Page 80 of Unforgivable Ties

“Of course. Where are you?”

“Headed home,” I said, wiping the snot off my nose with my sleeve. “I need to pack my suitcases.”

“Something happened with you and Vincenzo?” she said softly.

I took a deep, shuddering breath before replying, “Yeah, something happened.”

I would have to figure out a lie between now and when I saw her. Even though I was never going back, I still wouldn’t tell anyone about what was going on at that warehouse, because I might get in trouble for being affiliated with it.

Or was it because I didn’t want Vincenzo to get arrested?

The thoughts plagued my mind on the ride home all the way until I reached the penthouse. I grabbed my suitcases and frantically unzipped them, throwing clothes and essential belongings inside with little thought. My hands shook as I scrambled around our shared room, the space suddenly feeling cold and alien.

A bitter taste filled my mouth, and I swallowed back another round of sobs. Vincenzo’s coat lay draped over the chair, his scent still clinging to it. For a moment, I let myself breathe it in, then with a swift movement, I threw the coat aside.

I stuffed the last pair of shoes into a suitcase, forcing it shut, and glanced around the room one last time. A strange sense of of hurt washed over me. This place, once comforting and familiar, was now no longer my home. It was an empty echo of Vincenzo and I’s past.

With one last look cast over my shoulder, I walked out of the bedroom and towards the elevator. As the doors shut behind me, I said goodbye to the place that had felt most like home.

Vincenzo

Iwas running late to pick up Stephanie, but I assumed she would be waiting for me in the medical office, perhaps taking a nap on the examination bed. However, when I opened the door, she was nowhere to be found. Weird.

I placed my ear to the door of the connecting room where Cesare kept critical patients to see if I could hear anything. There was only silence in response. To be sure, I quietly opened the door and confirmed there was no one in there.

She was probably in the bathroom. I sat in the chair for about ten minutes before I got concerned. Slamming the door behind me, I left the medical office and speed walked to the single restrooms. Each door was unlocked, and there was no one inside.

Where the fuck was she?

The old man would know. I speed walked down to the morgue and opened the door. Cesare had a dead man on the examination table and had split his torso open like a watermelon. His thick glasses were perched on the end of his nose, and he wasthoroughly engrossed in his task, the scalpel making delicate cuts into an organ.

“Cesare,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady despite my panic over not being able to find Stephanie. “Have you seen Stephanie?”

“She left a few hours ago,” he responded, not looking up from his work. “She was very upset, although I think she was overreacting.”

My heart rate increased as panic gripped me. What had she been upset about? It was dangerous for her to walk down this street alone in the middle of the night.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I was completely inundated with bodies. There was nothing going on in the medical bay, and she’s been here long enough, so I figured it was time to have her help me back here,” he said nonchalantly, making his final snip in the organ and taking it out of the corpse.

I was furious. I clenched my fists at my side, using all the restraint I had to not grab Cesare by the neck and choke him out.

“I told you to leave her out of that.” My voice was more growl than human. “She’s only supposed to provide medical assistance, not help you harvest organs.”

Fuck. Stephanie was probably alone, scared, and terrified of what she’d seen. That wasn’t the kind of job I wanted her on. That was far from it.

“We’ve had this conversation,” he sighed, locking the organ into a cooler. “She sealed her fate when she agreed to work for us.”

My eyes bored holes into the man, but he merely shrugged off my anger as if it was an insect. His indifference stoked the flames within me even more.

“What did you say to her, Cesare?” I hissed. If I could, I’d take the scalpel and shove it through his eye. The only reason I wouldn’t was because I knew Ettore would be pissed if I did.

“The truth. That it was either this or death.” I hated the way he spoke. It was always a clinical, matter-of-fact tone, as if he was still at work dissecting a body. His flippant remark about Stephanie’s fate seemed to hang in the air, like a toxic cloud. “You know it, too. You’re letting your feelings for her impede your judgement.”

I hated he had been the one to tell her about the reality of our existence. I hated it even more that he was right about my feelings for her getting in the way of my judgement.

But I had meant what I said when the two of us were having sex. “Sei la mia vita.”You are my life.

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