Loyalty
Loyalty
The dreams were all the same: her fighting for her life and then all of a sudden, she had a gun in her hand and was pulling the trigger. Sometimes it would only be one pull, and other times, it would be many. Sometimes, it would be Lauretta she killed or that man who tried to abuse her, and other times, they would be faceless figures getting to her and she would keep on pulling the trigger. She'd only stop until her hands were bloody—even though she wasn't wounded and hadn't touched anyone who was.
It wasn't lost on her that her dreams were symbolic. Weeks after The Manor incident, she still couldn't get rid of the guilt of having blood on her hands.
Sitting up, Angela reached for the glass of water on her nightstand and finished it in one gulp. The time was 3:14 a.m. on her phone. She had woken up earlier than the other times and the sky outside was still so dark.
And just like the other times, she dialed Gael's phone.
"What's wrong?" was his immediate answer, sounding alarmed because it was three in the morning. The last two times, she had called him when the sun was already up. It made her feel bad that she woke him up in the middle of the night, but she couldn't help it. His voice was the only thing that helped calm her down.
Angela breathed and she didn't say anything.
"Oh, baby…" He sighed. "Nightmare again?"
"Yeah."
"Three nights in a row. You must be exhausted."
'Tell me about it,' Angela thought. This wouldn't be the first time she had nightmares like this. The first few ones were back in New York, but it wasn't as strong as the ones she recently had. Yesterday, she gathered that it was probably because Gael had always been there every night when they went to sleep—as if her subconscious knew she was safe with him right next to her. So the first night she slept in her old bedroom and she was missing Gael, her brain made tricks on her.
"I just want it to go away," she muttered.
There's shuffling on the other line as if Gael had gotten up from bed and moved. "I'm sorry, baby." He didn't say what she already knew he wanted to say because he said it last night and the other night too. That, if he could, he'd take on her nightmare for her so she didn't have to suffer like this. 'All the money I have and I can't even do this for you,' he'd said.
Angela hugged a pillow and buried her face into it, imagining he was there with her. It wasn't quite like the real one. There was no smell and feel of him, but his voice in her ear made it feel better. "Gael…"
"Yes, love?"
"Tell me about your first."
Gael was silent on the other line. At first, she thought he had hung up for how quiet it was until he spoke in almost a whisper. "You don't want to know."
Despite the somberness in his tone, it annoyed Angela a little. "I've killed two people in one night, and seen so many dead bodies too. Just a few days ago, I saw someone's finger cut in front of me, and my grandfather was poisoned by my mother. I don't think there's anything else that would scare me anymore, Gael." She squeezed her eyes shut, and in a pleading voice, she whispered, "Please?"
He took a deep breath as if bracing himself for what he was about to tell her. But then the call ended, making her all confused until it rang again. This time, it was Gael calling her using one of his untraceable phones.
"We were in Italy," he began as soon as she picked up. "I've been living there for a couple of years after my father brought me. One time, Aurora was sick and she had to be in the hospital for a week. During then, I had to pick up Seb and Gabby from school everyday after their classes. A few times, I've seen my brother talk to a man in his thirties at the school gate like they were friends. I thought he was a school staff or something.
"I even asked Seb about it and he just shrugged, saying the man was a friend and that he lived in the neighborhood. Sometimes, the man would give my brother pastries…or a drink. The man looked harmless—even smiled at me one time. My brother and I had never been close. Like I told you, he's always been mad at me. He didn't like finding out I existed before him—that our father had another son—so we didn't talk a lot. But I found out the man's name was Paolo."
Angela pictured everything in her head as if a movie was playing. She didn't know where this story would go—but she was sure it would end up with Gael taking out someone's life. "What happened then?" she asked, only so that he'd know she was listening.
He breathed deeply. "I was out with Gio one night. Rick and Salvatore were also there with us. We were in one of the clubs that Uncle Pietro owned. That same night, I saw Sebastian's friend—that man from his school, Paolo, and he was there with a few other men. The whole night, I kept observing him because I felt something odd but couldn't place my finger on it. It was Giovanni who told me to be careful around the men at Paolo's table. Gio said the guy was a cop and the men at the table were his colleagues."
Even without Gael telling her, Angela already figured that Paolo approached Sebastian for a reason.
"I haven't told anyone I've seen Paolo with Sebastian a few times," Gael continued. "I wasn't like my family…yet. I doubted, but I was still feeling around how the De Lucas were and slowly learning how they operated. Gio and I were already close, but I found that he was also quite reckless that I wasn't sure if I should tell him. He's only a year older than me, but he'd been in the family all his life. I didn't know how he would react.
"That night, I didn't go home with them. Instead, I followed Paolo. I didn't know what I was doing or what I planned to do. I think I just had to find out where he was going or who else he was meeting, probably reporting to his superiors about his exchange with my brother—whatever Sebastian had told that man. I wasn't into deep with the family business, but my instincts told me that I couldn't let him harm my family." He scoffed. "I swear I could hear my mother and grandmother chastising me as I got closer and watched Paolo enter his house.
"He was alone in there and I would later find out that he didn't have a family. I was just about to sneak inside when Gio stopped me. He didn't go home like I thought he would and followed me there. He'd demanded what I was doing and I had no choice but to tell him. I can still remember the way his eyes widened at my words and then…"
"And then what?" she probed when he paused for some time as if recalling everything in his head.
"We were at the back of his house and the lights turned on. He caught us."
Angela gasped but didn't know what to say.
"I'll spare you the details…" His voice went low and the next words sounded detached as if he wanted to get over it quickly. "We ended up standing in his kitchen while he pointed a gun at us. Gone was the man who looked friendly with Sebastian. That man was different. He looked about ready to kill us. Gio had a gun in him too…and then the two of them struggled. Everything went by so fast. I saw my chance, grabbed the gun before I could talk myself out of it, and squeezed the trigger."
Fresh tears rolled out of Angela's eyes as she covered her mouth in shock. Even though she already knew how it would likely end, it still shocked her to know how Gael's first kill happened.
"I shot a cop, Angela. Someone who was only doing his job to protect the city from my family. And I stopped him from doing it. I didn't know why I followed him in the first place but I guess I went there, thinking of doing the same thing I ended up doing to protect my family anyway. I'm not proud of it. I won't ever forget what I've done. But it had to be."
He was quiet for a minute before speaking again. "That's what loyalty is. Doing things out of it can't be questioned because the only valid reason for doing what you do is because you're loyal. What you did, Angel… It's akin to loyalty. It's a strong sense of allegiance to yourself."