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Sydney Moya

©2015

This work is the property of the author, and the author retains full copyright, in relation to printed material, whether on paper or electronically. Permission is granted for it to be copied and read by individuals, and for no other purpose. Any commercial use by anyone other than the author is strictly prohibited, and may only be posted to free sites with the express permission of the author.

Synopsis

Interpol working with a multinational taskforce of Anti-Organised crime agencies is closing in on Mario Di Michele and his ‘Ndrangheta crime family, His father, uncles and his three brothers and two sisters have been arrested or killed. He is a wanted man in North America, Europe and Latin America. There seems to be only one way to evade capture or certain death and it is by being true to his nature.

Chapter 3

Ava breathed a sigh of relief when she reached the Slovenian border without a sign of them being followed. She noticed how nervous the driver looked and she wanted to release him but she still needed his help to cross the border.

“What’s your name?” she asked him in Croatian.

“Vladimir,” he replied nervously.

“Look I’m not going to hurt you okay,” she said gently.

“How much do I owe you?”

The driver told her the amount. Ava took it out and added an extra €500.

“That’s for the fare," she explained.

She then gave him €7000 and advised him to get a new car and to get rid of his current vehicle. The man’s eyes nearly popped out at the sight of a year’s salary. He didn’t know what to say. When he finally said something it was to thank her profusely for her generosity. He wished he could pay her back.

To Ava’s surprise he offered to help her cross the border as his brother happened to work at the border post.

“Really, okay let’s do it,” she told him.

For some reason she trusted Vladimir and didn’t think he was a planning to rob her. On his part he was quite grateful she’d kept the Albanians away and had even paid for a new vehicle. He wanted to help her in some way.

He called his brother, Marko.

Thirty minutes later Ava had crossed officially in Slovenia at the cost of €300 using her British passport. She decided to get a coach which was heading to Ljubljana; from there she was going to head into the heart of Europe and hopefully, make good on her escape.

Ava didn't have to deal with the drama she’d had in Croatia in Slovenia. Once she reached that country's capital she made her way to a train that would take her to Gare Du Nord in Paris from where she intended to catch the Euro-Star and go to London. Her gut told her that going to the UK was for the best right now. She didn't go to Prague as that was probably were the police would check first seeing as someone in her family had sold her out and they’d known about the truck that should have driven her there.

She couldn’t go to Switzerland either as that was the police would be obviously waiting for her to show up and try to make a withdrawal. She didn't want them to figure out she was now living as a woman and so felt it best that she didn't tempt fate by going right under their noses.

Ava slept like her a log in the coach she was in, the stress of recent events finally catching up with her.

A beautiful and slender blonde woman called out.

“Mario my little darling, come to mama,” she said gently.

Mario ran to her and the woman scooped him up and swung him round. Mario laughed and shrieked joyfully.

Ava awoke remembering a dream where she’d been playing with her mother. Even today she had no idea what had happened to her. One morning when she was 11 she’d woken up to find her gone. When Luigi had asked where she was Papa had belted him. None of the kids dared ask about her again though they’d overheard some of the maids saying she’d left their father. Over the years she’d wondered about her but never attempted to find out as she feared her father’s wrath.

Now he was gone and the pain of his loss stung and it was inevitable that she’d wonder about her remaining parent and if she still lived.

Paris was cold and though it was a city she liked the only thing she did during her stopover was to go shopping to expand her meagre wardrobe. For a wealthy woman Paris is a shopping paradise and Ava thoroughly enjoyed spending her father’s money buying all the latest fashions.

Two Marc Gaultier dresses, blouses, skirts, a handbag and five pairs of expensive heels became her property. It felt good to be able to show the world who she really was and her confidence skyrocketed as she realised she passed a woman enough to be hit on by the French men.

Her stay in French capital was short-lived as she had to catch the train to London but she left having made a promise to herself to return and have more fun later in the year.

The wonders of modern travel let her reach London in three hours.

It’s good to be back she thought when she walked out of the station. She’d had no trouble with customs. Her British passport had been waved through without any real checks. She’d been worried the Albanian’s would have tried to screw her but it seemed they’d done an excellent job. Now she intended to burn this passport and apply for new one. Her prints were in the system but not as Mario the Italian student but Ava Mitchell, a London girl. She wanted to go to ground and start a new life as a woman. She wasn’t going to continue her father’s business but had no qualms living off the proceeds though.

She took a cab to a 2 star hotel and once in the room sat down and started a list of things she needed to get done.

1. Get hormones

2. Breast implants and FFS and GCS preferably legitimately

3. A job and place to stay- something middle class to keep people from figuring out I’m independently wealthy.

4. A car- something cheap and reliable.

5. More ordinary clothes

She started looking online for things that might help her. She found the address of a doctor who might be able to help her and decided to go there first thing in the morning.

Dr Ross was a bit taken aback when the girl who’d showed up told her she was actually male. She didn’t look like a man at all, probably because she’d done her make up expertly and had a very slight build and hands that didn’t seem big. Her Adam’s apple was small too. She passed very well.

“How long have you felt you were a girl?” Dr Ross asked.

“For as long as I can recall, I think I was 5 when I first realised it,”

Ava talked about her cross dressing and her father’s reaction to it when he found out. How puberty had worsened her discomfort and how she hated her body and being male and felt she should be female.

The doctor asked how long she’d lived as a girl.

Ava lied and said three weeks which still surprised the doctor as she seemed to do it too well. She told her about her father’s passing which left her free to be the person she wanted. Dr Ross had her answer a few more questions giving her a few tests after which it was clear that Ava had a strong and persistent identification with being female as well as a persistent discomfort with her biological sex and that it would impair her everyday functioning if she continued to be male. The doctor examined her and did some blood tests after which hormones were prescribed. She advised her to get a job or else she wouldn’t be able to proceed with her transition.

When Ava said she was going private the doctor smiled and said that changed things

Ava was over the moon when she left with her prescription in hand. She rushed to the nearest pharmacy and filled in her 3 month prescription for anti-androgens and oestrogen. On reaching her hotel room she downed the pills with a glass of wine to celebrate the start of her future.

Six months later
Ava opened the door to her Uxbridge home, after disarming the security system she’d had installed after buying the place. She was dead tired, her dead end zero hour contract job at the nearby supermarket always left her like this but it had grown worse lately. Her boss, Mr Jenkins was a jerk, ever since she'd corrected his record keeping he'd been bent on making her life miserable, piling on more work than she could handle.

"Avaa!" Jenkins would whine, "We're not here to play games m'dear. Get a move on love,"

Just remembering his words made her roll her eyes and grimace, who did he think he was? Did he think he could intimidate her, the child of Carlo Di Michele.

'Idiot,' Ava thought.

If it wasn’t for the fact that she was on the run and needed the cover for her transition and surgery she’d have quit the job ages ago. Working there had brought home how lucky she’d been in her upbringing and to have her slush fund.People living in the real world had hard lives. She’d never survive on the peanuts they paid her. The campaigners for a living wage were definitely onto something.

The last six months had been an incredible time of self-discovery, her real life test had reaffirmed her identity. There was now no doubt in her mind that she was a woman despite all the disadvantages that it brought in society. If she could have the surgery the next day she would. In moments of self-reflection she dreamt of marrying some nice guy and having three children and living happily ever after. She’d mourned her siblings and her father, she’d loved them as they were family and their loss hit her hard. It took all her willpower not to spend her time thinking about their deaths.

Ava had also learned how to deal with men and women as a woman. She passed well enough not to be bothered by people or stared at in the streets. No one at her workplace gave her a second glance. Ava also carefully avoided friendships with people for her own safety but wasn’t a loner. It helped that her fellow Londoners were quite aloof, not having time for strangers. She’d definitely grown up a lot in six months.

She hurried to her room and started stripping off. A smile came to her face as she noted the changes the hormones were bringing about in her body. She had noticeable curves and her breasts were coming in nicely she noted after removing her prosthetics. The face looking at her pleased her a lot, she looked quite pretty now she decided.

'I love being a girl,' she thought happily.

She blew herself a kiss before quickly changing into her favourite jumper and pair of jeans before heading to the kitchen and placing the leftovers from last night’s meal in her microwave. Once they were done she poured herself a glass of Chianti and switched on her laptop and started checking her investments. Everything looked fine. She sold off some stock and moved the substantial proceeds to one of her secret accounts in the Cayman’s. There was no use keeping all her eggs in one basket. Using her anonymous browser she checked the Italian news sites for any word of her family which she did religiously every day. The headline on one of the sites stunned her.

“Ndrangheta enforcer caricato”

It was Luciano, her bodyguard. He was alive. Ava nearly whopped for joy, he’d survived the shootout with the Carabineiri. Her joy was short lived when she read the article. He was being charged with a variety of crimes, including resisting arrest, harbouring a fugitive, being a member of the Mafia and a laundry list of crimes that would keep him imprisoned for the rest of his life. He was 37 and had a wife and two kids. Ava wondered what would happen to them. She had to do something, but what?

To be continued