ChapterFour
1954 Words
“You can come out now, Sienna.”
I froze.
I stepped out from behind the pillar, tense, my heart hammering very hard.
Cassius stood there, still touching his lip where blood had started to well.
We stared at each other.
“How did you know I was there?” My voice came out smaller than I intended.
“I was facing your direction when you came in,” he said."And you gasped.”
Right. I had.
Silence stretched between us. I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do. I should’ve run the moment I thought to.
“How much did you see?” he asked.
“Enough.”
He nodded slowly, like that was the answer he’d expected. He touched his lip again and winced.
“You’re bleeding,” I said.
“I’m fine.”
“Your mouth and lip say different things.”
He looked at me for a long moment, then he pulled out his car keys.
“There’s a place nearby. We can talk there.”
I hesitated. Every instinct told me to go home. To get as far away from this as possible.
“I’m tired, Cassius. I just want—”
“Please.” His voice was soft. “Let me explain. Over dinner.”
“I’m not really hungry.”
“Neither am I. But we need to talk.”
I should have said no. Should have called a car and gone home immediately.
Instead, I agreed.
The restaurant was tucked into a quieter part of the city, with warm lighting shining from the windows.
It was closed.
Cassius knocked anyway, and a moment later, the door opened. An older man stood there, maybe sixty, with kind eyes and graying hair. His face lit up when he saw Cassius.
“Sienna, this is my uncle, Uncle Marco,” he said.
His uncle held my hand, speaking Italian. I didn’t understand a single word.
They spoke in rapid Italian, his uncle's expression shifting from pleasure to concern when he noticed the blood on Cassius’s face. He gestured us inside, still talking, one hand on Cassius’s shoulder.
I followed, feeling out of place.
The interior was beautiful. Warm wood, soft lighting, family photos cover one entire wall. The smell of garlic and herbs lingered in the air and filled the whole room.
His uncle led us to a corner booth, still fussing over Cassius in Italian. He disappeared into the back.
I slid into the booth. “What is this place?”
“My uncle’s restaurant. Family business. This is my favorite place to come”.
Not what I’d expected.
Cassius’s uncle returned with a first aid kit and set it on the table, said something else in Italian, then disappeared again.
I reached for the kit. “Let me see.”
“Sienna, you don’t have to”
“Let me see.”
He leaned back, giving me access. I opened the kit, pulled out antiseptic and gauze, and shifted closer.
This close, I could see the damage clearly. The split in his lip and the darkening bruise on his cheekbone.
I dampened the gauze with antiseptic. “This is going to sting.”
“I’ve had worse.”
I pressed it gently to his lip. He winced.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“Hold still then.”
“I am.”
He huffed a small laugh despite himself, and I felt something in my chest ease slightly.
I worked in silence for a moment, cleaning the blood away, trying not to think about how close we were. His jaw tensed when I touched a particularly tender spot.
“That man was your father,” I said quietly.
Not a question.
“Yes.”
“Why did he hit you?”
Cassius was quiet for a long moment.
“Just disagreements about certain business choices”
“You aren’t saying much, Cassius. What could have possibly made him that mad?”
“Look, my father doesn’t take anything lightly, it doesn’t matter how little or huge an issue is, he’s bound to be triggered.”
“Well, I don’t think parents should be hitting their children.”
“I’m used to it.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
I finished cleaning his lip and moved to the cut on his cheekbone. My hands had steadied, muscle memory from patching up my sister’s scraped knees when we were kids, from helping my mother when she was too weak to do it herself.
“What is your family, Cassius?”
“You know what we are. You’ve probably suspected or at least heard something.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
He met my eyes. “We run things. Businesses. Some legal, some… less so.”
“You mean illegal.”
“Yes.”
I pressed a butterfly bandage over the cut on his cheekbone. “And you?”
“I’m his son. His heir. Whether I want to be or not.”
I pulled back, closing the first aid kit. “Are you scared?” he asked quietly.
I considered lying.
“I don’t know what I am,” I admitted.
Before either of us could say more, his uncle appeared with plates. Pasta, bread, salad. Enough food for four people.
“I said I wasn’t hungry,” I murmured.
“My uncle doesn’t care,” Cassius picked up his fork. “In his mind, you’re too thin and I need to eat after getting hit. So we’re eating.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled. Cassius had a way with words.
We ate in silence at first. The pasta was incredible, homemade, rich, the kind of food that leaves a reference down the line.
“Thank you,” Cassius said after a while. “For… this.” He gestured vaguely to his face.
“You’re welcome.”
More silence. “I didn’t choose this life, you know,” he said quietly. “I was born into it. My brother tried to leave once. It didn’t end well.”
I remembered him mentioning his brother before. The grief in his voice when he’d said it.
“What happened to him?”
“Car accident. That was the conclusion.” His tone made it clear what he thought of that explanation.
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded, pushed pasta around his plate. “I helped you because I wanted to. Not because of the family, not because of some… obligation or scheme. I helped you because I could, and because you needed it. I wouldn’t want you thinking otherwise because of my background.”
I believed him.
The door to the kitchen swung open and his uncle appeared again, this time with espresso. He set the cups down, said something to Cassius that made him smile slightly, then left.
“What did he say?”
“That you’re pretty and I should be nicer to you.”
I looked away. “No he didn’t .”
“I swear he did”. Cassius laughed.
“Sorry, I’m not buying that”. I laughed too.
There was some silence again.
“Sienna, we’re not just what you saw in that garage. My family… It’s complicated.”
“Then what are you?”
“Complicated to I guess,” he said simply.
I sipped my espresso. It was perfect.
“This is what I come from,” Cassius said quietly. “Not just the violence. This too. Family. Loyalty. Tradition. It’s not all… It’s not black and white.”
“I don’t know how to reconcile this,” I admitted.
Cassius finished. “I don’t know either. But this is who I am. Both things.”
Our eyes met across the table. Something passed between us, a sense of understanding and acknowledgment of the entire situation.
Uncle Marco appeared one more time, pressed a container of leftovers into my hands despite my protests, kissed Cassius on both cheeks, and told us to leave so he could close up properly.
The drive to my apartment was quiet but comfortable. It was just heavy with everything unsaid.
“Thank you,” I said as we pulled up to my building. “For explaining.”
“I owed you that much.”
I reached for the door handle, then stopped. “What happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know what you are. What your family does.”
Cassius turned to face me. “You can walk away. Pretend you didn’t see anything. I’ll make sure you’re you don’t get entangled in all this.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
He looked surprised. “Why wouldn’t you?”
I didn’t have a good answer. Didn’t understand it myself.
“Curiosity, maybe,” I said finally.
A small smile. “Dangerous thing, curiosity.”
“I’m starting to realize that.”
I got out of the car, the container of leftovers in my hands. Cassius waited, engine idling, until I reached the door to my building.
I turned back. He rolled down the window.
“Be careful, Sienna.”
“You too.”
He drove away, and I stood there for a long moment, watching his taillights disappear.
My apartment felt quiet when I let myself in.
I set the leftovers in the fridge, barely registering the motion. Exhaustion hit me all at once.
I checked on Sadie and she was knocked out in her bed.
“Looks like she had a tough day as well” I said.
I barely made it through brushing my teeth before collapsing into bed.
Sleep pulled me under immediately.
Then….
I was home. Not my apartment, the house I grew up in.
Morning light poured through the kitchen windows and the smell of coffee filled the air. A very familiar
scent.
My mother sat at the table, alive and whole, wearing her favorite sweater.
“Morning, sweetie.”
My throat closed. “Mom.”
I sat across from her, and she poured me coffee just how I liked it. For a moment, we just existed together in comfortable silence.
“I miss you so much,” I whispered.
“I know, baby. I know.”
“I don’t know how to do this. Work, Sadie, everything. I’m so tired.”
She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “You’re allowed to be happy, Sienna. Even while you’re grieving. Even while you’re struggling.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“I know. But you are. And you’re stronger than you think.” She smiled. “Sadie doesn’t need you to be perfect. She just needs you to be her sister.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks.
My mother glanced toward the doorway.
“I have to go now.”
“Where?”
An elevator at work appeared where the door should’ve been. I was startled.
“Up.” She stood and pulled me into a hug. Warm. Real. Everything I needed.
“Be careful,” she whispered. “That building, those elevators, they take you places you’re not ready for but be bold, it can be of aid.”
“Mom—”
She stepped into the elevator, turned back.
“Trust your instincts.”
The doors closed gently.
I watched the numbers climb: 1…2…3… past 31… still going.
Then light. Then nothing.
I woke up crying in the dark.
But for the first time since she died, I felt like I’d gotten to say goodbye.
Still, one thought lingered as I drifted back to sleep;
What was the mystery behind the elevator?
What did my mother know about the elevator?
Was everything I experienced real?
- Writer
