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Bodies of armed guards peppered with bullets lie around the room. But they aren’t what have my attention. I move to the center of the room, dazed, and yet aware enough not to step in the blood or disrupt the evidence. My eyes widen in horror, as does my mouth, as without blinking, I take in the bodies of the brotherhood superiors. Unsurprisingly, they’ve been tortured. I knew Alister Amato had a personal reason for going after them. I expected this much. So, it’s not the chunks of human flesh, scattered fingernails, and teeth that make me quiver. It’s the X carved across their chests and torsos that pulls me in and takes me back to the night I lost everything, back to the night I lost her.
Before the memories can take over, I peel my eyes from the tortured corpses and rush out of the room. I lift my hand to my mouth, pretending like I have to vomit. It’s a normal response to such a scene and yet it isn’t the reason for my reaction. But no one can know that.
I make my way through the boat and out onto the deck overlooking the water. “It can’t, it can’t be…” Once I’m sure I’m alone, I drop to the floor and pull my knees to my chest. Despite the sultry summer heat, I feel cold as fresh tears drip down my cheeks. “All this time, all this time and he was right here.” I bury my face in my hands as more tears fall. I gave up on discovering the truth of what happened to my mother long ago. But after the way those bodies were mutilated, the same way my mother’s body was, I can’t ignore the commonality.
“Ariana? Hey, are you okay?” Ray’s voice soaks up my tears like a sponge. I quickly wipe any dampness from my cheeks and move my hand to my stomach, once more feigning nausea.
“Hey, yeah. Just queasy.” I stand as Ray reaches me.
“Yeah, I get it. That in there… It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
I nod, wishing I could say the same. “Yeah, I… It’s not something I’ll ever forget.” At that, I move past him and get back to work.
After eighteen years of pretending like I was okay not knowing the truth, telling myself my mother wouldn’t want me stuck in the past, that one night and that stupid X brought everything back, as if it ever left me. And I haven’t been able to sleep a solid night since. Every night, I go to sleep with the memories of my mother’s murder playing behind my closed eyes. Every morning, I wake to either the sounds of her screams or of my cries, the ones that ripped from a ten-year-old me as I sat stuck in the air vent she hid me in. I must’ve cried for days before the stench of my mother’s rotting flesh got the neighbors’ attention.
As anger replaces the sadness inside me, I grit my teeth and turn up the volume. Alister Amato and his sadistic family don’t deserve a minute of my time. And yet, as I sit down on my couch, my eyes and ears refuse to leave him. Because, after all this time, I deserve the truth, and my mother deserves justice. And Alister Amato, he’s the only one who can give it to me, tous.
As Alister opens with a spill on the brotherhood, I settle in, tossing a blanket over my legs. Maybe I should’ve stayed. I could’ve confronted him afterward and finally, this anticipation, this Hell would be over. But that’s exactly what Bilieux was afraid of. I may not have gotten fired for my previous outburst, but if I went after Amato today, that would’ve been the end of my time with the bureau. Of course, that’s a risk I continue to take as I plan the perfect moment for a confrontation with the Blood King.
I know he didn’t kill my mother. He was only a child when she was murdered, just as I was. But with his father no longer with us and Alister’s position as the head of the Amato criminal organization, he, no doubt, has access to records of the hits issued by previous heads of his family, especially those ordered by his father, Domenico. After seeing the way the brotherhood members’ bodies were mutilated, there’s no denying the attack against my mother was orchestrated by the same group, or rather,family.The question is why? In my experience, hits are power plays, either to maintain or gain power. That means my mother must’ve posed a threat to the Amatos. But how?
After all this time, I need to know who partook in the killing of my mother, and I need to know why. It’s a simple request, really. Though one I doubt Alister will oblige. Kingpins such as him are bred to obey a code of silence and loyalty. Despite the fact that his loyalty is to murderers, drug dealers, and potentially people of worse character, Alister won’t easily turn against them. He can’t without risking his own safety and the safety of those he loves. Which, in fact, is the only reason I haven’t confronted him in the three months I’ve been on leave from the bureau.
My approach must be calculated. I need to find a way to get to him when his guard is down, and his security is light. Which is why I’ve opted for an indirect approach into his world. It took only a few weeks of yoga classes before his sister, Sophia, and I started getting coffee and then lunch. We’ve become friends, well, friendly enough to use her to get an introduction to her brother. Three months in the making, tonight is the night I will come face-to-face with Alister Amato.
The plan is simple. Seduce him so I can get him alone, where I’ll either question him directly or use my powers of persuasion to get him to trust me. I’m prepared for the long con, though I hope it doesn’t come to that. Despite her belonging to a family whose history is drenched in blood, I don’t like lying to Sophia. She’s a nice person. At least she seems to be. Maybe it’s just a front she puts on for outsiders like me. Then again, I can’t exactly judge her considering I do the same thing only for a different reason.
And yet, as I watch Alister’s chiseled face etch with pain as he recounts the horrific way he lost his sister, Sophia isn’t the only one I feel guilty for using. The loss of his sister is still fresh, and given the horrific nature of her death, I can only imagine Alister is still hurting. Taking advantage of him during this vulnerable time makes me sick to my stomach because I know what it’s like to lose someone so violently and suddenly you are haunted by their death. And yet, my sympathy for him quickly evaporates as the images of the bodies left in his wake flash through my mind.
My cheeks burn with a cocktail of fear and anticipation as I stare into Alister’s golden-brown eyes. His dark brows crinkle as he speaks, making him look even more wicked, dangerous than I know him to be. I’m confident in my abilities, but I’d be stupid to think this is going to be easy. From experience, both my own and with the FBI, I know that people respond to vulnerability in one of two drastically different ways. Either they give in to their emotions and circumstances, allowing themselves to be crippled by them, or they become paranoid and obsessive, hell-bent on overcoming their trauma. I’d like to think Alister will be an easy target given his emotional state. But, as I watch him now and notice the slight curl to his lip, the glint in his eye as he stares down the camera, it’s as if he knows a war of sorts is coming. And he’s ready for it, which makes him more dangerous than ever.
At that, I pause the program and pull my eyes away from him. My muscles tense as I anticipate what the night will bring. For the con to work, he can’t know that I’m FBI, even though my position with the bureau might be the only thing to save me if he learns the real reason why I’m inserting myself into his life. Then again, knowing what I know of him, something tells me even my badge won’t save me from his wrath. And yet, the fear of being captured, tortured, murdered even is not the greatest fear catapulting inside me. The truth is, as much as I want,needto know why my mother was killed, I’m afraid of what the answers will reveal.
I stand and make my way from the living room, through the kitchen, and down the hallway toward my bedroom. This isn’t the first time I’ve searched for answers regarding the night I lost my mother. When I turned eighteen and finally got out on my own, the first thing I did was search for the truth. But I was so young when my mother died and our life so unusual, I didn’t have much to go on. There were no family photos or knickknacks let alone relatives who could answer my questions. I didn’t even know our last name because we never used it. My mother didn’t have credit cards, at least from what I saw. Now that I think of it, I never even saw a bill sitting on the dining room table. But the unusual nature of my upbringing doesn’t end there.
Before entering the foster care system, I can’t remember ever attending a school. The only time we left our apartment was when my mother took me to the park once a week for a cheap picnic by the river. That or when I stayed with our neighbor while my mother presumably went to work. At that, I wince. I didn’t know back then what kind of work my mother did nor did I make any headway in that area until recently—a painful discovery to say the least.
Inside my bedroom, the sunlight streams in through two sets of French doors, much like my living room. It glints off the crystal chandelier hanging from the tall ceilings of the ancient building I call home. Despite its age, my current home is a far cry from the small, dark, and drafty apartment my mother and I lived in. I move across the room and yank my curtains closed, blocking out the light and any prying eyes. Like I said, crippled or paranoid. Can you guess which one I am?
With the room shrouded in darkness, I move through the familiar space to my armoire and, like I have a thousand times before, I find the Polaroid taped to the back. When I began my search for my mother, the only connection I had to her was the building we lived in and a single name, a name I’d never heard spoken until the night I witnessed her murder—Valentina. I bite my lip as I drop to the floor. The building got me nowhere. There was no record of anyone named Valentina ever living there. I even searched public records, but without a last name to input, my search didn’t get very far. It wasn’t until the night of the brotherhood investigation, the night I realized my mother’s connection to the Amatos, that I finally made some investigative headway.
I flip the Polaroid over and see my mother wearing high heels and bits of lingerie. I found it on a wall covered in photos just like this one inside one of the strip clubs owned by the Amatos, despite the fact that there is no record of a woman named Valentina ever working there. There’s no writing on the photo revealing her name or the year it was taken. But it’s her. Another unexplainable connection to the Amatos and the New Orleans underbelly.
I remember her curls and her eyes clear as day. And yet, as I look at her, I know nothing of her but the stories I’ve told myself over the years, some to help me sleep at night, others to help me move on with my life. I told myself that everything my mother did, everything she sacrificed, even her death was for me, so that I could have a better life. It’s why I stopped looking, why I got a degree and earned a position with the FBI. I wanted,want,to help people like my mother, people who are forgotten, alone, and desperate. And it’s been an adequate Band-Aid. But now, the truth is bleeding through.
The Amatos took away my chance at knowing my mother. Based on the way we lived before her death and the frequent male visitors with bulges between their legs, I have a feeling they took a lot more than her life. They made her a ghost, a woman without a family, without hope, without a name. So much so that when Child Protective Services finally found a placement for me, they asked me what I wanted my last name to be.
“Valentine,” I whisper.
I fight through the tears threatening to fall and set my mother’s picture to the side. Emotion roiling through me, I stand, searching for an outfit worthy of drawing a king’s attention. As my fingers smooth over the black fabric of my dress, my fear eases, giving way to my determination. To Hell with Bilieux and his orders. To Hell with Alister Amato and his guards. Tonight, I will have my answers. Tonight, I will have my justice.
5
My mother’s screams wake me, though not quickly enough. I roll out of bed, groggy with sleep. But when I open my bedroom door to find my parents’ guard lying on the floor in a puddle of blood, adrenaline takes over. I run down the hallway as I hear my father say, “Please. Please, don’t.”
No! My mind makes sense of what’s happening just as the gunshot rings through the hollow halls of Laroux House. It stops me dead in my tracks as do the sounds of my father’s cries and of my mother’s body falling to the floor. My heart races, urging me forward, and yet I hesitate, not ready to see what I know waits for me.
“It hurts, doesn’t it? Losing the woman you love. But what about your children? My guess is that’ll hurt more.”
