He reads off the skewed facts of Carmela's life, making the woman a caricature none of us standing here recognize, before clearing his throat and looking at the three of us gathered, struggling for something more to say. "Do any of you have a story you'd like to share about Carmela?"
"I got one."
My father's voice draws my attention back to him. The preacher waves his direction, giving him the floor.
"I knew Carmela since she was just a little girl," he says, motioning toward his knees. "She was about this high, you know, a short little thing, and spunky. She used to come by the deli every day on her way home from school and I'd ask her how her day was, and it didn't matter how good of a day she had, she'd always tell me something bad. She was a complainer, that one. And I'd give her a cookie, you know, one of the ones we make fresh. I'd tell her no worries, tomorrow will be better. It's been a lot of years since I saw her… last time, she came by the shop, and I asked her how her day was and she said she'd just found out she was having a baby, so she wasn't gonna complain even if she could. She took a cookie and left. Never saw her again. To this day, every time we make Snickerdoodles, I think about her. Those were her favorites."
Tears stream down Karissa's cheeks, but she smiles. "She used to make them for me."
Silence overcomes the air around us again. The preacher clears his throat before moving on.
It's over as quick as it starts.
Afterward, my father approaches, taking Karissa's hands in his own. He kisses her cheeks, smiling, giving her the warm greeting she didn't get last time.
"Come by the deli sometime," he tells her. "I've got some cookies with your name on them."
"Thank you," she whispers. "I will."
He lets go of her, motioning toward me with his head. "Just leave this one at home next time."
The preacher pulls Karissa away then, and my father turns to me, meeting my eyes. He stares me down for a moment, not a stitch of apprehension.
"Pink roses," I say.
He shrugs. "They're your mother's favorite, so I figure I can't go wrong with them."
He turns, hesitating when I call out to him. "Look…"
He holds his hand up to stop me. "Save it, Ignazio. Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it." His gaze flickers to Karissa briefly before he turns to glare at me. "Just don't make me visit another woman's grave because of you."
My father walks away, and I think, as he disappears from the cemetery, that this is probably one of the last times I'll ever speak to him.
"Naz?"
I turn around when Karissa says my name and immediately pull her into my arms, hugging her tightly.
"Are you ready to get out of here?" I ask.
"Yes."
She gives one last long look at where her mother will forever rest before turning away. We head to my car and climb in, and I watch the rearview mirror as we pull away, waiting for the police cruiser to follow me, but it turns the other way.
They don't come after me.
Someday, but not today.
I breathe a sigh of relief, reaching over and taking Karissa's hand, giving it a squeeze.
I don't go home.
Karissa doesn't question it.
I drive north, out of the city.
She watches out the side widow, still holding my hand, but she remains silent. Maybe she's afraid to ask questions. Maybe she just trusts me to take her somewhere safe.
I don't know, but I appreciate her silence.
It's more comfortable than I expect it to be.
Dr. Carter's place is dead quiet, no cars around, no people anywhere. I pull the Mercedes right up front and cut the engine as Karissa eyes the building with confusion. There's only a small sign along the side, but her eyes zero in on it.
Dr. Michael Carter
Veterinary Services
"You're kidding me," she says, her eyes turning to me. "I thought he was a doctor."
"He is," I say. "A doctor of veterinary medicine."
"You got shot, you nearly died, and instead of calling 9-1-1, you made me call a fucking vet?"
Her disbelief makes me laugh, but I don't comment. Instead, I open the car door. "Come on, there's something I want to show you."
She gets out of the car after me and I lead her straight out back. The moment I round the corner, I hear the growling and pause, glaring down at a pair of beady brown eyes as they glare at me.
"Killer!"
Karissa gasps, pushing away from me to run to him. His growling ceases instantly as he grows excited at the sight of her, jumping up and down. Karissa drops to her knees, wrapping her arms around the dog as she starts sobbing.
She loses it.
She cries long and hard.
She's in pain.
Torture.
I can feel it emanating from her.
It exists deep down in her soul.
It's not about the dog, I know. It isn't even really about her mother, and it certainly isn't her father. It has nothing to do with him. It's not about me, or her, or anyone else. Not about Daniel, or Paul, or Ray. It's about life, and how cruel it can sometimes be.
How unfair life is.
All of us have a hand in it.
We do what we have to do, take what we have to take, and sometimes we hurt people we swear we won't hurt, but we do, because life makes us.
It's a dog eat dog world.
We're all monsters, when it comes down to it.
Her eyes meet mine.
She mouths the words 'thank you'.
I do nothing but nod.
I don't deserve her gratitude.
But she's the kind of woman who is grateful, anyway.
I'm going to tell you something that a wise man once told me: it's not the darkness that's terrifying, it's what you might find in it.
I was always afraid of the dark as a child, afraid monsters would sneak into my room at night, but now I know there's nothing to fear. Not because monsters don't exist. They do. I've seen them. I've encountered them. One attacked me as I slept.
I even became one myself afterward.
No, the reason there's nothing to fear in the dark is because real monsters lurk in the light, too. They hide in plain sight. The trick is to find them before they can get you.
I'm not a good man.
I'm not.
I know.
But Karissa tells me maybe I'm not a bad man, either. I'm the kind of man who easily slips between the dark and the light, the kind of monster who walks along the shadows.
Through the darkness, I stare at where Karissa lays beside me in the bed. She regards me warily, eyes guarded and nervous as she waits for a reaction. I'm panting, trying to catch my breath, trying to calm down and purge the memories from my head.
I hate these fucking nightmares.
Seconds pass as she waits me out before there's a noise out in the hallway, something scratching against the bedroom door.
Panicking, I don't even think about it as I protectively grab ahold of Karissa, forcing her behind me. My heart stalls as I stare at the door, feeling her hands on me.
"Relax," she whispers, grabbing my arm. "It's just Killer."
Killer.
It takes a moment for that to sink in, but I don't relax, my muscles taut and shoulders tense. I offer Karissa a small smile as she leans over, lightly kissing my lips.
I kiss her back as she runs her hands along my face, wiping the sweat from my brow. She questions nothing. She asks nothing of me. I give her the world and for that, she offers trust. We both know I don't deserve it.
I never will.
But I'm grateful, and I show her.
I climb on top of her, kissing her deeper, more frenzied. It's instinctive, as she opens herself up, spreading her legs to accommodate me. I'm inside of her right away. With her, there's never any hesitation.
I've learned my lesson.
I find peace in the darkness sometimes now. I find peace with her. I'll never forget, but she makes me feel like it'
s okay to remember. It's okay to remember the pain and fear. It's okay to admit the darkness terrified me.
Because I found some light in it.
I found her.
The scratching at the door continues, followed by growling when Karissa starts to make noise. She might trust me, but Killer certainly doesn't. He takes her moans of pleasure as signs of distress and tries to break the door down to get at me.
Since you're so good at keeping secrets, I'm going to tell you another:
I had another fear as a child.
Just one other.
Goddamn dogs.
Karissa
The sports bar is utter chaos.
Every booth is packed, asses planted in all of the stools, as servers run back and forth and bartenders dish out beer after beer. Naz is still sipping on the same one he ordered over thirty minutes ago. I imagine it has to be piss-warm by now, but it doesn't seem to bother him.
He doesn't seem to notice, for that matter.
He sits across from me in the small wooden booth, posture relaxed but expression faded. The man's here physically, but his mind is somewhere far, far away. Where? I don't know. I'd ask, but he probably wouldn't answer.
He'd just tell me not to worry about it.
That's what he always says these days when I ask things, when he can tell I'm starting to overthink everything again. Don't worry about it. I try not to, but it's hard, given what we've been through, given who he is.
Or who he used to be…
"You're out?"
"About as out as a man like me can possibly be."
"What does that even mean?"
"Don't worry about it. Just know I'm done with all of that."
Out.
Done with all of that.
Hardly.
Over the past year, there have been incidents. Quiet phone conversations and middle-of-the-night disappearances, none of which he ever offers explanations for, leading to days of obsessively cleaning his finally-fixed car or being more paranoid than usual. The cops have come around more times than I care to count, asking about situations and people Naz always feigns ignorance about.
Out, for Naz, certainly hasn't been cold turkey.
Clearing my throat, I pick up the bacon cheeseburger the waitress shoved in front of me a moment ago when she ran past. I take a bite, dramatically rolling my eyes back in my head. Jesus Christ, it's Heaven on a bun. I'm surprised I don't hear trumpets playing in the distance as I chew, wiping the grease from my face when it runs down my chin.
Best burger ever.
"I swear, I could eat these every day," I say. "Breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
Naz's eyes drift my way at the sound of my voice. He's not eating. He says he's not hungry. "I'm not sure that would be good for your health."
"Yeah, but you'd still love me if I gained, like, seven hundred pounds, right?"
A small smile tugs the corner of his lips as he regards me, just enough to show off a hint of his dimples. "Right."
"See? No problem."
"Sure, until you had a massive coronary from the clogged arteries. I already worry about you getting diabetes with as much chocolate as you eat."
I roll my eyes instead of commenting, taking another bite as he laughs. I swallow it down with what's left of my Coke just as the waitress comes speeding by. She skids to a stop, grabbing my empty glass with a smile. "Refill, darling?"
"Yes, please."
She turns her attention to Naz. "Another beer?"
He shakes his bottle. Empty. "Sure."
The waitress scurries away, returning moments later with our drinks. The cap is already off Naz's beer bottle, but he barely gives it a look before taking a sip.
I smile, unable to help myself, as I stare at him. His mind drifts again, his attention elsewhere, but I don't mind. Not really. It gives me a chance to watch him like he usually watches me.
I'm sure, if people knew us, if they knew our history... if they read the fine print that accompanied our story... they'd wonder how I could even be here right now. How I could sit at this table, across from this man, and breathe the same air he breathes, sharing the same space that he occupies. They'd wonder how I could look at him and feel anything besides hatred. How I could see him and not wish him dead.
The truth is, sometimes I wonder those same things.
It makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me. Is it some sort of sickness I've caught? Delirium. Delusions. Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome, or maybe it's a disease I was born with. Not contagious, but genetic, something my mother passed on to me. I see an echo of her in myself. I'm stumbling down the same path she long ago got lost on, a path that reaffirmed her undying love for a man that had been marked for death.
I wonder if this is how she felt, facing the realization that the man she'd chosen to give herself to was the same man who took so much away from her. I wonder if she felt as I feel, if she saw what I see: a flawed man, a tortured soul, a shred of hope inside what everyone else finds utterly hopeless. I wonder a lot, but I'll never have any answers, never get a chance to ask my questions, thanks to the man sitting across from me.
Some days, I'm still so angry about what he did, about how he hurt me, but other days… days like today, when I watch him in silence and see a hint of the vulnerability he usually keeps locked away… I'm afforded a sick sense of relief. Relief that I'll never have my questions answered, that I'll never have to know just how fucked up we all really are.
I finish eating as he sips his beer, staring off toward the nearest television screen. Football is on, the noise from the crowd loud but the silence that surrounds the two of us is comfortable.
After my burger is gone, I shove my plate aside and gaze at the screen. I know nothing about sports. There's a green team and a blue team and they smash into each other like the waves of a tumultuous sea, mixing and mashing and doing whatever the hell they do to score points.
I don't know.
I don't get it.
"I need a job."
My attention darts right to Naz when he says that. "What?"
Sighing exasperatedly, he leans back in the booth, his eyes shifting to me. He stares at me, hard, but his expression remains passive.
After a moment, he shrugs.
"A job," he says again. "Something."
"Do you…? I mean, if it's about money, I…"
He cuts me off with a laugh and takes a swig of his beer. "We're good on money. Our children are good on money, as are their children, and their children's children. It isn't about money."
I gape at him. That was a whole hell of a lot of hypothetical children he just threw in there for a man who hasn't uttered a word to me about us potentially having a family since the last time we stepped foot in Sin City. "If it's not money, then…"
"I just need something," he explains, not looking at me now, his eyes drifting along the wooden tabletop between us. "You have school. You're going to have something someday, a career, and I've got nothing."
"You have plenty," I say, although I know exactly what he means when he says he has nothing. He has no focus, no goal, nothing he's working toward anymore. The man spent his entire adulthood hunting something, and now that it's been caught, he's just standing there, stagnant, unsure which direction to go.
"You asked me once what I would've done with my life had I not lost everything," he says. "I was thinking about that earlier… thinking about what kind of man I'd be if Johnny hadn't turned on me."
"Did you figure it out?"
"I don't know," he says, finishing off his beer before setting his bottle down. "I was a punk kid. Sure, I was in college, but who knows how long that would've lasted, considering I was already working odd jobs for Ray back then. I just wanted to be everything my father wasn't… I didn't want to have to work myself to the death just to pay the bills. I didn't want to turn out like Giuseppe Vitale. So I think maybe, regardless, when all was said and done, this is exactly who I'd still be. Even if Johnny hadn't done wha
t he did, somebody, somewhere, probably would have, and I still would've become this man."
His voice has a dejected tone to it, like that realization knocked the wind from his sails.
"You think it was fate? That you were just born to be this way?"
"No." He meets my eyes again. "I'm saying my choices would've eventually led me this way. I can only blame myself, and I'm sorry what me being this man has done to everyone I've ever loved."
Those words send a shockwave through me.
Never, in a million years, did I expect to hear him say that.
I'm not sure how to respond.
"So yeah…" He motions toward the waitress, requesting our bill. "I need something."
He pulls out some cash, tossing it on the table, before standing up. He reaches for me, and I stare at his extended hand for a moment, shell-shocked.
Did he seriously just say that?
Holy shit.
Ignazio Vitale actually accepted blame.
Naz lets out a light laugh as I shake off my stupor and take his hand, climbing to my feet. He links our fingers together, squeezing gently, as the two of us stroll out of the busy sports bar and onto the floor of the MGM Grand.
I didn't expect to come back here, to see this place again so soon after our last visit. The casino is busy, and it's still pretty early on a Friday night, but instead of hanging around down here with the crowds, we head up to our Skyloft penthouse.
Same exact room as last time, too. It all feels familiar, yet so utterly different. This time, there's no Brandy, no Ray, and no guy Naz is going to murder at the end of the day (one can hope, anyway). There's no business to attend to (that I'm aware of), nothing planned (that he tells me about), no expectations except just existing in the moment.
No expectations except for being together.
I like it so much better this way.
As soon as we reach the room and Naz opens the door, I see a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice sitting on the table, a platter of chocolate covered strawberries beside it. Smiling, I stroll over to the table, plucking a strawberry from the platter and holding it up, waving it toward Naz as he approaches.
"For someone concerned about my impending diabetes, you sure spoil me with this stuff a lot."