Heartless Lover by Faith Summers

24

Eric

An hour later we regroup at Markov Tech in my office with my on call doctor who tends to our wounds.

Alejandro and I both have injuries but he needed stiches.

Tonight was bad and we weren’t prepared in the least. We were ambushed and it could have ended worse than it did. Both of us could be fucking dead.

The advice for me was to go to the hospital to get checked out, but there’s no way I’m going anywhere like that after hearing the shit we’re up against.

I wait until the doctor finishes the prescription for our pain meds and leaves before I gear up to talk.

Alejandro straightens up against the sofa and sighs.

“Looks like we have our work cut out for us, we were being watched tonight,” I state.

“I know, amigo, and the motherfuckers got away.”

“Yeah. I don’t know if that means we’ve lost whatever advantage we had over them. They’ll know now it’s us who’s been screwing with them and taking out their guys.”

Alejandro nods. “I feel like I don’t know what to do, Eric. I always know what to do. I’ve been in this game for a long time and in all my long years this is the first time I’ve been like this and I have no fucking idea who this person is who’s out to get me. None whatsoever.”

Neither do I.

“Jude Kuzmin and Igor Evanovich promised Robert many things including connections when he got me to Brazil. Those are the only two big names I have and Jude is dead. I don’t think it’s Igor.” I wondered if it was him at first but he seemed to have lost touch with Robert after they took me to Brazil. The job was done and Robert was given what he was promised.

“I don’t think it’s Igor either, it sounded more personal.”

“It did because Bernardo said he knew things and still knows things.” That sounds like someone Alejandro knows. Someone with a vendetta who doesn’t just want to take his empire.

“I think I’m in a very dangerous situation here.” A streak of worry pinches his brows. “And I’m not going to know who’s playing me from who’s not. Micah is just one person. This guy is the real deal.”

“But he thought Micah would be the strongest to take you down, so that means he can’t do it himself,” I point out.

“I guess so, but he has to be powerful to entice a man like Micah in the first place. It’s like the tiger getting a lion to help him win a battle. I suppose though, El Diablo as Bernardo called him, just offered Micah something he wants. Something that would give him a shot at getting the leadership in the Camorra.”

“If we take down Micah and Robert then we weaken him.”

He releases a ragged breath. “Yeah, I guess that’s all we can do until I know more.”

“I’m working on the tracker.” Still working on it and trying to figure out what the fuck to do to find them. “It’s looking like that’s still our best chance of getting to them before their big plan so let’s keep going as we are. Even though they know we’re on to them, I think they’ll just try to be more careful because they’re too close to getting what they want to fuck things up.”

“Or so they think. The only wild card we have is the girl. She’s a threat, amigo. Now we know how much of a threat she could be because we know Micah’s plans. Even if he cut out her eyes and sliced out her tongue that fact that she draws breath would be a threat. Getting leadership of the Camorra is like having the world at your beck and call.”

His words raise the hairs on the back of my neck and my blood pounds harder in my chest. I don’t like any mention of Summer in this mess but I know Alejandro is right.

The only way to keep Summer safe is to kill them before they kill her.

That is the answer and the way to fix all of this.

“I’ll find a way to track them. I can do this,” I say with determination and he nods.

“I hope so, amigo.”

* * *

As I head home everything that happened tonight plays through my mind and I find myself thinking about Summer, who probably hates me now.

When I get inside my apartment I go straight to her room even though I know she’s asleep. It’s just past three in the morning so she should be.

She is sleeping but the light is on and she’s curled up in the bed with her head resting on a tear drenched pillow, evidence that she cried herself to sleep.

Next to her is a little journal with the same picture I saw her looking at her sister’s house.

The one of her with her sister when they were little and an older woman with her arms around them. I recognize the woman as their grandmother, the Hollywood legend.

I pick up the journal and look inside it. There are pictures of Summer from when she was little. They go right into her teens and she even has some pictures of Hollywood actresses she admires. There are a lot of Vivien Leigh from Gone with the Wind and then I find one of Summer dressed up exactly like her. With her striking beauty, she’s a dead ringer for the actress.

When I get to the middle of the book the pictures change. Instead of images of her, there are images of Ted, her stepfather. And they’re all newspaper clippings.

I find a clipping from an article praising him with his work for the children in the community. Underneath it Summer’s written the word Monster in red. The next few pages are the same. All with articles of Ted and her defacement of his image with the word Monster or crossing his eyes out. I go on for about twenty pages like that and it ends with a clipping from an article of him getting featured in People Magazine as man of the year. Underneath it she’s written.

While they praise him, I’m still in hell and still in pain.

No one listened to me because they didn’t care.

No one watched over me because they didn’t care.

No one saved me because they didn’t care.

I’m so worthless, I fear the day will come when I won’t care.

Then even I won’t want to save myself.

The words send a shiver of ice down my spine that works its way through me and I stare at them as if they’ve taken on her being and are speaking to me.

The words on this page and the name she christened him all roll together in my mind and it dawns on me in full force why she might have been trying to escape life from when she fled to Monaco.

Ted.

He did something to her.

Something that made him become her monster. I have a fucking good guess of what that something is, but I don’t like the answer that comes to my mind.

It takes me a moment to flip the page and I see there’s nothing more to look at after that. It’s just blank pages but I can see she must have been reading this tonight because the pages look like teardrops must have caught them.

I look at her, noting how vulnerable she looks and even though she’s asleep I can see she’s already in that frame of mind where she won’t want to save herself.

I don’t want that to happen to her.

I set the journal back down next to her and lower to sit on the window bay.

Like a dark angel, I watch over as she sleeps.