Repaying the Mafia’s Dept

Tristan The sky is still dark from the storm.

It’s still raining, just not as heavily as it was earlier.

I’ve been sitting on the veranda outside my room for the last few hours watching the rain fall, thinking about my actions today. It’s almost night now and I feel no better than I did earlier when I assumed my post in this chair.

I’m not sure if it suffices to say I’m ashamed of myself. Shame doesn’t quite describe the way I feel.

I can be just as callous as the next mobster who has to do what he needs to, to get a job done, but there are no words for the way I’ve treated Isabella. It’s even worse when I think of the fact she’s a woman I have feelings for.Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

I can honestly say that both Alyssa and Pa would have been ashamed of me if they’d been here today and seen the way I behaved. I think both would have frowned upon me from the moment I had the idea to get Sacha to force Isabella to talk. I knew she was going to hate me, and I didn’t care. I knew there was a chance Sacha could die from the torture and I’d have to make her watch, but I didn’t care.

The fucking beast reared its ugly head in my soul and all I cared about was getting the information I needed. No matter what.

What the hell happened to me?

At what point did I truly lose my soul and go so far over the line of reason I lost my humanity too.

Shit can happen to you to seriously fuck you over, but there comes a point when you have to take stock of your inner desire to bring those to justice for the wrongs they’ve done you. It’s that point where you either allow revenge to consume you and you lose yourself, or you become the master of your passions.

That’s the difference between being a human seeking justice, or a mindless killer who’s lost his soul.

While I feel like I’m caught between both states of being, I know I believe Isabella.

I believe she doesn’t know where her father is.

I think a part of me always did but didn’t want to take the risk.

I truly knew from the second she looked at Sacha and horror filled her face. I knew then she didn’t know where her father was. And if she did, she would have given her soul in that moment to save him from death.

What brought me out of the shadows and rekindled that spark of humanity inside me were her words, her pleas. She didn’t believe I was too far gone yet to be worse than her father.

I saw how Dominic looked. Like a shell. He looked like a fucking shell as we watched a man who didn’t deserve to be tortured being used as a pawn.

We aren’t good men. We aren’t anything close to law abiding citizens. Most call us ruthless, but we’ve never been heartless, merciless men who kill and torture mindlessly.

I might be on the verge of being such, but part of my heart hangs on to the man I used to be.

I’m not sure, however, if I can make it back to the person I was, or if I want to.

I continue to get lost in the scenery before me as I work through my thoughts. The view from here is the beautiful sea rolling into the shore, gracing the white sand beach. It’s as beautiful in the dark as it is in the bright sunlight.

It’s that view there that persuaded me to buy the island. Today it looks quite different to how it looked eight years ago. Back then it was just the house and the plot of surrounding land. In comparison to most islands it looked plain, but that was one of the things I liked about it.

To me it was tabula rasa. A blank slate. The place was perfect for me to do my own thing.

I was a different man back then. I never knew as Alyssa and I ventured across the grounds talking about our dreams I was going to lose her. I never knew I was going to lose Pa either, or Andreas.

The man I was back then was imaginative and creative. He still had hope he could have a life outside the hardship he’d endured as a child.

Today was the first time I felt like that guy.

It was just a spark of who I used to be, but I felt the old me pushing through the hardness of my heart as Isabella pleaded with me. I felt like my old self for a fraction of a second again when I realized she was telling the truth about her father.

I straighten up when I see Dominic walking along the beach. He’s smoking. I’m too far away to see what it is he’s smoking but I instantly think it’s drugs, until Candace comes into view. She rushes up to him and he takes her hand.

I watch them and they don’t look like the friends I’m used to, and not when he slips his arm around her, bringing her closer as they walk away.

I watch them until I can’t see them anymore. They look like a couple and I wish that my brother could see what’s always been in front of him.

The tension leaves my shoulders and I stand, deciding to go and see Isabella. I might be the last person she’ll want to see but it’s right that I check on her.

Sitting here for much longer will just make me a pussy licking his wounds.

I left Isabella’s door unlocked. I’m not sure if she realized that. I didn’t even think when I left earlier.

The lights are out and she’s lying on her side like she’s asleep, but I’m not convinced she is.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to leave.

It’s understandable she probably doesn’t want to speak to me. I can’t expect her to after everything that’s happened.

My worry is what to do now.

I sit in the armchair at the far corner of the room and shrug out of my shirt. It’s too hot to be wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt anyway.

I grab one of the unused napkins from the table beside me and make an origami rose out of it while I watch her. I make it and set it down on the table then I rest my head back against the chair and drift off to sleep.

I fall into deep slumber, but I’m always alert. I never drift off deep enough that I’m not aware of my surroundings or what’s going on in front of me. That’s why I stir when I sense someone watching me.

I open my eyes and see her.

Isabella.

She’s standing in front of me looking so beautiful I wonder if I’m still asleep and she’s a dream.

In the bright morning sunlight, the rays light up her hair like a halo and the baggy t-shirt she wears swamps her tiny frame.

She stares at me with those bright eyes and a slight flush in her cheeks. A flush that deepens when I straighten, and she looks over the bare tattooed skin of my chest. When she brings her hands together it snaps me out of the trance, and I reach for my t-shirt.

“You slept in here last night,” she says.

“Yeah. I just… I must have drifted off.” That’s not what’s she’s asking me, though. The question is why I’m in here, but I dodge it and shrug into my shirt.

“The door’s not locked,” she says.

“Doll, you know the doors not locked and you’re telling me?” It’s an attempt at being lighthearted.

But there’s nothing lighthearted about us, although the trace of a smile touches her beautiful face.

She looks at the origami flower on the table and reaches for it. Lightly she runs her fingers over the petals then looks at me.

“Is it hard to make?”

“No. Not when you have a few tries. It just comes naturally, and you find yourself doing it with your eyes closed,” I explain.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

She leans forward to put the flower back, but I stop her.

“Keep it. I can make more.”

“Thanks.” She gazes back at me and I run a hand through my hair.

I don’t know what the hell we’re supposed to do now.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to tell Massimo besides the truth, and the way I see it, we’re back to square one.

I’m standing on square one, but now I have her. And I don’t know what to do with her.

She can’t help me and all I’ve done is wreaked havoc in her life. I’m on a quest for revenge. It’s a mission to gain something to fix a wrong that was done.

And I’m still drawn to her.

“Sacha is okay,” I tell her giving her assurance again.

“Thank you.”

“I am sorry I did that to you. Your father’s guards currently believe you escaped and he helped you. They were going to kill him when we took him. I will see to it that no one will come for him,” I add, and she looks at me with gratitude.

“Thanks. Do you… still believe me?” she asks cautiously.

I nod. “Yes. I believe you. I haven’t known you for long, but your eyes give you away.”

“Do they?”

“They do.”

“Yours give you away too.”

I consider this and know she’s right. I’m curious to know what she sees though. “What do they tell you?”

“Terrible things happened to you.”

“Terrible things happened to you too,” I point out and she nods.

“What now Tristan? I can’t help you,” she says and pulls in a staggered breath. “My father has an elaborate set up so no one can reach him. We meet three times a year now for a few hours. On my birthday, Christmas day and then once in the summer. That’s it. Each time he’s heavily guarded and he takes me to dinner like we’re a normal family. Like he’s just spending time with his daughter. Then he leaves. We talk every month by video call. That is all the contact I have with my father.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it and all it has been for years. Ever since my mother died. Before that I saw him more often. There was a period of time that changed things after she died and that’s when I was sent to live in Rhode Island. We lived in Russia before.”

“When did you speak to him last?”

“Last week.” She gives me a stiff smile. “He’s retiring and he wanted me to know that I’d be marrying Dmitri in six months when it happened.”

My brows pinch at the mention of marriage. “What?”

“Yeah. Married. I guess that’s normal. Fathers make sure their daughters get married to men who can take care of them. Not in my case though. Dmitri isn’t a normal person. It was … him who killed Eric.”

I bite down hard on my back teeth when I hear that. I already knew Dmitri killed Eric from the conversations I’d listened to prior to taking Isabella. Hearing her tell me though is different. It angers me and I feel bad for her knowing she lost someone she loved, and her father wanted her to marry the man who killed him. It’s disgusts me and gives me more of a peak into her life.

She moves back to sit on the bed, looking like she’s going to continue and open up to me.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Eric was one of my father’s guards. We got together when I was eighteen. He was Bratva like the rest of circle members and came from a family my father trusted. I guess that’s why he never expected him to be with me like that. We were going to run away. Someone found out about us and my father ordered his execution. Dmitri beat him to death with a hammer and my father made me watch. He held me himself so I could watch and feel helpless, remembering there was nothing I could do. Every day I wonder which was worse… Being made to watch Eric’s death, or watching my father kill my mother.”

My damn throat goes dry. “Your father killed your mother?”

“Yes. That’s the first time I’ve said that out loud.”

I thought it was James Mazzone Sr. a member of the Syndicate who killed her. Mortimer killed him. It was actually the first time they’d had a murder. Maybe that’s because people were playing sides for longer than we thought.

Fuck… When she said she’d been through worse than me I thought it was a bold thing to say without the knowledge of what I’d been through. Now I see she was right.

I get up and move over to sit next to her.

“Isabella…” I rasp.

She gives me a kind smile.

“It’s okay. There are just some things there are no words for. What can anyone say to my story?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about the loss of both of them.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.” She gives me a gentle smile then it fades. “Who did he kill for you Tristan?”

Today as those words fall from her lips, I don’t see her as Mortimer Viggo’s daughter. I just see her as Isabella.

“My wife…” I answer and she brings the hand holding the flower to her chest.

“You were married?”

I nod. Sometimes it is hard to believe. I was the first one of my brothers to get married, and the first to become a widower. “Yeah. It was just for one day. We knew each other from when we were kids. Six years ago, it was her. Mortimer sent Vlad to kill her. Then eighteen months ago he ordered my father’s death.”

“I’m so sorry.”

We stare at each other and I can see she wants to say more to me but like me she can’t.

There are no words.

“I guess now we both know each other’s stories,” I state, and she nods.

“Yeah.”

I know why I was so drawn to her now. I was right.

The question of what to do next still hangs in the air. Setting her free is the obvious thing to do if she can’t help me, but I can’t do that yet. Not until we have a plan. She’s still leverage, even if she can’t help.

I don’t want to talk about that now though and spoil the connection we just formed.

Plan B is… well it looks like we’re gonna have to move to Plan B-letting Mortimer know we have his daughter and demanding he hand himself over.

It would surely start war. I need to think more about it. It’s a risky plan that requires deep thought.

I stand up. It’s time to go.

We talked and I don’t feel that angst anymore.

“I should go,” I say.

“Thanks for talking to me.”

“You too. The door’s open.”

Surprise brightens her eyes and gratitude.

“Thank you.”

I nod my head and leave.

I don’t have to say more. She still knows the only way off this island is if I say so, and we’re a long way from leaving yet.