XII.

L O O K  A L I V E

—aka, maybe family feuds should be kept in the family,

EXT— A HOTEL ROOM.

VENICE, ITALY — MORNING (BREAKFAST HOUR).

CONT. SCENE II.

IT WAS A gory image for sure.

I could hear the verses of Romeo and Juliet being recited, overlapping those of Macbeth; I could see the blood that drips like the sound of a heartbeat from a golden, gilded crown, hung on a head that had slain a brother; I could see the parade of dead bodies, of betrayal and conniving, all in the name of one seat and the power that rested on it... His world, Kristoff's, felt more and more like a fairytale. Its corners barbed and its ending a question mark of happiness.

Fact and fiction tangled between the words, strung like heavy droplets of rubies, awaiting my neck.

If accepted.

The if is a ghost word.

It didn't feel real, but his gaze was earnest. This was his reality.

This was what I was in the middle of.

"But I don't fit in your story," I mused now. My good mood had since turned into rubble at my feet. Was it only a few minutes ago that I had felt wonderful? That I felt like I had won? Oh, how the mighty have fallen. "Not in the way that matters, if bloodline and aristocracy is something of an important factor. If your grandfather decides to dig..."

And decides to dig deeper. I couldn't remove the factor that I had more secrets left untouched. I had worn so many skins, so many faces and names that they blur. Each new one buries another, the world moving, the cycle repeating.

How powerful is the position that brother and sister crave?

Rich is one thing. Old money is quite another.

"No, you don't," he said in agreement. "You're a con artist, a thief, first and foremost. But my grandfather is old, and in his age grows a mischievous heart for conflict. Since we were born, we had been pitted not just against each other, but to everyone else. The competition became a little game. Foot soldiers and pawns, harabeo-ji had started craving the internal conflict Yuna and I threw at each other. If we spin this tale enough, at just the right angle, Antonina..."

My breath hitched. The way he said my name, the gaze that was blackened and smouldered. It wasn't begging; no, it was baiting the world at the edges of my fingertips. A promise.

The rubies glittered oh so prettily.

"We won't arrive to actual marriage, not unless you agree to it that is why I kept the contract stating proposal of matrimony." He cleared his throat, sighing. "I can't tell you more than what I have. In fact, I may have told too much in confidence. The rest, the specifics, will be laid before you alongside the plan once you agree to it."

He tapped the table. Once. "I understand that this is a wild tale, and too much to ask of you... but I want that position, Antonina. Since the day I was born, I was told to crave it, and I would do anything to have it. Of course, seeing my sister lose alongside that. With you as one of the cause, I'm sure I will savour the look of mounting horror in her face once she realised her failure was her own undoing."

Kristoff fixed the edge of his unused fork back in line with the rest of his cutlery like soldiers. Precision. A perfect line. "She sent a con artist to destroy me. I spun gold from her ashes." His eyes bore back on my own. Goading. Reeling. Pressing me like a wound about to be closed until I drew fresh blood again. "Agree, Miss La Verne, and I will spin us a fairytale like no other."

"And if I refuse?"

His mouth set a grim line. The air tensed. The other two boys shifted.

The silence was a suffocating answer.

"That complicates it," he said, finally. "I could find someone else, true, but you are now part of the board whether you chose to be here or not. Yuna had made you so. If you choose to leave now, I cannot promise the protection you crave from me."

There was no pity in his gaze when he spoke next. Just fact and nothing more.

"Yuna will kill you for betraying her. Even if you spin your pretty lies, she is hateful and will never forgive your choice in choosing me."

The world tilted. Air left.

"And you won't?"

"I won't," he said. Promised. "But I won't help you either once you are on longer in my employ. I am not a man of pity, Ms. La Verne. I am a man of planning and precision."

I knew that, in a way.

As long as I had use, Kristoff would protect me.

This contract was buying me my safety in every regard.

I smiled, pained and pretty. "Can you give me a little time? I need to make a call."

SCENE III.

Archie snorted darkly once he found out I had a secret phone.

"I knew you had one on you. KC went through your things thrice and said I should trust you better."

KC grunted. "I went through her things and room thrice. I still think that counts for something if I didn't find it."

That made me smile as I stood from hiding it in the little floorboard trap I found in the living room. "I'm never going to tell you about my secrets, Archie Noh, much less my secret safes." I patted KC's cheek. "It isn't your fault either. I'm sure you did your best. Now, you three. No eavesdropping." I turned to the devil in question. He met my look with cool disinterest. "I'm going to use your room."

Kristoff dipped his chin in assent, and KC echoed a 'We'll try' whilst Archie snorted.

"At least try to pretend," I said softly right before I closed the door and controlled my hammering heart as I typed the number I've imprinted on my brain.

He picked up in the fourth ring and I was already in the bathroom, having opened the faucet. I took the corner of the shower and sunk on the cool tiles. Fear was gripping my throat as I was met with steely silence.

"It's me," I said after three seconds of nothing.

There was hesitance in the quiet, until... "You shouldn't have called."

I almost laughed. "Trust me, I didn't want to."

He mulled that for a second before sighing. "What's going on, Nina?"

"I'm in danger." Saying the words out loud made me feel like a child that I did laugh this time. I've always been in danger— nothing about this job factored in safety, but here I was, afraid for my own neck.

So afraid that I called him.

"What do you want?"

"Secrets. For safekeeping."

"About who?"

The name was there, ready to roll off my tongue. But I woke up quick, the fear giving way to a clean calculation. "Promise me you won't do anything stupid."

His laugh was short and derisive. "I'm done doing stupid things for you, Nina."

I smiled sadly. "You say that as if I'm not your biggest weakness."

His anger waved off in the receiver; the sharp intake of breath, the slow, drawl of his exhale. "You—"

I cut him off. I didn't want to hear denial or agreement. I was already losing grip on balance. I didn't want to fully free fall. "Archie Noh, KC— he's a soldier, or was, I'm not sure. I don't have a surname but he probably has a contract under Archie Noh or Kristoff Park. Find for him too, especially him. And his sister, Yuna Park as well as anything about relations. Give me everything. Anything."

It really wasn't fair that only the two of them get to try and unearth me.

After all, they're not the only ones with tricks up their sleeves.

"That's a lot." I didn't speak until he strangled out another sigh. "You didn't search yourself?"

"I didn't want them to know I was nosying about, they're rather sensitive about it. Now, I don't care. If you need physical frame of reference, Sophie Co— from Hong Kong, remember her? — she's seen a few them physically. I've described the rest to her in detail."

"Okay."

"Okay." I hesitated before, "I'm sorry. Always. And I love you, bye."

I cut the call before he could respond— or don't, as a matter of fact, neither of which I wanted to hear — before I was already making another call. This time, she answered on the first ring.

"You know I was expecting your call in a few more hours, but I'm glad you called earlier." Sophie was speaking as if we were already in the middle of a conversation, her tone light and airy and I already adore her for it.

In fact, I didn't realise that my heavy heart had pitied me a few tears, and my short laughter was dripping with relief as well as uncontrolled emotions.

Heavy, uncontrolled emotions that Sophie definitely heard through the phone.

"You are alright, right? Please tell me you don't have a gun to your head right now and I was the person you chose as your last call. At least tell me he's given you the benefit of a few more than just me, the twisted son of a bitch. I don't really know what to say to a person about to die."

"No, no, you dreadful, scary bitch, nothing of the sort." I inhaled. Deep. "I'm alive and well, have just finished breakfast as a matter of fact."

"Then why do I hear the echoes of a bathroom and running water?"

Bless her for ignoring the overpowering emotions I was too scared to strangle.

"I told them I had to make a call." So maybe I lied. I had to make two. But in the myriad of lies I've spend, I think this one might be forgiven. "Oh, Sophie dear, this goes deeper than we both thought— we suspected, of course, but we didn't think I'd be roped into it this deep. And now I'm in the very middle of it, and I don't know who I am. Who I want to be. I can feel it. I'm at the stomach of it and I can't decide which exit to take."

"... I'm still in Italy, you know, as scary as the shit and vomit metaphors you're doing. I just found myself out of Venice— Actually, hold on. I'll ask which town— mi scusi? Señor?"

"That's Spanish."

"Big difference."

"Yes, it's quite racist." But she ignored me and pestered someone with a deep voice who replied in heavy Italian. The sound of a boat in rocky waters was loud; a boat with a handful of people. I think, at one point, I heard the words fish and bitch. Sophie tried her best to mimic what the man said.

"No, I don't know where that is. I'm not well adept in Italian port towns or fishing villages."

"Sure, but that's where I am. I can ask this man to re-route and come save you."

I laughed because we both know that wasn't happening. "I don't think you can do that on a fishing vessel, not without spending a fortune. And I don't want to be saved." I said as she tried to protest. "I want you to tell me that what I'm about to agree to isn't stupid and that I won't end up dead."

"... Ant, if I'm the person you're having to ask this about moral fibres and regret, then we're really on the deep end. Jesus. Okay first, stand up and clean your face. Then turn off that blasted water."

"They'll hear me."

"Who cares? Bunch of gossipy snoops. Mark my words, men are bigger gossipers than women. Now, do it. Stop snivelling, sounding like a pathetic mess, and stand up, Jesus Christ."

So I did. The silence became deafening, even when I heard the world just outside of these posh walls. The breeze felt nice on my wet face. I let it relax me, studying my features with no critical intent to change it, re-shape it for another performance. Just me.

"Now go and lie in your big, wonderful, goose-feathered bed."

"I'm in Kristoff's room."

"Well, Jesus Christ, is he in there?"

"No." Then I hesitated, counting for three heartbeats. "But I'm sure the three of them are listening. Although I have small theory that only KC can hear me well right now."

The other room, in the other veranda rather, was loud in its silence. I almost smiled.

"See? Worst than a bunch of old Asian ladies. And we both know old Asian bats and their pruny hands always grubby for information; anything they can get their hands— fuck I hate them, but I'm excited to be an old rich bitch. I'm not doing botox or anything— I am going to be that ugly, prunny old lady that knows too much and wears too many pearls."

I giggled at the image. "Pruny, little, Mrs. Co and her stick just about ready to beat every little kid who tried to fuck with her orchids."

"Damn fucking right no one messes with my orchids. Go lie down on his plush ass bed. Have you done it?"

"Yes."

"How do you feel?"

"Less like I'm panicking at the prospects of dying."

"Better then." Then four heartbeats. "You don't have a choice do you?"

"No," I mused, smiling bitterly at the cornices and glass chandelier bouncing trajectories of light and rainbow. The art was plainer here than the living room, all painted dark wood with no attempted Da Vinci or Caravaggio, but it was still pretty nonetheless.

"I would die if I said no," I confirmed. A girl hunted had days to live. As soon as I escaped Kristoff's generous purview, I was a dead woman walking with a timer for a heartbeat and a face for a bullseye.

"Then don't say no."

"Simple as that?"

"You're Antonina fucking La Verne. You could be anyone you want, be anything you need to be. You don't survive, babe, you flourish. I have never seen you flounder a con, and this is just it— just another con. You think on your feet better than anyone I know, shedding skin ridiculously faster than anyone I know, and you win. Again and again. Most of the time, against the shittiest of odds. It's actually truly a marvel you're not in jail."

"I've visited." I smiled. "Not the friendliest of places but surprisingly a lot of friends though."

"That's got to be the weirdest fucking reunion ever, although I can sympathise. Have I ever told you I met my long lost auntie in a Grecian prison? Speaking of pruny Asian bitches."

"I thought you never did jobs outside of Asia?"

"Oh, you know. Someone else asked me for a big con."

"Do I know them?"

"Nope."

I smiled. "You're an awful little lair, Sophie Co."

Then she hesitated, but only for a second.

"What do you you need to be this time? If you can tell me."

"A perfect little love story."

"For his sister?"

"For his world. All of them."

I couldn't picture their faces, just their black, formless blobs of human shapes. Then eyes. Big and wide, watching, assessing, devouring. There are cons where you hide, cons where you blend in as if you're dragging the play with them, and then there are cons where you are by yourself, in the middle, a sole spotlight and a character to perform. You and the rest of the world.

This was the latter, but it felt different. Every pair of eyes felt like they were holding a noose.

Kristoff was beside me, playing a part as well, holding my hand, my back, my face, but he wasn't looking. Not really. He was focused on the audience beyond.

In the sea of ruby seats, every single pair of beady, black eyes stared right back. They followed every movement, heard every breath.

He was there too, another Kristoff, right dead set on the centre. Watching my performance— our performance with a cool, detached look. Waiting for something.

A mistake? A good act? A perfect performance?

The Kristoff beside me slid to one knee and offered a ring box.

For better or for worse... in death do we part.

When he slid the ring on my finger, it burned.

I closed my eyes. I was going to sign on the dotted line.

I opened them again and smiled like a polished diamond.

"As if there was any other choice."

"You're Antonina fucking La Verne," Sophie broke through the awful reveries and feelings. The tides that pulled and pushed. It's hard to keep your head above waters when it's your own waters that are trying to pull you under. "You make it your choice. Whether or not it actually is yours— an act or otherwise — you make them believe it is."

KOREAN.

할아버지, hara-beoji - grandfather

+

I mean, even the best of us would have a little breakdown once you get through several realisations...

What do you think so far? We're about to meet just a few more Parks soon enough.

I hope you enjoyed, and please do comment your thoughts because I want to see something hehe.