Chapter3
1023 Words
DANTE
I’ve never believed in second chances. Thinking the universe just hands them down was wishful thinking in ninety-nine percent of cases. However, there's always that tiny one percent. A break in the pattern, an exception.
Second chances are nothing more than beautiful lies told to emotionally fragile people to keep them hoping for better days, but sooner or later, they realize that such things don't exist. There are nothing but myths, but soon after, they chase after the next ray of hope to cling onto. A delusion.
However, I don’t believe in myths. I am a man interested in facts. I may twist them to fit my agenda or distort them to attain a certain goal, but I do not chase fantasies.
But there is an illusion I will pursue even if I have to burn in hell to get it. An exception to my logic.
Her.
The girl who walked into my office today was a myth, a ghost wearing someone else’s skin, and not just anyone else’s but my dead wife. The woman I lost, the woman who still haunts my dreams.
Elena,
She was dead.
And yet…she stood here a minute ago, trembling, terrified out of her f*****g mind, with the same scent of lavender clinging to her skin like a cruel f*****g joke from the universe.
“Boss?” Yan calls me out of my thoughts, concern etched on his face as he speaks. “What do we do about this situation?”
“Find out every single thing you can about her. I need it done before the end of the day.”
The world doesn’t hand out second chances. I learned that when Elena died. But if the universe puts her face on another woman, then maybe it wants me to take her and I very much intend to do so. She may not be my Elena, but it's good I know how to bend things and I will make my Elena out of this woman.
ROSA
My hands are still shaking.
No matter how many times I wash them, it feels like the blood I had seen earlier was on my skin. The image from earlier had burned its way into the back of my eyelids.
The gunshot,
The smell of blood
The way he looked at me. Why did he look at me that way? Like he knew me. I just couldn't make sense of it.
I pressed my back to the tiled wall of the staff restroom, the cold biting through my uniform. I need to breathe. To think, but nothing I do calms my nerves.
A week ago, I was just trying to survive and, to top that off, I just witnessed a man being shot dead in the head and the person responsible was the devil himself in an Italian suit and storm for eyes. He terrified me. I wished this would be the last time I see him, but something inside me tells me it won’t.
“Calm down, Cerbiatta, I'm not going to hurt you… yet.”
His words rang in my ear. Yet?
What did he mean by that? Was he saving me for later?
I squeezed my eyes shut to pull myself together before walking out of the restroom.
The rest of the day drags on, but I force myself to finish my shift. I offered a polite and kind smile when it was needed, but inside, I was splintering. That man’s face, his eyes, still haunt the corners of my mind like he had stared right into my soul with just a glance.
When I finally step out of the back entrance into the cold night air, I breathe for what feels like the first time all evening. The walk home is quiet, but immediately I step into the house, I notice there's no stench of alcohol, no sounds coming from the TV. No Enrique.
He's not home.
Thank you, Father.
I took a shower and went downstairs to the kitchen. It’s my favorite place in the world. Needing to take my mind off the events of that day, I put a pot of water on the stove and started making pasta al forno for the lunch hour we always have after mass. I had gotten the ingredients on my way back from work and made a footnote to give sister Martha a call later.
It was my turn to bring something for lunch hour this Sunday and sister Martha had already reminded me twice. When the food is done and boxed up, I take a deep breath and glance towards the living room.
I curl up on the tattered couch and put on an episode of Manifest, letting the mystery drown my racing thoughts.
I don’t know when I drift off
But I woke up to pain.
Blinding and gut-punching pain.
Strong hands grip me and throw me off the couch. My back hits the wooden floor with a brutal thud, knocking the air out of my lungs.
“Where’s that i***t father of yours?” a gravelly voice growls. I look up, blinking through the haze, and see three men towering over me like shadows. All of them are massive, like trees with leather jackets, dark clothes, and cruel eyes.
“I- I don’t know,” I manage, crawling backward across the floor. “I haven't seen him all day.”
One of the men with a jagged scar running from his brows to the middle of his forehead doesn't wait before delivering another kick to my side. I cry out, curling inward as pain shoots through my ribs.
“Tell him we’re getting impatient,” he snarls, looming over me. “He had better pay up soon, or next time, we won’t leave a message.”
I barely catch my breath before they're gone, the front door slamming behind them.
I stayed down on the floor, the pain burning beneath my skin, until I finally forced myself to sit up.
But then, the door flew open again.
I turned toward the entrance, and I froze.
No no no no! This can’t be happening.
- Writer
