AllFreeNovel
Share Us
THE SMELL OFbleach and antiseptic burns my nose. I hate the smell of hospitals. I also hate crowds. I’m here for mom. It’s my mantra. I have to keep repeating it. Everything we have ever done has led us here. I can’t afford to screw anything up. We are sitting ducks unless I play my cards right.
My mother, Violet Bianco, or Charlotte Smith as she is currently known as, is sick. Kidney failure. She needs dialysis and a new kidney. Which means we have to stay put. We never stay in one place for long. Not when events that took place before I was born have haunted my mother and me my entire life.
A hit-man.
A goddamn hit-man is hunting us. He isn’t the first. He won’t be the last unless my plan goes according to plan. My mother hasn’t told me much. She thinks she’s protecting me. I wish she would trust me to protect her back. I’ve been doing it anyway. For years I have taken lessons from an acquaintance of hers, Ronan. He’s ex-military. Won’t say which branch. Says it’s classified. He lives off the grid. My mom met him her first year on the run. He was in between missions when he found her in labor in her car on the side of a deserted road. Being the stand-up guy that he is, he helped delivery me, then protected us for the first two years of my life.
I long wondered if he had fallen in love with my mother. Both deny it. He claims he’s not capable of love. That, I could believe. I’m not sure I believe in it either. Too much bad shit has happened. Too many so called “friends” have turned their back on us for me to trust anyone. Ronan is the closest I have come, aside from my mother.
My mother on the other hand still believes in love. Still clings to it. My father was her high school sweetheart. She loved him with all her heart. Still does. She ran from him to protect us and him. His life was threatened. She knew the threat was real. It broke her to leave him. I’m not sure she has healed from it, even after all these years. It doesn’t help that she is constantly reminded of it. Each time we run, each threat she receives is a reminder of what she once had. What she protects. She says he doesn’t even know I exist.
I often wonder what would happen if he did. Would he care? Would he embrace his role as father? Does he remember my mother? Does he know of her sacrifice for him?
Shortly after my second birthday the first hit-man found us. Ronan took care of him. After that my mother knew we needed to leave. We wouldn’t be safe staying in one place for long. Ronan agreed. He set us up with new identities, a car, and money.
We have kept in contact with him over the years. Since I was ten, I have spent a month with him each summer and two weeks in the winter training. My mother protested at first. Until the ninth hit-man came. He came in the dark. Disabled the alarm system on our apartment and crept into her room. I am a light sleeper. Ronan trained my body to listen for danger even when sleeping. It was gruesome training. Two weeks in the wilderness every year alone with Ronan “hunting” me. Keeping me on my toes even in the dead of night. Never knowing when I would wake up with a spider in my blanket, or a snake wrapped around my ankles. I hate them both. I know they are ridiculous fears, but they genuinely freak me out. I have seen brains splattered on concrete and a man’s intestines lying outside his body without so much as blinking. Put a spider in front of me and I lose my shit.
In addition to Ronan’s training. I frequent the gym to stay in peak physical condition, and take various martial arts and self-defense classes. My body is my best weapon. My mind is second. Though my friend Luna likes to think otherwise.
Luna is a hacker. The world’s best. There isn’t a system she can’t get into. She’s been my mentor for the last three years. We came across each other on the dark web. I was searching for information on my father. She kept blocking me. I attacked back but got nowhere. Just before I was going to slam my laptop shut and give up. Her face appeared on my screen. She had hacked my computer and camera.
I remember instantly freezing. Not having any idea what to do. My first thought was that she was one of the hit-men or at least working for them. Even after she assured me she wasn’t I didn’t trust her. I trust her now. Or at least as much as I allow myself to trust anyone. She has spent years teaching me about computers and how to gain access to camera and security systems that otherwise would have taken me decades to learn on my own. Not to toot my own horn, but I have gotten pretty damn good.
It turned out that Luna was also looking for someone. The man who killed her father. He was a NYC cop. Killed in the line of duty. He was a good man, a good cop. Not a bad word could be said about him. The same can’t be said for his partner. Luna says he murdered her father because he learned what illegal crap he was up to and tried to get him to stop. After that, he went dark. He quit the force and went underground. Luna has been hunting him ever since. He has connections in the underworld that are protecting him.
She says she’s close. She knows just where he is. I get the feeling she is taunting him. Keeping him scared and running just to mess with him. Luna doesn’t deal in blood. Not like I have to. I don’t want to. It comes with the territory. In my life its kill or be killed. I never kill an innocent. Only those that hunt me, and eventually those on my list. The list of people who threaten my mother and me, but also my father and his family. I hold no love for him. I could leave his threats off my list if I wanted to. I don’t. Vengeance keeps my blood pumping. It fuels my adrenalin and keeps me vigilant.
I enter my mom’s room. She’s sleeping. I take my usual spot in the chair I’ve pulled close to her bed. My back to the wall. Tablet on my lap. Feet up on the bed next to hers. She’s been sleeping a lot lately. I can only imagine the pain she must be in. When she’s awake she tells me she is fine. It’s a lie. The weight of our running and the danger of staying in one place weighs on her every day we stay here. I want to take her and run. Run as far away as I can. If only I was a match. I would have given her my Kidney in a heartbeat.
She’s on the waiting list for one. I hate it. The best odds she has of getting a match is a family member. When she ran she left them behind. They think she died twenty years ago.
It’s why we are here. In Chicago. My mother’s hometown. It’s why I’m on edge. My father is here. In this city. As is the man who put the hit out on my mother.
Us being here is twofold. One, to get my mother a Kidney and her strength back. The second, vengeance.
I’m waiting for Luna’s signal. She’s helping me with my plan. I’m going after the man who threatened my family. By nightfall the hit should be called off and my mother free to contact her family. We will finally be able to stop running. We can settle down. Buy a house. Put down roots. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do it. I’ve never known that kind of stability. For my mother though, I’ll try anything.
My cell phone dings from my pocket. Before I can look I know it’s a text message.
Cold feet?It’s Luna.
Warm as can be.I type back.
Good. ETA twenty minutes. Move your pretty butt.
I laugh. It feels good to laugh. Maybe when this is all over I will laugh more.
CHAPTER THREE
Luca
THE WALK WITHthe Don to his office is quiet. The eeriness of it sets me on edge. It’s rare the house is this quiet. There are always dozens of people milling about. From soldiers, capos, maids, to gardeners. You name it and they are here. The house isn’t so much a house as it is a mansion. It’s the headquarters for the Caruso Family.
It’s one of those old money houses. Been in the family for generations. Ever since the family came to rule the city in 1904. The house isn’t my style. I prefer modern architecture. Clean lines and minimal clutter. The walls here are lined with paintings, sculptures, and various works of art. They are worth hundreds of millions. As far as I know the Don isn’t an art enthusiast. He pays no mind to the artwork once it’s in his possession.
I long thought he bought it for someone in the family. Now I think collecting art has become a habit for the Don. Something he can do that makes him feel powerful by shelling out millions for a canvas while being unrelated to the darker side of business.
The Don doesn’t say anything as we meander down the hall. We rarely need to communicate on our walks. After working side by side the last seven years we have developed a bond. Don Caruso, my father and me. Our roles as Don, Underboss, and Heir have been blurred, but it works for us. Piece by piece the Don has been handing over more responsibilities to me and my father has begun to train my chosen second, my childhood friend Massimo. We’ve had each other’s backs since we were in diapers.
