CHAPTER FIVE

XENA

“10 PM. Insomnia Bar. P.S: Don’t be late.

~Luciano”

I was confused.

What does Luciano want with me? And why was he asking me to come to a bar to see him when he could just show up at my place any time and impose his will on me?

It was definitely unlike him.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the first time Luciano has sent me a letter. Actually, all he ever does is send me letters and the only reason I could attribute to it is so that he doesn’t get tracked with a cell phone when he calls me. I don’t know where he comes from or where he returns to.

He just shows up out of nowhere and disappear again until a few more days or sometimes weeks when he comes to me again. Those times, I don’t even need anyone to tell me he comes to me whenever he’s had issues or lost something or just plainly pissed by some illegal operations that don’t work.

All he does is fuck it out on me like I am responsible for whatever misfortune he encounters.

And so I’ve just always known him to appear and disappear out of nowhere.

When he sends letter, it’s to warn me and remind me that he still has control over me. He sent one on the very day I was planning to run away from the city and away from him.

I don’t know how he found out about my plans but he did and he threatened me with a letter only to come himself a few days later to punish me for trying to run away from him

Those are the exceptional times that he actually sent me a letter.

Seeing a different kind of letter with a different kind of message passed across had me baffled that even my boss, Milton, noticed my lack of concentration at work.

“Are you okay Xena?”

Milton asked from behind me.

I’ve been at work for hours now and all I’ve been thinking about is the letter and its content.

“ I’m totally fine”

I answered my boss, flaunting another one of my sweet smiles at him.

Milton wasn’t impressed though, he just folded his arms over his chest.

“ Is that why you’ve been cleaning the same spot for the past fifteen minutes?” he queried.

I looked down to see he meant and he was right.

I was holding the mop to a single tile in the cafe and the rest of the tiles in the room have got nothing on that one tile as it glistered in the brightest way.

I immediately move away from the single spot and grinned awkwardly at Milton.

He definitely wasn’t impressed as he just shook his head at me.

“tsk tsk tsk… whatever has you bothered, you should talk to someone about it”

“Can I talk to you about it?”I teased him, knowing he’s not even the attentive type. He just snorted and walked away but not before saying.

“Hurry and clean up. The Bar will open soon”

And he left.

Leaving me to sink into my whirlpool of thoughts again.

Of course I had to talk to someone about it and the only person who comes to mind is Nick.

I had tried calling him and it went straight to voice-mail. And so I guessed he was busy with his work. Thinking about it alone is definitely draining the life out of me.

I thought of all possible things that me going to meet Luciano could cause. What if it’s a trap? Why would he want to punish me when I’ve done nothing wrong? Or has he found about my plans for revenge that hasn’t even been realized yet?

A lot possible reasons for him telling me to meet up with him tomorrow whirled in my mind and my head all together that I wasn’t even sure if it was the amount of work I did or my raging thoughts that caused a headache as I walked back home from work that night.

I was stressed and tired as I made my way to my house that was only a few blocks away.

As I passed by a dark alley, I heard hushed voices in the dark and hastened my steps.

I’m minding my business and steering clear of trouble.

A voice stopped me on my tracks though.

A thin, scared and sobbing voice of a girl.

“I gave you all my money. Just please. Leave me alone”

It was the voice again.

“shut up and stay on the ground? You slut! don’t pretend like you haven’t done this before. Just lie there and take it!”

A thick male voice boomed.

I instantly knew what was happening.

“please…please I beg you”

The girl’s cries got muffled by what I concluded was the man’s hands to keep her from shouting.

I suspended all plans of minding my business and immediately turned back.

The alley was dark and so I turned on my phone’s flash-light. The light hit the two figures and the man was already close to forcing himself inside of her.

“You bastard!”I seethed. I rushed over to him instantly and threw him off of her. The girl screamed and backed away, trying to cover her exposed body with the fragments of her torn clothes.

The man was taken aback and didn’t have enough time to collect himself before I knead him in the groin. Hard.

He yelled out and rolled to the floor.

That wasn’t the only defence mechanism Nick taught me but I didn’t wait around to use the rest. The man could have a weapon and so I just grab the girl and her things from the floor.

“Can you run?”I asked

She nodded.

“Good! Now do”

I grabbed her hands and we raced off together towards me place and didn’t stop until we got to my apartment building.

I took her into my house and locked the door securely after I was sure that he didn’t follow us.

I took the girl to my sitting room and made her sit. She was a teenager. Who looked about seventeen with wild red hair that splayed all over her face. She was so pretty and ultimately reminded me of myself as a teenager. A teenager in the hands of Luciano Ivanovich.

Maybe it was the pain I felt from my own past reflecting on her situation that made me run to her and save her like that and even made me bring her to my home. I dashed to my room to get any clothe of mine that’s proper enough for her and to serve as a replacement for her torn clothes.

“Thank you”

She said when I handed her the clothe to wear.

“For earlier and for this” she said again. I shrugged.

“Don’t you needed to call your parents or something?”I asked. Dreading that her parents would be so worried about her right now. I don’t even want to imagine how crazy it must be driving them

She didn’t answer though. She just looked away and played with her fingers I didn’t probe further and I also stopped myself from asking what she was doing at the alley in the first place.

The more I look at her, the more I see my teenage self. And I didn’t like it one bit. So I leave her to change after telling her where the bathroom is and leaving the house with another destination in mind.

“You’re going to meet him? Are you crazy!!?”

Maybe it was a bad idea talking to Nick about it cause he’s not having it. I left the girl at my house earlier to come talk to Nick about the letter I got from Luciano.

First he’s annoyed that I put myself in danger to save a girl and even brought her home to my apartment and now when I told him about the letter and my plans to go, he’s out shouting and fuming. The only thing left is for him to actually start breathing fire!

“Look on the bright side Nick, since he let me go, I’ve not been able to get any reasonable information about him. Not even about the chain of clubs he owns here in the city. This is my chance to actually get close to knowing more about him”

I tried to reason with Nick.

Yes. I was paranoid at first too but I thought about it and how beneficial it could be for me.

“Besides, I cant refuse Luciano and you know that. He’ll tear this place down if I disobey him”

It was more like a matter of choice but in truth I had no choice. Luciano didn’t give me a choice to decide if I would meet him or not.

“Stop saying that bastard’s name! Fuck I hate it! What if it’s just a trap to keep you prisoner again?”

I thought about it too and I arrived at the only plausible explanation.

“Why do you think he hasn’t done that for the past three years? Even when he found out about my plans to escape him? He could have locked me up again but he didn’t. so why do that now?”

Nick fell silent.

I know I’ve won the argument already.

“I’ll be fine…really”

I said to him, trying to convince myself and him that I’ll be fine and that I wasn’t going to be walking right into danger tomorrow.

Whatever it is Luciano wants with me, I have to find out.