Secrets of the Harts

1 Jan 2010

Christmas passed by uneventfully, aside from the reminder from the Christmas specials on TV, it seemed like any other day. Even Owen had seemed preoccupied when I called.
Sighing, I glanced over at Dylan, who had fallen asleep on top of his laptop though it was only 2 in the afternoon.

He’d been working round the clock. I wasn’t stupid or innocent enough to think that he was doing so out of the goodness of his heart. I knew it was probably because he didn’t like spending time around me, but I didn’t know for certain if it was because of the vulnerability he’d accidentally let me witness or because he remembered what I had done to his father. Either way, he wanted to find Alessandra Zeta as quickly as possible and so did I.

Though I knew all this, I still felt a little bit guilty that he was spreading himself so thin. I also knew that it was stupid for me to feel this way.

Dylan’s laptop suddenly emitted a shrill sound as an email or message came in and he startled awake. Dylan read the message and then said to me, “This is how she looks like.”

For a moment, I felt like staying where I was, only able to see the back of the laptop. If only for a little while, I wanted to still be able to think that I would never be able to recognize Alessandra Zeta even if I had passed her by. But I wanted to find her and I would never be able to do so if I didn’t even how she looked like, so I went to Dylan, sat on the bed and took a look at my mother.

She looked like me. We had the same blonde hair, the same grey coloured eyes but their shape was slightly different. We even had the same heart-shaped face.

There was no way I could ever miss someone who’d looked so much like me, if I’d ever met her. I felt both relieved and angered.

“Why didn’t she try to find me? Where was she?” I blinked hard, getting rid of the sudden moisture gathering in my eyes, hoping that he hadn’t heard my soft, mumbled question.

Dylan’s eyes flicked towards me.

I looked away from her photo and hugged my legs, making myself as small as I felt. He wasn’t interested in any of this and neither did I intend to talk about it.

“Princess.”

I stopped, realizing that he’d put the laptop away and was staring intently at me. Suddenly I felt nervous, more anxious than I’d ever felt around Dylan, which was really saying something. “What?”

His eyes were still neutral, not streaked with pity. “If you need someone to listen to you, I don’t mind.”

His words were so unlike him, as though Dylan was making an effort to be tactful. And it took me being near tears for him to do so. That made me let out a small laugh.

Dylan shook his head at me, wearing not disgust on his face but confusion.



“So what else do you know about her?” I asked, after I’d gotten a proper hold on my emotions.

“She has links to the Cosa Nostra.”

One look at his downturn lips and I knew he didn’t like this turn of events.

The Cosa Nostra referred to the Sicilian Mafia. They’d been around for many decades, their authority, loyalty and brotherhood was extremely strong. Even the American Mafia couldn’t hold a candle to them in terms of togetherness.

“You’re saying that she’s Mafia?”

“It seems more like her brothers were involved in it. They’re not very high on the hierarchy, but high enough that if somebody snooped around about their business, people will get suspicious and unnecessarily jumpy.” He definitely looked annoyed now.

“So we’ll just have to be careful.”

He looked mildly surprised that I wasn’t being my logical self but it was mostly annoyance I detected on his face. “It’s not enough to ‘be careful’. They don’t really need an excuse, especially if that somebody is me.”

“There’s bad blood between the two of you?”

“Let’s just say that Vic stole some of their business.”

I remembered the Mafia’s system—Sean at the top, followed by Vic and Cain. Vic helped Sean in long term plans while Cain took charge of the day to day running. Whatever business deal it was, it must have been a big deal for Vic to have engineered it and not Cain.

“So what do you suggest?”

“I think we should slow down a little.”

“Slow down? We’ve barely even made any progress for a week! Now that we’ve a face to match to a name and can finally start finding her, you’re suggesting that we slow down?”

Dylan looked like he wanted to argue with me but his expression softened slightly and I knew he was recalling the mini meltdown I had a few hours ago. I flushed, wondering if this raw, embarrassed feeling was what he’d experienced before. If it was, then no wonder he’d avoided me like the plague.

“Yeah, I am. I know you’re anxious about finding her, but this situation…I don’t like it at all. And I want to make sure that my contact didn’t screw it up because if he did, we’d be stepping on the Cosa Nostra’s toes for nothing.”

That I couldn’t argue with. Although Dylan Fuller had immense power back in America, he had none here and I didn’t even have any weapons or contacts of my own if our search went wrong. This brought me to a very interesting question, “Do you know how to use a gun?”

“Yeah.”

“I meant to kill.”

“I know.” He didn’t even blink, letting me know that he’d probably killed before. I was starting to forget whose son he was and all the reasons why I needed to stay away from him but this was a very good reminder. I needed to remember, because forgetting was dangerous.



Owen asked, disbelievingly, “So you’ve found her?”

“Well yeah, I mean yes.” I didn’t like his tone at all. But I was glad that Owen was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to notice my slip up. It seemed like the more time I spent around Dylan, the more I was starting to sound like him.

Aware that I was letting the seconds tick by, which was not a good idea because I knew how overprotective Owen could be and how a GPS system could locate where I was in under a minute, I said, “Why the tone of surprise?”

“…no, it’s just that I underestimated how resourceful Fuller can be.”

There seemed to be more to it than this simple explanation but I let the matter go, mostly because I knew that Owen wouldn’t have told me anyway.

So I said my goodbyes, flushed and washed my hands for good measure. It was pathetic but I’d never found anywhere private yet secure to talk to Owen. Instead, I had to settle for the bathroom, knowing that I would be in serious trouble if Dylan ever found out what I was doing.

When I got out, I found Dylan smiling and speaking animatedly to someone on the laptop. That someone sounded familiar as well. Luke?

Dylan continued smiling when he saw me and gestured me over. “I’m almost done here. You can talk to him.”

Luke looked great; happy and relaxed. It seemed like there was some kind of change in the 12 days we hadn’t seen each other, some of loosening within Luke. If possible, his smile grew bigger.

I squeezed into the same chair as Dylan, ignoring the look he shot me. Instead, I said, “I missed you!”

Luke glanced towards Dylan, an amused smile developing on his lips. Dylan immediately got up, not bothering to give an excuse before leaving the room. Pursing my lips in mock anger, I inquired, “What are you trying to do?”

“Nothing… Happy New Year!”

I sighed at his blatant attempt at changing the subject. But I took the offer anyway. “Happy New Year to you too… How are you? How’s Tia?”

I’d expected his expression to darken at the mention of Tia, like always. But it seemed like it wasn’t just Luke’s outlook that had changed because his smile remained, turning gentler at her name. “She’s somewhere around the house. I’ll call her down later to talk to you.” His smile disappeared. “How are you? Dylan told me how you’d escaped and how he’s helping you find your mom. It just seems to me like you guys are trying to avoid talking about what happened.”

His words sent a jolt down my spine. What he said sounded vague but I knew what he was referring to—how I’d indirectly killed Dylan’s father and how they planned to kill me. I knew it wasn’t fair for me to treat Luke like always and feel even more disgusted with Dylan, but I felt like I could trust Luke. I knew him better.

I shrugged at him. “We are avoiding it,” and each other, “but so what? It’s not as if we were buddies before everything.”

Luke shook his head. “Yeah, but-”

“Luke! Who are you talking to?”

The Tia I knew would never have dared to speak to Luke this way, so much had changed in such a short span of time, but that voice was unmistakably hers. I smiled.

Tia’s face appeared on screen and she laughed happily when she saw that it was me. “Tee! It’s so good to see you again. Happy New Year! How are you?”

Luke looked slightly exasperated at her hijacking our conversation but he didn’t seem angry, more like resigned. He got up, pecked Tia on the forehead and shuffled out of view. All this I watched with interest so as to say, “I’m good. And what’s that all about?”

She rubbed her forehead, wearing a self-conscious grin. “We get along much better now. And I want to say that I’m not mad at you.”

The knot in my stomach loosened. It’d been Tia who hadn’t known a lot of what had been happening and whom I’d lied to. She hadn’t deserved any of that. But she had every reason to be angry with me. “Thank you.”

“So tell me, what have you been up to?”

I told her everything that had happened and to my surprise, she accepted all of it without questioning. It seemed as though Tia was made of stronger stuff that I had assumed.

At the end of it all, she said something that gave me a rude shock. “If you’re asking me if you should trust Dylan, I’ll say yes.”

Trusting Dylan? I hadn’t even thought about it, because I knew that he couldn’t be.

“As for Owen, I think he’s the one you should be looking out for. I don’t trust him one bit.”

“What?”

“Don’t sound so shocked. Call it a gut instinct or whatever but I’m completely serious about this. Dylan isn’t the type of guy who would have agreed to help his father unless he was sure that his father was in some kind of danger and it sounds like your Agency was lethal.”

I ignored this because Tia probably wanted to think the best of Dylan. She saw the world in rose-tinted glasses. And didn’t she go on about how Prince Charming when she’d found out about Dylan’s pet name for me? Well, Prince Charming had never tried to kill Cinderella.

“And why can’t I trust Owen?”

She frowned. “You’re not going to like this, but I find it really dubious how he keeps coming and going at important times in your life. He doesn’t seem reliable.”

I flushed unpleasantly, because it seemed as though Tia had plucked the thoughts right out of my head.

“Look, I need to go right now but I hate to leave you like this. Talk to me later, okay?”

I nodded and Tia disappeared from the screen, leaving me with more doubts than before.

But I didn’t stew in my thoughts for long because a few moments later, Dylan returned, wearing a thoughtful expression and bringing great news. “I’m going to make it clear—when I said that we were slowing down on the search for Alessandra, I didn’t mean that we’re going to stop completely. I still want to help you find her, okay?”

I shrugged, pretending to be nonchalant, but inside I was wondering if Tia was right after all. Maybe I could trust Dylan Fuller. To some extent.