Page 3 of Fixate
Preacher was more than his best friend. I knew it before we were forced out, and it was confirmed with each day that passed. At night, Dante would cry himself to sleep. Then he’d spend hours crying out for a man he’d never be able to have again.
Or at least, that’s how it seemed.
Going home meant Dante would have hope of reconnecting with the other half of his soul. I didn’t doubt Domenico had some kind of failsafe in place to stop them, but I had no clue as to what it was. I didn’t have clearance for such things since I was merely a babysitter.
Fucking asshole.
“I’ll take care of it, sir,” I said. “Anything else to know?”
“No. I expect you to handle this well, Ricardo. If you do, then you’ll find yourself with more options than you could dream up.”
I wanted to laugh at his lies.
There was zero chance of him giving me anything to do other than watch over Dante.
At first, it had seemed like a protection gig. Being with the heir to the Cosa Nostra day in and day out, ensuring he didn’t have anyone tracking him. I thought maybe I was finally being thought of for a serious role.
Except the longer time went by, the more I realized I wasn’t protecting Dante from anyone. He could take care of himself. He was a trained killer after all.
When he turned himself into The Monster and began taking out bad guys, I accepted the reality of my role as his babysitter.
But I also told myself I’d be his friend.
Dante wasn’t the reckless child his father tried to make him out to be. He was smart, cunning, and more than capable of leading the men his father had trained over the years. Befriending him felt natural.
So, I sat by and kept my nose out of things. Dante had loads of freedom while we were overseas. It was only when we came back to the city that his father’s chains tightened on him.
We both knew Domenico was watching us. Maybe not every minute of every day. Still, he had enough people to ensure we weren’t doing anything to topple his empire.
Six months after returning home, everything went to hell. And ironically enough, it wasn’t because of Domenico.
Correction: It wasn’t directly because of him.
He’d set the train in motion years prior, without a clue how it would pan out. That’s the thing about believing you haveabsolute power; you tend to lose the paranoia you need to make sure no one is going to fuck with your stuff.
And fuck with his stuff is exactly what someone did.
One morning after another restless night of vigilante bullshit, I went to shower while Dante reviewed some footage on the computer. It was a normal pattern for us. Nothing should have been amiss.
Except when I got out of the shower, he was gone. My friend, the man I’d spent every day with for years, had disappeared into thin air.
Thus began the longest fucking day of my life to that point. I waited for some sign he was alive and attempted to keep my cool.
Dante wouldn’t leave without a word. And since there wasn’t any sign of forced entry, I had to believe he was merely out on a stroll or some other bullshit excuse I could conjure up.
When the message finally came from an encrypted number, I felt a swell of relief. Then I immediately felt irrationally angry.
How dare he be vague? Didn’t he understand I needed details to make whatever I told his father work?
Sure, I’d lie for Dante. I’d done it plenty of times.
But being back in the city completely changed the rules. I couldn’t ensure we’d both escape Domenico’s wrath if he kept me in the dark.
Using a few contacts I’d made outside of the Cosa Nostra, I checked around the city for information on anyone who might be able to create encrypted video formats. It took several hours before anyone reached out to me, likely due to time differences and the fact that they wanted to vet my intentions.
One should never blindly trust anything on the internet.
A hacker friend of mine, known by the handle MindUrBzzness, said there were only a few people they knew who could send a file with those specs. They sent over the threenames, then we wiped the server to avoid anyone else stumbling on the information.
