What She Doesn't Know

Chapter 11

The front door opened and closed, an indicator to Leo that his wife was home. Ears attuned to her every step, he didn't need the monitor to know she was in the kitchen preparing food for dinner. It was a shame he had already eaten with Rafael. If there was one thing he loved about his wife, it would have to be her cooking.

Smells of dinner wafted into his room, tantalizing him, beckoning him to steer out of his workspace and enter into the kitchen with a hefty appetite. For his wife's cooking or his wife, he wasn't quite sure; nor was he going to entertain what his thoughts were provoking him to do.

It was the ringing of his doorbell that made him question the owner to the body outside his house. he wasn't expecting anyone at the time. Glancing at his watch, he noted the time and was curious as to who it could be. He just hoped his wife wouldn't beat him to the door.

Fingering the gun in his waistband, he got up from his chair and descended the stairs. He saw Isabella reaching for the door. His heartbeat was stoic, as calm as a lion ready to strike his prey. Getting ready his gun, he pulled it up the tiniest inch so that it was there in case he needed to shoot the intruder.

"Derek!" His wife's voicing of the kid's name caught him off guard and he let out a breath of relief. His feet turned up the stairs but halted when he heard his wife say, "Oh my, what happened to your eye?"

This caught his interest. Whenever someone got hurt, they'd usually go back to their house and call it a night. But he hadn't given the kid anything to go off on.

"Is Mr. Morietti here?" The tremble in his voice notified him that he was on the verge of breaking down in tears. Rolling his eyes, he couldn't deal with a kid who couldn't contain his emotions.

"I believe he is. Let me call - oh! Leo." While her voice displayed her happiness, her eyes held concern. He knew his wife's emotions by now that she was going to ask Derek to stay for dinner. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he descended the stairs with confidence.

Derek's eye was a mess: black and blue and swollen shut. A spark of anger erupted in his body but he suppressed it. His eyes held little to no concern. "What happened?" There was no concern, no false hope that he would accept the kid in with open arms. Business as usual.

The kid glanced at Isabella, silently asking permission to enter their home. She beckoned him in and told him that she'd get him an ice pack. "Do you want anything else? We have soda, water, juice."

Judging by the looking in Mr. Morietti's eye, he decided against it before he was thrown out for good. "No thank you, Mrs. Morietti."

She returned with an icepack wrapped in a dish towel and placed it gently against his swollen eye. "Hold it there for ten minutes and take it off for ten minutes. Repeat that twice."

He nodded.

Leo watched the exchange and noted the nurse inside of Isabella coming out. He briefly wondered how she would act with their own children. He shook that thought away as soon as it entered. Never would they have children.

"Come with me," Leo said.

"Dinner will be done in about 30 minutes, so come down when you're ready," Isabella called.

"Thank you, Mrs. Moretti," Derek replied. Leo didn't respond.

Mr. Moretti took him up to his office, the exact same place where he pissed his pants just a couple of days prior. Heat flushed to his face at the memory. With his hand, Mr. Moretti showed Derek to sit down in the same place where the incident occurred. Heat continued to flood to his cheeks.

"What happened?"

Derek squirmed in his seat, uncomfortable with Mr. Moretti's deadly glare. He couldn't find the words to say as his throat was clogged with emotions. His brain trifled through the horrible events that occurred, not knowing where to actually begin.

Does he start telling him when he was walking home from school? Or perhaps when he was upstairs in his room and the windows shattered? Maybe when he rushed down the steps and the man in black punched him in the face, effectively knocking him out? Maybe when he awoke and saw that his home was ransacked and his dad unconscious in the chair?

His hands began trembling as the memories flooded to the forefront of his mind and the helplessness he felt came roaring back with a vengeance. Why'd he come to Mr. Moretti? What was his mind thinking?

Mr. Moretti waited for a response with false patience. He couldn't deal with the kid at the moment. if it was a school prank, he would have to deal with it by himself. He was sparring with Rafael. He should know how to protect himself.

He rose from his seat, tired of waiting for Derek to produce a sound.

"W-wait, Mr. Moretti." Derek's voice thick with emotion which would surely melt little Isabella's heart. Too bad he wasn't Isabella.

"Kid, if it happened at school, I wouldn't be able to help you. For one thing, it's against the law and for another, I don't get involved with little kid functions."

"It didn't happen at school, though. It-it happened inside of my house." This caught Leo's attention. Usually kids would take their quarrels out on the schoolyard or behind a 7Eleven. He hadn't heard of kids entering into each other's house just to give them a black eye.

Derek, knowing he had Mr. Moretti's attention once he sat back down, began to spew out what had happened. Tears leaked down his face as he spoke aloud his recollection of what had happened. He didn't want to relive it. He wanted it out of his memory for good.

"Do you know what the man in black looked like?"

Derek frantically sorted through his mind the features of the man in black. He closed his eyes, trying to see if it would help garner any information. "I-I can't remember. I think he had an accent, though. Russian, I believe."

Mr. Morietti sat up in his seat and glared through Derek. He picked up his phone and dialed Rafael, speaking in a foreign language, shouting orders through the line. This did nothing to calm Derek's nerves.

Leo canceled the call. "Come on, kid. My wife is making dinner and it would be nice if we went."