Page 50 of Brando

My heart sank. To the bottom of a fathomless pit of self-despair. Okay, so we hadn’t spent as much time together as we used to in our younger years, but I would have thought that Brando would at least have the decency to say goodbye. I hadn’t even known he was leaving.

“Where is he, Mia?”

Frank’s voice broke into my reverie as I relived learning that Brando was lost to me. I could have counted that as the single worst day of my life.

“He’s gone,” I told him, and I know my voice sounded sad, because even my heart felt that way.

“What do you mean, gone?”

Frank’s eyes were wild when he looked at me, searching for an explanation.

“I mean, gone. His family moved back to the city.”

“What do you mean, ‘back to the city’?”

He parroted my words, but he was having a hard time understanding what I was trying to tell him.

“I mean, his family picked up, packed their bags, and left.”

There was no way to lessen the blow. It didn’t get any easier the more times I said it. I didn’t know why Frank would care, since he and Brando never got along, anyway. But he was fuming. He was absolutely livid. He ran both hands through his hair, his movements manic at best, as he started to curse and mutter to himself. He let out a string of curse words, then screamed at me, asking me how the fuck he could just leave.

It had been my turn to ask him what he meant. Wasn’t he the one who hated Brando with such abandon that at times I thought he could strike the boy dead with his death stares? What did he care if he left? I would have thought he would have been glad to see the back of him.

“I don’t understand why you’re so angry,” I told him. “And at me, of all people! What do you care that he’s gone?”

And that was the moment that I saw Frank in all his unhinged glory.

We stood by the creek, in the place that originated with me and Brando, our spot. A spot that Frank claimed as his own. The place he insisted we should make ours, because it was beautiful the same way we were when we were together. Truthbe told, I hated being there with him, but he manipulated me and he manipulated the situation. So we ended up in that place that never should have been mine and Frank’s in the first place, the place I held so sacred with another. The spot he so callously desecrated.

He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me to him, his face a hair’s breadth away from mine. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that I didn’t have time to register my shock. He bared his teeth, his lips pulled back in a snarl.

“That dumb fuck has ruined my plans for him,” he hissed, and my heart clenched like a fist. He pulled harder on my hair, so hard that my roots went numb.

“Frank, what is…”

“Shut the fuck up!” he roared. He closed in on me, hurting me, holding me painfully close to his madness. “He took from me, and now I’m going to take from him. There’s no reason why I can’t fuck up the one thing that meant anything to him. I’m just sorry he won’t be here to watch.”

That was the day that Frank Falcone showed me his true colors, showed me what he was capable of. That was the day that he stole my innocence and left me shattered and bleeding by the creek in the place that was as sacred to me as life itself.

26

BRANDO

The screen flickers to life, the sound of static filling the room. I stand on high alert, my eyes roaming over every inch of the image on the screen. Mason Ironside, standing beside me, shifts from one foot to another, his agitation getting the better of him. It’s when the screen zooms in to focus on the girl’s face that he emits a slow, blood curdling scream.

I can understand his pain. I can feel it as it echoes through the room and wraps around each one of us, unbearable in its assault.

Sophia Andrade sits in a chair in the middle of an empty room, her feet tied in front of her, hands tied at her back. There’s a gag in her mouth, obscuring her lower face, but there’s no disputing her identity. It’s Sophia Andrade, as I live and breathe.

Her eyes are wide, her feet tapping wildly on the ground with some urgency. A shadow falls upon her. A shadow in the form of a huge man walking slowly towards her. He stops, tilts his head and watches her curiously. He’s wearing a mask, but there’s no denying the force of his piercing eyes as they look at a fearful Sophia.

Sophia’s eyes widen more, her feet tapping becoming more desperate as she rocks back and forth in the chair, thrashing about in a bid to free herself.

“I’ll kill him!” Mason swears. “I’ll fuckingkillhim!”

It’s all we can do to hold him down as he rages through the room. Scar and Enzo wrestle him to the ground, holding him down until he taps out and tells them he’s fine. I turn back to the screen and watch. Lucky’s hacker friend found the video and sent us a copy. If Falcone set up this auction and has put Sophia on the auction block, what’s to stop him doing the same to Mia? And I can’t fathom a reason why Sophia would be in an auction, while Maxine is not. Or maybe she is, but we haven’t found her yet. I don’t want to even consider the alternative.

My brothers hold Mason back while I continue to watch the video. Scar tells Mason to leave the room if he can’t handle other things we may soon uncover, so Mason finally relents and calms down. The burly man in the video approaches Sophia, taking out a knife. I can hear the absolute silence in the room. Especially when he approaches, whips his hand out, and uses the knife to cut a straight line down the front of her t-shirt. The fabric falls away down the middle of her chest, baring the line of skin between her breasts. She struggles more against her restraints, muffled cries behind her gag falling on deaf ears.

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