AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
Phoenix
I have no idea how long it takes for my tears to stop. All I know is he’s setting me on the bed gently. He’s gone then back again with a hot wet washcloth, he uses to clean me up. I’m not sure when he put his shirt back, it’s only half-way buttoned. Sighing, he walks to the windows.
“You want to know what happened that night. But it didn’t start with that night. Not for me, not for you, and not for us. It started almost five years before then. A man came into my club asking to see me, he wanted to make a purchase…and a sale. Was there a way of selling his current doll for a new one? I was surprised he felt safe enough asking my bouncer. I got his name and did a quick search of our records. Sure enough, he’d purchased from us before. We had a file, a file only coded with red. Red means we don’t do that anymore. I had Valdez on the phone and by the time he made it to my office door I confirmed he was a sick fuck.”
The words don’t make sense. I knew he got caught trying to sell me and buy a new girl. That it was Aleksander he went to, who sent him to jail…but he’s not done, not even close.
“Edward Nelson the third, son of a rich family who hadn’t done a thing but spend it down. Considering he wanted to make a sale as well as a buy, I couldn’t kill him the way I wanted when he spoke. He wanted a younger one who was five or six years old. His was too old at thirteen for him, he’d bought through my father and was hoping to make another purchase with my family.” I watch Aleksander in the reflection of the glass. His hands are gripped tightly in front of him, gold flicks up to meet my eyes in the reflection.
“The girl was the priority. I had no idea what to do with a kid that age. So I made a phone call to Ray, he didn’t answer. I waited an hour and moved onto my next agent. I told them to have the guy picked up so the girl could be saved. Once the girl—you—were safe have the guy killed in custody. It happened exactly the way I wanted it to. Within a few hours my agent followed up, you were safe and he was dead. An inmate who only cared his family was taken care of did what needed to be done. Ray called me later that night. I didn’t think anything of it and I told him why I called.”
His sigh is so heavy I feel it from across the room.
“Now it’s that night ten years ago. Ray calls and tells me it’s an emergency. I tell him come on over. He needs me to front him the rest of his payments for next year. I ask him why. It was my fault so I owed it to him. He tells me that he was done with playing uncle and Fed and he wanted to retire early. You were getting clingy and he’d botched two investigations too many. He was going to sell youagain.”
No. I shake my head. He can stop now.Pleasestop, I mouth the words because there’s no air in my lungs.
But Aleksander keeps talking. “As a blonde, blue-eyed virgin only a week from your seventeenth birthday…you would bring in six digits. He needed the money to clean you up and have you go willingly overseas. Your father hadn’t committed suicide. Ray was worried your father would talk if he was arrested. So he made it look like suicide. He admits he was pissed at me for calling another agent and you landing back with him. The last thing he wanted was a kid.”
Every word is a knife wound cutting into me. I told him I needed to know but I’m so fucking stupid. Aleksander was right. He was right to lie. I didn’t need to know. I wish I didn’t. Because I knew. I knew Aleksander had killed Ray. Milos with those weird eyes and all black was death. He dealt in it and each one clung to him the same way it did to Aleksander. And I knew it had to have been so bad that Aleksander who hadn’t killed, didn’t need to kill and if there was a business need to kill would have ordered someone else to do it without thinking twice.
“Every word was a nail in his coffin. I couldn’t take it. The man was scum, I knew that. I had no idea he was as evil as he was. There was no thought, he turned his back and I pulled my knife. I sent the knife into his throat. The only thing I regret about killing him was I didn’t take my time and torture him the way you deserved.”
Seven years old and my destiny became a part of his. I don’t remember his father. I barely remember mine. I just remember being with Ray then I…I was with Ray then I was withhim. How? How did I forget that?
I was seven I wasn’t a toddler. I remember my mother, her perfume, the way she wore her hair. I remember my father, his warm brown eyes, and his half smile. I remember Ray, his smile was like a shark showing all his teeth. And his fingertips sunk in just a little too deep when he picked me up and left bruises. But I was wrong, because it was an accident. Didn’t I want Uncle Ray to pick me up and carry me? Yes, I loved Uncle Ray.
Then mommy was gone. The house got messy and daddy got stinky. One morning I woke up and daddy wasn’t home. Another night, he didn’t come home. There was no food in the house. I was so hungry. I was a big girl and got myself up and to school all by myself because there was food at school. I told my teacher I was so hungry. Daddy was so mad. I told daddy I was sorry. But daddy went away again for a day, or was it two?
Uncle Ray came, I was going to have a new daddy. My old daddy, he couldn’t take care of me anymore. I have a new daddy who would love me and was so excited to have a daughter. If I was a good girl I would get to stay with this daddy. If I didn’t stay with the new daddy then no one would want me and look at that lady sleeping on the street, that would be me.
I took his hand and walked up the stone stairs into the large house. Then Ray introduced him and told me to call him daddy. He seemed nice. He even had blue eyes like mine.
And this is why I stopped therapy. Three years of therapy and I didn’t remember any of it. Was I never going to? Was it my mind protecting me from it? What does this mean? Aleksander lied to me. He was going to keep lying and fuck me if it’s wrong but I wanted him to. Because the pain is bad it’s the night in the alley again. Pain so immense it leaves me gasping.
My hands are on my belly, no. No, breathe calm down. Only it doesn’t work. “Daddy,” I whisper in fear.
Instantly, he’s at my side. “Shit. I fucking knew. Your water broke, baby. Breathe, everything is going to be good. I promise you.”
He’s on the phone again. I’m in his arms and we’re downstairs and out the door into the back of the waiting car.
“I’m sorry.” I moan as another contraction hits me.
“It’s okay, baby. Everything is going to be okay,” His arms are tight around me. “I’m timing the contractions now. I need you to breathe deep for me. The baby will be fine.”
Only it’s not. Three hours later, the baby is in distress and Daddy orders my doctor to perform a cesarian or he’ll take me out of the hospital and find someone to properly care for me. Another contraction and the monitors are alerting again.
Ten minutes later I’m in the operating room. What feels like forever later, our son enters the room too quiet. The cord is wrapped around his neck, it’s why he was in distress. Finally, he screams and it’s the best sound in the world.
I have no idea how much longer later, I’m back in the room. “Where is he?”
“He’s getting checked out. They’re just checking his lungs. He’s healthy enough, his APGAR test is well within normal.” Daddy soothes me, his hand on mine.
“Please, can you hold me? I’m sorry for what I did to you, to us.”
He holds me close. “It was another self-inflicted wound. I love you. As long as I have you I don’t care.”
