CHAPTER 16

Least I Saw the Heart of You

A t six in the morning, I force myself out of bed, just like I have every morning this past week. I know if I'm not ready to go to the gym by half past six, Henry will storm in here and chastise me. He's become a drill sergeant as of late, and is it kind of hot? Yes. Is it also really fucking annoying? Also, yes.

I've started sleeping in sweatpants and a sports bra at night, so I don't have to change when I wake up. All I do is throw my hair into a bun and head into the family room. Usually, Henry is making both of us some breakfast, but instead he's sitting on the couch, his posture stiff and unnatural, and his gaze distant. I think for a second that he's having a flashback, but his eyes flicker to me, and I see full awareness there.

"When I say I can't tell you about my mother, what I mean is that I know you'll feel differently about me once I tell you. You'll be disgusted with me," Henry confesses, his voice hollow. Lifeless.

I make a beeline for the couch and kneel down in front of him, placing my hands on his knees. "That would never happen."

He shakes his head. "You can't make that promise."

"If you've made up your mind about how I'll feel, why tell me at all?"

He swallows, searching my expression, then he replies, "Because I realized that we will never be able to move forward unless you know everything."

Apparently, my little speech earlier hit home. "I don't want to force you to talk about something you're not ready for. That's not fair."

He slowly covers my hands with his, squeezing them gently. "You were right. My choices have led me to the place I'm at now, and I can't change any of them. The past is written already, but the future isn't, and I'm the only one that can write it. So, I'm going to tell you what happened, how my mother died."

I get off the floor and sit down next to him, keeping one hand linked with his. My touch seems to relax him a bit, but he still looks off-kilter and in pain. I absolutely hate it, but I don't do anything more than that. The only way to help him is to let him unburden all that pain, to comfort him while he opens up a long-festering wound to me. So, I sit back and listen to his story.

"My father's family originated in Sicily, and when he was a teenager, they moved to Maryland, to a small town where he met and befriended another Italian American boy named Anthony Boreanaz."

"The two of them were inseparable throughout their childhoods, and this bond led to them both joining the Navy together. My father met my mother while he was on leave, and they got married a few months later, with Anthony as the best man. When they had to go back overseas, Anthony was shot in the leg, and the damage was enough to force him into a medical discharge. He went back to Maryland, where he looked after my mom while she was pregnant with me. He was even there for my birth. My dad died when I was only a few months old, captured and executed by pirates. Anthony vowed to look after my mom and I, and he did just that throughout my childhood.

"When I was ten, Anthony moved to Italy to take care of his grandmother, and we didn't see him much after that. He still called every holiday and birthday, though, and the summer after I turned twelve, he invited us to visit him. We were supposed to spend two weeks there in the middle of July, and for the first half of the trip, it was incredible. I loved the food, the history, the scenery—it was all perfect. But one night, about a week into the trip, I was woken up by a loud thud and the shuffling of shoes. We had been staying in a hotel paid for by Anthony, a really fancy suite, and I thought maybe Mama had the TV on too loud or that Anthony had decided to come visit. So, I poked my head out of my room, and I saw Mama in the arms of three fully masked men; one had her legs, one had her arms pinned down, and the other was clamping her mouth closed. They took her outside the room, and I just stood there and watched. My brain was moving twice as slow as it usually did, and it wasn't until a few minutes later that I ran after her. I shouted her name, begged the men to let her go, but I was too far behind them. They couldn't hear, and I doubt they would have cared even if they did. By the time I caught up with them, they put my mother in the back of a car and drove off. I called Anthony and told him what happened, and he promised he would search for my mother while I went back to the US, where it was safer. I didn't want to leave, but I knew I would get in trouble if I didn't, so I let him put me on a plane back to Maryland. Two months later, Anthony disappeared. I didn't hear from him after that."

Beth's thumb brushes over mine, and I can't help but notice how soft they are. Her fingers aren't callused or rough, nor is her skin marred with scars and scrapes. She's smooth and delicate. Perfect. Her touch acts as a good anchor to hold on to while I continue to tell her my story.

"After five months of searching, they declared my mother dead, but I knew she wasn't. I was convinced I would have felt it if she had left this life to join God, so I held on to a small shred of hope that she was out there somewhere. That hope didn't offer me much comfort or respite from the anger and grief roaring inside me. I got into a lot of trouble because of it, and I was shipped off to military school when I was sixteen. I hated it at first, but as I got accustomed to the discipline, the other cadets, and the mission—I grew to really love it. You already know about my life in the military and why I left, but what you don't know is that I searched for Mama while I was in service. My team was SEAL Team 6; we specialized in hostage rescue and counterterrorism, and the organized crime families in Italy were our main focus for a few years. They trafficked weapons, drugs, and humans in and out of the country. I was able to piece together that my mother had been taken by one of these crime families and trafficked, but I didn't know by who or where. We were only allowed to stop the weapons trafficking, but many of the buildings and boats we raided had trafficked people stashed away. Mama was never amongst the victims, and when I finally asked my superiors if we could focus on stopping the enslavement of innocent people, they said no. Human trafficking is not a threat to national security, they said. But even if the answer had been yes, Italy has virtually no database for the trafficking that goes on in the country, and our resources within the SEALs was minimal. I knew I wouldn't find her if I stayed, so I made the decision to leave."

Recognition fills her features. "Because someone wasn't found," she repeats my own words back to me, and I nod solemnly.

"The CIA allowed me to have more freedom than the SEALs did, but the red tape and bureaucracy followed me. As you know, I developed a reputation of going against regulations and orders, and for the most part, the higher-ups let me get away with it. I got results, and that's all they cared about. So, I used the CIA's resources and money to try and track down my mother, but the lack of data on Italy's part was still a problem. I needed knowledge of the different crime families, who traded in what, and where each family sent their slaves."

Her pink lips part. "That's why you sought me out."

"Yes. The data you had been collecting told me that my mother had likely been taken by the Santoros family. The hotel we had stayed at was in their territory, and they used the coast to export people to different parts of Europe, particularly in the Netherlands. Anthony Santoros, one of the members, owned property in the Red Light district in Amsterdam."

"But other organized crime groups deal in the trafficking of humans. How did you know it was Santoros, besides the location of the hotel?" she thinks aloud.

"I didn't, but I had to start somewhere. Anthony Santoros owned three brothels there, and I searched the most popular of the three first, Elysium. I slipped in amongst the midnight crowd of customers, bartenders, and workers. I let one of the women lead me upstairs, but when we were behind closed doors, I asked her if she was being trafficked, and she broke down in tears. I managed to get out of her that all of the prostitutes and bartenders were there against their will, and their job depended on their age. You became a bartender if you were above sixty-five or a prostitute if you were above sixteen. I asked her if she had ever seen a Chinese-American woman in her fifties named Audrey, and her eyes grew cloudy with tears. She said Audrey was in room seventeen."

My hand shakes in Beth's grip, and I begin feeling the signs that I'm about to have a panic attack, but I don't let these feelings overtake me. I need to get this out. If I break down now, I'll never get through this, and I owe it to myself and to Beth to uncover this festering wound.

"I went into seventeen, and there she was. Mama. Naked. Tied up. Her body limp and frail, her hair streaked with grey, her skin sickly. A syringe needle was sticking into her neck, and a man had his finger on the plunger. He only injected half the dosage before realizing I was there, and when he turned towards me, I looked into the eyes of Anthony Boreanaz for the first time in over twenty years."

"Oh my God." Beth clasps a hand over her mouth, shaking her head.

I give a single nod, feeling my chest clench painfully, growing tight like a stretched band, as if my heart were trying to rip apart my body from within.

"No," I whispered, my hand shaking as I pointed my gun at my dad's best friend, the man I had known my whole life…the only father I had ever known.

Uncle Tony let go of the syringe, leaving it sticking out of Mama's neck. He tilted his head to the side, his eyes wide and horror-stricken, like he'd seen a ghost. Ironic since he'd been the one presumed dead for the last two decades.

"Henry? My you've grown. You look just like your mother." He said it so casually, like I didn't just catch him drugging my mother.

"Why?" I begged, my throat growing hoarse. "My dad trusted you, my mom trusted you. We loved you like family. We—and then you promised to save her. I thought you were dead."

"The man you knew is dead," he said. "My parents abandoned their duty to our family when they left Italy, and my grandparents reminded me of the fidelity we have to blood. I reclaimed my true surname, my status, my wealth as the family's heir. I may have loved you, but you're not blood."

"You were the one that took her." My teeth gritted together, and I spit the words out at him. "You promised me you would bring her back to me! You promised me!"

He shrugged. "We all must make the most of the shitty hand we're dealt. It wasn't personal."

"I shot him right between the eyes," I tell her. "He was dead before he hit the ground."

"Good fucking riddance," Beth whispers, her voice thick with emotion.

"I ran to my mother's bedside and took that needle out of her neck, but the amount of heroin Anthony had injected her with was enough to make her OD, and even though I didn't know it in that moment, my instincts told me my mother wasn't going to live. I knew I only had minutes with her before I would lose her again."

Tears streak down my cheeks, and I can hardly register Beth hugging on to my side, placing kisses on my shoulder and neck. All I can feel is the weight of my mother in my arms, of her blood soaking my skin from the beatings she received. All I can see is her cloudy gaze focusing on me, and her smile wipes away whatever pain she might have been feeling.

"Henry? My Henry?" she had whispered, reaching up to cup my cheek, and even that small movement exhausted her.

I nodded, holding her hand up to my cheek, placing a kiss on her palm. "I'm right here, Mama. I'm right here. You're safe. I found you."

She gave a weak laugh, and tears filled her weary eyes. "Look how you've grown. You look so much like your father."

By this point I was crying alongside her, but that last comment sent me over the edge, and for the first time since I was twelve, I sobbed in my mother's arms. Despite the fact she was dying, she used what energy she had left to comfort me, to assure me that all would be well, even though we both knew it wouldn't be.

"Please don't leave me, Mama," I begged. To her, to God, to the world. I begged for my mother to survive. I had just gotten her back. I already knew what it felt like to live without her, and I didn't want to do so ever again.

"I never left you, Xīngān. I never will," she assured me, her expression contorting in pain. I looked around the hotel room for anything to help her, anything to make her pain lessen, but the only things here were sex-stained sheets, the dead body of the only father I ever knew, and a mostly empty heroine vial.

"I love you, Mama. I love you," I sobbed, my tears splattering onto her pale, sickly skin. I leaned my forehead against hers, clutching her tightly to my body, as if I could transfer some of my strength to her.

"I-I love you," she panted, her eyes becoming glassy. "I'm scared."

"Everything is alright; Nǐshì ānquán. Nǐshì ānquán," I whispered, placing a kiss on both her cheeks brushing her hair from her face.

I didn't know how to put someone dying at ease; I still don't. But I did the only thing I could think of, the thing my mother did for me whenever I was scared. So, in a soft, low tone, I began to sing, slowly rocking her body back and forth like one would do for a restless infant.

"Moon river, wider than a mile

I'm crossing you in style some day

Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker

Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way

Two drifters, off to see the world

There's such a lot of world to see

We're after the same rainbow's end

Waitin' 'round the bend

My huckleberry friend

Moon river and me."

She took her last breath shortly after I finished, and all I could do was stare down at my mom, my world, the light of my life. Part of me kept expecting her to regain focus and assure me that she was okay and would remain so, but she didn't move. Her eyes stayed open, her mouth agape, her chest unmoving.

Dead.

"I heard a woman's voice from down the hall," I continue, "along with a deep masculine voice shouting in anger, and something inside me snapped. I placed my mother down onto the ground, exited the room…then I killed them all. I went from room to room, level to level, shooting everyone except for the workers. Every supervisor, every boss, every patron, every drunken observer in the street. When I ran out of bullets, I used a knife. When I lost the knife in someone's back, I used the cane one of the supervisors used to beat the prostitutes. When the cane broke, I used my hands and whatever objects I could find. I bathed the brothel in the blood of the slavers and predators. By the time I was finished, my clothes and skin were soaked in the blood of my mother and the blood of my victims. The woman who had helped me earlier, as well as all the other prostitutes and bartenders, cowered in fear of me. They hid behind furniture, cried behind the bar, and looked at me like I was no better than the men that had sold them. Before the authorities arrived, I retrieved my mother's body, drove to Veluwezoom National Park, and buried her there. I marked it with a makeshift cross I made from two sticks and then I recited various prayers, ensuring she would enter heaven."

I flick my eyes to Beth, who sits next to me stiffly, her eyes red from tears. I can't tell what she's thinking by her expression, and I don't try to decipher it. Instead, I tell her this: "The CIA had to do a lot of damage control because of the massacre I created in Amsterdam. The Netherland government claimed that the fault was with a group of brothel patrons high on meth. The director of the CIA said that pinning the blame on me would only paint the CIA in a bad light, and the Netherlands along with it. So we all agreed I would go quietly. I had no idea that you would be let go as a result, and the minute I found out, I asked you to come work for me, and despite my best efforts, despite the vow I made to myself to never trust anyone again, to never care for someone again, I grew to admire and care for you as we worked together."

I squeeze her hand in mine, feeling another tear fall down my cheek. "I love you, Beth. You think what I did for my mother was extreme and barbaric? There is no limit to what I would do to keep you safe. I would kill anyone, break any rule, defy any lingering code I still live by, even betray the God I serve. I've resisted you, pushed you away, because if you die—"

My voice cracks, and I'm not sure I can even finish that sentence. But I must.

"I learned how to survive without my mother, but I couldn't learn how to survive without you. If you die, I cease to be."

"You think it's not the same for me?" she whispers, bringing her shaking hands up to cup my cheeks. Her palms and fingers are as soft as the rest of her, and I want nothing more than to fall into her arms and never leave them. "You are my life, Henry. Without you, I'm nothing. Did you really think you telling me all of this would change that?"

"It should," I whisper, no longer having the strength to resist her comforting touch. I lean into it, into her. "I killed dozens, maybe even a hundred people because of my mother, and I know not all of them were to blame for what happened to her. The customers and bystanders did nothing, but I killed them anyways, and I feel no remorse for it. I feel no remorse for everything I did in the name of protecting my mom or avenging her death."

Another tear falls down my cheek, and I let her wipe it away with her fingertips. "I've been so scared of what Harrison will do when he arrives here because he and I aren't all that different," I admit. "His brother was his entire world, the only person he ever loved, and that was my mother for me. He'll slaughter anyone that gets in the way of his revenge, just like I did. And you know what the worst part is? I would feel no remorse if I did all of that again to protect you. I would bathe and revel in the blood of anyone who dares lay a finger on you. You should be repulsed by me, as I'm sure Mama would be if she were here."

She grips my face tightly in hers, her expression almost angry. "That's all a bunch of bullshit. You don't hurt people for pleasure or money, you do it to protect people. Everything you do is for the benefit of others, not for you, and that's what sets you apart from the rest, especially from Harrison. If it's true that all sins are seen as equal, and that you will be judged by God the same as the people you've killed, then I'll be suffering eternally beside you."

"What are you talking about?"

She laughs incredulously, shaking her head. "I agreed to come work for you, knowing full well how many laws and rules we both would break; I buy you acid and mercury to destroy bodies, a task you and I have both done on several occasions, and I help you track down and study the people you kill before you kill them. You may pull the trigger, but I load the gun. How could I judge you as if I were on a moral high ground when we've always been the same, H?"

I attempt to break my gaze with her, but she holds me firm, preventing me from turning away. "I love you, Henry Cai, and I'm not going to let those fuckers take our future away from us. When they show up here, we kill them all, then we spend the next six or seven decades eating food from cans and fucking on the beach. I will accept no other alternative."

The picture she paints is more than I could ever ask for, and for that reason, I know it's too good to be true. I will never be allowed to have happiness like that, but even if I were…"I've spent so much of my life working towards the goal of finding my mother and killing all those who mean to harm others…I don't think I know how to do anything else. I don't know how to just exist in the moment, to be happy."

To my surprise, Beth smiles. "Good thing we'll have the rest of our lives for me to teach you."