C5 The Number

Ava stared at the screen.

MARCUS.

Her thumb hovered over the green button. Against her palm, the phone buzzed furiously and angrily, as if it had a pulse.

"Give it back," Alessio's voice was rough, and he attempted to push himself up, a pained sound coming from deep in his chest. "Ava. Please."

"Why does your phone have my father's name on it?"

"It isn't what you think."

"Then tell me what you do think!"

Rain hammered down, the phone vibrated again, third ring, fourth—

"It's been three years since he died," she said, her voice cracking. "That's what everyone told me. That's what you let me believe in your office, with your hands in your pocket. You saved that number under his name."

"It's a code..."

"A code for what?"

He closed his mouth. She watched this, the way he forced the confession down, his jaw tightening, the look of something like loss crossing his face. That was the answer. She didn't need to hear it.

She pressed the green button.

"Don't," he said, reaching out for her wrist.

She yanked free and slammed the phone to her ear. Her heart pounded against her ribs, a frantic sound in her ears.

Silence. A noise, a crackle. Then breathing, thin and rattling, like pages turning.

"Hello?" It came out a whisper. "Hello?"

"...Mija?"

The world stopped.

She knew that voice. She would have recognized it in a crowd of a thousand. It was deeper now, rougher around the edges, but there was still the familiar warmth in it, the kind that used to read her bedtime stories.

"Papa?" The word tore out of her. "Papa, is that you? Where are you? Are you hurt?"

"Ava." He was crying; she could hear it. "Oh, my girl. My brave girl. Listen to me..."

"I'm listening! Tell me where you are, I'll come..."

"No. Don't come. Don't... he's..."

A thud. A scuffle. A muffled pain. Her father's breathing hitched.

"Papa!"

"Run, mija," he gasped. "Don't trust..."

The line went dead. Someone else was on the phone now. She could hear the little, soft sounds of a man shifting his weight. A cane tapping once against the floor.

"Good evening, Ava."

Ludovico.

She didn't answer, her hand numb around the phone.

"I do apologize for the interruption. I told you that he was always nicer than he looked. He's resting now. It has been a trying few years for him."

"If you touch him..."

"Touch him, my dear? I have kept him alive for three years."

At that, her stomach twisted. Alessio, beside her, had gone ghost white.

"I'll give you a simple choice. You come to the old Vitale house on Lake Road tomorrow at noon. You come alone. You bring the letter. Then you and your father walk out together." There was a pause. "If you don't, I stop paying the doctor."

"I want to hear him again."

"You just did."

"Let me hear him!"

"Ask yourself something else." His voice was gentle, like a hand on the back of her neck. "Ask yourself why a man who claims to know nothing has this number saved for three years. Ask yourself who has been calling whom."

Ava's eyes went to Alessio.

He was staring out the windshield, his hand dangling from his side, fresh blood seeping through the fabric. He didn't seem to notice.

"Ask him," Ludovico said, almost kindly, "how long he has known where your father was."

The call went dead.

The silence in the car was deafening.

Ava lowered the phone. It slipped from her grasp to her lap. She stared at her hands, which looked to belong to another person.

"Say something," she said.

"Ava..."

"Not your name. Something that isn't a lie."

He swallowed. "I didn't know about the file. That was true. I swear it. I didn't know my uncle opened it."

"But you knew he was alive."

He went silent.

"Alessio."

"Yes."

One word, light and small, pierced through her like broken glass.

She made a sound, something between a laugh and a sob, deep in her throat.

"Three years." She turned to look at him. "Three years of Sundays. I sat on my bedroom floor and talked to a box of ashes. I told it I was sorry. I told it I was trying." Tears streaked her cheeks, but she didn't wipe them away. "And you knew."

"I couldn't tell you."

"Why?"

"Because he made me promise. If you knew, you would have gone to him. And my uncle would have followed you right to the door. I was trying to keep you both alive."

"You decided that."

"Yes."

"You decided what I could handle."

"Yes."

"I could have been with him!" she screamed, the sound rattling the windows. "I could have had three years! He was alive, and you let me bury him!"

Alessio flinched as if she'd hit him.

Her chest rose and fell. She wanted to tear into his face, rip his bleeding shirt open, and throw him out the car door.

Instead, she looked down at the wound. Black blood had pooled on the leather. His face was the colour of old parchment, his eyes half-closed.

"You're bleeding out."

"It's fine."

"Stop saying that!"

She snatched up the cloth and pressed it against his side, harder than necessary. He grunted, his hand finding hers again, now shaking, now cold.

"Don't touch me."

"I can't feel my fingers."

Her rage gave out. "What?"

"I think..." He slumped back against the seat. "I think I need a doctor."

"Then stay awake. Talk to me. Say anything."

"Anything?"

A sound that might have been a laugh escaped him, his eyes hazy and warm. "When you threw the paperweight, I wasn't afraid. I thought, finally. Someone who isn't afraid of me."

"That isn't..."

"Nobody has looked at me like that in years. Like I'm a person. Even if you hated me." His fingers curled around hers, weak but real. "I would rather be hated by you than adored by anyone else."

Her breath caught. "Stop."

"Ava."

"Stop talking like that. You're dying, and you're being romantic, and I can't..." She pressed her lips together, refusing to cry for him, refusing to be pathetic. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It was the only way..."

His hand slipped from hers.

"Alessio? Alessio!"

She shook him. His head rolled against the seat, his breath shallow and slow. She pressed two fingers to his neck, found a tiny pulse, fluttering like a caged bird.

"No. No, no, no. You don't get to do this. You don't get to lie to me and then just..." Her voice broke. "Wake up!"

Nothing.

She grabbed the keys, hands shaking, the alley behind the bakery yawning away into a street she didn't know. She didn't know a doctor's number. She didn't have any friends in this city. She didn't have anyone.

Headlights washed over the end of the alley. Slowly, steadily, the car turned in, tyres screeching on the wet stones. It stopped ten feet from where she stood, engine idling, beams cutting through the rain.

The driver's door opened, and a woman stepped out in a cream coat, her long dark hair glistening in the headlights.

She smiled at Ava through the glass.

"Hello," she said. "I think you have my fiancé.”