Alright, here we go. For the last time...
Bon Appétit! :D
Angelo's POV
I blinked at the silver pistol in my hand. The safety pin was not off. Elizabeth Vivere is alive. These thoughts silent the hoots and cheers surrounding me. My muscles were locked, immobilising me in the same position that I was in for the past few minutes. Multiple people clapped me on my shoulder and on my back, but it still felt like a dream that I could not break away from.
It was too fragile for me to believe. "Jay, you good?" Rafael called out, his darkened eye circles illuminated by the strong lights in the lab. I sunk too deep into my own sorrow to properly take a look at my best friend. Fatigue possessed him too, for Elizabeth was as much as a friend to him. Right now, his facial expression was familiar, one I always saw when we ended our joint-missions successfully. The physical tiredness could not diminish the gleam in his eyes, shining brightly in victory.
"Yeah, bro." My eyes glided back to the pistol in my hand. If Elizabeth was still alive, where could she be? "Is this part of her plans?" Julian quizzed, verbalising my thoughts. The farewell letters and the fake corpse put up a good show of Elizabeth faking her own death, if that was what she wanted. Not only did I want to know if this was her plan, I also wanted to know the reason behind it.
"Boys, actually just Julian." Markus garnered our attention, waving the Oracle over. He was standing over a computer with a bunch of lab scientists. Despite only Julian being called, we moved towards Markus as a group. The computer screen displayed numbers and codes, which seemed to be comprehendible to the Oracle. A rare smirk lifted up his right cheek, and he took over the seat infront of the screen.
Markus Gordin only stared at the Oracle busy typing away at the speed of light. The nineteen year old boy passed through several protection systems put in place easily, earning murmurs of approval from the group crowding around him. I was not surprised that Markus knew about Julian's alter ego but rather by his willingness to call us for help. He had put away his pride for the girl who had vanished into thin air.
Julian's background check on Elizabeth only detailed her working at the Cheese In The Trap. I first thought that she was working at the bar or serving people until the night she ran away from the Saint's. It was both a terrifying and awe-inspiring sight to see her fighting men in the ring. Not many experienced men wanted to have a go because there was no rules to it, seeing it more of a con than a pro. I went there a couple of times to watch her fights and damn, she was good.
"Fingerprint belongs to a Carina Rayer." The Oracle hacked into the city's database which Markus's scientists had failed to do so. Rafael frowned at me as we both found the name familiar. "Where did we hear the name before?" Rafael tapped his chin rthymically. Julian turned around abruptly, mouth forming an "O" as he thought of something.
Slapping the back of his chair, Julian spluttered out excitedly. "She was the girl at Eli's birthday party!" Rafael's frown deepened, having no recollection of who Julian was talking about. He did not but I did. I remembered that Elizabeth was especially chummy with one of the working girls, which stood out to me given her lonely status in school.
Not only was Carina her friend, her name had appeared on the transference of the property deed. When I poured out the contents in her bag for more clues, I only discovered the folded paperwork and a cheque for one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Elizabeth had sold her old house to repay her debts. "She bought the house." I told Markus.
"Lads, do a background check on her." Markus instructed, staring at the computer screen infront of us. Upon the instructions, the lab staff got back to work again. Receiving a nod from me, Julian left his seat and moved around, guiding Markus's men. "B R B." Rafael notified, answering the call from Cody Castello. That annoying prick had been calling either of us for the past few days.
Elizabeth's death was kept a secret from the Mafia due to the mystery behind her death. Only those who were present on the day we discovered her body knew about her passing. Rafael had made Tedious, the last person to hide things from the Valentine head, sworn to secrecy. According to Markus, it was too sudden and filled with questions.
He did not elaborate much on it but Rafael and I guessed that her death might have to do with the Mente's enemies or the ring the governor wanted so desperately. Five days later, we held Elizabeth's cremation to prevent any interested parties from stealing her body. She could not even rest in peace.
"Markus, you invited her to the birthday party." I stated and received a sigh from him. The ex-warrior inhaled deeply, clenching his jaws. When we exchanged eye contact, Markus revealed, "I did not do a check on her, thinking that Elizabeth would have did it." A deep fold appeared in between his brow as the ex-warrior pinched his forehead, his Adam's apple bobbing with guilt.
I swallowed my anger and left him alone, unable to withstand standing near him. The silver pistol on the table was her most frequently used weapon as far as I could recall. At the motel with Jessica Gold, Elizabeth had aimed it at her. I wanted to tell her that Rafael was just pretending and to go ahead and take down that bitch. But, I had to consider the bigger picture.
She never scolded me outright like I desired her to, until the Crossing. I was always treated with silent anger and disappointed, slumped shoulders that had turned away from me countless of times. Yet, Elizabeth would always come back to me and continued like I did not do her any wrong.
It tripled my guilt when she mentioned that she was just a contract-bounded servant. I realised that she did not want to make any noise because she could not do it without breaking the contract. We both thought that emotions was the Achilles' heel of the contract neither of us wanted to destroy.
"Sir, I ran a check through all the cities for other bank accounts Carina might have and one popped out." Julian reappeared at my side, an iPad in his hand. Looking at the small screen, the name was foreign to me. "Cass Jane," I muttered, the account opened in the Chasm. Sighing, I stared at the name. This would require a lot more time to find out this Cass Jane who was thousands of miles away.
"Cass Jane?" Markus's voice boomed as he brisk-walked to our side. A vein popped out on his temple, as Death repossessed the ex-warrior, turning his eyes corpse-cold. "She and her sister works for the Hollow's governor." The revelation turned heads in our direction and then recognising his symptoms of anger, Markus's men turned away.
The table rattled as Rafael slammed a fist into it, his frustration justified. For Elizabeth, the governor was the first thing that was scarier than a huge crowds of people. She was uncomfortable around big groups but she was petrified around the ruler of the Hollow city. We all thought she had broken free of the governor's grasp since the Crossing. She deserved at least that much after what he put her through.
Old man refused to tell me what the Mente's ring was about but it must be something powerful to make the governor chase high and low for it. "Why can't he let her go after getting what he wanted from her?" Markus spat out, his words carried to all corners of the room. The three of us were on the same page as him and settled into our thoughts.
"So love killed Carina, disembodied her and then vanished?" The new Castello head summarised what had happened. It has been two weeks since we discovered Elizabeth's "body" and one since we announced it to the Hollow's Mafia that Diana Alexander Mente was dead. My pierced eyebrow twitched at Cody calling Elizabeth "love" but I remained motionless.
Rafael, Julian, Cody and I were at The Red Devil, in a private room. Cody was driving everyone mad as he refused to believe that Elizabeth was dead. Before people started taking note of Cody's arguments, we decided to shut him up with the truth. "Correct. So for the love of Elizabeth, please stop saying that she's not dead. We want to keep this under the covers." Julian answered him patiently, refilling our glasses with ice-cold vodka. "Why the fuck are you wearing shades for in a dark room?" Rafael mocked, sniggering at the sight of a bruised up Cody.
The Valentine prince and the Castello head had gotten into a fight the moment they met with the latter sprouting nonsense. Cody had touched a nerve when he called us useless and incapable of protecting his Elizabeth love. It was Elizabeth's friendship with this loser that stopped me from joining Rafael. If not, Cody would be lying in the Saint's instead of talking to us with a swollen face.
"None of your fucking business, Valentine." Cody retorted coldly, running a hand through his new crew cut before pausing as he realised his mane was gone. I was sure that Elizabeth would have really kicked Rafael's ass if she was here. Then again, if she was here, this conversation would not happen. Remaining quiet, I focused on drinking vodka which I had been in the company of for the past few weeks.
Since the day we discovered the real identity of the corpse, there was no further progress. There was no trace of Carina's existence. Her family had disappeared along with her death and the property agent who sold Elizabeth's house was nowhere to be found too.
Under the Oracle's interrogation, we only know that Elizabeth had been blackmailing Mafia families with their dirty secrets from the time Julian was hospitalised at the Black Market to accumulate the sum of money she owed me. When we visited the Black Market, Blair and Vermilion had refused to see us. Elizabeth's death had turned the entire community on us, and we barely left that place in one piece. They disliked Mafia royalties in the past but now, they hated us.
All investigation had came to a pause as we could not find any more leads. Given her intelligence, Elizabeth would have leave more clues behind if the governor had taken her away. This lack of progress was on purpose. It was the message she wanted to leave us with. To let her go, to let her be free. Now, we are free.The four words that rendered me sleepless and drunk for days and now, helpless too.
"The Mente's ring. She had given it to the governor, right?" Cody quizzed stoically, despite the worsened swelling of his face. There was something different about Cody tonight. His demeanour was the most serious I had seen from the party boy who used to hide behind his mother's skirt.
Rafael's nods caused the Castello head to frown. "Crap." Julian groaned as he accidentally released his grip on the bottle of vodka. His eyes nervously darted between Rafael and Cody, his hands moving quickly to clean up the mess. "Need a hand?" I offered but my assistant only refused, touching his left ear awkwardly.
"He should have been satisfied." Cody muttered under his breath but we still heard him clearly. With my interest piqued, I straightened up in my seat and asked Cody to explain himself. What was so special about this ring that old man had refused to tell me about?
Cody glared at me, denying my request. "Why should I tell you? You won't make a difference." Anger twisted his face into an ugly scowl as the Castello head stood up, throwing his diarrhoea green jacket on. My own temper was set ablaze by his and before the memories of Elizabeth could stop me, my fist was flying to the back of his head.
Yet, the Castello head caught it just in time. Pain burst through my balled-up fist as Cody forcefully lowered it to the side. "You didn't give her any reasons to trust you, Mietitore. She wanted to be treated like a human for once but you only showed her how monstrous a human can be. When you had her, you didn't treasure her. You are just desperate now because you don't have anyone to manipulate and use." He snarled and shoved me back.
Before anything else, Cody's fist collided with my jaw. Immediately, Julian and Rafael pulled him back from coming onto me. "Maybe this is what she wanted, to vanish. To get away from you bunch of losers. You should leave her alone, Angelo Mietitore." The door slammed behind his leaving figure and in the next second, Yves rushed in with Yosef trailing in slowly behind him.
"That's not true, Angelo. We all know that." While the rest murmured in agreement with Yves, I struggled to think of one moment that I was genuinely nice to her without any ulterior motives. Dinner at Underrated? To test her abilities by poisoning her with Rosson. Near kisses at multiple places? To lower her guard and earn her trust. Birthday party at her house? To spite her with Jessica Gold and catalyse her to find the evidence that I needed.
With a sinking heart, I became aware that Cody Castello was right. I was a bastard to Elizabeth.
The bouquet of jasmines, baby breaths and untrimmed red roses filled up the flower holder. It was a peaceful time to be at the Silent Garden, three in the morning. Though I reeked of vodka, standing infront of the urn of the "dead" Elizabeth sobered me up. Even though I knew that the ashes did not belong to Elizabeth, this was the only thing she had given us before vanishing. I only had this left of her.
I stared at the marble plaque and a fresh wave of sorrow ran through me. Where her face should be, there was a picture she had taken for school. Everyone searched through their phones, but we never had a picture of Elizabeth. All we could do was retrieve the compulsory picture required during the admission process to the academy. She was something everyone had taken granted for.
"Hi, Elizabeth." I caressed the photo, reminiscing the times I held her actual face. Against my rough, callused hands, her face felt soft like tofu. "Are you wondering why I'm in white?" A murmur that was carried away by the strong wind. Looking down at myself, I was dressed for mourning. Not for Elizabeth, though I should be. Dead or vanished, it was the same, she was still gone.
"After your passing, the governor had asked for Dr. Greene's service at the Pit. However, she refused to obey orders and tried to run away. The governor ordered a hunt for her. Before we could tell her that you weren't dead, she had ran away. We found her in her car. It was carbon monoxide poisoning." The motherly doctor left a note behind, apologising to the family.
She was the last person to know about Elizabeth's death. Since the doctor was connected to Elizabeth's real identity, we all knew that she would be damaged by the news. Nonetheless, we could only hide it from her until the governor's decree came. I witnessed the colours that drained from Dr. Greene's face and the unrecoverable trembling of her body.
Plopping onto the floor, I continued to stare at Elizabeth's plaque. "Loved and was loved by many. Here rests Elizabeth Vivere." The golden word engraved by hand stood out against the marble background and I scoffed. She loved, but was not loved back enough. Me being the greatest offender for the crime of not loving her enough.
The cork came off with a pop and the familiar liquor burnt on its way down my throat. "We met a dead end again, Elizabeth. You know, I am starting to think that Cody Castello makes sense for once. You don't want to be found. You want to vanish from our lives." My heart ached again like every other second since I saw the corpse.
Elizabeth played us with the clues she left behind, feeding us tiny bits of information that formed an incomplete picture. However, everything added up to one point, she wanted out and so she did. "Is this what you meant by we are free?" I coughed violently, the large gulp of vodka burning my throat excessively. My fears were reaffirmed but I did not want to face it. I wanted Elizabeth to want me.
"No more debt to pay, no more contract to fulfil and one more broken promise. Hell, you even threw away the Macbook and iPhone I gifted you. You left no traces behind." The signals from both devices appeared a few hours later after her time of death, at a second-hand tech shop in the Nacoste territory. The shop owner had found it in a bag hooked to the shop's door.
Completely laying down on the cold floor, I pulled out the white jade necklace from under my top. Kissing the charm, my eyelids fluttered shut as I engrossed myself in the chilly wind. It took me back to the time Elizabeth took the initiative to hug me. Her petite body was colder than the floor I was on now. She was an idiot to shield a dead body from a rain of bullets but it made me the happiest since Luciana ran away from the family.
My idiot. Elizabeth took away the bruising pain from the blank Rafael had shot me with and tempted me to hug her trembling body back. I almost gave it away when my mouth would not cooperate with me. The grin on my lips was stuck onto my face when she scooped my head into her chest. No one tried to protect me like she did on a couple of occasions.
The smile hovering on my lips died as another round of cold wind blew me back to reality. The reality that I was lying on the floor of a columbarium, having her fake ashes as a companion. "If I say I'm sorry for what I had done, would you come back to me?" My voice cracked as she came into focus in my head. All I could see is Elizabeth. Elizabeth eating, Elizabeth focusing, Elizabeth smiling. Tears trickled into the sides of my head, forming a constant stream.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
"..."
"I miss you so much."
Elizabeth's POV
The bulky Mente's ring was pressed up against the bandage around my stomach, underneath my denim jacket. It made me think of Julian Makatski, who helped me forge a fake one on his trip to the Trench.
Known as Sol, she was Blair's old flame and a jewellery forger residing in the Trench. Apparently, they met on a job and fell in love. Their story is a cliche one, if you had not realised already by the mere sound of it. With all channels of communications watched, I could only sneak in the ring's design and directions to Sol's studio together with Alexander's address. Thank the Hollow that Julian had came back breathing.
"Miss...miss!" The customs officer disrupted my thoughts, holding her hand out for my passport. Shooting her a sheepish smile, I tipped it into her hand, pressed my thumb on the scanner and looked into the eye scanner. It was quite irritating how strict our customs were as compared to other countries.
I had to spend a few thousands on fake passports, identity cards and birth certificates to get pass the various customs. According to Blair, it was the lowest friendship price he had ever named. That absurd lie nearly caused me to set fire to all his makeup and forging machines.
It was hard to leave with a four-inch stab in the stomach, multiple cuts all over my body and a few bullet shots in a few non-fatal areas. Hence, the injuries inflicted by Carina forced me to rope in Blair as I tweaked my plans. He had chopped away her limbs and head. Using Carina's dismembered body as a diversion, I took the two weeks to recover well enough to walk and create new identities for myself with Blair's wigs and makeup.
Meanwhile, I told a gut-hurling Blair to sent the governor, living happily in his castle at the Pit, a late Christmas present. His captain's head. This will sent him a message.
Until the end, Carina never resumed the facade she had around me for two years. It did not make killing her any easier but it also did not make it harder than my hardest to end her life. A part of me was died with her and nothing could ever fill in that part. For forever, I would be incomplete.
"Please proceed," The custom officers gave me a green light and I stepped past her station. As I walked past the customs towards the train platform, my reflection in the mirror grabbed my attention. It was a decorative, full-length mirror that I was looking into.
A girl wearing an entirely black outfit copied my slightly widened green eyes from inside the mirror. Other than getting me the phantom's medicine which changes eye colours, Blair gifted me a long-sleeved turtleneck that covered my healing cut on my arms and neck. Laying on an oversized distressed denim jacket, I was feeling warm and comfortable.
Matching my top, I wore new cargo pants and biker boots. It felt amazing to know that I brought them with money I could call my own. I was no longer afraid of dirtying my clothes or gingerly treading, hoping that the soles of my sneakers would not fall off for another day.
However, the biggest difference was my hair. It being that I did not have much of it. Charlie dyed hers black and Sam had his blue. If I dyed mine with any bright colours or black, the governor would be able to spot me easily. Too troublesome for me, I transformed it into a buzz cut and dyed the remaining bits a common brown. Blair had cried from afar as he watched me "destroy" my hair. He could only endure the pain as I tied him to the chair. Packing it all up, I gave him my scarlet locks as a souvenir and thanks for his help.
I adjusted the newsboy cap and checked my makeup. Perfect, because there was not a hint of Elizabeth Vivere left physically. Spraying on my new dewy perfume, I walked away from the mirror. It was to aid me in forgetting the lavender scent that was still my favourite scent.
Straightening up, I fixed my bad posture and walked off with confidence into the crowded platform. Soon, my heart raced nervously and I became hyperaware of the laughters and hands cupping around ears as people whispered. My shoulders drooped and the anxious feeling returned. Sighing loudly, I tried to shake it off but that feeling still managed to crawl into my heart. We'll get there someday, Elizabeth. We'll have to, to find Darius and David.
"Last call for the train four D!" The train announcer yelled into his bright orange loudspeaker. Jogging into the correct set of doors, it slide shut behind me just as both my legs stepped onto the train. Sliding up the window by a tiny gap, cold air blew in as the train started picking up speed. As the Hollow city faded away from my line of vision, I bid it farewell, "Forget me, my Hollow city."
I shivered as the wind got stronger, numbing my cheeks. The first night that I knew that Angelo was coming for me, I had shivered too. Yet, that was out of fear. Now, I shivered in excitement. By the time they discovered that I am not dead, Angelo and the boys would not be able to catch me anymore. After a few months, Angelo would forget all about me and no one would ever try to find Elizabeth Vivere again. Now, my freedom is in my own hands and no one can stop me.
First stop, the Ravine city.
Voila! This wraps up Mafia Servant! How was it? Let me know in the comments!
Thank you for reading! :D It's really weird to not say see you in the next chapter :O
But...I'll definitely see you in the next book!!!
Yes, as you can tell from the ending, there will be a sequel to Mafia Servant! Stay tuned for more information :)
For now, goodbye. Stay safe and have a great day ahead ~