Metanoia

“I didn’t ask you, Lynette,” I said sternly, stepping closer to cut her off, “I gave instructions.”

My heavy gaze slid down the girl’s frail body, her shoulders trembling slightly. Her doll-like face looked innocent of the events she had endured yesterday; most likely she feared for her life. The girl pursed her lips and lowered her eyes to the ground, and I turned away in annoyance. I felt Dante’s cold, piercing gaze on my skin, and then he spoke, still in the role of observer:

“You can stay here as long as it takes,” his distance, his closeness, did not allow me to understand this man: a man who had experience of working with people on the other side of the law, and who had perfected the art of first aid for gunshot wounds to a mechanical level, was still an ordinary financier. De Rosso could be relaxed and boastful one night, not allowing himself to go beyond his own coolness, while on other days he preferred to be detached.

“You heard me, Jensen,” I said, ignoring Lynette’s comments and Dante’s offer. I couldn’t stay in London any longer, and I had a much better chance of protecting my brother in Salerno than here – he would be back in Amalfi anyway. Clutching the folder tighter in my hands, I swallowed, glanced at the man on the bed one last time, and then left the room.

I intended to go back to the kitchen to get something to eat and then to the restaurant for more work. I tossed the file onto the table where Jensen had been yesterday, but stopped when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I gently lifted my right hand and turned to break the contact with Dante. He towered over me and took a step back, forcing me to raise my head to maintain eye contact.

“I wanted to talk to you,” I admitted, “about the bar,” suddenly my heart began to beat fast, causing me to pause briefly to take a deep breath. The man nodded expectantly, his lips pressed together and his arms crossed over his chest, “Since Jensen has introduced himself to the bar tab, I’d like you to continue running things in his absence,” my offer shocked De Rosso as much as it shocked me. Although he didn’t show it, I could see his eyes widen slightly.

“You want me to launder your money while you and your brother are in Italy?” he asked calmly, the cold tone in his voice returning.

“You’re part of the business, aren’t you?” I raised an eyebrow sarcastically, tucking my palms into the pockets of my trousers from yesterday, which showed cherry stains of clotted blood, “Then do your job,” with a hard stare that tolerated no indignation, I looked into the icy brown eyes of the man who blinked slowly, then tilted his head to the right.

“I saved your brother’s life,” he reminded me, “I deserve a little respect.”

It took a lot of self-control to keep a single muscle in my face from shaking, instead I just sighed loudly and nodded.

“That’s why I’m giving you the chance. For a good job, we should try to be nice to each other,” despite Dante’s demonstrative acceptance, I didn’t abandon my plan – — giving this job to a third party would reveal his true intentions by how he would handle the money and the information, while the man I’d checked would keep an eye on him. However, if my intuition proved correct and De Rosso was a fake agent using the attack on the castle to gain cheap credibility, then Jensen would bear his own punishment.

“Then take some advice from your partner, Alana,” he took a step forward and leaned into my face, “You won’t get much information from the mercenaries,” Dante was full of seriousness and confidence, resembling a threat, to which I stubbornly looked up.

“Remind me again, what’s your connection to the mercenaries, financier?” I asked wryly, narrowing my eyes, to which the man just grinned, “I have my ways of conducting a dialogue.

He calmly held his palms up in defeat, “You know better than that, Miss Wollstonecraft,” Dante said as he turned and started to leave, but at the door he turned back, “There’s pastitsio¹ in the fridge, you can heat it up in the microwave.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. There was indeed a glass jar of pasticio on the shelf, so I took it out and put it on the table, picking up a vibrating phone with a call from the lab.

Pastitsio¹is a traditional Greek dish derived from the Italian, pasta baked with minced meat and bechamel sauce

Hell

After stopping Jensen’s car in the car park outside the bar, I got out quickly, pulling down the collar of the sweater that felt like it was pinching my neck. The guards nodded at me as I entered, checking emails from Antonio, who was interested in my arrival in Naples; after writing a quick reply, I locked my phone screen and looked around – the smell of hops and malt from the beer kegs behind the bar immediately hit my nose; the place was opening in a few hours, so the electricity was off: There was no music playing and the TV was off; the wooden floor creaked under the weight of my heel, making me stop and look around at the leather chairs and round tables around the perimeter, the pool table in the middle, and I opened the first door on the left and went down the stairs. The bar was not very popular with either the Mafia or ordinary Londoners, despite the amount of effort and money that had been put into it, but the business kept afloat and even paid off. Two security guards opened the iron door as soon as they saw me and let me in.

The place, often used for ‘intelligence gathering’, was disguised as a concrete warehouse – the shelves, crates of alcohol, mops and tools scattered around the corners matched this – but the basement had been renovated, creating a room with improved soundproofing, ventilation and a sewage system. In the middle of the room, tied to a chair, sat a man. His face was completely disfigured, his skin was like a chopped-up steak, and there were several open wounds on his chest, oozing scarlet blood. The man was breathing heavily and grunting with every movement, saliva dripping from his mouth in a long stream. I pulled back the collar of the jumper. A headache spread through my body, as if I’d received a severe blow to the back of my head with a heavy object. I had to stop at the table against the wall to cover my eyes for a moment and take a deep breath.

“How’s it going?” I asked, pulling a cigarette case out of my pocket. I’d changed and showered about an hour ago, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling of my brother’s sticky blood on my skin.

Thomas looked tired. His skin was sweaty, strands of blonde hair stuck to his face, his unbuttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up stained, his chest heaving, and the man himself, dropping his heavy knuckles to the concrete floor, which hit with a metallic clang, began to wipe his hands of the blood.

“He told me about the company,” Thomas sucked in air noisily, swallowed and shook his head, “about a lot of things in general. But nothing about the owner or the client,” he opened a bottle of water and began to gulp the liquid greedily, spilling a few drops on himself.

I took out a cigarette, tapped the tip several times on my thumb and then, clenching it between my teeth, lit it. The acrid smoke immediately lodged in my larynx and lungs, causing a stinging pain, but at the same time interrupting the nauseating metallic smell of blood, damp and urine. An unpleasant place that reflected the reality of the Mafia.

I stared at the mutilated man for a long moment, pulling in my cheeks and squinting, my heels clattering deafeningly on the floor as I approached him. Tilting my head towards the man, who looked more like a piece of meat smelling of iron, I blew cigarette smoke into his face, shaking the ash onto the open wound on his chest. The prisoner twitched, a tightly compressed moan escaping his lips as he tried to free himself from the straps holding him to the chair.

“Are you in pain?” I asked, feigning sympathy. Clamping my cigarette between my teeth and taking a few quick puffs, I raised my right hand to the man, pressing my thumb to the wound from which blood was oozing in a long stream down his cold skin. Thomas tore off his dirty shirt in a tearing motion, wiped the sweat from his face and brought it up to his neck, pressing him against the back of the chair – so I could see his painful eyes. I couldn’t make out a word of the many noises he was making.

I grinned in horror at such stubbornness and looked up at Thomas. The devils were playing in my head.

I slowly lowered my eyes to the battered face of the man whose name I didn’t even know, “In ancient Greece and Rome there was an execution,” I began slowly and evenly, taking a few steps back and nodding to the guards, “the man was placed in a special wooden structure that fit tightly around his body except for his head, arms and legs, “The men in the black t-shirts quickly grabbed the man’s limbs, pressing harder against the straps as Thomas continued to hold his shirt around his neck, “The victim was force fed honey and milk,” I squinted sweetly, then hovered sharply over the man’s ear, whispering, “causing severe diarrhoea,” the prisoner froze at the chill of my deep voice, eating his breath.

Running the tip of my tongue over my lips, I took a deep puff, exhaling the thick smoke into the ceiling; the nicotine began to numb my mind, causing my eyes to blur. My heart was beating faster, my chest slowly rising with each inhalation.

“He was doused in honey,” the measured tapping of my heels began to circle the man, “and released into the pond, perhaps left out in the sun sometimes,” I shrugged idly, shaking off the accumulated ash on the prisoner, “the incoming insects would devour the flesh of the victim, “I said a little more quietly, leaning closer to the man whose breath came out in a thin and pitiful squeak, “and left their larvae inside,” I broached, then laughed sharply and loudly, clapping my hands together, “you don’t want to die in a pool of your own wasp shit, do you? “Smiling brightly, I stood before my prisoner, “It’s a good thing we don’t live in the days of ancient Rome, isn’t it?” I opened my eyes wide and looked at Thomas, who gave me a stifled laugh. I crouched down, noticing the mutilated body blinking motionlessly, and pressed my lips together in pity, exhaling loudly. I took a last drag and extinguished the cigarette against the man’s calf, feeling him twitch under my fingers, hissing and grunting.

“Ples,” breathing heavily, swallowing nicotine air with his mouth, the captive was on the verge of passing out, “please.”

“No, no, not at all,” I raised my voice in surprise, looking at the man in shock, “I’m not going to torture you with diarrhoea,” I looked at the guards like they were fools, shaking my head negatively, “electricity is much more effective,” I nodded.

The guards backed away from the prisoner’s body, frightened eyes showing through the layers of blood on his face. No matter how stubborn the man was – the current would make him talk.

“Strip him,” I ordered, stepping aside. I did not want to look at the mercenary’s naked body, “attach the connector to his genitals.”

“Do you think that will help?” Thomas asked, taking hold of the wires. I shrugged.

From time to time I glanced at the screaming man, many wires attached, his body convulsing, the flow of blood and saliva increasing. I reminded Thomas that the mercenary would be useless if he died, and my deputy stopped the current, noticing the light mist emanating from his exposed skin. If I continued this procedure, I threatened to turn the prisoner’s brain to mush and destroy his consciousness – either way, I remained my father’s daughter, who knew far more about torture than I did; the mercenary would tell the truth either from pain or exhaustion.

“Customer,” I have said the word a thousand times. Approaching the man, I squeezed his bloody face, pressed the open wounds and forced him to raise his head: “Your brain will turn into a shapeless mass and your body will no longer carry out any commands. While you are still conscious, tell me who ordered the attack on the castle.

His face, drenched in tears, blood, saliva and sweat, finally brightened and the mercenary, exhaling heavily, relaxed his neck, lowered his head and closed his eyes.

“That was it,” he began, coughing blood. Every movement brought him murderous pain, every cell of his body forgiving death, “a personal mission”.

“Whose?” I asked more rudely. You attacked my brother,’ I breathed angrily, ‘if you don’t tell me, you will beg for death.

I clenched my hands into fists and waited for the man’s answer.

“I work through a curator, he gathers a group, talks to the boss,” he spat out the words with blood, “I really don’t know anything,” he replied hoarsely, coughing, “the curator said it was a personal order from the boss.

“Name!” I shouted menacingly.

“I heard,” the man surrendered, lowering his head, “I heard some men talking about Liam W…” he started coughing up blood, smearing it all over the floor, “Weber”.

An icy shot coursed through my veins, making me freeze at what I heard – I stopped breathing and blinked for a split second, staring into the void. My mind had erased the name from my memory, but hearing it now made me feel every nuance of the pain he’d caused me in moments. Thomas touched my arm, jerking me back from the shock; apparently my eyes were so wide open that the man frowned in ignorance.

“Shoot him,” I said forcefully and loudly, my voice reverberating off the concrete walls. Turning on my heels, I walked quickly out of the room and up the stairs, clenching my trembling fingers into fists so that my short nails dug into my skin, leaving a mark. A faint gunshot rang out behind me, but as I slammed the door shut I walked quickly over to the pool table, placing the cold palm of my hand on my chest where my heart was beating wildly. I stopped controlling my breathing, as if an invisible wire was squeezing my neck, burning with heat. An uncomfortable sweat ran down my back, causing me to wriggle slightly to keep my wet skin from touching the fabric; sour nausea began to creep up my throat, and I lost my clear vision before me, clutching the table with my thin fingers. An unfamiliar feeling of dread coursed through my veins, causing fear and trembling throughout my body, and tears welled up in my eyes. No matter how hard I tried to run away from the inner monster that had overtaken me, it kept catching up with me, crushing my lungs. The reality around me began to feel false and distorted, creating amorphous images all around me.

In the midst of all the darkness of my own senses, I felt that sour and viscous taste on my tongue, which knotted bloodily in my stomach. Rage spread like fire through my body, like thousands of raging sparks of madness that flooded my eyes. I picked up a pool cue and began to smash the bar with it, smashing all the glass jars, which at the same moment were scattered in tiny shards on the floor, crunching under my shoes; I picked up the cue balls and began to throw them one by one into the bottles of alcohol on the wall, howling wildly and raising my voice. Hot tears welled up in my eyes as I noticed Thomas standing against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. I stopped and began to breathe heavily, burying my fingers in my dishevelled hair.

“What the hell is he doing back?” I asked angrily, resembling a snarling lion. The man pursed his lips in silence and bowed his head. The lowered blinds blocked the light from the street, leaving Thomas and me in the semi-darkened room – I could barely make out his silhouette against the furniture and brick walls.

“Alana,” the deputy exhaled, raising his palms, “you need to calm down,” the man said slowly and quietly, moving carefully in my direction, which made me much angrier.

“You’re telling me to calm down!” my voice became hoarse with anger, and I turned away from the window for a moment, clutching my fingers in my hair. The heavy breathing allowed me to temporarily extinguish the inner fire that was burning inside me, after which I turned back to Thomas and approached him quickly, “Weber came back for a reason,” I hissed, touching his chest with my index finger.

Closing his eyes, the man nodded, thereby confirming my words. Turning away, I pointed my hands to my sides, biting the inside of my cheek.

“He’s the one who set the casino on fire,” I said grimly, staring at the made-up dot in the floor, “Jesus!” I exclaimed, throwing up my hands, “I last saw him before my father died.”

Anger turning to rage was swiftly replaced by inner desolation, robbing me of any feeling. Weber was the epitome of everything terrible that could happen in this world, and to fight him now, without my father’s support, seemed suicidal. My head was so heavy that I couldn’t find the answers I needed, couldn’t think of a plan of action – I needed to protect Jensen, but I felt powerless.

“You destroyed him once,” Thomas said finally, placing his large, though bloody, palm on my shoulder and squeezing softly, “you’ll do it again.”

“Liam Weber is a man with no principles or values,” I breathed out tiredly, feeling a flash of emotion leave my body, “obviously revenge isn’t over until one of us is dead.”

We each fell silent for a few minutes, gathering our thoughts that swirled relentlessly around in our heads, exhausting and killing. All the previous problems I had tried to solve in a few days turned out to be dust in relation to Weber’s reappearance in my life, even though he was the cause of them. I vaguely remembered the moments of our previous meetings and struggles, my memory severely impaired, but I knew for a fact that Liam had paid for my blood with his own. This news threw me into a daze, I expected that with the man gone my life would get better and that he wouldn’t show up again, but I was wrong – he had come to get his.

“Weber is still in hiding, but we got information on VB,” I shifted my gaze to Thomas after his words, “Vincent Boyd,” I frowned, not understanding what the deputy exhaled, “my men said he is currently hiding in Asia, not sure where yet, presumably Thailand,” the man explained, “I will find the rest of the information on Weber’s family, his associates and let you know. We’ll get to Liam through Boyd.”

I nodded, swallowing.

“The lab said the pendant is badly deformed, they’re trying to find traces,” I added, before I left the bar, “though I already know who set the restaurant on fire.”

A cool breeze hit my face, making my lungs clench a little. Trying to breathe fully, I rested my arms at my sides, pacing from side to side before getting into the car. I gripped the steering wheel with my fingers so hard that my knuckles turned white, then rested my forehead on the steering wheel.

The meeting with Weber, which had begun with my mistake, had caught up with me because of my work for Antonio’s father. While still studying at university in Naples, I, inspired by youth and freedom, imagining myself as one of the charites¹, organised a party in a rented house and with loads of alcohol – it was no surprise that something went wrong, alcohol mixed with the swagger of students is capable of impossible things. One of the guests, who I remember had been acting aloof and pessimistic all night, approaching a pre-conscious state, but he did not attract my attention until two men in strict black suits approached the door, behind which lurked drunkenness, liquor pouring down a river, naked young men and loud music. My university friend reported the situation to me, and, to avoid dampening the mood of the night, I went out to meet the new guests without letting them into the house itself – I had been born into the mob, so I knew that dancing students could collapse to the floor in a pool of their own blood. (Charites¹ are three goddesses of fun and joy of life in ancient Greek mythology, the personification of grace and attractiveness. Correspond to the Roman graces.)

“Is there a problem?” I asked confidently and with a smile then, though my insides were clenching with excitement. My acquaintances and friends had no idea what I had protected them from that night, so they continued to amuse themselves by rolling down the stone stairs and jumping out the windows into the pool, while I talked to the two men. Their voices were cold and as stern as their suits; they hardly expected to have to deal with me at the time, but my insistence and adamant refusal to let them in was not so much infuriating as interesting in my persona.

As it turned out, that night they were looking for a relative of one of the business members who, having broken out of treatment, had taken drugs and hid at my party, where no one cared about him. After getting Antonio and Thomas to acknowledge the true story, rather than a made-up story or the oppression of their egos, I brought them a young lad who was literally on his feet as I dragged him to the car. The men quickly loaded him inside, slamming the door shut.

“What’s your full name, Alana?” asked Antonio when Thomas had already sat down in the passenger seat and, judging by his opening mouth, he was still talking to the lad. I could clearly see from the Italian’s eyes his interest in me as a woman, but his face quickly changed when I said my last name – after all these years my father was known in Naples.

From then on I began working for Father Antonio, who never missed an opportunity to boast that Robert Wollstonecraft’s daughter was on his staff. I was given the task of organising car thefts; I had expressed a similar desire myself, having taken part in street races on more than one occasion, which enabled me to recruit people who knew how to be fast and agile. I’ve done some great things. I managed to steal cars from inaccessible, hidden places, devise the most ingenious plans, and everything went perfectly for several years until I made a mistake – by which time I was no longer working for Father Antonio, but had influence over the entire province of Salerno, centralising power in Amalfi, was married, and was probably at the height of my fortune. While sending people on yet another mission, in which a vintage car was being transported in a lorry, I was so full of my own confidence and infallibility that I failed to notice the difference between the vehicles. I was horrified to imagine the shock of the drivers when they found a few dozen women and children instead of the Mercedes, but I remember vividly the lingering feeling of devastation and disgust with myself; the firm belief in myself blinded my eyes and forced me to face the consequences of my mistake years later.

The lorry was being used by Liam to sell people into sexual slavery; one of the princes wanted to see a number of European girls of various ages at his birthday party, and Weber was going to collect them in Naples and ship them out. My men thwarted his deal, resulting in the loss of a huge amount of money (the men were worth far more than the weapons I was selling at the time), the payment of damages and harassment – which meant I had made an enemy in his person. A man who shamelessly uses people as bargaining chips has spared no effort to make me regret my existence, often rebuking me for being a woman.

It is winter in my soul now – so cold and damp, so frightening and lonely. I kept control of my body as best I could – my fingers continued to tremble feverishly every time I stopped moving them, and my heart beat quietly in my chest. I was responsible for hundreds of people, for my family that I had to protect, but Weber’s appearance was like the worsening of a long-neglected illness that, despite the years that had passed, reminded me of itself with a piercing pain in my body. I didn’t know if I could cope – it had happened so quickly that I hadn’t had time to adjust. Liam was back where it all started and now I had to put an end to it for good. I wasn’t ready for him to come back, and I don’t think I ever would have been, but with no way to change it, I had to force myself to accept it – the first thing I had to do was get Jensen out of the country, get him away from Liam as quickly as possible.

Minutes of concentrated speeding brought me to Dante’s house, where with a quick step I rolled up the sleeves of my sweater and walked inside, nodding mechanically to the guards to say hello. I spoke my brother’s name out loud as I entered his bedroom and slammed the wooden door behind me; the harsh tone of my voice made Jensen jump in bed and give me a confused, startled look.

“I hope you’re feeling better, because we’re going back to Italy tonight,” I said quickly, picking up the half-empty travel bag the guards had put his things in from the castle from the chair.