Page 11 of The Villain
“Your brother doesn’t want you involved.”
“Well, I’m old enough to make my own decisions, aren’t I? Besides, I’m entitled to know, considering.”
“I suppose you are,” I say because he was the one who brought me the identity of the caller who tipped off the Feds. Jet has an informant on the inside. “You sure it was Michael and not Malek Lombardi?” I ask because I know about Malek Lombardi. I’ve known about him for a long time. He was Alaric Moretti’s consigliere, but there was tension. I wonder if Alaric kept him close more tokeep his enemy close than as trusted advisor. Alaric was smart and he was as careful as he was brutal. I’m still not sure if the car accident that killed him was an accident at all. It wouldn’t be the first time the knife in your back came from someone you trusted. Malek Lombardi was quick to move himself and his family into the Moretti house just weeks after Alaric’s death. He's close to Michael. Always has been. Michael is easier to manipulate than his father was.
Jet’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m sure. Why? Lombardi’s not involved outside of the role of advisor as far as I know.”
“That may have been the case when Alaric was alive. I’m not convinced it still is.” I take another sip of my drink and check my watch, anxious to get home. Anxious to get to her. “How is my father?” I ask Jet because that’s the only reason I stopped at the club at all.
“Same,” Jet says, watching me.
My father is only sixty years old, but over the last few years, he’s been declining. Early onset dementia. It started when he was about fifty-three. It was small things at first, something I could blame on a busy life or middle age, but as it progressed, it became harder to deny it. My grandfather had the same, so it runs in the family.
I finish my drink and stand. “I’m going up. Have your contact do a little more digging, will you? I have a gut feeling.”
He nods once.
“Goodnight,” I say and walk back out of the restaurant. I see Severin and Sybil commiserating just beyondthe glass doors of the entrance as she puffs away at her cigarette. She’s pissed. It should give me some joy, but it doesn’t. Hell, not much gives me joy these days. That’s maybe why I took Allegra. It’s the first time in a long, long time, I’ve felt anything at all. Any excitement. Any anticipation.
Any want.
Used to be when I saw something I wanted, I took it. It was my mantra once upon a time. Before Seth. Before my father. When life was simpler. When life was good. But with her, I feel something stirring again. A glimpse of the old me. It’s inconvenient she happens to be a Moretti, but I’ll take it.
I ride the elevator up to the top floor where my father lives with Sybil. Severin and Jet have their own apartments here in the building. I keep an office I don’t use, but that’s it.
A soldier greets me just as Dad’s nurse, Maria, walks out of his bedroom.
“Cassian,” she says, noting something on her iPad.
“How is he? Heard he wasn’t well enough to go to dinner.”
“Bad night. He’s asleep now. I gave him an injection.”
“What happened?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing particular. These things just happen, Cassian, and they’ll happen more as he declines. You need to be prepared.”
I nod once, but this is a bitter pill. “I’ll go in. Just look in on him.”
“Of course,” she says and steps aside.
I walk down the hall and into my father’s bedroom.Sybil has taken the primary suite and moved him to one of the other rooms. There’s nothing wrong with the room, but it just doesn’t feel right to me. Whatever happened to in sickness and in health?
The lamp on the nightstand is on. It’s dim enough that it’ll stay on the whole night. I walk to the bed to see my father’s diminished form. He used to be a giant of a man, but that was so many years ago it feels like another lifetime. Hell, like it wasn’t my life at all.
He doesn’t stir as I bend down to kiss his forehead and tuck the blankets higher. There’s not much I can do. Even if he were awake, I don’t know where his head would be. It could be clear, but those moments are less and less frequent.
On the nightstand is a photo of my mother, dad and Seth. I put it here because I know that’s what he’d want even if it breaks me a little to see it. I pick it up. Seth was a kid here and if you look close, you can almost see my mother’s bump, but only if you know. Dad’s got his arm on Seth’s shoulder and the other draped over my mom’s. Seth is smiling a huge, toothy smile at the camera. They all are smiling wide and looking right at the photographer. I never got to be a part of this family. My family. She died when I was born. I don’t even know if she held me. All I feel when I see this photo is guilt.
I touch my thumb to my brother’s face. He grew up to look like dad, exactly. I take after mom. Looking at her eyes is like looking into a mirror and I guess that’s what dad saw every time he looked at me. I can’t blame him, can I? I set the photograph down and open thenightstand drawer to take out dad’s rosary and tuck the cross into his palm. The beads rest on the bedspread.
“Sleep tight, Dad,” I tell him. He doesn’t stir. If it were Seth, would he smile, say something, give a squeeze of his hand? I close my eyes and say a little prayer, not that I believe it will do anything. Then, I turn to go. I want to get out of here.
The drive home takes about half an hour. My property is on the edge of town, an old church with a large parcel of land butting right up to the edge of the cliffs. Granted, that land is mostly filled with dead bodies. No, not my doing. It’s the old cemetery, but it’s mine and, well, the dead are quiet.
I was born in the city, grew up in the city. My father began to spend more and more time in Devil’s Peak when he married Sybil. I hadn’t planned on buying property here, but when I saw the dilapidated old church and the grounds that the city was trying to unload, it felt right. It’s the only time I’ve felt this way about a physical place in my life. I tell myself it’s because it’s the perfect retreat from the city, offering the privacy I need and the solitude I crave more and more, but I admit the fact that it is consecrated ground draws me. I’m not sure what I seek. Redemption? No. Answers? Maybe. A miracle? Ridiculous.
I was raised to believe in a God, but I am who I am. My family is what it is. I don’t now and have never shied away from that.
