Chapter 1
Seventeen-year-old Lantien Gallo paced in her room, packing. Resolutely, she stashed a two-terabyte memory drive in the bottom of her makeup bag and then in her backpack, along with two pairs of underwear, a single pair of jeans, pjs, and two work tee-shirts; she needed to travel light. It had to look like she was going to her job and a slumber party if her mother searched her bag. She put her hair up in a ponytail and tied her work apron around her waist, just in case, her parents saw her leaving.
“It’s just another day… You’re just going to work at the café… don’t freak out. Just say goodbye and leave like normal.” She stared at herself in the mirror for a moment as fear burned a hole in her gut. Her mixed Italian and Cantonese heritage and striking blue eyes would have made her the most sought-after beauty in her school if she wasn’t tied to a monster. The friendship and business partnership of her father and her future husband’s father held her hostage in the cage of an old world arranged marriage to Donatello Rossi. A fate she was determined to escape.
“You’re a phoenix, you can do this,” she told herself resolutely.
This weekend was a chance to get away from her strict Chinese mother’s watchful eye, but it was not for fun. Lantien was desperate to get the evidence to free herself from Donatello and the only way to do that was to prove his father’s business was laundering money for the mafia. A car horn sounded from the front drive, and she hurried from her room. Her friend-in-suffering and computer classmate, Travis Miller, already had her red wig, the faux leather jacket with the flaming phoenix painted on the back, and her red pleather pants in his car for her cosplay costume. They were going to Vegas to meet a professional hacker at ComiCon in hopes of destroying the Rossi family before they could hurt anyone else.
“Mah, Papa, I’m going to work, then to Lindsey’s for the weekend. See you Sunday night,” Lantien shouted as she tried to get out the door without facing her parents.
“Mh’hai (no). You need to come home after work tonight. We are seeing the Rossi family tomorrow. You must spend time with Donatello,” her mother, Taimeile announced in a cross tone, rushing to stop her from leaving.
“Mah, Donnie is gone to the Valley for the weekend with his uncle and cousins. I told you, I am going to see Lindsey. Papa, tell Mahma to let me go. Lindsey just got out of the hospital after her therapy. I haven’t seen her for weeks.... Please, I go to work, keep my grades up, it is just two nights. She’s my best friend,” whining, Lantien looked at her father desperately and pleaded, “You see your best friend almost every day, you don’t know what it’s like to miss him… Please, Papa, I missed her so much.” The tears which gathered were real, but not for the reason her father thought.
Pietro Gallo could feel his wife’s displeasure because he was going to give in to his eldest, but she had a point, she was a good girl, and she deserved some time with her friend. “Fine… Fine…” He laughed as he hugged Lantien, he looked at Taimeile and shrugged. “She is a good daughter, mia bella (my pretty one), let her go. Donnie is away, he hoards her time, and if Lindsey is finally home from the hospital, she needs her friends.”
Taimeile narrowed her eyes at her daughter distrustfully. “And how will you get home Sunday? Your car is in the repair shop.”
A car honked again and Lantien smiled sweetly. “Lindsey’s brother offered to drive me if I’d visit her. They are driving me to work today too, so Papa can take you to dinner.”
“A boy? It is not proper for you to stay in a house with a boy who is not your boyfriend. You are not going,” her mother said firmly.
“Gawd, Mahma, he’s gay and drives a Prius. Besides, if I cheated on Donnie, he’d kill me, he’d kill all of us. I’m not stupid.”
“Donatello would not kill us, you are just being difficult and foolish,” Taimeile snapped.
Lantien turned to her father. “Please Papa, I have to go, or I am going to be late for work. Please, let me go… Lindsey was looking forward to it… I promised her. What if Uncle Leo was just home from the hospital, wouldn’t you go see him?”
She knew she was taking a chance playing her parents off each other, but she must go this weekend. It was her only chance to meet someone who might be able to help her get free of Donatello Rossi and his family forever.
“This is not the same! Your father would not act without honor,” her mother hissed and Lantien was ready to scream at her in frustration, but her father stood up for her.
“And neither will our daughter. Lantien is nothing like her cousins. She is a smart, responsible young woman. I trust her and you should too. Now, Lantien, apologize for upsetting your madre (mother), and you can go. She only has your best interests at heart,” her father chided firmly.
“Yes, Papa, sorry Papa.” Lantien turned to her mother, bowed her head respectfully, and lied, “I apologize for upsetting you, Mahma. Nothing dishonorable will happen. I will go to work and go to Lindsey’s and come home, I promise.”
“Fine, hmph, she can go, but she will make dinner for Donatello when he gets home to show how much she missed him and that she is grateful for her free time with her friend,” Taimeile insisted.
“Yes, Mahma.”
The car horn beeped a third time and Lantien looked hopefully at her father, he nodded.
“Thank you, Papa!” She ran out without looking at her mother.
Taimeile went to the door and glared after their daughter. Pietro came up behind her and hugged her. There was a boy in the front and a girl in the back of a silver Prius. Lantien climbed in the passenger side.
“See, it is fine. Her friend and the girl’s brother came together to get her. Honestly, you worry too much.” Pietro tried to reassure his wife. “She isn’t going to end up pregnant like Maria.”
“You give our daughter too much freedom, jeuhng-fu (husband). That Miller girl is troubled. She hurts herself and brings shame upon her family. I do not like our daughter being her friend.”
“You try too hard to cage her, mia bellissima moglie (my beautiful wife).” He smiled at her with love and admiration as he turned her in his arms. “She is a free spirit, generous and kind, like my mother. Our little fledgling will be leaving the nest soon enough. You need to let her learn to fly so she will fly back to us, instead of flying away.”
Taimeile made a disgruntled sound in her throat and then turned her attention to her husband. “I shall dress for dinner, what do you wish me to wear?”
Pietro grinned at his wife of nineteen years. “You look beautiful in anything. We are going to the new Chinese restaurant in the Victorian Arts District near downtown. I got the reservation a month ago, just for you.”
She smiled at him beautifully. “Then I shall be extra lovely for you tonight.”
~~~~
Lantien slammed the door behind her and turned to look at who was in the back seat. It was a blowup sex doll with her red wig on its head. She turned to stare at her friend. “Uhm, Travis? Is there something you need to tell me?”
He laughed nervously as he turned and headed toward the highway which would take them to Las Vegas. “I was afraid Mah-zilla wouldn’t let you come with me alone, so I brought a girlfriend.”
“She’s cute, but too plastic. You can do better than recycle-me Barbie.” Lantien snickered, and then her expression turned sad. “Mah almost didn’t let me, but Papa said I could. I… I had to lie and say I was spending the nights with Lindsey.”
Travis’s hands tightened on the wheel. “They don’t know?”
Lantien shook her head. “No. They think she is home from the hospital for the weekend. Even if I told them everything, I doubt they’d believe me. Mahma thinks Donatello is a good boy and that I should behave like we’re in the old country.” Her voice took on the false tone and the thick accent of her mother. “Oh Lantien, you are a lucky girl to have such a boy want to marry you. Your papa will be so happy for you to marry his godson. It is your duty.”
She snorted derisively, her voice becoming more stereotypical badly Chinese accented. “It is your duty to marry a gangster’s son and let him rape you and act like you love him, so he doesn’t have your family killed and because his father and your father are best friends and arranged your marriage when you were children.” Lantien’s fist collided with the dash, her voice changed to a pitch of burning rage. “Gawd, I hate her so much.”
“Hey, not my car,” Travis scolded. “Look, just hang in there, Lantien. We’ve got the financials, maybe this A-bomb guy can find something we missed. If the Rossi family is laundering money for the mafia, there has to be a trail. We put them in jail anonymously and then… then he can’t touch you anymore. We get justice for Lindsey and freedom for you.”
“Justice for Lindsey…” Lantien murmured, nodding, but in her mind, she was thinking she wanted more to save herself and Meili than avenge Lindsey. It was too late for Lindsey. Lindsey was dead.
~~~~
Nine hours later, Travis and Lantien checked into a cheap hotel and took a nap before they changed into their cosplay clothes. ComiCon Las Vegas was in full swing as they went into the convention center. A Jean Gray and a Gambit went to the fourth corner of the fourth alley at 9 AM and waited. They were supposed to meet someone dressed as Cyclops.
Three hours later, still dressed as Jean Gray, Lantien went to the bathroom. She was ready to cry and not from the irritating fake green contacts she was wearing. A-bomb failed to show up. None of the Cyclops cosplayers were the hacker who was supposed to help her figure out which accounts belonged to the mafia and which were real grocery suppliers.
A guy dressed as Wolverine ran into her and she almost fell on her butt, but he caught her.
As he held her in his arms, he whispered, “I hear the marketplace has rats.”
She gasped as she looked up into the richest deep blue eyes she had ever seen. Shocked, she managed to murmur back, “They need to get rid of the snakes too.”
“I wasn’t sure it was you. I’m A-bomb,” he said softly, pushing his sunglasses up to hide his eyes. His hair was spray colored dark brown as were his scruffy sideburns. He was only a little taller than her but easily twice as wide. She never met someone the term stocky applied to that wasn’t considered fat and this Wolverine definitely wasn’t fat. He felt like he was solid muscle.
“I… I thought you would be Cyclops,” she stammered, confused as she stepped away from him.
“Nope. I said I would be the one who loved Phoenix the most.” He smiled as he said it. “The Wolverine loved her enough to let her go, loved her enough to die for her, loved her enough to kill her to save her. He loved her more than Cyclops ever did.”
“Are you sure?” She taunted, “Cyclops seemed like the perfect guy.” She started walking and he followed.
“The perfect-seeming ones are the ones you can’t trust.” Suddenly, he changed from amused to very serious. “So, what exactly did you need from me, Phoenix? Your friend said you needed some bank records looked at for fraud.”
“Not exactly. I need to prove a company is a front for laundering money for the Italian mafia in San Francisco, so I don’t have to marry the owner’s son,” she answered honestly, and he looked surprised, so she stopped for a moment, then added, “Look, people say you can find anything hidden in numbers.”
Lantien held out her hands helplessly. “You’re my last chance. Next year is my senior year and if I can’t take his father’s company down, I’ll have to go through with the wedding after graduation.”
“Why not tell him you won’t do it?” A-bomb asked curiously.
“It’s all arranged by our parents and if I don’t do it, he will kill my family before he kills me. He’s already killed two people,” she said sadly.
RR