Elena Moretti
My hands ached, but stopping would mean accepting it. Accepting they were gone. If I buried them quickly, maybe this ache would lessen before reality set in. My eyes burned with tears I refused to let fall.
I don't deserve to cry. I did nothing. I just ran.
Mother always told me I was too stubborn. Would she be happy seeing me using that same defiance to bury them? Using that same defiance to bury my parents alone in this dark, cloudy night?
Would she laugh to try to make my heart lighter, or would her heart break watching her daughter scrape mud unto her and her husband's grave alone at night with her bare hands?
But this silence… God, the silence was louder than any laughter could be.
I kept waiting for tears. For the choking sobs you see in movies.
But all I had as this hollow ache, spreading like a frost.
What the hell kind of daughter will I deem myself to be? I couldn't even find a proper plot to bury the only parents I'll ever get to know. Laying my parents in the dirt on a mountain?
Elena, you're pathetic.
Having to bury my own parents at twenty feels like a punishment carved in my bones. The dirt was still so loose. The reality of my inability to even bury my own parents laughed bitterly in my face.
Twenty is supposed to mean mistakes I could fix… experiences I could always come back from.
But here I am, shoveling sand over the poorly dug graves of the only people who have ever actually called me theirs.
Everything replayed in my head so painfully.
The phone call. My parents, desperately yelling at me to run. The blood on the kitchen floor. I heard all the gunshots clearly. Eleven shots.
It took eleven shots to rid me of my life completely. I shouldn't have ran. I shouldn't have listened. Life has no meaning without them. It never will.
A cool drop touched my cheek. The sky broke in a way I couldn't. Of course it'll rain. Like this day could get any better. The rain came slowly, then all at once. A sound louder than my grief.
As if even Heaven couldn't bear to watch me lower them into the ground.
The shovel clanged against the sound. The sound competing with the sound of thunder.
My chest tightened as I dragged another mound of soil over my parents bodies. I couldn't even get them coffins.
Each movement felt mechanical. Like I didn't own my own body anymore. Maybe that was the way to survive. Step outside myself, watch the girl with the trembling hands cover her parents in mud.
Pretend she wasn't me.
I tried to get up from the now very damp sand. Does this mean I'm letting go? Of course not. I'm coming back for you. For my parents. They didn't deserve any of this. No one does.
I dragged my drenched self across the dark, abandoned alley, my vision as blurry as blurry could get. Walking back to my home with bleak hopes of finding a cab so late at night. My faith as shaky as my legs.
This isn't supposed to be my life.
By the time I reached home, dripping and chilled to the bone, the house felt so… wrong. Too quiet. A very unfamiliar scene.
I dropped the shovel in the hallway, mud streaking across the floor, and I found my way into the kitchen.
Mum wasn't in the kitchen making tacos. It's taco Thursday, mum. Why did you have to leave me on taco Thursday?
Oh. What I wouldn't give to listen to you and dad argue over fillings again. I ran my hands over the kitchen counter, painfully reliving all the memories I knew would never be real anymore.
I knew one thing; I was alone now.
Tears burned against my eyelids, refusing to fall. My palm brushed across the counter, trembling.
Whoever did this to them doesn't get to walk free.
That's when it came into my view - An envelope with mother's writing boldly inscribed on the surface, sitting just right there, by her pasta maker. I hesitated, my fingers trembling as I broke the seal.
"Elena.
I hope you never have to read this, but if you do, we're gone.
We tried our best to be here with you… for you, just a bit longer.
We always carried it at the back of our minds that it was wishful thinking to wish that,
But it never hurt to just… hope.
Elena, the Morettis are not just family.
Your father and I were part of the mafia. We left, and that became a problem.
The only way to truly leave the mafia is to die. We tried to escape it, for your sake; for our sakes.
We didn't want you to be born in all of that chaos, so we thought the best move to be running.
We tried to hide you from that life, and that's exactly what you should keep doing, Elena.
Run.
Don't try to be a hero. These people can't be messed with. You can't win. No one can.
If you ever run into any kind of trouble, you could always contact our trusted ally, and a very good friend of your dad's.
His name is Castro, and he lives about a 2 hour drive from here. His number is the first in the phone book under my pillow. You'll also find a pistol there in case of anything. Just so you're prepared.
Tell Castro what happened. You'll be fine with him.
There's a lot more I want to write, but there's so little time.
We love you, Elena. George and I. We always have. We always will.
Be safe, Elena."
The note trembled in my grip. Words blurred and joined together as I tried to comprehend all I had just read. The mafia? The fucking mafia?
How? How did I never know of this?
Were there signs I purposely ignore to keep the peace? No. I never suspected a thing.
But my parents…
They were part of the underworld. Hiding behind quiet smiles and ordinary routines.
And now, they were dead for it.
Father did make me learn some absurd things though like shooting a gun, mountain climbing, archery, and whatnot, but that was just a father looking out for his child, and wanting to spend quality time, no?
How could a person's life change so much in so little time?
My legs moved faster than my brain to my parents room. My palms, finding my parents bedside drawer. My fingers curled around the handle till the drawer gave way with a sharp pull. Nothing?
Yeah, she said to check under her pillow. Lifting it up, I found it right there, just as the letter had said. A phone book and a pistol. A loaded pistol.
Mafia. The word reverberated in my skull like a shot fired in a quiet room.
Standing up to leave, I shook the drawer, and something fell. Dad's journal.
I flipped the pages before I could hear my brain's protest. Nothing. A very empty journal. I was about to put it back when soemthing else fluttered loose. A gold leaf, almost weightless. Etched with symbols I didn't understand.
Something in a foreign language was etched across it. Latin? Italian? I'm not a fucking linguist. Dad doesn't even speak any other language but English. Why would this even be here?
Mafia business?
'Aut tecum, Moretti, aut sine vita'
I whipped out my phone to check the translation.
With you, Moretti, or without life.
The words felt so familiar. So close to me. My father hadn't just lived in that world. He was sworn to it. He swore himself to it.
And now, holding the letter and the gold leaf, I realized. Whether my parents wanted it or not, that vow has passed to me. Willingly.
I don't care if I'd have to die. I will get my revenge. Without my parents, I have no life. I have nothing to loose. If enemies were waiting in the dark. In the shadows, then they'll find me there.
If my parents had lived in shadows, then so would I.
I'll wake up everyday with one goal. I will bring down whoever was responsible for their deaths. Mafia or not.
I am a Moretti. Their blood flows in me. Whatever it takes to have my revenge. I'll pay the price. In blood, or any other way.
Setting the journal and letter aside, I tried to steady my breath. I barely had time to rise form the ground I didn't realize I was on when it happened.
The first gunshot tore through the silence of the house.
The lamp shattered beside me, plunging the room into utter darkness.