Stolen Kisses

10 years ago …

“Dante, have you seen Christina? Did she come here?” Maria asked. Her voice was panic stricken and she walked straight in when I opened my door, looking around frantically.

I shook my head.

Four days ago, Christina and I had the worst argument ever. It was so bad I told her I was done with her.

It was an attempt to shake her up, because realistically she knew I would always be there for her. It was written in my DNA to look after my little sister, so even if she pissed me off and worried me sick, I would still be there for her.

“What happened?” I asked Maria.

It must have been something big for Maria to come seek me out. I wasn’t aware that she knew I existed.

“We had an argument and I really need to find her.”

“Well she wouldn’t be here, we had an argument too.”

Maria looked worried and I knew she wanted to tell me something, but was holding back.

How long had I known her?

It was a good twelve years give or take and her favorite thing to do was letting me know in her world I didn’t exist, or doing her best to show me what kind of men she was into.

This girl… no woman—I kept forgetting we weren’t kids anymore— could be a real bitch when she wanted. Still it seemed to be coded in my fucking DNA too to entertain this soft spot I had for her. The soft spot that instantly wondered if she was okay and not thinking immediately that something might be up with Christina.

Something more than what I saw and it definitely wasn’t something I was going to allow to slide.

My sister with Donny Manello at the Crowthorne Society.

To me it was the same as throwing her into the lion’s den. Except that den was an old gentleman’s club that belonged to the Antonella family. The worst crime family known to man. Fucking hell. When I saw some of the unsavory types Christina had been with I wanted to raise hell. Donny was of the unsavory variety, because the Manellos were just a little bit better in terms of being human than the Antonellas.

Danger—that was what it was.

Danger. It was the thing this woman who stood before me loved. Maria loved danger. She was the queen of it. She wore the face of an angel, but would be draped on the devil’s arm if he were offering it up.

Dangerous guys who had deep pockets were her thing.

If you didn’t have deep pockets then don’t bother to look in her direction. She’d told me that once, back in high school when she was eying up a guy twice her age.

Christina had always idolized her and followed Maria everywhere.

They had gotten a place together two summers ago and it was then my worries really took off.

Maria got my sister mixed up with people like the Manellos. If Christina was at Crowthorne’s, there was no doubt that the invitation was handed down from Barabbas Antonella, who may as well be old Lucifer himself.

“Dante,” Maria clasped her hands together and gave me a long, hard terrified stare. “I think she’s in trouble.” She blurted and shocked me to shit when she covered her mouth and started crying. The last time I’d seen her cry was back when we were kids. I didn’t even know she was capable of tears.

She had my attention now and focused it right back to Christina.

“What kind of trouble?” My breath hitched somewhere between my heart and sternum.

“The bad kind. Oh God, Dante, she told me she’s pregnant.”

A wave of shock shattered me.

Oh God, no. This wasn’t happening. Pregnant?

Fucking hell. I knew something like this would happen. I wasn’t overacting or being the overprotective big brother when I went looking for her the other day. I could sense she was in trouble.

“Pregnant?” I asked shaking my head.

“Yes, and the father wants nothing to do with her. She got mad and said she wanted to destroy him. She had some kind of dirt on him. Dante, the type of guys I’ve seen her with lately are all bad. All of them.”

There was an edge to her voice that twisted my nerves into tighter knots.

“There’ve been so many different guys, and she’s changed so much.” She added. “I don’t even recognize her anymore. She’s out of control.”

“Did she say who the father was?”

She shook her head and winced, crying harder. “She wouldn’t tell me.”

The other day when Christina and I had argued she wouldn’t tell me who she was seeing either. She’d told me to mind my own business and fuck off—stay out of her life. Maybe she’d told Maria the same too.

Yes, Maria was right. Christina had changed. Changed dramatically. I didn’t recognize her either.

Now this. Pregnant, by someone who was no doubt like Donny Manello. Or fuck maybe it was him.

“I’m going to look for her.” I grabbed my keys and pulled my guns from my jacket pocket—my twin Berettas. Maria looked freaked when she saw them.

“Dante, wait, you should calm down. You wouldn’t want to make things worse.”

“Calm down? You come here telling me Christina’s pregnant, in trouble, and you’re worried about the guys she’s been seeing. You said they’re bad and she wants to destroy the father of that baby. How the fuck am I supposed to calm the fuck down?”

“Dante, let’s just go find her. There are two places I haven’t looked yet. I’ve looked everywhere else. Please let’s just try these two places.”

Yes, let’s and if she wasn’t there, I would take matters into my own hands big time.

“Come.” I didn’t care that she wasn’t my girl. I took her hand and led her out the door, holding her hand like she was mine. Daring anyone to challenge me about it.

Danger had so many faces, it could be anyone. It could be those people in charge like Raphael Rossi, the Chicago mafia boss who had money and power.

He was the kind of danger you knew about and avoided. You wouldn’t piss him off.

We were full blooded Italians. Pa had links with the Rossi family from back in Italy so when he died Raphael sent for us from New York and set us up here. I worked for him as an associate so I knew the ropes. I knew my place and the dangers that lurked around me.

The Manellos and Antonellas were the other kind of danger; the unknown. The one’s you never saw coming.

We got out to my garage and I pulled out my bike. I handed her my extra helmet. We jumped on and set out, tearing down the road.

The first place we went to was the park. Maria said Christina had come out here a few times to do some drawings.

No one was here today.

That just made Maria more anxious, and me …

Well … I got a bad feeling. A really bad feeling that worsened when I saw stop number two.

We pulled up at a classy apartment complex in the city. The kind wealthy businessmen used when they were working right in the heart of town.

We took the elevator up to the penthouse suite and it truly started to get under my skin when I thought of what the fuck Christina must have been getting up to with these men.

Men who had to be much older than her. She was only twenty-one. I was four years older than her. Donny, I knew was in his early forties.

“When did you come here?” I asked Maria.

“I followed Christina here.”

“Followed?”

“That was how desperate I became. There was a party here. We had this joke about Mr. Mystery Man, I was hoping to see who he was. I thought for a while she was just seeing one guy over a long period of time and didn’t want to tell me, but I think I was wrong,” Maria answered. “She came here with one guy I thought was him, but when she got here she met another. They were both tall with dark hair. Looked like the usual rough types from the bar, but loaded. I didn’t get in so I didn’t see much past the door. ”

When the elevator doors opened we stepped out and made our way down the corridor.

The door ahead was slightly ajar. Maria sped up, but on instinct I grabbed her arm to stop her from rushing in. Panic made people careless, and clearly she wasn’t thinking straight.

“Door’s open, who would leave the door open to a penthouse suite?” It was my years of seeing too much shit that put my ass in gear and my mind on high alert for every single little thing.

An open door might have been fine to a normal person, and maybe it was.

Still I erred on the side of caution. Always.

Guns ready and eyes sharp, I pulled her behind me and proceeded with caution. I pushed the door so it was fully open and slowly we stepped in.

I truly pitied any fucker who dared come near us, because my senses were on high alert. Something was definitely off here. I could feel it, the tension in the air twisted my insides.

There was a coffee mug on the table, newspaper open and set on the sofa, and an empty plate on the floor next to the sofa. Those seemed to be the only things out of place.

Those and … rose petals.

Pink rose petals.

I stopped with Maria and she held onto the ends of my jacket. She saw them too.

Rose petals were dashed all over the floor leading down the corridor.

Maria tugged on my jacket.

“Dante, her purse is here.” Maria whispered pointing over to the floor to ceiling glass window.

There was a woman’s purse on the floor. Christina had so many I wouldn’t have known that was hers.

I tightened the grip on my gun, not because I was angry at finding the purse. It was, because she was still here or had been. There were no sounds coming from the inside of this place and the door had been left open. It was suspicious as fuck.

Uncertainty. The not knowing. The speculation. It all built inside me like a volcano ready to erupt.

All that was left to do was go further, down the damn rabbit hole. Follow the rose petals and see where they led.

Or to whom?

I stepped forward again, Maria holding on to me. We moved down the corridor, stepping on petals that lined the hard wood floor.

We rounded the corner and something tickled my nose.

Four years I’d been climbing up that ladder of the business. Working my way in to work for the great Raphael. I was still a grunt, but a grunt with a chance. I’d been in Chicago for twelve years. I had always known I wanted to be part of Raphael’s crew. Anyone who had the chance I’d been given would jump at it, the same way I had. However, it came with the good, the bad, and the worse.

The worse being how I was able to pick up the scent of blood in the air, right off the bat. Like a wild animal sniffing out both predator and prey, I could smell it and knew danger was near.

Or something else.

I didn’t realize my movements had sped up and I was no longer exacting the caution and bravado I displayed when first coming in here. Eager to see where the roses led to, I hurried down the corridor and into the bedroom where I froze.

The sight of Christina lying lifeless on a massive four poster bed hit me first. There was blood all over the bed. All over her.

It was like I’d just stepped into a nightmare.

Maria fell to the floor screaming and crying.

Crying and screaming.

The guns left my hands, the metal echoing against the walls as they landed on the floor.

No …

She must have been asleep, or something. She must have …

Lifeless was how you looked when you were asleep. Right?

But her eyes were open, unseeing and her pale skin was even lighter, lips a shade of blue I’d seen too many times in my young life. And, the bed was covered in blood.

There was so much blood.

Still that couldn’t mean what my brain was telling me.

Christina was my little sister.

My sister.

Pa asked me to take care of her and Ma. On his death bed it was the only thing he had asked of me. I did it. I took care of them always, that was my first priority above everything.

So, this wasn’t really what I thought.

“Christina, get up.” I walked closer, right up to the bed and that was when I saw it.

A note. A note tagged to her stomach. It said:

Whore, this is what you get.

“No …” I shook my head in disbelief. “This can’t be happening.”

No …

No …

“Noooooo!” I cried out reaching for her. I picked her up and held her against me. She was so cold and lifeless.

My beautiful baby sister.

My sister.

Someone killed her.

Someone had taken her from me.

Present day …

I’d brought lilies today …

I brought lilies and cleared the grave of all the roses from Sunday.

I hated roses …

I may have seemed like an asshole for getting rid of them, but I couldn’t stand the fucking sight. Felt like a reminder of the roses her killer had used to surround her body.

It was a reminder to me that she was gone.

The people who came for her birthday memorial wouldn’t have known that detail. Since I did, I removed them all and left the tulips Ma had bought with a few other arrangements. I’d left the dahlias that I brought too. Christina had liked those. I remembered her telling me that after she had found out her favorite actress loved them.

Once I was done cleaning, I’d sat down on the patch of grass in front of the grave, and there I sat for the last three hours.

Just watching and looking, remembering ;lost in my memories.

There was a bench, but I liked sitting on the grass just like I used to with Christina when we were kids.

We’d sit in the park near where we lived, talking and playing around for hours. I was just trying to do that now. This was our time. I’d talk to her still and tell her what was going on with me.

Today I was quiet the whole time.

I’d sat and mostly gazed out in the open at the surroundings. We’d buried her near the lake that she had loved.

I’d bought the whole plot of land and sectioned it off for her, so it was hers. Surrounding it was a garden with sculptures of everything she loved. She’d wanted to be an artist.

Prior to her death, she was trying to figure things out, because Ma wanted her to study something useful like business or law. Christina was very passionate about art and I had told her to take some time to figure things out.

She took that to mean moving out of Ma’s after high school and going to live with Maria.

It was the moment, everything changed. That was her equivalent of going wild in college. She was like that for two years before I thought she had calmed down. She came to me wanting my opinion on whether or not she should go to art school.

I stared at the head stone trying to remember the day when she told me about that. I’d said yes, because while she might have loved art, I knew going away to school would have gotten her someplace better. Far away from the gangsters and the dangerous types I was starting to see her with.

That day was more of a blur now.

My heart broke every time I cast my memory back to that time and something faded. That was what happened though. Time blurred the memory. Some things that were once vivid in my mind were all shadows now.

Practically everything except that night when I had found Christina dead on the bed.

That memory was still bright and clear like it could have happened only yesterday. I had to remind myself that it was ten years ago.

However, by doing so, by reminding myself that it was a decade ago I remembered that I had failed as her brother and I hadn’t found justice.

I had never found her killer.

I hugged my knees to my chest and stared openly at the grave—her final resting place.

My last words in life to her were I’m done with you.

I never realized that was going to be the last time we’d speak. The last time she’d talk with me, the very last time I’d see her alive.

We’d had such a bad argument and I had foolishly used stupid reverse psychology on her, because I thought it would work. She knew how much I adored her, and she’d always come to me when she was younger. She got older though and things changed.

I didn’t know how ten years had passed so quickly. Year in, year out I hoped that something would come up, but there was nothing.

I was still looking and hadn’t given up. I had no plans to give up either, even though the police had done so years ago.

I still had guys searching while I continued my own investigation. The longer I looked and the harder I searched I knew that the person who had killed her must have been some kind of high power fucker.

Some high power fucker who wanted to teach her a lesson. She was pregnant and wanted to destroy him.

No one was that hard to find, and it was the evidence itself.

I kept seeing that damn coffee mug on the table of the penthouse suite. The coffee mug, the newspaper, the empty plate, and Christina’s purse. The person had been there, looked like they lived there, yet the cops said the place wasn’t registered to anyone. I knew all of it had to be bull shit.

Adding insult to injury not even Raphael was able to help. The man could move mountains, but not in that instance.

Couldn’t get a name. Couldn’t get shit.

Something like that should have been easy in our circles, unless the person you were looking for was a bigger fish than you. There were many categories of sharks in the sea, some were more vicious than others. Some had more power than others.

Obviously, that was what had happened here.

Even with all of my theories and assumptions I was still here years later with nothing.

Not even a lead.

It was a hard thing to accept.

Every year I came here I hoped to have better news, but all I had brought was flowers. I came with flowers and love.

Today’s visit hadn’t been planned. It just felt like I should come see her again. I was here at least once a month. In the beginning it was every day, then my friends weaned me down to a week, then the month.

I’d been a broken man trying to find a way back to myself.

The rumble of an engine pierced through the silence. I knew the sound all too well.

It was a bike engine.

No … not just one, but two bikes. I knew who they belonged to.

Claudius and Gio.

Alex wouldn’t come because he’d think it was inappropriate.

He came on Sunday, because I needed them all here; my three best friends.

He wouldn’t come today. He wasn’t around at the time when Christina was alive. It was like our stories were similar, but not exactly the same and the differences were enough for him to realize he didn’t understand my pain.

The thing was I didn’t care about that, but I got it. It was a sort of respect.

The same sort of respect we showed each other in our personal life and business.

Claudius was the new boss. He was in charge now and us with him; the whole Chicago operation. Billions of dollars may be involved, but to me we were still The Four—Claudius Morientz’s men, the guys who got involved when shit was going down.

Gio, Alex, me, and …

Jude.

Jude was Alex’s brother. He was also a traitor. He was no longer with us in every sense of that word.

Alex killed him to save Claudius and that was possibly another reason why he wasn’t here today. It had happened over a year ago, but it was fresh death, and at his own hands—new pain. He’d had two older brothers and both of them were dead.

On Sunday when we were together it was in a crowd of my closest friends and family. We wouldn’t be talking out our pain.

Not like we would be today.

Claudius was the first to pull up. Both he and Gio were dressed in black leather biker jackets. Claudius took off his helmet first and his long black hair billowed in the wind.

Claudius was the boss, but when he came here like this he was just my friend. Gio took his helmet off too.

He was more of a brother than a friend to me. Most likely that was probably because our stories were the same. Someone killed his best friend and the killer was never found. No one knew who did it either. Same story as me.

We each bore a tattoo of a cross in memory of our fallen loved ones.

Claudius had his on his cheek, and like mine, both Gio and Alex bore theirs on their necks.

Death was what bonded us together. We’d been friends before, but death transformed us from the boys who’d loved motorcycles into men.

I watched the two approach and sit opposite me.

“How’d you know I’d be here?” I asked. Maybe it was a stupid question. With these guys I was like an open book and they knew me too well. Honestly sometimes they knew my mind even better than I did myself.

“That a question you actually want an answer for?” Claudius asked giving me a smirk and staring at me with his unusual colored eyes. One brown and the other blue.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“We didn’t think you’d want to be completely alone.” Gio offered and glanced over to Christina’s grave.

“I just wonder if the next ten years will be like this,” I said returning my gaze to the headstone. “Me sitting here feeling like a failure. Then it will be twenty years. I’m still looking for the mother fucker who killed her, but I … maybe I should just accept I’m not going to find him.”

“Don’t accept shit Dante. I’ll be the last person to ever tell you that.” Claudius stated.

I looked at him and took note of the seriousness in his expression. A little over a year ago he’d gotten vengeance on the man who’d murdered Marissa, his first wife. The killer was a man called Goliath. He was a black market trafficker who’d gotten involved in a deal to steal some nukes from Chicago.

The whole thing was potentially an example of things happening in the most unusual of ways. So, him telling me not to give up was because he knew what he was talking about.

“Me too,” Gio added. “I won’t tell you to give up, because I’m not giving up either. The similarities we share is that neither of us knows who took our people from us. We have no leads, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find.”

“I won’t stop looking.” I said it more to Christina rather than them.

“And, we won’t stop helping you look either,” Claudius added. “We just need to find another avenue, which is what I did.”

I straightened. “What do you mean? What did you do?”

I was real interested to hear what he did that I hadn’t done yet.

“Last night I contacted a P.I., who deals with unsolved murders.” Claudius answered. “I know you’ve hired many people, but this guy is a disgraced ex-naval officer. Someone framed him awhile back for murdering his wife and he lost everything. He was exonerated, but never went back to the service. I figured he was worth a shot, because he owes no allegiance to anyone. A man like that will dig deep and won’t be afraid of what he finds. I think that’s what we need here.”

The thing I liked about Claudius was that he always spoke with wisdom and experience.

“Thank you. I don’t know how to thank you,” I replied.

“Don’t thank me yet. Let’s see what this guy is made of first. If we get results, then it’s a step in the right direction.”

I nodded and looked at them both. Something like hope sparked in me, waking up the fight in me to avenge Christina’s death.

I just needed a name.

Only a name and it would indeed be a step in the right direction.