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CHAPTER 5

Michele

“ N o more,” I tell myself while sitting against the back of the door. I allowed myself the time to purge my emotions, now it’s over. Back to reality. I’ve been through crazy, I can get through this.

Inhaling, exhaling, I gather my thoughts as I look in front of me. What is even happening to me? My head hurts as the day seems like a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I want to turn my brain off.

Gazing the space, I wonder why he wouldn’t come inside. If I’m going to be here, I might as well get an idea of the space. Just beyond this entryway, the home opens to a living room to my left and a dining room to my right. A small hallway goes down the home in front of me.

Getting up, I move to the living room first.

The space is tidy. It’s very inviting. With plank flooring in a soft sand tone, the taupe living room set of a couch, love seat, and chair all blend nicely with the light oak entertainment center against the far wall. Both the couch and loveseat have these soft, almost velvet like throw blankets draped on a diagonal over their backs. The walls are a light beige with canvas prints hanging throughout the room.

Family pictures.

A younger looking version of Rogue, a beautiful woman with a natural tan, dark hair, and a little girl that clearly has her dad’s smile. Not that I’ve seen it up close and personal, but the way he’s looking at her and beaming, it is obvious.

They are happy. Relaxed.

Being here, it feels like an invasion of his intimate space. I move to the kitchen. It has a modern country type of feel with light wooden accents in the beams of the ceilings and a unique chandelier made of antlers over the eat-in kitchen table. White countertops shine with these light oak cabinets with silver handles. There are no kitchen gadgets filling the space. In fact, this space is very impersonal compared to the living area.

Checking the cabinets, there are pots and pans, plates and glasses. The pantry however, is empty, same with the fridge. While someone could eat here, should even be eating here, apparently they don’t. There isn’t even salt in the salt shaker.

Questions swirl. Is this a second home? Where is his wife and daughter? Why aren’t they here? Why does he say he doesn’t live here?

He said three people have the code, two of them are on the Harley-Davidson. That is me and him, the third is dead. Does that mean his wife is dead? Where is his daughter? Is she dead? Is that why he doesn’t stay here? I don’t want to make assumptions and quickly turn my questions off. That isn’t fair to him or his kindness to bring me here.

Going down the hallway, there is a room to the right. I enter it to see it’s an office. Two bookshelves, a desk, and chair are the only furniture in the room. It’s the walls though, every wall has pictures or awards. All of them for military service.

Moving down the hall, there is a bathroom on the left, then another room on the left. Entering it, I see letters on the wall spelling out Dominiks. Stepping into the space, there is a twin size bed with a rail for a smaller child but a sheer canopy style covering with tiger lilies and butterflies attached. As I turn to the wall that the door is on, I gasp.

There is a full on, hand painted mural of tiger lilies from floor to ceiling.

The tiger lilies are for his daughter.

Where is she? Why isn’t she here?

Being in this space, his private environment, I’m learning things about my customer, things I probably shouldn’t know. How he lives his life isn’t my business. His wife and child certainly aren’t my business. Moving from that room, across the hall is another bedroom, this one though is set up with a day bed, and the rest of the space is filled with toys. There is a pretend kitchen, a play store set up, and baby dolls galore.

I don’t enter that particular room, but I do leave the doors open as I exit each room. I don’t know why, but I find comfort in being able to hear more around me. There are two more rooms at the end of the hallway. I go to one and I’m astonished to see a vanity, two dressers, and yet no bed. Walking into the space, I go through one door to find a walk-in closet filled with women’s clothes and shoes line the floor. Backing back into the room, I open the other door inside it and find the master bathroom. It is stunning with a shower that has double shower heads, a separate bathtub that is bigger than anything I’ve ever seen. Another door leads to a private area to use the toilet and the final door in the bathroom leads to a smaller closet filled with Naval uniforms.

Well, he was or is in the Navy. However, where we are I don’t know of a base nearby so I think he’s no longer in service. I wonder what he did in the Navy?

Exiting what is apparently the master suite, I go to the last door across the hall and find a laundry room that leads to the back yard.

I don’t bother going out back. I won’t be here long enough for any of this to matter.

Back in the kitchen I take a seat at the table. I don’t know why but sitting on the couch doesn’t seem like the right thing to do in someone else’s house. My phone rings before I can think on what my next moves will be.

Looking at the caller ID, I sigh in relief. It’s my cousin and best friend from back home.

“Hello,” I answer trying to decide how much I should share.

“Chelle-Belle, I’m sorry this isn’t a casual call and I don’t have much time.” She explains, her Jersey accent prevalent in the way it only gets when she’s hyper or anxious. “Have you heard anything from him ?” she asks and my heart sinks.

What do I say? “Maybe,” I mutter.

“Yes or No, Michele?” She is serious. “It is a yes or no.”

The tears pool behind my eyes. “I think possibly.”

“What happened, and don’t leave out one detail? I’m making arrangements to come to you as we speak.”

“Giulia, you can’t leave everything you have there.”

“Michele, what happened?”

This is Giulia, straight to it. As the head of the Bianchi Holdings, she has to be firm at all times. A business, she inherited from her Italian father. Our mothers were sisters. I was raised by our grandparents because my mom died in a car accident when I was three. While her mother wanted to raise me alongside Giulia, our grandparents wouldn’t allow it due to her husband. He was a hard man and very dedicated to building his business. While I don’t know exactly what the company does, my grandparents never approved.

Giulia took over after her father’s death. How she manages all aspects of her father’s world, I don’t know. What I do know is I found myself in a bad situation and she got me the hell out of dodge.

The resources she has, it worked.

Well, until now.

“I don’t know that it came from him.”

“Well, I do,” she challenges.

My head pounds as my pulse quickens and the fear rises. “I didn’t even tell you yet.”

She lets out an exasperated breath. “Michele, I hired a man name Howard when you wanted to leave. He got you the car, the money, the identity set up. He is the driver who got you to South Carolina. Remember him?”

“Yes, vaguely, I remember him. Everything happened so fast. But what does that have to do with me now? I’ve been here for years.”

She sighs, “We should have changed your name completely.”

“Giulia, what happened?”

“Howard’s body was shipped to my office in a box. His head missing, but his ID card in his front pocket. There was a typed letter,” Giulia whispers the last sentence.

The tears fall. “I have his head,” I whisper as I now remember my brief time with Howard as I was getting out of New Jersey. “I got a box of flowers in Friday, but didn’t open it until today. There was a severed head of a man inside,” I manage to choke out as emotions overwhelm me.

“Where are you now?”

I look to the ceiling as I blow out a breath. “I don’t actually know.”

“What!” She shrieks.

“I have a customer, you know the cute one I told you about?”

“Monday, tiger lily biker man?”

“Yes. He was here when I opened the box. He called in his gang. Before I could put my thoughts together he whisked me off to his lair.”

She laughs a nervous laugh before immediately going back to serious, “you read too many damn books. When did your shipment come in?”

“Friday, but I was busy, so I didn’t open it until today.”

“Mine came today, it gave him the lead. Now that tells me, he’s a full weekend ahead of us.”

“Where are you? Your house isn’t safe, get out of town if you can. Don’t go back there.”

“I’m not home, I told you, but I don’t know where I am.”

“Where are you?” She repeats.

I feel like an idiot. “I really, stupidly don’t know.”

“How long was the drive from your shop? An hour?”

“Less than an hour,“ I tell her confidently.

“What’s the biker’s club? I can find out who their people are using some business connections.”

Oh, Giulia has business connections, they just aren’t necessarily of the legal variety. I don’t judge her, this is the only world she knows. I worry for her, but she is tough as nails. She has contacts all over, both in the corporate world and the underworld. She thrives as a boss. She saved my life knowing the people she does. It wasn’t easy for her to earn the respect of her peers, but she has. More than anything in business, though, Giulia is about family.

Love is blind, I learned that lesson the hard way. Giulia is the only reason I made it out.

“Kings of Carnage. They are nice men, Giulia. Don’t bust their balls.” I fight back the fears and tears threatening to fall down my face. Although, her giving them shit is one thing, the power she has, she could have them all un-alived with one call.

I should have stayed in New Jersey and let him kill me.

“I’ll be the judge of nice.” Her tone is sharp telling me she isn’t in a the mood for pushback from me.

“Giulia, what am I supposed to do?” I ask as the defeat washes over me.

It’s on my soul that Howard is dead. The man didn’t know me, but he paid the price for my transgressions.

“Sit tight, Chelle-Belle. I’m getting on the company plane within the hour. I’ll text you details of my arrival. Then we can sort getting you out of the biker’s lair and to a place I deem safe. Until then keep a low profile. Stay put as long as you feel safe there. Benny is in your area. Has to be. Got my guys on it, but we lost days since your box came Friday, but mine didn’t come ‘til today. He’s at least already in Huntsville, that was the last digital trace of him. He’s closing in. Fucking piece of shit wants to play games. He’s gonna find out my fuckin’ balls are bigger.”

Before I can even reply, the line goes dead.

Giulia is on a mission. I can only hope she finds Benny before he finds me.

I hear noise on the porch so I move back to the front of the house. Peering through the peephole, I see a man wearing a leather vest leaving bags of groceries by the front door.

That was fast is all I can think.

As he steps away, I see my car parked in front of the house.

Relief hits me that I’m not trapped. Even though, I have no clue where to go from here. Giulia will get here and then I’ll leave.

I wait until I hear the car pull away before looking to the peephole again.

With things seeming safe, I open the door, grab the bags rushing them back inside. Locking the door behind me, I swallow back the fears.

I knew better than to leave. I also know without a doubt if I had stayed, I would have been dead long ago. I’m going to pay for leaving him.

No one leaves Benincio Cartagena. No one bests him. And no one who knows any of his secrets lives when he’s tired of them.

There is more than one reason for Benny to want me dead. Mostly, though, I wounded his pride. When I didn’t fall in line to be the good trophy girlfriend, I paid the price.

When I found out he is a damn sicario for the Diaz drug cartel, it was end game. No one can know his occupation. No one can hold proof of his kills and live.

Yet, I do.

Stupidly, I thought if I left town, taking his secrets with me, this would die off. Giulia was right, I should have changed my name completely.

My shop is a company under Bianchi Holdings, one of many flowers shops, Giulia owns across the country. We purposely had her begin acquiring them once I got to South Carolina and found my passion. We didn’t want the first shop she owned to be a waving flag of my location.

My rent and utilities, everything I own and do is all filtered through Giulia. I have no paper trail here.

How did he find me?

I worked under a false social security number at the grocery store. I haven’t had a tax record since leaving Jersey as Leigh Michele Range. Growing up everyone called me Michele since my mom named me after my dead-beat dad, my grandparents called me Chelle-Belle. Grams maiden name was Cramer. When I left Jersey, I didn’t want to lose my entire identity. We decided Michele Leigh Cramer was common enough that being down south I wouldn’t be a glaring red target for Benny and his associates to find.

Giving up my life, my safety net felt like enough. I didn’t want to give up all of my name too. It’s not like I was out and about putting Benny’s business out to anyone and everyone. I didn’t go to the police. I knew better then and honestly, I know better now. It’s why I easily gave in when Rogue said not to call the police.

I thought I had sacrificed enough and showed them all I was not a threat. If only I had let go of my name, maybe this wouldn’t be happening.

To me, it felt like it would be giving up my connection to my grandparents who did everything they could for me. Giulia built me a credit history, job history along with the birth certificate and driver’s license Howard created. Anyone doing an internet search wouldn’t be able to figure out that Michele Leigh Cramer only existed in the last five years, no, online I have a lifetime of experiences and even a social media profile and old email accounts.

We thought we had things covered. It worked for all these years. Not anymore though. He has found me and I’m not sure I’m going to live through this.

Now, I have to pay the price for that choice and an innocent man named Howard lost his life because I wanted to keep a piece of myself.

I should have known better.

I know what I need to do. Somehow, I need to muster the courage. And I need to do it before Giulia gets here and tries to stop me.