16: Family Meeting

"They turned you into a weapon

and told you to go find peace."

C H A P T E R 1 6

L U C I A N A

Clutching a small white bottle in my hand, I walked to my room.

On entering, I saw that it was already occupied.

"Why was I not informed about the family meeting?" I paused. "In my bedroom, might I add."

It was the end of the day and I was heading to my room to get a little peace.

And did I get it?

No

Why did I even hope for such an impossible thing?

My dad was the first one to speak up. "Well, as I had mentioned earlier, I want to talk to you."

I nodded and looked at my brother. "And you?"

"It's our 'later' now."

"Right." I sighed.

I placed the bottle on the table and took a seat. I noticed Nathan glancing at the bottle.

Shit

Probably shouldn't have kept that on the table.

Well obviously, you idiot.

"What are those?" Nathan asked.

"Pills," I said. "The ones I use to knock myself out at night."

His eyes widened. "Why do you need them? And where did you get it?"

"I stole it from the hospital wing." I say, subtly avoiding his first question.

After yesterday's nightmare I wanted to make sure I won't be having any dreams, or nightmares in my case, anytime soon so I decided to take a trip to the hospital wing and get some sleeping pills.

Nathan seemed to have noticed me avoiding his question, but thankfully he didn't question me any further.

My dad on the other hand just stared at the bottle with a guilty look on his face.

"Are we just going to continue the awkward silence or are we going to get to the point?"

"Can someone please explain everything to me? Because it feels like I am the only one who does not know why Luce left." Nathan said.

"Ask him. He'll know the beginning better than me."

Dad was still staring at the pill bottle. "I sent Luciana and Rachel on that mission, Mission:804."

Nathan looked confused. "Yeah, I know that. We all thought they died in that mission."

"But I didn't." I pointed out.

Nathan's entire face lit up. "Wait, does this mean she's alive too?"

I turned to him and shook my head.

"Oh, okay."

Dad continued. "Anyway, it was a very important mission. Valuable information had been stolen and we didn't think it was a huge threat. We decided to send in two assassins, one to distract them and one to recover the information. Luciana was chosen to distract them and Rachel volunteered to recover the information."

"You knew what 'distracting' them meant, and you still didn't object to it." I told him.

Nathan understood what I meant. "You sent her to get killed? Your own daughter?!"

"He did. Rachel knew what it meant, I didn't. When we entered the enemy headquarters she told me to get the information and not care about what the people at the agency would say. I didn't get a chance to question her because they had spotted us and I had to run."

"She became the distraction so that you would not die?" Nathan asked, even though he knew the answer to that.

Dad stood up and left the room without uttering a single word.

That's all he's always done, left me when I needed him the most.

Just up and left.

Every single time.

"Why did you think I left Nathan? I mean, after you found out I wasn't dead."

"I just . . . I didn't know what to think, I thought maybe it was because you couldn't deal with Rachel being dead. But you were wrong in leaving, and because of that we had to mourn for the two of you."

"Can we please talk about something else?" I suggested.

"Fine. Why do you need the pills? Have you been using it for the past few years?"

Of course, he had to ask that.

"No, just after I've been back. I have nightmares, really bad ones."

"Why now and not before?"

"When I lived alone I didn't have to worry about people hearing me scream in my sleep, here I do."

"Why do I feel like that is not the entire truth?"

I sighed. "Because it isn't. I had the worst one last night and didn't want to deal with it again."

"You could have told me, you know? I could have helped you."

"How could you have helped me Nathan? These nightmares, they don't just go away."

"But talking about it might have helped."

"And maybe it wouldn't have. Let's not think of all the 'What if's, it's too exhausting."

He didn't say anything for a while so I moved on to a different topic.

"Did you go back to Karl's place that day?"

"Yeah I did, nothing interesting turned up."

I nodded. "I went through the CCTV footage. There was nothing on that and I mean nothing, like it was literally blank. The tech team from IAO must have blocked the footage of the day so as to not record me."

"That makes sense."

"So we're back to square one."

We didn't talk. The silence between us felt heavy.

After a while I looked at him. I saw an angry expression on Nathan's face.

"What is it?"

"Why doesn't anyone ever tell me anything? Like I mean, I didn't know that you were supposed to be the distraction and I didn't even know you were alive all these years but somehow Alex and Marcello knew everything, I understand about Marcello but Alex? Why tell him but not me?"

"Nate, I don't know what to tell you. I'm really sorry about all this."

"Sorry won't cut it. Promise me, you will tell me everything from now on."

I just looked at him without saying anything.

"Please?" he asked.

"Okay, I promise, but not everything alright?"

"That's fair, but you're not going to keep any of the important stuff from me, deal?"

"Deal."

Nathan looked like he wanted to ask something else too but didn't want to overwhelm me. I signaled him to go on.

"Are you sure Rachel is dead?" he blurted out.

"Yes Nathan, I'm pretty sure."

"But how? She could be alive, maybe she was hiding like you, too." he said, looking hopeful.

"But she's not."

"How are you so sure?" he asks, hope shining in his eyes.

I hate to crush that hope but it had to be done.

"Because I killed her."