, there was still something going on and I hated to think about what it could be, asking her meant that she’d probably drop a shit load of more bad news and I didn’t want her to have to do that tonight.  Finally, she began, “I’ve never, I don’t, I’m…” she leant forward and very gently kissed me on the lips, it was something so slight and extremely powerful that I felt my dick tingle.  It knew where this was going.

“Son, I said take care of her but I didn’t mean
take care of her
,” came a voice I was not expecting to be hearing so soon.  Even at his age, he took every opportunity to get the drop on me and have a little fun.

“Fuck, dad’s back,” I stated obviously and Cara jumped back embarrassed.  That part of her reaction didn’t last long, it wasn’t hard to tell that she’d missed him. 

In a movement, completely unexpected by my dad, she spun round and hugged him, “Welcome home Sam.”  The look my old man gave me conveyed he was happy that I’d made some progress with her, just not the type of progress he was expecting.

“Hey pretty lady, what’s shakin’?”

“Lots,” she said excitedly, it would seem we’d opened the flood gates on the communication front.  “Did you have a good trip?”

“Sure did sweetheart, I came home a winner.  Son, grab me a cold one.” I bet he came home with more dollars than he dropped, time to get this information out into the open so he knew what he’d got his hands on.

Nearly an hour later, with some very emotional and gut wrenching tales from the bravest woman I knew, I got the impression my dad didn’t really believe it all.  I encouraged Cara to do a little show and tell and after quoting passages from books and films they’d both read, telling him what clothes he wore, what he ate and what scrap car he worked on the day she arrived, he was still on the fence.  After that he went and got an engineer instruction manual, gave her a few minutes to read it and then read it back to him as he followed the script on the page.  It was a fucking neat parlor trick.  At this point I wasn’t sure whether he was stunned or amused, so I told him to throw some complex math at her, he did this until he realized he needed a calculator to keep up with her.

My dad’s attitude then changed, he wanted to see if he could outwit her, so he went and grabbed the first junkyard ledger she’d worked on and as expected she recalled all the details of something that had gathered dust for nearly a year.

We sat in silence for a few minutes whilst he spun it round in his head, he then burst out laughing, “Son, “ he bellowed, “You’re fucked.  There is no winnin’ any arguments with this one, no lyin’ to get outta doing shitty chores and no back trackin’ over crazy stuff you wished you’d never said.  This is gonna be fun.  What the fuck Mouse?”

“Mouse?” Cara queried, clearly he’d never called her formally by the name he’d shared with me in the past.

“Yeah, Mouse.  You were as quiet as one when you first got here, but now I know it really fits.  They’re clever, rarely make a fuss, are sensible yet nervous but survive utilizin’ the resources of others.  Mice are compliant and fuckin’ big on self reliance for survival.  Those wiley little things are canny enough to appreciate there is no free cheese, ‘cause it’s always in a fuckin’ mouse trap.  They’re skittish and uncomfortable when out in the open and neat and organized.  Definitely mouse.”

Cara was amazed at my dad’s summary of her down to a fine point, this was his parlor trick and it had served him well over the years on the job.  “That’s me,” she whispered.

“What’s more, they’re creatures of habit, schedules and fuckin’ routine, which if you remember is how I tripped you up in the first place.”

“And me,” I joined in.

“Holy moly,” yeah, Cara was still astonished at this description.

“So, like I said sweet heart, mouse.”

“Sam, I’m rarely surprised.  Horrified, yes, appalled and disgusted, definitely but surprised not really.  I don’t know whether being a mouse is a good thing.”

“Good thing you think like that, I ain’t finished.  They’re considered a pest and can be a dangerous infestation.  You usually have to deal with infestations swiftly so they don’t rage out of control.  I dare say your family will be thinking the same and at some point they gotta be considering upin’ their game to get you back.  Bottom line, never under estimate the mouse.”  I didn’t get involved in this part of the conversation, but I was pleased that my dad had used his words carefully, we both knew they didn’t want her back, they wanted her dead.  It was important that Cara heard this from him, he was now forging his own path to gaining her trust and this was the beauty of his parlor trick, deliver some serious fucking information in a gentle manner you can cope with.  “Do we have a plan son?”

“Well seein’ as I’m only ahead of you by a few hours on the information front, not really.  But I’m thinkin’ play with them and then fuck them up.  Study the family, understand their weak spots outside of Cara and then seek external, expert council.”

“Shit,” he whispered, “You’re gonna bring in that crazy motherfucker aren’t you?”

“Absolutely, hunt the hunter is his kind of fun, he’s gonna be pissed if I don’t, especially when he knows who we’ve got here.”

“Holy mother of God.  Lord help us, no, Lord help save
them
from Jonas fuckin’ Drakeson,” my dad mumbled swigging his beer.  And as if an earth defining thought had just flashed through his brain, he jumped up causing beer to slosh out of his bottle.  “You mean to tell me, I’ve just been on my annual card trip and I could have been learnin’ tricks from a fuckin’ numbers genius?”

“Uh… counting cards is illegal Sam,” Cara told him, the incredulous look on her face caused me to burst out laughing.

“I’m not talkin’ about no fuckin’ Casino, Ocean’s Eleven shit, I’m talkin’ about wipin’ the smile off Big Dave’s face.  I’ve been waiting twenty years to pull one over on that shady motherfucker.”

“Oh that, yeah, I can help you do that.”

“Now we’re talkin’ Mouse, I’ll have to see if I can work another game into the schedule quick, I ain’t waitin’ a year for it,”  even I could see his mind plotting, so it wasn’t lost on Cara either.  She looked carefree for the brief time my dad waxed lyrical about smacking Big Dave around a card table, making her gift out to be something fun and special rather what she’d felt all her life, a freak show.  Seeing Cara like this was something new, it made her sparkle and it was a side of her I was drawn to, I wanted to see it more often and more importantly be the cause of it.

“Son, it’s settled, we’ve gotta keep Mouse in one piece.  I need to pull off this rip roarin’ humiliation of Big Dave, that Cuban heeled-suit wearin’ motherfucker needs choppin’ down to the size he should be, without those ridiculous shoes.  I mean, the silly fool ain’t even classy enough to wear cowboy boots.  Nope, fuckin’ pimp shoes instead.  Thinks he’s all that and has
game
, I mean, who the fuck thinks they got
game
?”

“No problem dad, I’m on it.”  I confirmed giving Cara a smile, he was doing an amazing job of making her feel a part of what we were about to undertake rather than a burden.

For once, her life had some meaning and if she let herself she would definitely have some fun doing it.  It was something special to see my dad shine too, he’d given up on most things after my mom passed so it seemed Cara brought the best out in him too.