Page 21

Twelve

Aidan

Forty-five minutes ago. Immediately after the fireworks.

I hear Maddie’s voice and come back to the present, at least enough to get myself away from her and the party.

I exit through a side employee-only door and go down several hallways until I find a men’s bathroom.

I move the giant stainless steel trash can in front of the door.

It may not stop someone from trying to come in, but it’ll at least give me a warning if they do.

My heart is racing, and I can’t get the images out of my mind. I smack at my own head as though I can get them out this way. I turn on all the water faucets and flush all the toilets while I scream as loud as I can.

I pace. My skin feels tight. This room is too small and hot, but I can’t be out there with all those people. Why is it so hot in here? Fuck!

I loosen my tie and splash some cold water on my face.

Finally, I calm my immediate meltdown enough to sit in a corner of the room.

The water still runs in the sink as I hold myself, my knees drawn up to my chest, rocking back and forth, and suddenly I’m five years old again, sitting under that conference table at the top of the Stryker building.

I’d been watching the fireworks display that night when one of my dad’s men had told him there seemed to be a disturbance in the building. Some people went down to check and never came back. Others followed them, and then they never came back.

Then the shooting started on our floor. So much blood and screams. I’d never heard grown men scream like that. Gunfire and fireworks all blended together as I sat huddled under the big table crying, scared whoever it was out there would kill me, too.

I take several slow breaths willing my hands to stop shaking. This is when I realize I’m crying.

I angrily swipe my face with the back of my hands.

I’m furious that the one person who was pure and clean of all this is now somehow blended with the trauma of my past. Those fucking fireworks!

I was far too cavalier, trusting Carol to just “handle things”.

She’d come highly recommended. But there was no way she could have known fireworks would send me into a full mental spiral.

At least I didn’t flip out like this in there. I was so close. If Maddie hadn’t pulled me back, I don’t know what I would have done. I might have had a full blown episode, and that would have done nothing to minimize her fear of me.

Maybe she’s right to be afraid. I am a full-on motherfucking psycho.

I splash my face with water one more time and turn off the faucets.

I take a few more deep breaths, and check the mirror to make sure I don’t look like I’ve been crying like a fucking child.

I straighten my suit and check my hands for shakes.

When I’ve pulled myself together, I move the trash can back next to the paper towel dispenser and return to the party.

“Are you okay? What was that back there?” Maddie says as soon as I open the door.

I’m surprised she was coming to look for me, but I avoid her gaze. “Fine. It’s nothing. Let’s go to our table.”

Nearly an hour later, one of my guys brings me a note. Two words are scrawled in crisp black ink. “He’s ready.”

I nod at my guy and slip away from the table. I go out the main door, down the hallway, and make my way to the main aquarium exhibits. I go through the winding, twisting maze of fish and sharks and jellyfish and penguins until I’ve descended to the bottom level, far away from the party.

Our guests will get to go through the exhibit on their way out, but for now, no one has strayed outside the perimeter set for them.

I go through another employee-only door, down a couple more dark barely-lit hallways, until finally I’m in the out-of-the-way room we picked for this.

No cameras here. Too far away from the party or any staff for witnesses.

The room has been covered in plastic. Father Rossi is secured to a steel support beam with a piece of tape over his mouth. He’s struggling and trying to speak.

Brian and Mina stand off to the side. Mina takes one look at me and she knows something is wrong. I can’t hide from her. She crosses the room in three long strides and places a hand on my cheek, forcing me to look into her eyes.

“Are you okay, Aidan? What happened?”

I shake her off. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

She doesn’t know about the fireworks. Not just tonight’s display, but my overall aversion to them now. No one knows. Cats and dogs are scared of fireworks. Babies are scared of fireworks. I will take this to my grave.

I don’t think she fully understands how fucked up I still am over that night over twenty years ago. And as demented as it is, I don’t want her to know because I don’t want her to feel bad about it. If it weren’t for her, I would have died that night.

Mina searches my eyes, not convinced by my bravado. “Are you sure you want to do this tonight?”

“He needs to do it tonight,” Brian says. “He told that goddamned priest way too much. He should have done this a long time ago.”

I roll my eyes in Brian’s direction.

“I need to do it tonight,” I confirm to her. But my need to do it isn’t the same as Brian’s need. I need to feel in control again, and nothing offers that feeling like a good kill. I think I’m addicted to the violence now, that feeling of power when the light goes out of their eyes, like I’m God.

Mina finally lets it go. She knows I’m not about to break down and have a hug-it-out cry fest in front of Brian and Father Rossi. I may have told Father Rossi all my secrets, but he doesn’t need to see me break down like a child. Besides, I already did that tonight.

Brian already has everything laid out for me on a side table. Tonight was the perfect opportunity to take care of Rossi, especially with Brian and Mina’s help. They’ll handle all the clean-up when I go back to the party.

I change out of my suit and socks and shoes, and into my normal killing attire.

Father Rossi’s eyes are wide when I finally approach him. He’s screaming behind the gag. The guy wants to talk. Plead. Beg. We all know the drill.

“Listen to me very carefully, Father. I’m going to take the tape off, but if you scream, you will be dead before the sound fully escapes your mouth. Are we clear?”

He nods frantically.

I pull off the tape. He starts talking immediately.

“You know I would never break the omerta . Or my vows to the church.”

“Oh, really?” He’s probably thinking that tough guy warning look back at the church was ill-advised right about now.

“Yes! Please! What are you doing?”

“Do you know why you’re here, Father Rossi?”

“I… I… Because I know too much? Because you don’t trust me, now. Because I was worried about your bride and…”

“Yes, we both know you were issuing a threat today, but that’s not why we’re here. No, we are here because of the vows to the Church you didn’t keep.”

His eyes widen, and I think it’s finally starting to click with him.

I pick up the revolver from the plastic-covered table. “This is the gun that was used to kill my mother, and you were one of the bullets. Do you follow me?”

He shakes his head. “No, no… I… yes I broke my vow of celibacy but… I … loved…”

I slap him hard across the face. “Don’t you dare say you loved her.

You didn’t love her. You paid my father for access to her body, to use her for your own pleasure, to fuck her while my father watched.

You fucking pervert! Don’t pretend you were different than any of the other men he passed her around to. ”

“You bought Madison,” he says. “Isn’t it the same thing?”

“I didn’t buy her.” The nerve of this asshole.

“You took her to erase a debt. That’s a financial transaction.”

I didn’t buy her for sex. I did it for proximity to her—for a change to win her. How dare he compare this situation to what he did to my mother.

My jaw clenches. “You really have a fucking death wish, don’t you, Father?”

But we both know he’s on borrowed time. Now that he knows this isn’t about which of my secrets he knows but instead which of his I know.

I cock the hammer, take a few steps back, and aim the gun at his head.

He starts praying. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

Rossi flinches at the sound of gunfire, but he isn’t hit. At first I think he thinks it’s a miracle, but then he realizes it’s a blank, and he knows the game we’re playing. I go through all the rounds like this, him praying the Hail Mary the entire time.

I’m not worried anyone will hear the gunfire.

After all, this building was built pretty sound proof, and being three tall floors down, as well as all the tanks and water, and the recorded ocean sounds and music that plays on large speakers throughout all the exhibit areas of the aquarium, there’s no chance the sound will carry to any curious ears.

When I’m finished, I put the gun back on the table. It’s clear he thinks that was it. That I was just going to shake him up a bit, threaten him, scare him, that somehow his prayers have been answered.

I pick up the blade from the table and unsheathe it.

“I’m going to do you the favor of making this quick, both because I have a party to get back to and can’t be gone too long, and because I feel like you and I have bonded over the past couple of years as my confessions have gotten more colorful.”

I move in for the kill.

“Wait! Wait, who will you confess to?”

I actually pause. It’s not as though I haven’t realized I’ll be breaking a part of my ritual.

It’s not as though I haven’t thought about this.

I should have put him farther down on the list. I should have left him for last, but who would I have confessed his death to?

Besides, I couldn’t let this opportunity slip away.

“Aidan?” Brian says. “Don’t let him inside your head.”

“Don’t need a pep talk right now, Dad ,” I say. He hates when I call him that, and we both know it’s sarcasm. We also both know there are many ways in which Brian is the father I never really had.

I turn back to Father Rossi and slit his throat.

His eyes hold a split second of shock as the blood gurgles out—like he had just one more thing to say that he was sure would stay my hand. But it’s too late, now. Maybe he should have talked faster. My confessor and yet another one of the men who hurt my mother is gone.

I’ve only been away from the reception for about fifteen minutes. When I return, Maddie looks like she wants to ask where I went, and I wonder if she thinks it’s connected to when I left earlier. She doesn’t say anything, though.

“There you are!” Carol says, guiding me to the cake table.

The kill may have calmed me from the fireworks and given me back one form of control, but it took away another.

My entire routine and ritual is broken now.

I should be the one disposing of that body, heading home, going downstairs, burning the clothes in the incinerator, showering, marking out the photo and the name with the red Sharpie. And then later… confession.

I underestimated how much these changes would affect me. Brian and Mina ran a blacklight over me to check for any blood splatter from the knife when I changed back into my suit. There was none, but they were ready to deal with it if there had been.

I know they can handle the cleanup and disposal. They’re professionals. They’ve been doing this shit for decades. But still. I take Maddie’s hand as we move behind the cake table.

We cut the cake, Maddie’s warm hand covering mine over the knife. One of our drunk guests shouts, “Smash it in her face!”

I turn to Carol and quietly ask for her to have him removed from the event. I don’t know who the fuck it is, but if someone doesn’t get him out of here, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to remain civilized. I am absolutely not going to smash the cake in her face.

The photographers snap pictures as we feed each other cake and link arms to drink our champagne.

People clap and tap their glasses with their forks to get us to kiss again.

I’m so tired of kissing her in front of people.

I want to have her all to myself. All these kisses with an audience feel fake and performative—like a role in a play.

I want it to just be me and her. I want to feel her surrender under me like she did for just a moment in the church.

I move through a fog for the rest of the party, the garter removal, the bouquet toss—each little ritual that can never replace the ones I’ve lost tonight.

My uncle Martin approaches us and pulls me aside. “I hope you know what you’re doing, kid.”

He’s never made it a secret what he thinks about marriage. Ironically he’s the one who has been tasked with collecting the money from the guests. I told him people should save their money, we don’t need it, but I knew they wouldn’t listen.

Uncle Martin sighs and gives me the stack of envelopes then excuses himself.

Maddie stares as I put them in my inner jacket pocket, and I know she thinks it’s something criminal.

“It’s the busta ,” I say.

“The what?”

“Money from the guests. It’s an Italian tradition to support the new couple with cash so they can get whatever they need. We don’t really do gift registries in my family.”

I’m not sure if she believes me or if she thinks it’s some sort of elaborate lie. I can’t get her out of here and alone soon enough.