Mr. Mysterious In Black (35 page)

Natalio didn’t look at me, he just continued. “Eventually, the cops began reciprocating. And everything was happening so fast it was all just a blur. Bullets shattered the windshields, grazing us by the inch. Darren swerved around a corner and…and…”

Natalio trailed off and crouched down with his fingers laced on the nape of his neck and his eyes focused on the floor. My heart stopped beating. What happened?

In a tone laced with lament, Natalio said, “That’s when Otis fell unto my lap. A bullet h-hole in the side of his head. His mouth hung open, his eyes vacant, lifeless. He was…dead. He was only fifteen.
Fifteen.
”

A loud gasp escaped me and my hand flew to my mouth.
Shit!
So that was how Darren’s brother died and not of some illness? Why would his family lie about his death? Shame? My word, there’s so much that I was oblivious to.

Natalio’s voice broke through my thoughts as he continued his tale. “Everything was so surreal, I kept thinking that at some point I would wake up and it would all be a dream. Darren kept driving trying to get away but the police cars only multiplied and I just thought to myself that that was it. We were ruined. I attempted moving my arm to shift Otis’s body so I could crouch lower, and a sharp pain slammed through my shoulder. That’s when I realized that I’d been shot.”

So I was right then. The mark on his shoulder
is
a gunshot wound. I gazed at him with rounded eyes. My Natalio had been shot. While I was weeping, thinking he’d left me because he didn’t want me, all this was happening? A wail was swirling in the pit of my stomach, but I wouldn’t allow it to manifest.

Natalio kept going as if he were unable to stop talking, his blue eyes void as he relived the horrid night. “Knowing that if the shoot-out protracted I’d end up like Otis, I shouted at Darren and told him to give it up or we’d all be dead; because he was already shot in the stomach and was bleeding to death. That’s when he glanced around and saw his brother sprawled lifeless, and that I was hit. He swore and made a loud cry, prompting Larry to look around, too. Blood was everywhere. The short distraction sent us crashing straight into a drugstore. I don’t know what happened, but all I remember was my whole body being flung from the back seat and towards the shattered windshield in one swift move. I remember not being able to move at all. And my last thought was about you…If I’d ever live to see you again. Then there was shouting, gas, smoke and fire. Then there was darkness.”

I sat inert, numbed and speechless. Shocked to the core.

Natalio unfolded from his crouch, stood up and paced the length of the room, raking his fingers through his hair repeatedly. “When I awoke, I was in the hospital. It was seven days later. I was comatose for seven days, Sadie.” His tone held incredulity as if such unfortunate circumstances should never befall someone like him. “Two of my father’s securities stood guard in my hospital room. And I knew then that I was in deep shit. They’d trimmed my hair. All my goddamned hair!” he shouted, with pure, undiluted anger.

“They kept me hospitalized for another three days and I suffered from the trepidation of being sent off to jail. But I should’ve known better, that with my father, there’s no way on earth that would happen,” he said through a choked laugh. “When I was next awake, I was on my father’s jet being shipped off the Japan. The sonuvabitch drugged me!” Natalio kicked at a bar stool and sent it tumbling noisily to the ground. “The domineering tyrant that my father was, he sent me away because he thought that was best, because ‘I was getting out of control’.

“Upon inquiring what happened with Darren and Larry and how I got off the hook, I was told that, somehow, my father’s lawyer got the boys to say they’d kidnapped me with the intention of asking for a ransom.” He laughed bitterly. “Ludicrous, isn’t it? But such was easily bought, because no one would ever believe that Marcello Nelson’s son, Natalio Nelson, CEO of a new multi-million dollar company on the rise, would be hanging out in a clique and shooting at cops. It was fortunate that I hadn’t my tool that night and that my fingerprints weren’t on any of the weapons.”

A large lump in my throat hindered my breathing.
Marcello Nelson
was his father? That pomp, I
do
know. The man was obscenely wealthy—if ‘wealthy’ was a justifiable word—and involved in virtually everything from theology to politics. Damn right no one would believe that story. The man held supreme power in society.

“I was forced to step away from my business for two years—well, not really. My uncle, Orthello Nelson, is the owner of NIFTZ in Japan. You know those smart cars?”

I nodded. How could anyone not know them? They’re made in such bright colors that, from a satellite’s point of view, they’ll probably look like gum balls scattered on the earth. But consumers flock to them anyways because they’re convenient, swift and affordable.

“Well he also owns an electronics company similar to mine. So for the years that I was forced to stay there, I’d gained more knowledge in that area. Apprenticed should you so say. Learned a lot from those smart and creative Japanese. By the time I was back in San Fran, I was abounded with ideas and a new direction for my company. I was able to turn my millions to billions in very little time. So, in some ways it helped me. I grew, in knowledge, wisdom and understanding. That’s what my father wanted to see.”

Natalio stared at me squarely. “You have to understand, Sadie, there was nothing I could do. My brothers and I, our lives don’t belong to us, but to him, Marcello. Whatever he says, goes. We were raised with gentility and decorum. Home-schooled. And as soon as we hit eighteen, millions get shoved into our hands to start our own business. And it better be damn sensible and successful, too. Father would be right there over our backs making sure we turned those millions into billions. Honestly, he’s the only man on this earth that I fear. He’s a domineering, high-handed, insensitive megalomaniac.”

Natalio began pacing the room again. “After those two years of living in Japan, he allowed me back home. And while I worked my ass off to right my company and regain my father’s reverence—because I’d messed up big time—I tried to get through to you, at which I’d gained knowledge that you’d moved because your house had been burnt to the ground. So I zealously searched for you.”

My heart leaped.
He searched for me.

“It took me a few weeks to find out about your father’s suicide and your mother’s attempt at the same. Of what had happened to you and that you were…you were with…Cali D,” his voice broke. But he quickly cleared his throat and strengthened his tone. “You’ve moved on. What could I do? Especially if you didn’t remember me? I sent warnings to him, to let him know that if anything should happen to you, anything at all, I’d pull his bloody intestines through his mouth.” Natalio ran both hands through his hair. “I couldn’t fathom how everything could go so wrong so quickly.”

This was too much. So overwhelming. Hell, this man suffered more than I did. Suddenly I felt morbid. And everything I’d eaten for the day threatened to exit orally.

But Natalio rambled on. “I’ve never left you. I assigned guards to keep watch on you for all those years you were with him. And whenever he messed up and you left, I’d be sure he got his ass kicked. But then days later you’d go back to him. Before I could even make a move from whatever part of the world I was to come to you, you went right back to that asshole! And I had to watch that shit for years.” He pinned me with a sulfurous stare. “Did you love him?”

Caught off-guard by his question, I stuttered, “N-No. I-I didn’t.”
I just couldn’t deal with starting all over again with anyone. Until you came along…again.

“Then why the hell did you keep—” he stopped short, lifted the vase of white roses from his coffee table and pelted it onto a wall, causing me to jump out of my skin. “I slept with girl after girl, night after night. Trying to find
you
in one of them. A semblance of you. Something. Anything. Anything at all that would remind me of you. But I never did. You’re one of a kind, Sadie. The love I had for you just wouldn’t go. Wouldn’t fade. Wouldn’t allow me happiness with anyone else. And that’s why I couldn’t move on. So I waited and waited and waited.”

“Did y-you..you…?” I couldn’t say it.

“You truly don’t know me radically. I just told you how I was raised as a child. I’m not a murderer, Sadie. I can’t give life, so who am I to take someone’s life? A lovesick puppy? Yes, that I was. A stalker? Yes, that I was. But a murderer? That I am not. And even if I was a murderer, do you think I would’ve waited all those years to switch the Italian asshole’s lights off?” He turned his arctic blues at me. “
You
really think I’d do something like that?”

“No,” I replied in all veraciousness.

“Then why the hell would you ask me that?” he snapped.

I don’t know. Maybe because you’d threatened to do so? Bloodied him up when I left? Pardon my unprovoked curiosity, Mister.

“I was more of a shoulder for Cali D. Whenever he got himself in a shithole,
I’d
be the one to bail his ass out. For
your
sake. He’d thought you to be a family member of mine, so he made use of his advantages.” Natalio strode over to the kitchen, grabbed a bottled water from the fridge and downed it. “Cali D messed up big time with some Cubans. And these men didn’t give a shit, neither did I. I made myself unavailable to him because I was tired of bailing him. I just requested assurance of your safety. But somehow you’d come to your senses and left him. For good. Or so it seemed. It was the longest you stayed away. The Cubans had assured me they wouldn’t hurt you, but then those guys couldn’t be trusted.”

Natalio righted the barstool that he’d previously kicked over and seated himself on it. “I’d run into you deliberately on many occasions. Even spoke to you. But you were unresponsive. You just didn’t remember me.” He turned and lanced me with cold, disapproving eyes. “I was in Chicago when I heard you’d lost your job at the Bistro and had taken up pole dancing at ‘
Secre X’.
What in God’s name were you thinking?”

His stare was so acerbic I withered at its penetration and duck my head in remorse and mortification.

Natalio shook his head and sighed heavily. “I decided then that I couldn’t stay away any longer and allow you to destroy yourself. You are so smart and talented…” He sighed again. “I told Tico to keep eye on you and to restrict you from stripping or dancing with anyone. I was desperate to get you out of that club.”

What the hell? So people just do what he tells them to?

It’s as if I was oblivion personified while everything and everyone played around me. To this man’s command. He seemed disgusted at his father’s domineering, high-handed ways, but did he fail to see that he was just the same? Did he think that I belonged to him in every way that he was justified in all his actions? Watching my every move for years and telling everyone around me what to do or what not to do?

Controlling
was too mild a word to describe him.

Mind overloaded, I could only stare at him because there was so much information being cascaded upon my head, I didn’t know what to talk about first. Or how I was supposed to feel.

I sought fortification in a long gulp of wine, got up from around the table and sidled over to the breakfast bar to sit next to him. Natalio eyed me warily.

At random, I picked one of the many questions that were floating around in my head. “If you were brought up in such a righteous, polished family, how did you end up on the wrong side of town? With the wrong crowed, the wrong friends, the wrong…girl?”

Natalio stared at me impregnably for a moment and I was hoping he’d say I was never the wrong girl.
Please say it.
“My brother, Trevillo, had just expanded to constructing tower lofts. This building here was his first. I was interested and somehow convinced him to let me invest. Trevillo doesn’t do partnerships, but I possess a sharp ability of persuasion. So I used to fly in on the weekends, extending my knowledge about the real estate business.

“One day, there was a commotion on site. I rushed out to see Trevillo pummeling some dude’s face. When I inquired he said he continuously came on his site introducing weed to his workers or some crap like that. In short, the dude was Darren. And he was the brother of one of the construction workers. After pulling my murderous brother away from him,” Natalio laughed, “and seeing his battered condition, I offered to drop him home. And somehow, Darren and I kicked it off. He was real cool. So whenever I was here on the weekends I would hang out in his neighborhood. I liked it there. It was different. Lively. Something new that I’ve never known. Plus I got a thrill at living dangerously, life on the edge.” Natalio pinned me with his gaze. “Most of all, there was this nymph that’d hooked me by the gills. I caught sight of her as she walked home from school one Friday evening. Her expression was sullen, but still, she glowed. Her hair was an abundance of long, untamed curls, undulating down the length of her back. Her waist was slim, her hips curved out, her legs were long, clean and smooth. Wholly, her shape, form, beauty, everything about her was capturing, reeling me in like a fish on bait. And I watched her, unblinking, breath-snatched, heart-pounding, until she disappeared into her house. Since then, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. She’d taken over every crease of my mind, every bit of my heart, atriums, ventricles, arteries, down to the very depths of my soul. I dreamed of her. Of only her. And I told myself that I had to have her. Whatever it took, anything, I just
had
to have her.”

My eyes watered and Natalio tore his gaze away and cleared his throat. “Anyway, that’s how I got tangled in all that bullshit. Incidentally, righteous is not the word to describe my family. We are anything but. Wrong in so many ways. Pretentious is a more suitable word.”

I blinked rapidly, willing my tears to recede. “So have you any info on Darren and Larry?”

Natalio chuckled. “Oh, they’re good. Really good. Though, Larry had lost a leg in the car crash that night. Their false testimonies of kidnapping me didn’t come cheap. My father had made a deal to grant them a couple of mils when they got out. They both got ten years but did less than half of that.”