Dive into the Madness
By Tory Lord O’Neill
Speak No Evil
It was the bitterness in his throat that forced his eyes open.
Copper—like blood.
He wanted nothing more than to spit the vial taste from his mouth but found he was unable to pry his lips apart. Panic splintered through his grogginess as realization set in that he was not in his own bed, in his own apartment. Instead, he was seated in a hard wooden chair, his arms twisted behind his back and tied at the wrist. His ankles were each tied to a leg of the chair and the mirror positioned ominously in front of him allowed him to see the thick black tape wrapped around his mouth, keeping his muffled cries at bay.
Written in black sharpie on the mirror were the words: Speak No Evil.
—————————————
A day prior, Adam had been tasked with picking up his younger cousins from the train station. His aunt called the week before and delivered the news – the boys’ father had been killed in car accident. She had never been the maternal type so when Rio called her and told her that they had nowhere else to go—Amira immediately called Adam and said the boys would be staying with him.
What Amira didn’t have in emotional intelligence, she made up for in financial support. Her previous husband had been a multi-millionaire with stage IV metastasized liver cancer when they tied the knot. This was after Rio was born. After Amira left him with his abusive father and took off to seek the independence that motherhood robbed from her. Or at least that’s what she wrote to Rio in the letter she left him the night she took off. Adam lived next door to Rio and his father when it happened. Rio was only seven—Adam thirteen.
Neither ever spoke of it.
A year later, Rio’s father brought home a newborn baby – a product of one of his many affairs. The mother passed in childbirth but her father tracked down Rio’s father and thrust the child into his arms, and in his grief proclaimed he wouldn’t raise a murderer. He was named Ace—a name he often joked was short for accident.
When Adam heard his uncle passed, he felt nothing. But, when he heard his cousins had been rejected by the only other family they had, he felt his world start to collapse. Once again, he was forced to uproot his life for the sake of being the responsible one.
—————————-
Ace had fought the idea of leaving. He was always the wilder of the two—unconcerned with consequences or punishments which meant he was the primary target for their father’s assaults. Often, Rio was forced to intervene and usually left with scars, broken bones, and swollen lips as a result. At the end of the day, his father did not care who he hit as long as he came out on top. It was about control for him—the same way he controlled their finances.
Amira had actively put money aside for Rio and as soon as Ace entered the picture, she did the same for him out of pity for the life he was bound to face. Ace and Rio were not told of this money until they graduated high school at which point their father used it as a bargaining chip to keep them near him which is why at 27 and 20, both boys still lived with that abuse.
Rio had to practically drag his younger brother from the house. Ace was convinced that turning the house into something that was theirs—something that their father would never touch again—would be the ultimate revenge. It wasn’t until Rio showed him the stack of unpaid mortgage and electric bills that Ace finally packed a bag.
Adam met them at the train station. The boys looked exhausted and angry as they climbed into his car. He wasn’t sure what to say as he studied them in the rearview—neither choosing to ride in the front seat with him.
“Okay,” he finally said in his slightly accented flat tone, “Let’s go.”
Prior to moving next door to his uncle, Adam had lived in France with his grandfather—his mother’s father. The idea was to get him into better schools and afford him more opportunities. But, when his grandfather became ill and passed away, he was forced to move back with his mother. His accent never truly faded and only became more pronounced when he moved back to France at 21—days after his mother’s funeral. At 30 he moved back to the States and now—three years later—he was playing Uber to his two disgruntled cousins in New York.
All of that paled in comparison to where Adam found himself now.
———————
He felt something stir just over his right shoulder. He had been so focused on his own predicament that he’d failed to notice the bodies surrounding him. Twisting his neck, he caught sight of Ace’s reflection. He was seated in an identical chair with the exception being his chair had arms to which his wrists were tightly bound. His head was drooping towards his chest and a black scarf had been tied around his eyes. His thick curly hair which he usually let bounce around in the wind was tied haphazardly into a bun—various fly away hairs stuck to the sweat on his forehead. Not sweat, Adam realized. Blood.
The mirror situated in front of Rio offered another message: See No Evil.
————————-
Ace was seven the first time he ran away.
He’d gotten a ride from a stranger who saw him riding his bike on the freeway entrance. He’d lied and said he was trying to get to the hospital in the next town to visit his ailing grandmother. The stranger happily hoisted Ace’s bike into the bed of his pickup truck and dropped him off fifteen miles away at St. Benedict’s Hospital. When hospital staff found the small boy wandering the hospital alone, they contacted the police who eventually convinced Ace to give them his home address.
When they dropped him off, his father ran up to him in a flourish of cries, kisses, and hugs. He laid it on thick. Praising the police for their dedication and offering blessings to them and their families. The moment the police were out of sight, his father cracked him so hard across the mouth that his lip split open instantly.
The next time he ran away, the police brought him back in handcuffs. He was thirteen and had been reported missing by his neighbor who’d been tasked to watch him during one of his many suspensions from school. He was caught shoplifting and immediately returned to his father who had become close friends with the local police due to the hours spent at the neighborhood bar. Shortly after his return, Ace’s arm was somehow broken. A freak accident, his father claimed.
The day of his father’s funeral was the first day that Ace didn’t feel the urge to run away. The moment he and Rio walked into the house; he knew he’d never have to run again. Until Rio told to pack his bags.
They’d need to run once more.
———————–
Adam twisted to look over his left shoulder. He couldn’t quite make out the features of the man next to him, but his reflection was clearly visible. It was Rio. Like Adam and Ace, there was a mirror sitting in front Rio with the words Hear no Evil scrawled across it. There was slight bruising around a fresh cut on his lip and spots of blood on his white shirt. Covering his ears were an oversized set of headphones.
Like Adam, his hands were bound behind his back. Adam twisted in his binds and attempted to reach his hands towards Rio’s. He needed to shake him awake—make sure he was okay. He could feel the strain in his shoulders as he pushed his arms back as far as his mobility would allow. His fingers brushed flesh and he gripped tightly hoping to rouse Rio from his unconsciousness, but the younger man didn’t move. His frustrated grunt echoed in the small room.
“Hello?” Ace lifted his head slowly. The side of face closest to Adam was caked with blood, “Is someone there?” Adam pushed a wordless answer into the room.
“Who’s there?” Adam heard the words catch in his cousin’s voice as he forced down a sob. He wanted nothing more than to grab him and tell him that everything would be okay, but he was helpless to reassure the younger man. He felt the tears welling in his eyes.
From his other side, he felt Rio begin to stir. He twisted his face towards the reflection in front of Rio—framing himself so their eyes would lock once he came to. Slowly Rio opened his eyes.
“Fuck!” he gasped and began struggling with his binds. “What the fuck?!” The panic in his voice doubled once he locked eyes with his cousin through the mirror.
“Adam!” he yelled, unable to control the volume of his voice, “What’s going on?”
Hearing his brother’s voice, Ace twisted aggressively, “Rio? Adam?” Neither of the two responded to his plea. “Guys?”
Met with silence, Ace again attempted to twist his arms free which resulted in little more than a shift in position of his chair as it bounced backwards slightly in response to Ace’s struggle. The movement of the chair on the floor beneath his feet was enough for Rio to stop struggling and look back to the mirror. There he saw his brother’s reflection.
“Ace!” he called, “Ace! Can you hear me?!”
Ace winced, “Fuck man! Yes, I can hear you. Stop yelling!”
“What?”
“What do you mean: what? You’re screaming and I’m right here!”
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
“Stop fucking around, Rio! We’re in trouble here!”
Adam dropped his head to his chest. The frustration of watching the interaction between the brothers was almost more overpowering than the fear of their current predicament.
Finally, as if sensing his cousin’s frustration, Rio explained what he could see, “Ace, I have headphones over my ears and I’m tied up behind you. I can’t hear anything you say. Adam is next to you but his mouth is taped. We’re fucked man. We’re really fucked.”
Ace twisted his body towards Adam, “Adam?”
Adam could see the fear on his cousins face—a slight quiver in his lip. He wanted nothing more than to comfort the two younger men—the same way he wanted to comfort them when he picked them up at the train station as they piled into his car with hunched shoulders and deceptively unimpressed scowls. That time, it was his reluctance to overstep—invade their personal space—cross into new territory with the two boys he had absentmindedly abandoned to the whims of an abusive father. Now, he would do anything to cross into that territory—wrap his arms around them and pull them from these chairs, this room—this fuckery.
But, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
As Adam twisted to push his body towards Ace—show him any connection possible—the lights in the room cut off.
Now, he couldn’t see either.
Fuck.
————————-
The young men couldn’t have been more different.
The eldest seemed to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. Skinnier than the other two, his dark curly hair was half covered beneath a beanie with some sports logo imprinted on the side. I noticed him first.
Sullen. Sunken. The kind of man with a story to tell.
He shared a similar complexion with the other two. A caramel hue that made it clear his lineage traced back to North Africa—the Middle East maybe. I never liked to presume their ancestry—but intrigue always made me mark down my guesses to see how close I could get to the truth from just a bird’s eye view.
The taller of the younger boys had thick curly hair bouncing about his shoulders. He ran a hand through it and let it flop back into place. His scowl made his eyes seem small—slanted. Perhaps Asian or Indigenous. It was difficult to tell. His skin was the most tanned. Based on his clothing—a flannel shirt over a white v-neck shirt, loosely tied sneakers, bracelets bound around his left wrist—it appeared he spent time outside doing some variant of a sport that served more as a hangout activity than a career endeavor: surfing or skateboarding. I had deemed these stoner sports from my years of surveillance—but like any conclusion, there was always room for error.
The last of the three was unmistakably related to the eldest—similar features and coloring, though he could easily be mistaken for Asian. His hair was pulled back into a bun but unlike the taller boy, his straight hair had been dyed blonde at the ends—the darkness of his roots betraying him. Only his forearms showed from under the sleeves of his rolled-up denim shirt and both were littered with tattoos.
I lowered myself to street level and moved towards them.
——————————
“You’ll forgive the restraints,” a disembodied voice filled the darkness, “I find it much simpler to monitor when less movement exists to steal my focus.”
“Monitor what?” Ace voice was choked.
“You.”
—————————-
I flipped through the dossier in front of me. As always it had been given to me after the transport. I was not meant to know my targets prior to their capture—fear I would reveal too much perhaps. Fear I would sympathize too deeply and fail the mission.
This was not a problem.
“What do you want with us?” The younger boy attempted to sound threatening. He was, after all, the troublemaker of the three and had been known to get into fights according to the brief summary in his file. However, it was clear that all his actions were bravado—the actions of a broken child attempting to escape his circumstances.
“Ace,” I asked into the microphone, simultaneously triggering the light above the boys’ head, bathing him a yellow glow, “Can you tell me about the greatest betrayal of your life?”
“What?” His mouth twisted into a scowl as he pulled against his restraints, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He had been the hardest to subdue. The intent was always to bring them in unharmed but often times, that is not an option. He’d put up quite a fight.
“Ace,” I cleared my throat and repeated the question, “Can you tell me about the greatest betrayal of your life?”
“Please,” the fire had started to recede from his voice, “Please just let us go.”
I ran my hand over the set of controls in front of me. Each button had been delicately labeled to ensure no mistakes were made when attempting to illicit compliance. I found the button I needed and pressed down slowly.
Rio screamed. His voice cut through the darkness like a dagger and slammed into Ace’s chest.
“Rio!” His scream joined the chorus of his brothers as he manically twisted in his chair, the slight slippage of his binds revealing red raw flesh on his wrists.
“You can end his suffering, Ace,” I raised my voice to be heard over the subdued whimpering of the two boys, “Just answer my question.”
Tears had escaped from the blindfold on Ace’s face and began to glisten on his cheeks. His voice was raw and strained, “When Adam left.” It came out a sob, “The day Adam left I felt most betrayed.”
I released the button. Rios breathing returned to normal.
“Thank you, Ace. Duly noted.”
———————————
“Are you coming back?” Ace stood barefoot on the front lawn. It was early summer, and fireflies danced around him like magic. His eyes were trained on the overstuffed duffle bag that Adam was still attempting to zip closed.
Adam pressed his finger to his lips, “Shh shh, you don’t want to wake up Papa.”
“But, are you coming back?” Ace’s voice lowered slightly this time as he took a step towards his cousin. Rio was still in the bedroom asleep. He hadn’t heard the door open as Adam snuck in and tucked an envelope beneath each of their pillows. He hadn’t felt when Adam reached down and touched his hair—but Ace had. He opened his eyes and saw a rim of red around Adam’s. He saw the wetness on his cheek.
Adam had always been his favorite person. He loved his brother, but Adam was different. He would sneak him candies and let him stay up late with him. He taught him how to ride a bike and where to hide when his father came home drunk. Now, Adam was leaving and Ace didn’t understand.
Adam crouched down to Ace’s level and took the small boy’s face in his hands. Slowly, he pressed their foreheads together, “Yes,” Adam’s voice was low and serious, “I will come back for you. I promise.”
——————————
The room flooded with light. Adam’s eyes were pressed shut but he sensed the change in brightness through his eyelids. He didn’t want to open his eyes. He didn’t want to look over at his baby cousin whom he’d betrayed. He didn’t want the tears to fall because somewhere in the back of his head he knew if they started, they would never stop.
“Open your eyes, Adam,” the voice returned.
Adam’s breathing quickened. He felt a panic surge through him. Slowly, he lifted his head and opened his eyes—locking eyes with the reflection in front of him. He hadn’t noticed the gash just under his hairline, nor the trail of blood by his temple. There was a slight throbbing in his head suddenly and he felt the need to throw up.
Breathe, Adam. Breathe.
“Good boy,” the voice continued, and the urge to vomit intensified. “Now I know you cannot speak but I am going to ask you a series of yes or no questions and I encourage you to answer honestly.”
There was a pause and Adam could hear the heavy breaths of his cousins on either side of him. The sound of Rio’s scream echoed in his memory.
“Do you understand your instructions?” the voice continued.
Adam nodded.
“Do you remember when Ace was brought home?”
Adam nodded. It was near Christmas and his uncle had been worse than usual. He’d accused Adam’s mother of stealing from him—claiming she had gone into his mailbox and taken his unemployment check. He was filled with rage and Adam put himself between the two adults as his uncle’s fist came down—hard. The blow—intended for his mother—had nearly broken Adam’s orbital socket. He told the nurse in the emergency room that it was a baseball. His mother had affixed her usual faux smile and thrown in a boys will be boys shrug as the nurse told a story of her four sons and their many sports injuries.
When they got back to the car, she broke into sobs. She said they would leave that night. They would take Rio and they would leave. As they pulled into the driveway, his uncle was standing on the porch—a beer in one hand and a bundle of blankets in the other. He stumbled towards Adam’s mother and thrust the blankets into her arms. Only then did Adam realize it was a baby.
“Here,” he slurred, “Merry Christmas. You got yourself more kin.”
His mother stared at the tiny child as he cooed up at her with bright eyes. “My god,” she let out a shuttered breath, “He looks just like you, Adam.”
The voice pulled him from his memory, “That is a yes from Adam. Okay, next question—”
Adam twisted to look at Ace. He’d been so small, so vulnerable. Now, his jaw was set defiantly, and Adam could feel a rage rising from his bones.
“—Did you intend to keep that promise? Did you intend to come back for Ace? For Rio?”
He attempted to say something, pushing a garbled sound into the room.
“It is a yes or no question. You do not need to speak.”
The voice was challenging him. The voice was provoking him. This was not a yes or no question. The moment he left he knew he would never return to that town. The moment he left he knew he needed to never look back. But that did not mean he intended to leave his cousins behind. It meant he had to right himself first. He had to face the world first. He would come back—at some point—when he was ready. He would have come back for them. Or at least he thought he would. He was pretty sure he would. But weeks became months, and month became years and Adam lost himself to the freedom of finally knowing what life was meant to feel like.
“Please answer the question, Adam. Answer the question to avoid unpleasant consequences.”
Adam lowered his head slightly and shook his head.
“Thank you for that response, Adam. It is noted that you did not intend to keep that promise.”
Ace let out a sharp exhale and chuckled, “Selfish bastard. I always fucking knew you were a selfish bastard.”
“Final question,” there was no shift in the tone of the voice as it ripped through the hearts of the two men tied to chairs just feet away in the adjoining room. It remained monotone and clear. Adam grunted as he twisted his body aggressively. He had to get out of here. He had to get them all out of here.
“Was the death of your uncle a direct result of deliberate actions taken by you?”
The question caused Adam to freeze. The struggle went out of him as his breathing intensified. He heard the blood rushing in his ears.
“I will wait for as long as you need to answer the question, but please remember the expectation of honesty.”
“What the fuck?” Ace spit the words out, “What the fuck are they talking about, Adam?”
Adam clamped his eyes shut again. He pictured the car his uncle used to always drive on Sunday afternoons. It was a vintage Chevelle—one that cost far too much to maintain and could have been sold for enough to put both his sons through college—Community College, at minimum. He remembered whispering the license plate number into the phone and awaiting the response. He remembered confirming this was what he wanted. And then the line went dead.
He lifted his head and stared directly into the mirror—his eyes low and filled with rage.
Slowly, he nodded yes.
———————-
It started with a phone call.
“Adam,” the voice on the other line was female but Adam couldn’t quite place where he’d heard it before. There was a familiarity to it, but he couldn’t conjure an accompanying face.
He glanced at his watch. It was 3:43am on a Tuesday.
“Who is this?”
“Adam,” the voice repeated his name, “He did it to Rio. Ace is next. We have to stop him, Adam. We have to end this.”
The memory came back to him in a flash. He pictured the hallway leading to the basement—the door slightly a jar. Adrenaline pushed his body from his bed, “Who is this?” His breathing was labored.
“I can help, Adam,” the voice remained calm, “Just say the word and I will end this.”
———————
Rio strained to focus on the movement of his brothers’ lips. He was angry—of that there was no doubt. Rio had seen the look a thousand times. Even without the visible fire in his eyes, Rio knew his brother’s body language.
His head was still recovering from the unexpected onslaught of shrill screeches that had ripped through his head moments early, pulling a brutal scream from his throat. Now, having calmed the slamming in his head, he attempted to decipher what was going on with the two men on either side of him.
Adam was nodding his head—shaking his head—nodding again. Ace was twisting his wrists aggressively, pulling so hard at the ropes that Rio was surprised the entire chair hadn’t split in two. His brother wasn’t necessarily a strong kid—but he was an angry one. And that anger had been shown to cause damage on more than one occasion.
“I apologize that you cannot fully participate in the game, Rio,” a low voice filled the headphones causing Rio to jump unexpectedly. “Please refrain from reacting,” the voice continued, “Your brother and cousin have just had to confront an uncomfortable truth—one of many that will be unveiled, I’m afraid.”
Rio could hear the sound of swallowing through the headphones, a slight clearing of the throat, and somewhere in the distance what sounded like running water.
“As your cousin was instructed,” the voice cut through again, “I will ask that you nod or shake your head to the next several questions.”
“And what if I don’t?” Rio rarely challenged his circumstances. He’d been conditioned to accept what was in front of him—to be grateful for it even—because as his father reminded him on more than one occasion, ‘I could give you and your brother to the streets if I wanted to and they’d eat you alive. Not a soul would care.’
Rio had learned to understand this was complete and utter bullshit. For all his sob stories of being a single father of two young boys, his father received countless perks from the community, from the church they only attended at Christmas, and most importantly for him—perks from women. It was with women that the usefulness of Rio became most apparent. His presence disarmed them. A man with a son as charming as this couldn’t possibly be a monster. And this is how Rio came to know his father’s truth.
“I do not like being ignored, Rio,” the voice in his headphones nearly whispered. Suddenly, Rio caught sight of his brother’s reflection in the mirror. His mouth was poised in an open scream that Rio couldn’t hear but based on the panicked movements of his cousin, he sensed the severity.
“Okay!” he was unsure if his voice was a whisper or a scream, “I’ll play!”
His brother slumped forward, a steady heave of his shoulders indicating he was alive but Rio couldn’t tell if he was conscious. He wanted to call out to him but thought better of it and waited for further instructions.
“Good,” the calm returned to the voice, “You’re a good brother, aren’t you, Rio?”
Rio lifted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes—making his already small eyes appear as nothing more than eyelashes fluttering against cheeks. Remembering his instructions, Rio nodded.
“You love your brother, don’t you?”
His eyes flickered for just a second to the reflection of his brother. Again, he nodded.
“Does he know what he did to you?”
Rio’s heart quickened. He felt bile rise in his throat as a flash of memories forced their way to the surface. The voice didn’t wait for him to answer, “Does he know what you did to him?”
———————-
When he arrived at the police station, a female officer greeted him calmly. He recognized her from somewhere—maybe one of the many times he’d had to bail Ace out of trouble—or one of the nights he picked his father up from the bar after he’d one, two, or twelve too many and the bartender refused to let him drive home.
In any case, she seemed to recognize him immediately.
“Hi Rio,” she extended her hand, “I’m Detective Cavanaugh.” Rio shook her hand and waited for the inevitable condolences, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. He wasn’t.
“Your father was a,” Detective Cavanaugh paused and sighed, studying the bruising on Rio’s face carefully, “He was a—”
“I know what kind of man my father was,” Rio finished for her—releasing her from the burden of lying. His father was a terrible man but those around him tolerated his behavior because as terrible as he was, he was also resourceful and discreet. A man like that is invaluable to those who need that type of connection.
He was ushered through the doors and down a flight of stairs. Detective Cavanaugh stopped just before a set of double doors labeled Morgue. “Your father is not in good condition,” she glanced towards the doors, “I want you to prepare yourself. The coroner will pull back a curtain and I will ask you to identify the body. Once you do, he’ll be released for burial.”
“Cremation.” Rio corrected her.
She nodded sympathetically, “Of course. Whatever his wishes were.”
Rio bit his lip. His wishes were of little consequence after everything he’d done. Cremation was even too good for him. Had Rio had his wish, his father would be left to the maggots. But, cremation was more civilized. It’s what people would expect a dutiful son to do in the wake of his fathers demise—no matter what had transpired just before.
He followed Detective Cavanaugh through the double doors and listened as she repeated the instructions. With a nod, a curtain receded allowing Rio to peer through the glass window. There—on a metal table—was the man who’d been his tormentor—his captor—for the past twenty-six years. Only his face was showing but Rio could see the gash where his forehead had collided with the windshield. There was a red mass where his small hoop earring used to dangle and the side of his head looked deformed—crushed. Bile rose in Rio’s throat.
“His car collided with an 18-Wheeler going roughly 95 mph. It’s believed the 18-wheeler may have stopped short and with the speed at which your father was going, there was no way to stop in time—”
Detective Cavanaugh’s voice sounded far away—distorted—as if she were speaking through a fast-food drive-thru microphone. His vision began to darken.
“They ran a toxicology,” she continued, “standard practice. He had a Blood Alcohol Level of 0.31 and there were trace amounts of Xanax, THC, and Ambien in his bloodstream—”
Rio nodded. He knew this. He’d stirred the crushed pills into his father’s beer earlier that day—topped it off with a squeeze of THC from Ace’s tincture bottle. He felt the air leave the room.
“With that combination of substance—” Rio didn’t hear the rest. Before Detective Cavanaugh could finish, he collapsed to the ground.
————————–
“Does he know what you did to him?” The question was repeated.
With a gasp, Rio shook his head. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath but suddenly he felt he couldn’t breathe at all. He gasped again—desperate to pull air into his lungs. He wasn’t aware of the shift of movement around him—the way Adam twisted in his chair—pushing his body towards him. He didn’t hear Ace calling his name—desperate for a response.
“Your family worries for you,” the voice whispered into his ears, “Tell them you are okay.”
Rio’s eyes were damp. He looked up and saw the reflection of his brother and his cousin as they struggled in response to his strangled breath. A panic attack, he reminded himself, this is a panic attack.
He’d had the first one the morning his father locked the door to the basement after shoving him down the stairs. He thought one of his ribs must have been broken. That would explain why it was so hard to breathe.
“I’m okay,” his voice was ragged, “I’m okay.”
“Good,” the voice was the only reply as he strained to hear his brothers who was now clearly conscious and angry, “But, you are far from okay, Rio. Far from okay.”
———————–
It was 3:00am exactly when the phone rang.
“Do you have them?” The voice on the other end was calm. It never fluctuated. Never emoted worry or concern. Perhaps that was why I had agreed to this job—as unorthodox as it was.
“Yes.”
“Are they safe?”
I paused and studied the men in front of me. The one with the blonde in his hair was still struggling for air while the youngest twisted desperately in his chair, creating deep wounds around his wrists. I could loosen the binds to avoid further damage, but his rage wouldn’t cease, and the damage had already been done.
“That is relative.”
A deep sigh filled my ear. “How badly are they hurt?”
My eyes drifted to the blood around the temple, the droplets on the shirt. There were easier ways to subdue young men that did not resort to violence. But, having to work with the resources available, the instructions I gave had been clear. Bring them in alive with minimal damage.
“Physical wounds heal,” I tapped absentmindedly on the control panel, drenching the room in darkness again, “Wounds of the mind, however…”
“They need to know the truth,” her tone was crisp, “They need to know each other’s truth.”
Through the lens of the night vision camera trained on the three young men, I could see every wall come crashing down. The eldest dropped his head to his chest—the clamping shut of his eyes doing nothing to suppress the tears as they spilled onto his cheeks. The youngest had stopped struggling—the muscles in his jaw tightening and loosening rhythmically to the rise and fall of his chest.
“Perhaps it would have been easier to tell them over Christmas dinner,” I pressed another button and a light mist began to spill into the room, “Don’t you think that would have been a little bit easier, Amira?”
She paused, and I waited.
“Fuck you.”
Then came the click.
—————————————-
He didn’t remember falling asleep but when he cracked his eyes open he was intensely aware of the blinding light swinging casually overhead.
“That fucking light,” he moaned softly before gasping, “FUCKING LIGHT!”
Adam stirred next to him, “Stop shouting.” His voice was low—his accent thicker in his grogginess.
“Keep shouting,” Rio chimed in, “Please keep shouting.” Ace felt a tremble in his chin. He had never been happier to hear his cousin nor his brother.
“You can hear me,” Adam cleared his throat, “Fuck—I CAN hear me.” A twisted sound escaped his lips—a combination of a laugh and a sob.
“But we’re still fucking stuck here,” Ace grunted as he jerked his arms—still unable to loosen even his binds in the slightest. He could finally see the damage his twisting was doing to the flesh around his wrists but it didn’t stop him. He’d heal—as long as he could get out of this room.
“Please refrain from moving,” the voice cut through the room, “It will only serve to injure yourself further.”
Ace stopped on instinct, his lips poised to push out instructions for the voice to do ungodly things to itself, resulting in a bloody death—but something in the corner caught his eye. He couldn’t be sure if it had always been there or appeared sometime during his unexpected sleep but just past the mirror, sitting on makeshift podium comprised of cinder blocks, was a framed photo of Ace as a baby—his arms wrapped around Adam’s neck. The two were laughing.
Ace remembered this photo. It sat on his aunts fireplace between a photo of her with Adam as a baby and a photo with all three boys smiling beneath a pile of orange and yellow leaves. His father had hurled it across the room during a drunken fight with his aunt. He hadn’t realized Ace followed him next door. Didn’t see him slip through the sliding glass door as his father proceeded to scream at his sister-in-law for reasons Ace couldn’t quite understand. But, when the edge of the photo frame sliced Ace just below his eye—his scream gave away his hiding space.
His aunt got to him first—scooping him into her arms and shushing him as she rushed to the bathroom where the first aid kit was kept. She’d barely made it to the door when his father slammed her against the wall and ripped Ace from her arms.
As he left her there to clean up the mess he’d made, Ace could remember her shouting, “He’s mine, David! Please give him to me. He’s mine!”
Ace’s breath caught in his lungs. Even the frame was the same—with the dented corner from colliding with his face. The scar had never quite healed and he found himself staring at his reflection in the mirror, studying the faded mark.
“I take it you recognize the photograph,” the voice cut through the room once more. Ace could do nothing but nod. For the first time, he had no witty retort—no underhanded remark.
“Every boy should be so lucky to have such a beautiful photo with his father.”
————————-
Adam was eleven the first time.
His mother was at work and Rio and his aunt were away for the weekend, visiting friends upstate. Adam had always enjoyed these weekends with his uncle—watching football and staying up late. Sometimes, his uncle would let him sneak sips of his beer and even though Adam hated the taste, he liked that his uncle trusted him with this secret.
That weekend was different though. Instead of a sip, his uncle handled him a full can. Our little secret, he smiled as he tipped the rim of his can against Adams and flopped down next to him on the couch.
The drink went to Adam’s head immediately and as he finished the last sip, his uncle slipped another one into his hand just as the doorbell rang.
“I have some friends coming over,” he heard his uncle say as an odd-looking couple entered the living room. The man looked to be the age of a grandfather, while the young woman was curvy with dark curly hair framing her face.
Her eyes were nearly shut as she swayed on her feet and smiled at Adam. “He’s so cute,” she slurred.
“They’d like to get to know you a little better,” his uncle moved towards him and gripping him by the bicep, lifted him to his feet, “Let’s show them the basement, huh?”
Adam didn’t tell his mother what happened when she picked him up that night. He didn’t tell her about the time after that neither, nor when Amira left, and it began to happen more frequently. His uncle whispered calmly to him about what the police would do to his mother if they ever found out what she let happen. He warned that if he ran—if he told—Rio would take his place. So, he never told his mother what happened during the weekend sleepovers when he was confined to the basement with one of his uncle’s many friends while Rio remained locked in his room with the radio at full blast—unsure of why he was never allowed to play.
He remembered the Christmas when Ace was brought home and the way his mother looked from him to Adam before sobbing, “I’m sorry, baby,” cradling the tiny human against her chest, the other hand reaching for Adam, “I’m so so sorry.”
—————————–
The package had arrived a week after Adam moved to New York. He recognized the handwriting as that of a former neighbor. The letter attached indicated that some of his mother’s belongings had been recovered from a storage unit in which the neighbor had been listed as a secondary contact. Scrawled on the box, in his mother’s distinctive cursive scribble was Send to Adam Once I’m Gone.
Adam promptly shoved the box into a closet and left it buried. That is, unless the call from his aunt. He pulled the box into the living room and carefully cut it open. Inside were a number of keepsakes that he remembered from his mother’s room: a photo album of him as a child, a book of poetry that his mother memorized and would recite on request, a folder filled with school photos and mementos of Rio’s many extracurriculars, and lastly a framed photo of Adam and Ace stuffed into a manilla envelope. Adam smiled at the photo, remembering the day it was taken. The edge of the frame was cracked.
Reaching into the envelope, Adam pulled out a document. He couldn’t quite understand what he was reading but his eyes immediately scanned to his name in bold letters. Next to his name was his baby cousin’s name. in the center of the page were the words: 100% Paternal Match.
A post-it was adhered to the page just below those words. It was again in his mother’s handwriting: I am sorry I couldn’t protect you, Adam. I’m sorry I let him hurt any of you. He will never have the opportunity to hurt your son.
————————-
Ace felt his body slump. All the tension and anger that had been surging through every muscle in his body suddenly vanished.
“Wha—” He couldn’t get the words out; wasn’t sure he knew what to say. He studied his reflection in the mirror. His eyes had never looked like his brothers. His nose either. Every feature that should have alluded to his familiar relation with Rio varied slightly. He remembered how his aunt used to wash and brush his hair as a child, all the while telling him how his curls were just like Adam’s.
“Is it true?” Ace’s chin was curled into his chest in a way that made his voice small and directionless, but Adam had no doubt to whom the question was directed.
“I—” he turned as much as his binds would allow, to face Ace, “I didn’t know. I found out days ago. Ace—”
“Your aunt,” the voice sliced through the stillness of the room, “or should I say grandmother—she knew the moment she laid eyes on you. Her suspicions were only confirmed via a less than legal DNA test. Due to the clandestine nature of the test, she had no legal recourse to obtain custody. She was also fearful of what revealing the truth would mean for Ace—and for Rio.”
At the mention of his name, Rio lifted his head. Through the reflection of the mirror in front of him, he could see the photo. He remembered his father rushing a young Ace into the kitchen—his sobs filling the room—the right side of his face slick with blood. His father was swearing as he pushed a dish cloth against Ace’s face.
His aunt was pounding on the door, “Just let me have him, David! Let me take care of him!”
“He’ll never be yours, Leila! He’ll always be mine!”
Rio heard the same words a few days before his father’s accident only this time, his father’s hands were wrapped around Rio’s throat.
———————
Rio overheard his father on the porch. He cradled the phone against his shoulder as he struggled to light a cigarette against the wind.
“You get the photo I sent?” He inhaled deeply, finally having gotten a spark as the wind died down slightly. “He’s seventeen,” he blew out a long stream of smoke, “eighteen in a few weeks.”
There was a beat and then his father laughed, “Yeah, yeah, I know but for that price they can do whatever they want with him.”
Rio didn’t need to hear more. He stepped onto the porch and snatched the phone from his father’s grip. Age and whiskey had made him far more feebler than he should be for a man his age so he wasn’t able to recover quickly as Rio pressed his phone to his ear, “Who the fuck is this?”
The line immediately went dead and Rio hurled the phone into the yard, “So, you’re gonna sell him like you did me?”
It had been years since he’d went toe to toe with his father—not since he broke his arm at sixteen—but now he had at least an inch and twenty pounds on the old man.
“Who do you think you are, boy? You think you’re a man now, huh?” He flicked his cigarette into the darkness and moved towards Rio—swaying less than usual indicating he was probably only on his seventh drink for the evening.
“I’m more of a man than you’ll ever me,” Rio set his jaw and waited for the older man to take a shot.
Instead, he laughed, “That right? Then how come you’re still under my roof, eating my food, sleeping in the bed that I paid for?”
“You paid for?” Rio smiled wryly, “With what money? The money you got for what you did to me?” He took a step forward, his anger emboldening him, “And now you want to do the same to my brother?”
His father ran a hand over his chin, the week-old stubble jetting out at odd angles. He nodded slowly, “Your brother.”
He raised his head slowly and locked eyes with Rio, a coolness settling in, “He’ll never be your anything. You. Adam. Ace. You have always been mine!”
And then his hands were around Rio’s throat.
———————
Ace had no misgivings about the type of man is father was.
There is an energy certain people carry that sets the air around them on edge—as if oxygen itself is hoping to escape being consumed by them. This was the energy Ace’s father carried.
Adam would often pick Ace up from school and take him home—to the care of his aunt. When he was eventually called back to his own home, Rio would instruct him to stay in his room—twisting the lock on his door to ensure the younger boy did as he was told. Their father had deliberately installed the doorknobs with the locks facing into the hallway so as to control their movements.
If neither Rio nor Adam were near, Ace relied on his own speed and craftiness to escape his father—often running to the nearby woods and waiting out his father’s wrath. He rarely saw the horrors that took place within the house—he would keep himself hidden safely in the dark until he saw the cars depart the driveway—until the lights illuminating the windows switched off.
He’d managed to survive this way for the most part until the day he heard his father shouting and the strangled sound of his brother gasping for air.
————————
Ace had taken off the second his father walked into the house.
He’d been gone since the morning, which had been a blessing for Ace. With Rio at work and his father MIA, Ace took the opportunity to lounge on the living room couch and watch football all day—a luxury his father would never allow. In the eyes of his father, all facets of the house belonged to him and only him. The boys were lucky to have their rooms but other than that, they were not permitted to utilize any other space without the explicit permission from their father—especially the basement which remained a mystery to Ace for all of his eighteen years.
He heard the front door crack open and his fathers booming cackle filled the room as he chatted on the phone. In an instance, Ace clicked off the TV, slipped into his sneakers and silently slipped out the back door.
Years ago, he’d found a sofa discarded on a nearby curb. With some effort, he’d hauled the sofa to the woods and from their had transformed a small portion of the tree covered land into his sanctuary complete with a canopy fashioned from a tart and a locked chest filled with snacks, books, blankets and bottled water. Depending on his father’s mood—he would sometimes need to spend days curled onto that couch, waiting it out.
On this particular evening, he was outside for only a few hours before he heard the commotion. It started out normal enough—his father’s unmistakable laugh followed my silence. Then he heard Rio—his voice unusually loud. He put his book down and took a few pensive steps towards the porch. From his vantage point, he could see the two men. They were inches from each other—the tension in their throats indicating the heated nature of the conversation.
As soon as he saw his father lunge at Rio, he took flight—running towards the porch at full speed. He didn’t remember pick up the bat but as soon as he saw his brother struggling for air, he brought the bat down on his father’s back.
The blow was enough to force the older man to release his grip allowing Rio to scramble away. He was gasping for air as Ace lifted the bat again. “No!” his voice was hoarse and low, “Ace—no.”
Ace’s bewildered eyes locked with Rio, the red marks around his throat evident even in the dim moonlight.
A low growl escaped their fathers’ lips, “Ace?”
Their father was on his feet with a quick stumble. Ace hadn’t been prepared for such a quick recovery. He tripped backwards, colliding with the porch railing. His father was on him in an instance, ripping the bat from his hands.
“You ungrateful little bastard,” he studied the bat for second before tossing it into the yard. Turning his attention back to Ace, he raised his hand and gripped his chin firmly, “You’re so lucky I need this face unscathed.”
Ace froze. All the adrenaline that had coursed through his veins moments earlier seemed to turn to ice. It didn’t matter his size, his speed, his strength—the rasp of his fathers voice and the faint smell of alcohol on his breath immediately reverted Ace back into the powerless child under his father’s control.
A whimpered escaped his throat as his father lowered his mouth to Ace’s ear and whispered, “After tomorrow, you’ll be someone else fucking problem.”
Ace squeezed his eyes shut, his breath shallow. For a moment he wasn’t there. He was in his Aunt’s house—safely tucked between her legs as she brushed out his air—her voice low and soft.
“Ace!” Rio’s voice cut through his thoughts, “Run!”
He opened his eyes to see Rio slamming their father against the side of the house—both men grappling for control of the other. Ace hesitated. He scanned the backyard for the bat but it was too dark. He took a step towards the shuffle as his father looped his arm around Rio’s throat and twisted an arm behind his back.
“Run!” Rio hissed again as his father began pulling him into the house. Ace could see the panic in Rio’s eyes but he’d seen this look before. The panic wasn’t for his own safety. That was always secondary to Rio. His panic was for Ace. Remembering the words his father whispered into his ear moments earlier—Ace understood that Rio knew something that he didn’t. With a nod, he turned and bolted back across the pitch black yard, back to his sanctuary, back to safety.
“Get your ass back here, Ace!” his father’s voice chased after him, “You can’t run forever! I’ll find you! I’ll always find you!”
The next morning, Rio found Ace in his sanctuary. The red marks on his neck had darkened to purplish-brown and bruising around his left eye indicated the fight had continued once the two had vanished into the house.
“Dad’s been in a car accident,” his brother’s voice was gravely, “He’s dead, Ace. He’s gone.”
—————
“Your mother knew she was dying, Adam. Did you know that?”
Adam kept his eyes trained on the floor. The voice repeated the question—the steadiness and softness of the voice only serving to infuriate Adam further.
“Adam, I believed we’d moved past this silent rebellion—”
“Why are you doing this?” Adam interjected, lifting his head and looking around wildly, “Huh? Do you get off on inflicting trauma? Is that it?”
After a pause, the voice repeated, “Did you know your mother was dying?”
“Fuck!” the word flew from his mouth involuntarily, all the rage escaping—for his current situation, the truth of what was done to him, losing his mother, “Fuck you, you sadistic cunt!”
A sob escaped his lips as he waited for the retaliation—remembering the sound of Ace’s scream as an electric shock surged through his chair in response to Rio’s insubordination. Instead, the voice crackled through the speaker, “How does it feel to use your voice, Adam?”
“What?” Adam croaked out.
“For years, you bit your tongue and did not speak of the abuse you endured. You remained silent in order to protect your mother—and Rio.”
Adam lifted his head and locked eyes with Rio in the reflection. His eyes were already damp. Rio was always the most emotional—the most creative. When he was younger, he would write poetry and paint—but music was where his strength truly lay. It was why Adam had talked his mother into getting Rio a guitar for Christmas—why Adam connected the amp to a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and slid them over Rio’s ears, telling him to practice all night—so he wouldn’t hear what was happening in the rest of the house.
“—who in turn, protected Ace.”
Ace shifted in his chair. He hadn’t said a word since finding out the truth and Adam couldn’t bear to look at him and risk seeing the tears falling freely from his eyes. The free spirit. The fighter. The one of them who still breathed hope regardless of his circumstances.
“You didn’t see the basement? Did you, Ace?”
Ace shook his head, sniffling slightly, “It was Rio who showed the clearing to you, wasn’t it? The clearing that seemed perfectly designed to become your sanctuary, as you called it?”
A sob this time as Ace began to seemingly put together what the voice was implying, “You built it for me didn’t you?”
Rio’s voice was strong, “I wanted you to have a place where he couldn’t reach you. So you wouldn’t have to see what he made us—” He cut himself off.
Adam wanted to fill the silence—say something to ease the pain floating between the three men but no words seemed right. All he could manage was, “I didn’t know, Rio. I would have killed him myself.”
——————-
When it stopped for Adam, he assumed it was over.
He’d just turned eighteen and as if a switch went off, his uncle stopped speaking to him—stopped inviting him over. At first, Adam was relieved. But, as time went on, he felt the pendulum swing. He waited for the moment his uncle decided he wasn’t finished with him—or wouldn’t let him go and came back to finish him off.
Adam was preparing for this. He started boxing. Started running. Found a shady pawn shop owner that sold him a revolver no questions asked. He was preparing for this when his mother got sick. Maybe that was why he never sensed the shift in Rio’s behavior shortly thereafter.
But his mother did.
By way of sheer accident, Leila Durand had stumbled into a small fortune. This was a secret she managed to keep from her brother-in-law. As a social worker, she had the opportunity to meet a number of men with similar tastes as David and now, years after she and David broke up, years after he preyed on and married her younger sister, Leila could stop this type of man from a mile away.
She missed it with David at first. Yes, she knew he wasn’t a good man as evidenced by the way he denied paternity of her son and knocked up her little sister when she was barely eighteen, but she didn’t know the hurt he’d truly caused until it was too late to protect their son. She lived with this regret until the day she died.
But, in her death, she made a contract – a contract that would avenge that which she could not avenge in life.
She approached David with a proposal—she would list him as sole beneficiary on her life insurance – a meager amount in comparison to the savings she had squirreled away for the boys, but for David it was a fortune. Her caveat for this proposal was that he could no longer lay a hand on any of the boys again and if he did, great harm would come to him. In response, David laughed in her face and signed his name on the dotted line.
The following evening, David slid into his prized Chevelle after leaving Rio with a blackened eye and bruised ribs on the kitchen floor and took off towards the bar. A mile down the road, he sensed a vehicle driving too close on his tail but before he could ease off the road and allow the vehicle to pass, it slammed into his bumper sending him careening into a ditch on the side of the road.
With the exception of an abrasion on his forehead, he was relatively unscathed. He scurried up the hill, searching for his assailant but the road was vacant. Deciding it best to have the car towed from the ditch the next day, after having the opportunity to wash the scent of whiskey off his clothes, he walked home.
As he rounded the curve of the dirt driveway, he saw Leila standing on the porch, an ice pack pressed to Rio’s cheek. A coldness was set into her eyes like he’d never seen.
“I warned you, Dave. This was a warning shot.”
From that day on, David William left the boys alone. When the time came, he buried his sister-in-law, watched her son leave and cashed in the life insurance policy happily. For a time, that was enough for him.
But, eventually the well ran dry and when it did, David forgot about his promise to Leila—forgot about the threat. His youngest still had usefulness in some circles, so David made a phone call and arranged for Ace to find a new home in exchange for a sum that would allow him to continue his lifestyle. This was a different business model than the one he’d arranged for Adam and Rio. With Leila’s watchful eye always trained on the house, he knew the two older boys could not disappear even though many offers have been made over the years.
Now, Leila was gone and Ace was becoming more difficult by the day. Too smart for his own good, David had muttered as he’d watch the boy escape every locked room he’d been confined to. He knew the rehoming process would be a challenge but his buyer had laughed at this.
“I love a good challenge,” the older man had cooed into the phone as David confirmed details of the exchange. And so, it was set. Tomorrow, Ace would be turned over to the man in the Cadillac who’d been calling David for years—asking for prices on the youngest boy.
However, David hadn’t planned for Rio to overhear his conversation. Or for Ace to get the drop on him. He hadn’t planned for his boys to fight back or being forced to drag his middle child back into the house as he watched his payday scamper into the woods like he always did. Once inside the kitchen, the fight ended quickly as he lifted Rio off the ground and slammed him hard onto the wooden floor.
“Stay here and lick your wounds,” he’d spat as he stomped off to his bedroom to retrieve a flashlight so he could scour the lawn for his phone—which his son had unceremoniously tossed into the abyss. He returned to the kitchen to find it empty.
“You can’t run forever, Rio!” he shouted into the darkness of the house, echoing the words he’d tossed after Ace moments earlier. Snatching his beer from the counter, he stumbled into the yard to find his phone. After this entire debacle he needed a drink. He’d hit the bar for one drink, then he’d come back and grab Ace.
Tomorrow would be payday.
But for David Williams—tomorrow never came.
———————-
“You received a phone call, Adam,” the voice continued, “As did you, Rio.”
Adam shifted in his seat. His hands had gone numb at some point during the night and the discomfort in his bladder was only worsening as the hours ticked on. He swallowed deeply—attempting to provide any level of comfort to his already dry throat. He was sure the others were experiencing the same—but like them—he was attempting to focus on the voice.
He watched as Rio slowly nodded his head.
“Did you follow the directives given to you, Rio?”
Adam remembered his own call—the voice telling him that the abuse hadn’t ended—that his family was at risk. He remembered wanting his uncle dead at that moment—agreeing blindly to whatever the caller intended to do. Casting a glance over his shoulder, he watched the muscles in Rio’s jaw tighten.
“I put the bills on his beer. It wasn’t an accident. They told me what he planned to do with Ace and I couldn’t let that happen. So I did what they told me to do.”
Ace twisted his body to look at his brother, his wrists straining against the binds. Adam feared he would topple the chair completely.
“What do you mean, Rio? What was he going to do?” The furrow of his eyebrow made him look far younger than eighteen and the quiver in his voice did little to reinforce the image of toughness he’d worn like a cape for years.
“David Williams was not a good man,” the voice interjected.
“No shit—” Ace spat.
“—however,” the voice continued, ignoring the youngest boy, “that was not The Company’s concern. There concern was in the violation of a contract he had with Leila.”
“What Company—”
“What contract—”
The questions came in unison.
“They were contracted by Leila to ensure no harm came to you at the hands of David Williams. He violated that contract with a phone call. A phone call which inquired about a sale. That is when The Company stepped in.”
“Hey, hey, Ronald,” the sound of David Williams voice flooded the room. Adam visible recoiled. It had been years since he’d heard that voice but immediately, he felt like a child again—powerless and small, “Yeah, yeah—long time no talk I know—listen, I’m in a bad way. I need some money.”
The pauses between David’s words made it clear only half of the conversation was being playing for the three young men and with each pause, the heave of emotion could be heard in the silence, “The youngest—he’s seventeen now, older than what you’re used to—yeah, no, I know I said I was out but things change you know what I mean?”
A stiff laugh from the recording caused Adam to clench his fists. The curl of his fingertips into the palms of his hands cut through the numbness, stimulating blood flow. Even in death, the voice of his uncle could insight a blinding rage.
“Yeah, you can take him—fully yours for whatever is—no, I promise no one will bat an eye or realize he’s gone. He just graduated high school so it’s the perfect time really. I can have him wrapped up by next week.”
The room fell into silence. Ace doubled over in his chair—attempting to protect the others from seeing the pain and rage on his face.
“You knew,” his voice came out muffled, “Rio—you knew.”
Rio’s expression didn’t waiver, “And I did what I had to do.”
——————-
The contract had been outlined clearly—or as clearly as Leila could have them lay it out given the nature of their business.
She had been given the phone number by Amira which instructions to call at exactly 9:23pm. Amira had hung up immediately after that. It was not the reaction she’d expected when she called and told her little sister that the doctors prognosis was not good—that she did not have long left and she was terrified—not off death, but for the boys.
She intended to ask Amira to take them. From the few conversations they’d had since Amira left, Leila was sure she had the space and resources to take care of them—protect them from David—but Amira quickly declined.
“To be honest, Leila,” the younger woman’s voice was cold, “between—you know—everything, I truthfully don’t have the time for children.”
“They’re nearly all grown,” Leila had begged, “They just need to be safe.”
“You’ve been putting away the money I sent?” Amira ignored the fear in Leila’s voice who meekly confirmed that the money was safely deposited somewhere that David could not access, “Good. Then call this number. They have ways of handling—an assortment of things.”
The individual who answered her call knew her name and situation before she had a moment to say hello. They confirmed that a life insurance policy would be created in her name, large enough to maintain the cost and living needs of David and the boys—though the individual agreed that this money would most likely never be used for the boys. Within the verbiage of the life insurance policy would be a clause that stated, should harm or intended harm come to the boys the policy would be void and repayment of life would need to be rendered.
Rendering of this repayment would need to be approved by the eldest child: Adam and cosigned by either Rio or Ace dependent on the nature of the concern.
Leila did not understand fully what this portion meant, but she was assured that regardless of anything—her boys would be taken care of by The Company—at all costs.
The policy would be paid in full by Amira on behalf of Leila which assured her full control over the subsequent pay out – a payment which, unbeknownst to Leila included the truth of their familiar connections coming to light.
—————–
“So you see,” I watched as each of the young men began to understand what part they had willingly and unwillingly played in the dead of that horrible man, “Adam, as executor of the estate, you approved the notion and Rio—you enacted the protocol which would lead to The Company’s direct intervention—and Ace,” the youngest boy still had his head hanging low, the tiny curls escaping from his ponytail obscuring his expression, “it was all done to protect you.”
I allowed them a moment of silent contemplation as I studied the dossier in front of me. I’d reached the final page. There were only three steps left to complete. I studied them thankfully—awaiting a rebuttal, expletive—something to ensure the job had been done to completion but the silence continued.
With a sigh, I pressed a button and watched as the mist once again filled the room. When they wake, they’ll be safely returned to Adam’s apartment—Rio on the couch, Ace on the air mattress beside him, with Adam in his bedroom, the cat he claimed he never wanted curled up beside him.
They won’t remember how they got their and perhaps will think all of this was just one shared dream brought on by bad sushi and late night horror movies. However, when the doorbell rings and they are presented with documentations from Leila’s estate—documents that up until now had been lost somehow—they will see the small fortune that was left behind and understand the love of a woman who in death—as in life—gave everything she could to the three boys she called hers.
Epilogue
Amira Williams looked exactly as she’d been described. Tall, beautiful, with dark curly hair and green eyes concealed behind sunglasses even though the sun had barely begun to rise. We met in London as planned.
She dipped down elegantly into the seat across from me and removed her sunglasses, “When the Sirens call—”
“—the sailors answer.”
She smiled at my reply, “You’re smaller than I envisioned. But, you’re just as good as The Company promised.” She slid a red envelope across the table—her nails matching the hue exactly. I wondered if that was deliberate. This woman seemed to be nothing if not deliberate. I folded the envelope and slipped it into my hoodie pocket, replacing it with an envelope of my own containing a zip drive.
“Not going to count it?” She taunted with the raise of an eyebrow as she slipped the zip drive into her purse.
Ignoring her question, I reached down to grab my duffle bag, “It was a pleasure doing business with you.”
She leaned back in her chair, “They said you were all business. That’s no fun.”
I studied her expression for a moment, her tongue gently sliding over her fuchsia lips. I released the grip on my duffle and settled back into my chair, “Why?”
“Why is that no fun?” she giggled, leaning forward and crossing her wrists slightly as she stretched them towards me.
“No, why did you request our services just to tell them the truth? Why did you request an abduction? Of your son? Your family? Why as for the recording?” I nodded towards the zip drive in her purse.
Rarely did I inquire about the details of my jobs. It wasn’t necessary. I was given photos, a brief narrative, and then the mission began. But, it most cases, my targets were not good people—rapists, murderers, child molesters. Not victims of the latter. Usually, I was meant to illicit confessions—not provide them.
Amira leaned back in her chair again, her expression immediately cold, “None of those bastards are mine.” She flicked her sunglasses onto her face and added, “Sweet boys, all of them. But not mine.”
My face remained stoic, an involuntary habit as it were, but I cocked my head to the side and waited for further elaboration. I’d seen the file. I knew the connections. Did I miss a key element in the vetting process?
“My dear sweet Leila was so in love with David. He seemed good when we were younger – good to her at least. But what kind of man sleeps with his girlfriends foster sister? Especially, when his girlfriend is six months pregnant with their child?”
She tapped her fingers rhythmically on the table, a sly smile sliding onto her lips, “Leila always had everything I wanted,” she continued, “A mom. Dad. David. She loved me like a true sister, you know? Even after I convinced David to run off with me and get married.”
A cool breeze flitted down the street. I eyed the corner—all too aware that the city would wake soon and our clandestine meeting might be spotted but I couldn’t move. I brought my eyes back to Amira and nodded for her to continue—though she clearly didn’t require my coaxing.
“I didn’t hate her, you understand? But, I wanted her toys.” Amira’s teeth suddenly looked razor sharp as she smiled at me. “Besides, David had his ways—” her smile faded, “She didn’t see that side of him. Didn’t want to see that side of him. Had she—she never would have touched him in the first place. But, I knew all of David and loved him all the more.”
She paused, allowing a couple to stumble past us. Their evening had clearly just ended as the morning began for everyone else. They laughed and swayed around the corner, returning the street to silence.”
“Even after David started sleeping with her again—behind my back, of course— I still loved him,” Letting out a slow breath she added, “When she got pregnant with Rio, I told her that he was mine.”
Lifting her eyes, she peered over my shoulder as if picturing the past. I caught the scent of her perfume on the wind and held my breath—nauseated by the sweetness, “It was David that truly convinced her. She wore baggy clothes, while I rubbed my padded stomach for nine long months—telling everyone how thrilled I was to be a mother. Leila sobbed when we took him away.”
She cut her eyes back to mine and sighed, “I should have left him with her. I wasn’t cut out for motherhood and David—” she laughed slightly, “David was a terrible man. But I suppose some of that was my fault.”
“Is that why you gave her the money? That she left to the boys?” Amira reached into her purse and pulled out a tube of lipstick and a compact. Slowly and deliberately, she applied another coat of color to her already bright lips. Silence hung between us as I waited for an answer. She snapped the compact closed and dropped it into her purse. “Is that why you paid for her contract with The Company? You left her and her children—grandchild—with a terrible man. And you knew. Was it guilt?”
There was a twisted expression on her face, “I suppose rational people would call it guilt. If that’s what you call it then I suppose—” She offered me a small nod and rose from the chair just as elegantly as she’d sat and turned to leave.
“I don’t believe you answered my question,” I leaned forward slightly, unsure if I should stand, follow her, or just take my leave, “Why couldn’t you just tell them the truth? Why force them to endure the trauma in that manner?”
I recalled receiving the request. Three young men. All related. Family truths must come to light. Abduction requested. No irreversible damage. Client requests video recording at conclusion.
“It wasn’t my truth to tell. Besides, David and I did always have one thing in common,” she stepped off the curb onto the now sun-drenched street, “we like to watch.”
Ink & Echoes. 