Chapter 8 Tempting Fate: Part 1

As of late, it seems that I often find myself thinking about the past. Even as I sit here, in the elegant dining room, staring at the computer screen in deafening silence, I’m drawn back to the haunting memories of the choices that I made that contributed to this. It’d been a week since learning about Marcel’s identity and I was home alone, yet again, like every Saturday evening for the last two years. Levi didn’t waste his breath on telling me to stay home—he didn’t have to. I’d felt so ashamed of the vulnerability and stupidity that led to me making desperate choices that I only left my room to go to school whenever he was home. In fact, I avoided him when I could. I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye. The humiliation was too much. It was the middle of December, and being in South Texas, it was just a little below 60 degrees. I’d curled up on the corner of the couch, wrapped in a blanket as I leaned into my side, my elbow resting on the armrest and my head propped up as I dug my chin into the palm of my hand. At times like these, binge watching nighttime TV and eating an entire tub of ice cream was just about the only thing that made me feel better, and being lactose intolerant, you can imagine my disappointment at how bloated I was after a single scoop. Nevertheless, having to switch into one of my brother’s sweats was a sacrifice I was willing to make. It was like clockwork. The second I walked out of his bedroom in his baggy gray sweats, a knock echoed through the front door. Standing across from it, on the other side of the kitchen island, I furrowed my eyebrows in suspicion as I looked at the clock on the electric stove reading ’11:45PM’. He’s home early. Did he lose his keys or something..? There I was, like an idiot, pulling the door wide open. And there he was, like an awfully vivid hallucination, standing in his black leather jacket, dark blue jeans, navy blue t-shirt, black boots, and a soft look on his face. Marcel… I inhaled sharply, gasping softly as I tightened my grip on the door handle. I felt more disappointment and sadness than anger, and as I gazed into those mesmerizing eyes of his, instead of wishing I’d never met him, I wished that I’d never found out the truth. Because the truth was that, deep down, I didn’t want him to go despite my saying, “You need to leave.” I pushed the door shut—or, at least, I tried to. He pressed his hand firmly against it, forcing me to bring my movements to a halt. “Mercy,” he called softly as he pushed the door inward, toward me. My strength was no match for him, and even if it was, I hardly tried to stop him when he made way and invited himself inside. He shut the door behind him, his eyes never leaving me as his intense gaze remained fixed on me. I nearly stumbled back over my own feet, stepping back until I met the kitchen table and there was nowhere for me to go. With my heart at my throat and the sleeves of my oversized sweater in my balled fists, I eyed him as he moved closer to me, coming to a stop just a foot short from me. I waited for him to say something, but he never did. I stared up into his eyes until I folded and muttered, “What do you want..?” “Alright!” The sound of Fabio’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts as he comes to stand beside me to shift the laptop toward him. In black, thick-rimmed glasses, a tucked-in, button-up, blue striped shirt, and dark jeans, he is precisely like the stereotypical tech guru in every modern day movie—minus the part where he oversees the Mafia’s encrypted network. “You should be able to search freely without being flagged now,” he says as his fingers type at the speed of light before shifting the laptop back to sit directly in front of me. So the FBI won’t be monitoring my every move now that they actually have a reason to? What wonderful news. “And whenever you’re ready to shop, just hand your grocery list over to Marcel and I’ll take care of it for ya!” He says enthusiastically as I avert my eyes to meet his dark brown ones. “Any questions? Comments? Concerns?” Are you on crack? I offer him a half-hearted smile and slightly shake my head at him, wondering just how much he’s getting paid because there’s no way someone doing something like this is that happy. “Don Marcello!” Fabio abruptly exclaims in his thick Italian accent, my eyes snapping up to find Marcel emerging into the room in his usual dark colored suit with a hand tightly tucked into his pocket. “Come sta, signore?” (“How are you, sir?”) With a small smile, Marcel greets Fabio, offering him an amiable hug as he says, his accent almost as thick as Fabio’s, “Bene.” (“Well.”) So…he doesn’t just speak English and Spanish? … Italian suits him too. Watching him interact in a non-menacing way for the first time since were connected is almost pleasantly surprising. I was convinced that after he took over his father’s business here, in the US, there’d be nothing left of the idea that I had of who he was that night, 6 years ago. He had assured me that he just wanted to have a conversation with me after subtly pointing out that I looked awfully comfortable in an oversized sweater, sweats that were way too big for me, fuzzy polka dot socks, and a messy bun. Homeless was the word he jokingly used until he realized that I wasn’t so much in the mood for jokes. My arms were crossed beneath my breasts as I hugged myself in a desperate attempt to find comfort in a situation that I wasn’t prepared to be in. I didn’t think I was ever going to face him again, given that my brother made it perfectly clear that he wanted me to stay away from Marcello Saldívar. It’s funny, really. I was so sure that Marcel had just used me and wanted nothing to do with me until he insisted on sitting on the couch with me where he leaned back comfortably with an arm extended over the armrest and his legs parted at shoulder width. Beside him, I sat upright, holding my hands on my lap as I senselessly twiddled with my fingers beneath the sleeves concealing them. Despite my gaze being fixed on them, out of the corner of my eye, I watched the stoic look on his face, hoping that I could guess what he wanted to talk to me about. “I take it your brother told you to stay away from me?” He asked as though he didn’t already know the answer to his question. I drew my lip between my teeth, biting gently as I nodded silently. In my head, I knew that I should’ve picked up the phone and called my brother to get him to leave, but in my heart, I knew that Marcel hadn’t actually done anything to hurt me and I wanted him to stay. What I was feeling was a result of my own guilt. Altogether, if I really did need to stay as far away from him as my brother told me to, I wanted closure. With a tenderness lingering in his voice, he suddenly said, “You seem unhappy.” Somehow, despite knowing what the emptiness inside of me was, hearing him diagnose me on the spot made a knot form at the edge of my throat. I tried to swallow it, shaking my head ever-so-slightly as I lied, “I’m not unhappy.” My voice had quavered, and as much as I tried to pretend and brush it off as if it wasn’t killing me inside, I couldn’t stop the tears that formed at the brim of my eyes and fell with a mind of their own. Damn it. I tried to hide my face, and as I brought my hands up to it, wiping the tears from my cheeks with the sleeves of my sweater, he breathed out, “Well, you sure aren’t happy.” It wasn’t what he said. It was how he said it. He was genuine, concerned, and nothing like the way my brother made me perceive him: cruel, cold, heartless. Well, to be fair, I hadn’t seen him that way yet. “Lab’s ready now,” Marcel’s voice draws me away from my thoughts, my gaze lifting to meet his as Fabio takes the laptop from the dining table. He flips it shut, holding it in one arm as he motions down the direction Marcel entered, telling me, “After you.” Reluctantly, I push back on the chair, straightening on my feet before following closely behind Marcel as he leads me and Fabio out of the dining room. Through the main entrance hall, we walk up the stairs and down the east wing of the mansion, in the opposite direction I’d been escorted from earlier. We walk past a couple of doors until we reach the second to last door from the hall where Marcel types a number combination on the keypad positioned over the door handle. It beeps, and in the next moment, he pushes the door open. His eyes fall on me as he takes a step to the side, his hand moving to find the small of my back to urge me into the room. His touch is a burning sensation—one I hadn’t felt in a long time and still can’t make sense of. Choosing to ignore it, I’m apprehensive, watching as the motion-sensored lights flicker as I emerge into what I quickly learn is a hi-tech lab. This is where I’ll be working..? … This is amazing… At the center, a large white table is illuminated by the bright light beaming from the ceiling. Across from it, a monitor nearly covers the entire wall. I feel Marcel’s hand fall away as I move further into the lab, my lips slightly parted in awe as I slowly turn on my feet, taking in what’s arguably the nicest workspace I’ll ever have. Just off the right side of the table, a set of monitors, a keyboard and mouse sit on top of a desk, linked to the docking station positioned beneath one of the monitors. I watch as Fabio moves to it, setting the laptop down on top of it before connecting it to the USB that links it to the devices on standby. “Let me know if there’s anything else you’ll need,” Marcel’s voice echoes from behind me. A string of chills shoots down my spine as I hear the heels of his shoes click against the white marble floor, approaching me. Swiftly, I turn to face him, and he comes to a stop a foot short from me. He eyes me with a thoughtful look on his face, waiting for me to respond. What am I supposed to say? I don’t know if this will be enough. I part my lips to speak, but I can’t find my voice. It isn’t until Fabio speaks that I’m pulled out of my overwhelmed spell, telling me, “I used the same password that you have on your personal laptop for this one, so you don’t have to worry about learning a new one.” What? I furrow my eyebrows, snapping my head to the side to look at him as he double checks the devices before turning to look at me. It’s evident that he notices the bewildered look on my face and he assures me, “Oh! Don’t worry. When you get it back, you won’t even notice I was in there.” No fucking way… I almost feel violated—mortified. Then again, I should’ve expected as much. After all, my laptop is only one among the many things that were sitting in my apartment—or what once was my apartment. After a long moment’s silence, Fabio suddenly claps his hands, breathing out, “Welp! I believe my job here is done. Boss?” He turns to look at Marcel who hasn’t looked anywhere else but at me. Without peeling his eyes from me, he nods, acknowledging Fabio as he tells him, “You’re excused. Thank you.” I glance at Fabio as he mutters, “Cool.” With a smile on his face, he merely nods at me before taking his leave and shutting the door behind him, leaving me to my bomb-making lab with my bomb-requesting boss.