Two Sides of the Same Coin

“Fuck you. I’m done.”  

With a fierce set to his sharp jaw, Ethan Tromblay stood and slapped his shield on his Commander’s desk. He unholstered his sidearm, ejected the chambered round, and released the clip into his waiting hand. He slammed them all next to his badge.  

Without a backwards glance, he swept from Commander Holleran’s office and into the bullpen.  

Silence reigned, but he didn’t stop to gawk at the novelty.   

His desk was his first stop – one devoid of any personal touches. He’d never found the need to surround himself with trinkets and snippets of a home he never had. Instead, he slipped his cellphone in his jacket pocket and sped into the locker room.

His locker, on the other hand, contained his off-duty weapon, the keys to his Jeep, and his duffel bag of extra clothes. Plus a few odds and ends he’d accumulated over the years: a shaving kit, shampoo, deodorant, extra mags for both his weapons, and a single business card stuck into the crevice of the locker’s door.  

It was void of any recognizable insignia and held only the ten digits of someone he’d never thought he’d get to call.  

And yet, he found himself dialing those very numbers and waiting as the dial tone picked up.  

Moments later, a distinctly feminine voice answered. “Ethan?”  

His name was breathed on exhale, as if the owner of the voice couldn’t believe he’d actually called.  

“Where are you?” he asked. 

“Where I've always been,” came the immediate reply.  

No hesitation.  

No questions.  

No ambiguity.  

It’s what he’d always loved about her.  

He hung up.  

It was an easy decision to turn right instead of his usual left out of the station.  

It was even easier to navigate onto the interstate and ride it for the hour it took to merge into the traffic headed north. 

Easier still to glide to an effortless stop at the gate in front of the large estate.  

He rolled down his window to nod shortly at the camera above the numbered entry pad. He didn’t bother to roll it back up; the fresh mountain air was a balm to his city-drenched soul and he relished the first mouthful as he greedily sucked it in.  

He had missed the icy tentacles that spread into his lungs like silent invaders decimating the remnant of smog and smoke he had been breathing for years. He let his eyes slip shut and his body finally relax from the coiled tension he’d been carrying for as long as he could remember.  

When he reopened his eyes, the gate was open and he drove down the paved driveway until the forest around him cleared enough for him to see the estate.  

It was exactly as he remembered it.  

The original building had been built in the late 1800s, but the interior had been completely remodeled. The outside, however, retained its original impressive countenance. He knew from past experience that the double doors at the front swung open to reveal a stunning staircase directly before the doorway, splitting the estate essentially into two wings. The beautiful pale marble flooring was always spotless, the rugs always just so, and countless ostentatious paintings and other forms of art were tastefully dotted around the area.  

There were six bedrooms, five bathrooms, a large kitchen, a den, a study, a library, and an extended garage that jutted off the main house to form an “L” shape.  

He had spent so much time here as a child, orphaned at the age of eight he was a kid with a damaged past that no one wanted. Ethan had been old enough to remember the men who had come into his home in the dead of night, dragging his mother and father from their bed before beating them into submission.

Their screams were the things of nightmares, often the soundtrack to his restless sleep, keeping him up well into the night waiting for the men to return and make him scream, too.

But they never did.

The three men had dispatched his parents, apparently ignorant of the fact he'd been witness to the whole sordid affair. And the fact that he'd seen their faces.

It was the police that had gotten them to finally leave, the sirens in the distance foretelling their future if they lingered. They had taken one last look at the destruction they had wrought and left into the dark of night from whence they'd come.

The police had arrived moments later to a scene that none would forget.

His mother was splayed spread eagle in the living room, her hands and ankles nailed to the floor, her body bloodied and bruised from multiple assailants. Her once beautiful face was caved in on the left side and her skull was crushed from repeated, forceful blows against the hardwood flooring beneath her.

His father was tied to a chair, his eyelids painstakingly removed so he wouldn't miss a moment of his wife's brutal assault. His body, too, was riddled with blood and bruises, his torso carved with the name "DeMarco," a calling card of sorts.

It was then Ethan saw the name DeMarco for the first time.

It would not be the last.

He was put into the foster system after he'd testified to the identities of the men who had killed his parents. He'd been put in witness protection, given a new last name, and moved.

What no one expected was for the DeMarco family to make a play for him.

And succeed.

Ethan grew up in the halls of the estate, a passive occupant who saw too much and said too little. Until one day Angelina DeMarco came home and brought with her, her beautiful daughter. Ethan had loved her from the moment his twelve-year-old eyes had first seen her. They became fast friends and confidants. Where one was, the other was not far behind. It never crossed his mind that he was fraternizing with the enemy, allowing himself to become close with the family that had taken everything from him.

What he would later find out, and be told by the patriarch of the family, Antony DeMarco, was that his parents' brutal assault and murder was not at his behest. It was perpetrated by men who would wish to sully the DeMarco name, drag it in mud and make people turn against them.

But a seed of doubt had been planted in Ethan's brain when he was fifteen, and it continued to grow, even as he entered the ranks of the police officers who had saved his life that fateful night.

On the day he was sworn in as an officer of the law, he pulled his childhood confidante aside and held her one last time. He bid her farewell and told her that he couldn't straddle the line between good and evil, that he couldn't stand on the side of the police, the law, and still be with her, the daughter of the most feared mob boss on the east coast.

He had, however, made her a promise. With a lingering kiss on her soft lips and a deep, shuddering inhale of her luxurious scent, he had promised her that should the time ever come that he quit the force, he would come for her. He would put that behind him and return to her.

She left him with a single card with a number on it, shoved in his hand as she turned and fled, tears streaming down her soft cheeks.

It is that promise that led him here today.

Ethan parked his Jeep on the far side of the garage, parallel to the main house and perpendicular to the rest of the garage.  

He cut the ignition and slid from the confines of his vehicle, shutting the door with a resounding thud.  

He knew she’d be waiting.  

Knew it like he knew his own name.  

What he didn’t know was the reception he would receive when he finally worked up the nerve to get to the front door.  

Thankfully, the choice was taken from him, for the front door burst open and a form clad in black came sprinting from within. 

The slip of a girl he’d known as a boy had grown into a beautiful young woman with dark brown hair down to her waist and a tanned complexion that spoke to her father’s Italian heritage. She wore a black sweater dress that hugged her curves, dark leggings, and black riding boots that ended just below her knees.  

But what he had missed most were her eyes; beautiful pools of molten chocolate that could never hide anything from him. They were just the same, shining with a happiness he didn’t think he’d ever see again.  

He braced himself to intercept her sprint, and counted himself lucky he had done so, for she flung herself at him with abandon. Brilliant laughter rang through the courtyard as he wrapped his long arms under hers and swept her up against his chest in a move they had perfected long ago.  

Ethan held her there, breathing in the coconutty scent of her conditioner, burrowing his face in the crook of her neck and simply let himself breathe.  

He felt her legs twine around his waist and settled her more firmly against him, his arms tightening around her possessively.  

“I’ve missed you, Eth,” she whispered, her voice ragged with pent up emotion as she pushed her cheek against the rough contours of his unshaven jaw.  

No words were forthcoming, but she didn’t to expect any. She simply held on, letting him soothe his battered form in the sanctuary of her arms.  

Minutes passed before Ethan dared move, and even then he didn’t let her out of his arms. He simply pulled his head back so he could look at her, take her in, and lose himself all over again.  

“So,” she murmured, staring straight into his eyes, showing nothing but complete and utter trust and faith in him, in them, “you quit.”  

It wasn’t so much a question as a statement, for she knew he wouldn’t be there if he hadn’t.  

He had made her a promise nigh on a decade ago, that he would never come back to her if he was still on the other side of the law.  

But today he’d left that life behind, quit the force he’d promised himself to, and he’d come home to her.  

“I quit,” he said, not in reassurance, but in relief. He’d felt the weight of his chosen profession weighing on him with every case he closed, with every man he put behind bars simply because he bore her family’s name.  

“I quit,” he said again, “and I came home.”  

Isobel DeMarco finally gave into the impulse she’d so far been able to ignore and cupped his face in her hands, brushing the light blonde hair off his forehead and sweeping the pad of her thumb under his glistening verdigris orbs, until she brought their faces mere inches apart. She had to make sure he heard her, heard the words she'd been dying to say for years.  

“I love you Ehtan Tromblay, and I always will.”  

“And I you, my Isa,” he murmured against her mouth before he pressed his lips to hers and everything else faded into oblivion.

They were together now, they could figure the rest out later.