Page 12 of Capo

Four

Chloe

“I don’t know,” I moan as they wheel me past my broken front door. I heard them knock. I couldn’t even scream. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. I kept whispering to the dispatcher that I was here, that they had to break in, that I couldn’t move. Finally, after a loud crash, cops and EMTs seemed to be everywhere.

“Who did this to you?”

“I don’t know,” I slur hoarsely.

What else can I say? Tell on the mob and die.

In the elevator, things begin to get weird. The ceiling spins, the walls expand. Their voices seem to come from farther away. I feel weightless.

“What’d you give—,” I try to wet my lips, “me.”

“A shot of morphine, hon—”

She keeps talking, but I float off. Being in not-so-much pain is amazing.

“I don’t know.” That’s my mantra the next couple of days. I don’t know. I don’t remember. It was dark. No, he didn’t speak. No, I don’t know anyone who’d want to hurt me.

I cry when I look at myself in a mirror for the first time. My face is blue and swollen beyond recognition. My right arm is wrapped in a thick, warm, itchy cast and sits in a sling. My broken nose has been straightened out and I’ve got bandages both across it as well as in the nostrils. Not being able to breathe through my nose is more panic inducing than I’d have ever thought. My mouth dries up and I feel like I’m choking. It doesn’t help that I have several broken ribs. Standing is hell. Lying down is hell. Sitting is a nightmare.

My emotions are all over the place, my mind a cacophony of images, voices, happy times, horrible times. One moment I long to talk to Kerry. She knows. She’d understand. The next minute I loathe her existence. It’s not a pretty feeling, the darkness that creeps into my heart when I think about my former best friend. It’s not her fault, but my rational side has given way to primal fear, and in that void she’s the root of this evil.

I don’t sleep. I feel his hands on me, hear his low voice in my ear, his promise that he won’t give up. I don’t know why I’m alive. Does he still think I know where Kerry is? Is it even safe to go back home? The realization chills me to my core. It isn’t. Of course I can’t go home. Oh my God. I can’t talk to anyone about this. I don’t have anyone.

If it hadn’t hurt so fucking much I would have curled up and cried. I cry anyway, flat on my back, the tears wetting my temples in floods before they soak the pillow.

I have a minor brain hemorrhage and they want to make sure it disappears. ‘Only’ a small amount on the surface of my brain, apparently. My arm will heal, my bruises and swellings will subside as time goes by. The body is an amazing organism. If I’d have been a car, they’d have just dumped me in a scrap yard and dismantled me. I don’t know if I wish I’d have been a dead thing, or if I really want to be alive. I beg them for sleeping pills, but I still wake up around two a.m. from my own whimpering until I realize I’m not at home, and that I’m not being beaten.

One day they release me. I’m not ready. The hospital bed, the staff outside my room, they’ve become my safety blanket. I don’t want to go out there! Kerry was stupid. She went home. I can’t go home.

I call a cab, giving him directions to a hotel downtown, fighting the panic that’s clawing in my chest. There are too many people on the streets. My enemies can be anywhere. I need to plan how to proceed from here. I think of my friend, of her fear. She must have felt exactly like this. Or worse. That man, that monster that came after me in the dark night, in my own home – he befriended her first, he fucked her, he made her believe there was something going on between them. Then he tried to murder her. The only person I could have talked to about all this has disappeared because of him. I live in terror every minute because of him.

No, not him.

Salvatore. Luciano Salvatore.

As I sit in the taxi that drives fast through the streets, a wave of hate suddenly surges through me. My whole fucked up life flashes before my eyes. I’ve had a few good years, and now it’s all gone to shit. I fled once, I’ll be fucking damned if I do it again.

I tap the window that separates me from the driver. “Hey, we’re going somewhere else.” Giving him the address of the center for autistic children, my heart begins to pound harder. This is really fucking stupid, but I need to tell that creep Salvatore exactly what I think of him. He’s robbed me of everything.

The staff look horrified when they see me. I say bike accident and that I forgot something when I quit, that I just want to try to find again. Two minutes alone with our archives give me an address to little David’s father. Young, shy David, who loved Kerry. He must be about nine now. Salvatore took that away too when he had David removed from our care. It crushed my friend. He walks over everyone, destroys everything.

Even more determined, I hop into the taxi again and give the guy the new address. It’s a fancy neighborhood, a world away from my home address, and the shabby street where we stand right now. He gives me a once-over before he shrugs and starts rolling.

It’s not hard to see that it’s the right place because Salvatore surrounds himself with security. Three men in black suits pace the gravel outside a wide barred iron gate. The taxi driver meets my gaze in the rear-view mirror. He looks as nervous as I feel. I’m sweating and my mouth is desert dry.

I lean forward, feeling the eyes of the guards on me. “Can you come with me? Please?”

His eyes widen. “No, ma’am. That’s definitely not in my work description.”

My heart sinks. “Can you at least wait here, please?”

His gaze flickers between me and the guards, then he licks his lips and nods. “I’ll wait a little to the side. Meter will be running.”

I take a deep, shaky breath. I have to do this before I change my mind. “Okay, fair enough. I won’t be long.”

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