Page 49 of Rotten Men

“Yes,” I spit out.

“Well tough shit, because if you want the story from me I won’t sugar coat it for your benefit,” he relents snidely.

Lo cazzo!

“Fine. I see Selene still kept up her predilection for assholes,” I snap back with an arctic smile.

“Oh, I think she has made some improvements.”

Stronzo.

“Are you going to be of use to me or not? I think I deserve it after getting you out of jail,” I bite back, hoping he at least feels an ounce of gratitude for my endeavor, enough for him to tell me what I need to know.

“You’re in luck. I’m in a sharing mood today. Selene has lived on lies long enough. I won’t be an accomplice to it any longer. So what do you want to know?” he asks, making room for me on his porch stairs. Begrudgingly I accept his friendly gesture and sit at his side, rather than bash his skull with my gun like I wanted to.

“Everything,” I insist coolly.

“You really are a glutton for punishment, aren’t you? She always did say you were the hardest to love,” he recounts, taking a swig of his beer. “Hardest to forget, too, unfortunately.”

“She talked to you about me?” I ask, surprised.

I can see a tug of a smile on his lips as he keeps his eyes on the distance beyond as if recalling the past.

“That girl couldn’t stop talking about you; about all of you. But that came after Jude. When I met her, she was just a scared, young girl, seven months pregnant with no place to go. She came into my garage hoping I could fix her piece-of-shit carburetor, but one look at her and I knew she had way more important things that needed fixin’.”

“You’re very perceptive—more than most. The Selene I knew always kept her guard up amongst strangers,” I mumble.

“I’m sure she did. But that was before she left behind everything she loved. As cemented as those walls might have been, she was the one who made the first dent, cracking it from floor to ceiling. By the time she arrived on my doorstep, she was nothing but raw grief, praying for the end. Her suffering resonated with mine, and so, although I didn’t know the cause of it, I offered to help. She stayed with me until Jude was born. And then when she tried to leave, I made her tell me the truth.”

“Which was?” I interject.

“Ah, that, I think, she should be the one to tell you. But it was enough for me to know that she was in danger. Being on the run—distraught as she was—with a baby in her arms, she was sure to get caught, so we came up with a plan.”

“A plan?”

“Are you going to interrupt me every five minutes? I thought Giovanni was the talker?” he snipes back, grabbing another beer from a cooler behind him.

His southern hospitality getting the best of him, he hands me one, but I don’t even open it. I need my wits about me, and my use of alcohol to dim my pain is in the past. I want it all—the ugly and merciless to gut me in two, without anything to dull the ache.

“As I was saying, we came up with a plan to hide Selene in plain sight so Jude could have a semi-normal life. I married her, or her alias at least, and she became Mrs. Susan Lewis. She became just the wife of a former army vet, who busts his ass in a small town, self-owned garage while she’s a stay-at-home mom, raising our baby boy. Now tell me, in all your searches, would a woman like Susan even be suspected of being your Selene?”

I shake my head, knowing it was, in fact, the perfect camouflage for her true identity.

“Yep, just what I thought. Can’t take the credit for it though. That was all Selene.”

“So that’s when you fell in love?” I choke out, surprised at being able to say the words.

“Ah, now you want to talk about love. As much as I’m enjoying seeing you squirm, don’t give yourself a coronary. I love Selene, and she loves me, but our relationship was never aboutthattype of love. It was built on something different—a shared understanding that, when you lose a soul mate, nothing else measures up,” he explains, dimming his earthly toned eyes for the first time since we started this conversation.

“You lost someone.” It’s not a question. I feel his pain travel in the air, resembling something similar to my own.

“Tell me, Vincent, have you ever been at war?” he asks out of left field.

I give him a stiff nod as my reply. I don’t think I recall a day I wasn’t battling for my life. Being born into the syndicate meant the streets were your battleground and every day you survived was a miracle in and of itself.

“I spent years fighting for my country. I thought I knew firsthand what war felt like—harboring that powerless feeling in your veins, knowing that as much as you fight to keep your armed brothers alive next to you, some will fall in the end no matter what you do. But I only understood what the true meaning of war was when I came back home. There is nothing worse than seeing the person you love most face their impending death and being helpless to prevent it. I was born a soldier, but my late wife Lori was the true hero in my eyes. We battled two years filled with exams, chemotherapy, and all the drugs under the sun. She did it all with a smile on her face and love in her heart. The day she died, this world lost its light for me. I became just a vessel of flesh and bones. When Selene came into my life, I saw that same emptiness residing inside her. So we trudged each day together, helping each other survive one day at a time without half a heart. She didn’t just leave you. She died for you. Much in the same way I died for Lori when she was taken from me. And from what I can tell, I don’t think you deserved her sacrifice.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

---