Page 45 of Assistant to the Assassin

“There are some things out of our control, some things we can’t change. Whether it’s God, fate, the universe, or luck, I’ve been shown time and time again that I’m not meant to be happy. I’m not meant to have love.”

I take a step back from him, now getting angry. “Everyone deserves love, Henry. The only one keeping you from being happy and having love is yourself, and you’re doing it because you’re afraid. Don’t blame God or fate for something you are doing to yourself. You are the one who pushes people away, you are the one who refuses to process the emotions inside of you, you are the one who believes you’ll lose anyone you come to love. But you know what? It won’t be death that makes you lose me. You’ll only have yourself and your actions to blame for that.”

I turn away from him and start towards the exit, and I don’t have to look behind me to know that he’s staring at me. I can feel his gaze on me like a brand. Once I scan my face to open the door, I turn back to him, and I hate the anguish written all over his face, even more so since I’m the one who put it there. But it had to be done.

“You need to stop living in the past, H. If you don’t, you’ll never have the love you crave so deeply…the kind your mother had for you. The kind I have always felt for you,” I murmur, making his lips part in shock, maybe even awe.

And with that, I turn my back on him and walk to my room, the only sound being the doors slowly closing shut behind me.

There’s a gym at the hotel I’m staying at, and every night since I arrived, I’ve spent every spare minute in there, thinking of my brother lying dead in the ground, driving me to make sure my body is ready for the coming fight. I must be focused and stick to the plan. Forbid empathy and never yield your advantage. There can be no mistakes, no hesitations, no flaws in my actions or thoughts. I must anticipate Cai’s moves and not improvise. I have one chance to avenge my brother. I will find his murderer, I will not hesitate, and I will carve him up with precision and purpose. I cannot fail.

I will not fail.

Journal Entry 192

Afterwards, when I returned to the motel I had been staying at, I sat in the shower and let the blood of my mother slide off my skin and into the drain, but my hands wouldn’t get clean. I scrubbed them to the point of being raw, but still her blood clung to my skin.

I can still feel her blood on me. I can never get it off.

“Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”

Psalm 34:14 (King James Version)

Least I Saw the Heart of You

At six in the morning, I force myself out of bed, just like I have every morning this past week. I know if I’m not ready to go to the gym by half past six, Henry will storm in here and chastise me. He’s become a drill sergeant as of late, and is it kind of hot? Yes. Is it also really fucking annoying? Also, yes.

I’ve started sleeping in sweatpants and a sports bra at night, so I don’t have to change when I wake up. All I do is throw my hair into a bun and head into the family room. Usually, Henry is making both of us some breakfast, but instead he’s sitting on the couch, his posture stiff and unnatural, and his gaze distant. I think for a second that he’s having a flashback, but his eyes flicker to me, and I see full awareness there.

“When I say I can’t tell you about my mother, what I mean is that I know you’ll feel differently about me once I tell you. You’ll be disgusted with me,” Henry confesses, his voice hollow. Lifeless.

I make a beeline for the couch and kneel down in front of him, placing my hands on his knees. “That would never happen.”

He shakes his head. “You can’t make that promise.”

“If you’ve made up your mind about how I’ll feel, why tell me at all?”

He swallows, searching my expression, then he replies, “Because I realized that we will never be able to move forward unless you know everything.”

Apparently, my little speech earlier hit home. “I don’t want to force you to talk about something you’re not ready for. That’s not fair.”

He slowly covers my hands with his, squeezing them gently. “You were right. My choices have led me to the place I’m at now, and I can’t change any of them. The past is written already, but the future isn’t, and I’m the only one that can write it. So, I’m going to tell you what happened, how my mother died.”

I get off the floor and sit down next to him, keeping one hand linked with his. My touch seems to relax him a bit, but he still looks off-kilter and in pain. I absolutely hate it, but I don’t do anything more than that. The only way to help him is to let him unburden all that pain, to comfort him while he opens up a long-festering wound to me. So, I sit back and listen to his story.

“My father’s family originated in Sicily, and when he was a teenager, they moved to Maryland, to a small town where he met and befriended another Italian American boy named Anthony Boreanaz.”

“The two of them were inseparable throughout their childhoods, and this bond led to them both joining the Navy together. My father met my mother while he was on leave, and they got married a few months later, with Anthony as the best man. When they had to go back overseas, Anthony was shot in the leg, and the damage was enough to force him into a medical discharge. He went back to Maryland, where he looked after my mom while she was pregnant with me. He was even there for my birth. My dad died when I was only a few months old, captured and executed by pirates. Anthony vowed to look after my mom and I, and he did just that throughout my childhood.

“When I was ten, Anthony moved to Italy to take care of his grandmother, and we didn’t see him much after that. He still called every holiday and birthday, though, and the summer after I turned twelve, he invited us to visit him. We were supposed to spend two weeks there in the middle of July, and for the first half of the trip, it was incredible. I loved the food, the history, the scenery—it was all perfect. But one night, about a week into the trip, I was woken up by a loud thud and the shuffling of shoes. We had been staying in a hotel paid for by Anthony, a really fancy suite, and I thought maybe Mama had the TV on too loud or that Anthony had decided to come visit. So, I poked my head out of my room, and I saw Mama in the arms of three fully masked men; one had her legs, one had her arms pinned down, and the other was clamping her mouth closed. They took her outside the room, and I just stood there and watched. My brain was moving twice as slow as it usually did, and it wasn’t until a few minutes later that I ran after her. I shouted her name, begged the men to let her go, but I was too far behind them. They couldn’t hear, and I doubt they would have cared even if they did. By the time I caught up with them, they put my mother in the back of a car and drove off. I called Anthony and told him what happened, and he promised he would search for my mother while I went back to the US, where it was safer. I didn’t want to leave, but I knew I would get in trouble if I didn’t, so I let him put me on a plane back to Maryland. Two months later, Anthony disappeared. I didn’t hear from him after that.”

Beth’s thumb brushes over mine, and I can’t help but notice how soft they are. Her fingers aren’t callused or rough, nor is her skin marred with scars and scrapes. She’s smooth and delicate. Perfect. Her touch acts as a good anchor to hold on to while I continue to tell her my story.

“After five months of searching, they declared my mother dead, but I knew she wasn’t. I was convinced I would have felt it if she had left this life to join God, so I held on to a small shred of hope that she was out there somewhere. That hope didn’t offer me much comfort or respite from the anger and grief roaring inside me. I got into a lot of trouble because of it, and I was shipped off to military school when I was sixteen. I hated it at first, but as I got accustomed to the discipline, the other cadets, and the mission—I grew to really love it. You already know about my life in the military and why I left, but what you don’t know is that I searched for Mama while I was in service. My team was SEAL Team 6; we specialized in hostage rescue and counterterrorism, and the organized crime families in Italy were our main focus for a few years. They trafficked weapons, drugs, and humans in and out of the country. I was able to piece together that my mother had been taken by one of these crime families and trafficked, but I didn’t know by who or where. We were only allowed to stop the weapons trafficking, but many of the buildings and boats we raided had trafficked people stashed away. Mama was never amongst the victims, and when I finally asked my superiors if we could focus on stopping the enslavement of innocent people, they said no. Human trafficking is not a threat to national security, they said. But even if the answer had been yes, Italy has virtually no database for the trafficking that goes on in the country, and our resources within the SEALs was minimal. I knew I wouldn’t find her if I stayed, so I made the decision to leave.”

Recognition fills her features. “Because someone wasn’t found,” she repeats my own words back to me, and I nod solemnly.

“The CIA allowed me to have more freedom than the SEALs did, but the red tape and bureaucracy followed me. As you know, I developed a reputation of going against regulations and orders, and for the most part, the higher-ups let me get away with it. I got results, and that’s all they cared about. So, I used the CIA’s resources and money to try and track down my mother, but the lack of data on Italy’s part was still a problem. I needed knowledge of the different crime families, who traded in what, and where each family sent their slaves.”

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